Saturday punditry, first of 2011. And elections have consequences.
NY Times:
Legislative leaders in at least half a dozen states say they will propose bills similar to a controversial law to fight illegal immigration that was adopted by Arizona last spring, even though a federal court has suspended central provisions of that statute.
The efforts, led by Republicans, are part of a wave of state measures coming this year aimed at cracking down on illegal immigration.
NEJM:
Can Congress Make You Buy Broccoli? And Why That’s a Hard Question
...
The continuing uncertainty over the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), illustrated by conflicting trial court rulings and scholarly commentaries, raises the question of why this constitutional question is so hard to answer. There are at least four reasons.
NEJM:
Rethinking Safety-Net Access for the Uninsured
...
Access programs for the uninsured usually serve people with household incomes below about twice the federal poverty level. They may therefore be hard pressed to adapt their missions to the new uninsured population in ways that will maintain their fragile support from funders and volunteers. Since safety-net systems are already on life support,1 any major shock may threaten their very existence. Therefore, access programs must consider carefully how best to refocus and justify their function and mission.
In that light, from the WaPo:
The new year will bring important changes to U.S. health-insurance rules, as new provisions related to last year's massive health-care overhaul take effect.
The new rules are designed to help those caught in Medicare's "doughnut hole," offer seniors more preventative care, and limit how much of their customers' money health-insurance companies can keep for overhead and profit.
They all go into effect on Saturday.
Complain here.
Ezra Klein:
Isolate the eight key economic decisions of the Obama presidency: The intervention in the financial sector, the intervention in the auto sector, the intervention in the housing sector, the stimulus package, the health-care bill, financial regulation, and the tax deal. The financial and auto interventions, it should be noted, were begun under George W. Bush but carried out and expanded under Obama.
In each case, the Obama administration sought to support or improve private markets. It refused to leave the market to sort itself out, as some on the right would have preferred, and resisted entreaties to take it over, as some on the left advocated.
WaPo:
Nearly all of them, like Bell, had stumbled into the tea party after Barack Obama's election. They'd found a calling in the early days of a chaotic, leaderless movement that beckoned to political novices who identified themselves as conservatