Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 Norway mass-killer seeks show-trial celebrity

By Roddy Thomson, AFP

19 hrs ago

This time from Herr Doktor Professor-

Messing With Medicare

By PAUL KRUGMAN, The New York Times

Published: July 24, 2011

(A)ccording to many reports, the president offered both means-testing of Medicare benefits and a rise in the age of Medicare eligibility. The first would be bad policy; the second would be terrible policy. And it would almost surely be terrible politics, too.

The crucial thing to remember, when we talk about Medicare, is that our goal isn’t, or at least shouldn’t be, defined in terms of some arbitrary number. Our goal should be, instead, to give Americans the health care they need at a price the country can afford. And throwing Americans in their mid-60s off Medicare moves us away from that goal, not toward it.

For Medicare, with all its flaws, works better than private insurance. It has less bureaucracy and, hence, lower administrative costs than private insurers. It has been more successful in controlling costs. While Medicare expenses per beneficiary have soared over the past 40 years, they’ve risen significantly less than private insurance premiums. And since Medicare-type systems in other advanced countries have much lower costs than the uniquely privatized U.S. system, there’s good reason to believe that Medicare reform can do a lot to control costs in the future.

…

It’s true that Medicare expenses could be reduced by requiring high-income Americans to pay higher premiums, higher co-payments, etc. But why not simply raise taxes on high incomes instead? This would have the great virtue of not adding another layer of bureaucracy by requiring that Medicare establish financial status before paying medical bills.

But, you may say, raising taxes would reduce incentives to work and create wealth. Well, so would means-testing: As conservative economists love to point out in other contexts – for example, when criticizing programs like food stamps – benefits that fall as your income rises in effect raise your marginal tax rate. It doesn’t matter whether the government raises your taxes by $1,000 when your income rises or cuts your benefits by the same amount; either way, it reduces the fraction of your additional earnings that you get to keep.

So what’s the difference between means-testing Medicare and raising taxes? Well, the truly rich would prefer means-testing, since they would end up sacrificing no more than the merely well-off.

How so Herr Doktor Professor?

(T)he difference between means-testing and just collecting a bit more taxes? The answer is, class warfare – not between the rich and poor, but between the filthy rich and the merely affluent. For a tax rise would get a significant amount of revenue from the very, very rich (because they have so much money), while means-testing would end up imposing the same burden on $400,000 a year working Wall Street stiffs that it imposes on billion-a-year hedge fund managers.

What we need is actual control of health costs. Means-testing of Medicare is just a badly designed, unfair form of taxation.

Of course, it’s possible that the reason the president is offering to undermine Medicare is that he genuinely believes that this would be a good idea. And that possibility, I have to say, is what really scares me.

Why Medicare Is the Solution – Not the Problem

Robert Reich

Friday, July 22, 2011

Americans spend more on health care per person than any other advanced nation and get less for our money. Yearly public and private healthcare spending is $7,538 per person. That’s almost two and a half times the average of other advanced nations.

Yet the typical American lives 77.9 years – less than the average 79.4 years in other advanced nations. And we have the highest rate of infant mortality of all advanced nations.

…

(A)dministrative costs eat up 15 to 30 percent of all healthcare spending in the United States. That’s twice the rate of most other advanced nations. Where does this money go? Mainly into collecting money: Doctors collect from hospitals and insurers, hospitals collect from insurers, insurers collect from companies or from policy holders.

…

Medicare’s administrative costs are in the range of 3 percent. That’s well below the 5 to 10 percent costs borne by large companies that self-insure. It’s even further below the administrative costs of companies in the small-group market (amounting to 25 to 27 percent of premiums). And it’s way, way lower than the administrative costs of individual insurance (40 percent). It’s even far below the 11 percent costs of private plans under Medicare Advantage, the current private-insurance option under Medicare.

…

Estimates of how much would be saved by extending Medicare to cover the entire population range from $58 billion to $400 billion a year. More Americans would get quality health care, and the long-term budget crisis would be sharply reduced.

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 Norway carnage suspect admits responsibility

By Pierre-Henry Deshayes and Charles Onians, AFP

19 hrs ago

• Wiki Nurburgring
• Nurburgring for Dummies

After Nikki Lauda died in 1976 they pretty much bulldozed the Südschleife and built a new 2.8 mile track that was used today.  Any ordinary person who happens to find themselves in the area can purchase a ticket and drive the Northern Ring which is pretty remarkable when you think about it.

As of yesterday they were predicting rain, rain, and more rain although the 6 am ET GP2 race took place in the dry (though it was threatening).

I’ve heard no more interesting rumors about phone hacking even though the irony of having this covered on Fox is appealing.  This is the last race that will be tape delayed this season which has drawn a surprisingly strong reaction from my readers.

Of course what’s surprising to me is that I have any readers at all.

I plead both distraction and fatigue for the brevity of my introduction and I’m afraid I can’t promise any better for next week’s Hungaroring when with any luck at all I’ll have a chance to visit my doggie friend and his owner too.

While there might be pretty tables below all that they’ll show is continued Red Bull dominance with Scuderia Marlboro UPC improvement and Renault decline relative to Mercedes.  Everyone else is an also ran even though the season is but half complete.

However wet has the potential to mix things up and Hamilton for one has opined he wouldn’t mind if they ran every race in the damp from now on.

Pretty tables will wait.  I think commentary is more important.

• F1: Nurburgring Qualifying
• Formula One Official Site

Dictatorship.  Enabling Act.

These terms are not too strong to use in response to the latest obscenity being floated by the Billionaire Bootlicking Beltway Versailles Villager Idiot Evil Elite.

Evil ek?

The proposal “on the table” for a joint bi-partisan “Super Committee” is nothing less than taking away your right to vote.

It doesn’t get any more fundamentally evil than that.

Taking away our right to vote?

Elections have consequences, for now.  If your party loses you lose Committee Chairmanships, Members, and Votes.  You lose your ability to advance your agenda whether it be progressive or radically reactionary.  “More and Better”?  Under this proposal you could have a “Democratic” Super Majority of 80% and the Rump Republican Teabagger Twenty Percent would have equal representation, equal influence, and no majority however large elected by the people regardless of the margin of victory would be able to stop them.

Of course as we have seen no super majority is enough for the cowardly “Democratic” Party and their leader, Barack Obama.

Teddy Partridge is not wrong to compare it with the fall of the Roman Republic-

One phase critical to undermine democracy and set citizens’ constitutional protections aside is when The Owners replace the people’s elected representatives (proven dysfunctional through a series of invented ’emergencies’) with a super-governing body of Owners’ Overseers to decide what’s best for everyone.

…

Stripping the people’s elected representatives of their constitutional right to legislate is a crucial step in ensuring that messy democratic principles no longer interfere in the upward escalator of wealth.

This is nothing new, of course: when Caesar crossed the Rubicon he effectively implemented imperium within Rome, something previously prohibited for generals serving in the territories and provinces ruled by the imperium but outside Rome. A general ‘crossing the Rubicon’ was seen to be subverting the people’s elected representatives with military might under his command. It hadn’t happened until Caesar did it.

But things were going so badly in Rome on January 10th, 49BC! No one remembers exactly what was going quite so wrong, anymore; we only remember that representative Roman democracy ended that day.

Only one question remains for our current Old Congress: will they flee in fear and with their dignity intact as the people’s representatives, as did Pompey and the elected Roman pro-consuls and Senators? Because it seems, observers, that if Ryan Grim’s Super Congress reporting is true, alea iacta est : the die is cast.

This is why there is a United States.  Our Founders fought a war for freedom from exactly this kind of tyranny.  Our “Greatest Generation” died in droves on the Normandy beachheads and around the world to prevent exactly this kind of corporate fascism.

If you will stand by and let tyrants take your liberty you are a Quisling, a Benedict Arnold who had at least the excuse of poor treatment and did great things in service of country before turning traitor.

Créteil to Paris Champs-Élysées 59 miles

Le.  Tour.  De.  France.

Le sigh.

When an event like this finishes I’m immediately overcome with nostalgia because while it requires a certain amount of energy and discipline to persist, by the end of it your efficiency at the task is improved and you are inured and habituated to the inconvenience.

The absence persists as a phantom limb and the possibility of a next time seems unimaginably distant.

I’m not a particularly good prognosticator but I take solace in the fact most others aren’t either.  Before the race I didn’t even know who Cadel Evans was and like Armando and Jada Yuan thought this would be a duel between the Schlecks and Contador.  Hushovd and Voeckler were surprisingly strong performers and I knew it was over for Contador when he passed attacking on the Pyrenees where his advantages were strongest.  In the Pyrenees the crowds were rooting for the Spaniard, in the Alps they were chanting “Doper.  Doper.”

I’d call yesterday’s Time Trial by the Schlecks disappointing except that it wasn’t really.  Cadel Evans had an extraordinary performance, finishing 55:40 only 7 Seconds in 2nd to Tony Martin who set a blistering pace.  Contador finished 3rd but nowhere near the time he needed to erode the Schlecks’ lead.

This last Stage is a parade so these standings won’t change-

I’m including 11th and 12th places because those are the positions of Pierre Rolland who clinched the White Jersey of the Young Riders champion and Rein Taaramae the runner up.

Remaining to be contested is the Green Jersey of the Sprint champion.  It seems highly likely that it will be Cavendish, Rojas, and Gilbert in that order.  Fourth will be Cadel Evans and it’s interesting to contemplate that if he were behind in the General Classification and a little closer to the lead in the points whether the customs of Le Tour would allow him to put on a move and ‘steal’ the maillot jaune.

Sportsmanship isn’t what it used to be and as Jada reports–

Both the public and Tour organizers have been very vocal about wanting the Tour to get more exciting.

Last year’s Tour featured giant pileups seemingly each of the first ten days, and the bruised and bloodied riders slowed down the pace of the peloton several times to allow fallen riders to catch up. That’s wonderful and sportsmanlike, but doesn’t really make for a good race. With considerable market pressure on the Tour from the fast-gaining-in-reputation Giro d’Italia, officials hope the riders are a little more selfish this year. Race director Christian Prudhomme has also said that he wished Andy Schleck and Alberto Contador had attacked each other more last year, which one assumes he hopes they take as a challenge.

Of course that was the year of the 39 Second Chain which may be avenged in the Court of Arbitration for Sports on August 2nd.

So your final 2011 Vs. coverage starts at 8 am.  In the commentators prediction competition only Paul improved his position yesterday and he’s mathematically out so unless they pick again today (and they might, there is that final sprint) Phil is the wire to wire winner.

• Jada Yuan Previews the Hell Out of the Tour de France in the New Yorker, 7/1/11 at 2:00 PM
• Le Tour 2011 official site
• Your The Stars Hollow Gazette Le Tour coverage tags-
• Le Tour
• Le Tour 2010
• Le Tour 2011

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 Evans makes Tour de France history for Australia

By Justin Davis, AFP

3 hrs ago

No use complaining, but sometimes the sport reporting gig gets tough.  I’ll just summon up my inner Armstrong and Barrichello and keep racing.  Since I’ve started off meta I’ll continue with this link-

• Speed Racecast

Tomorrow’s broadcast will be tape delayed on Fox at noon and I won’t be able to do those fancy lap position things because I get them from the Speed Racecast which since it’s live will be good only for spoilers.  Fortunately all the rest of the coverage will be exclusively live on Speed (thank you sir may I have another?) starting with the Hungaroring next week (what did I say about rest?).

Can you get more meta than that?

Oh my yes.  You remember Silverstone don’t you?

Things are not happy in the Formula One Teams Association, there’s also the fact the Concorde Agreement has expired and is extended only through a letter, not a contract, through 2012 following a heated dispute that led many teams to threaten to go CART.  While nominally guided by Martin Whitmarsh of McLaren and Ross Brawn of Mercedes the FOTA is widely viewed as a tool of Bernie Ecclestone who has a distinct conflict of interest and a hazy history of influence on the FIA itself with his cozy relationship to Max Mosley the fifth columnist Nazi’s son who got the boot for his sexcapades.

Interestingly enough this was the scoop of the recently deceased and unlamented News of the World who published sick Nazi Sex Orgy by Neville Thurlbeck so who knows what to think?

Well, Neville’s in trouble again-

Rupertgate Friday – “For Neville”

By Gordonskene, Crooks&Liars

July 22, 2011 03:58 PM

As was reported yesterday, there are now growing questions over the honesty of the testimony given by James Murdoch during the Inquiry hearings on Tuesday. One centers around Neville Thurlbeck, who was a registered unpaid Police informant and has been a key suspect in the phone hacking scandal and an e-mail and attached file that carefully listed transcribed hacked messages.

Murdoch denies any knowledge of the e-mail, however former NoTW editor Colin Myler and former head of legal affairs for News Of The World Tom Crone claim the younger Murdoch had full knowledge of the “For Neville” e-mail and file and has been lying to the Commission. If this winds up being true, and Murdoch is found to be lying, it tosses an enormous question mark over the entire testimony on Tuesday and puts James Murdoch in the position of being arrested and held for further questioning.

Oh, you want racing news.

Regarding the Scuderia Marlboro UPC hissy fit

Engine Mapping (changing the engine management software) between Qualifying and Race is out.  Off Throttle Blown Diffusers are in.

Renault has never found another taker for their forward blown diffuser project and is running an experimental setup developed during the confusion on one of it’s cars.  Both McLaren’s are running on new configurations, no doubt in part to a strategic decision by management to prepare for 2012.  In fact their problems are in the Pits and always have been.  Lost wheelnut!  Throttling back because you bet on wet in your fuel setup!?  Maranello seems to have finally figured it out to an extent and is betting on a late season charge for 2nd because Red Bull continues to dominate.

Mercedes seems to have a car at last while Renault is floundering so there’s kind of a race for 4th and 5th and then there are the remaining teams who will never ever be competitive unless they’re permitted and can afford to track test more.  I refuse to believe sponsor money is the problem.

• Grosser Preis Santander von Deutschland

As usual, surprising developments below.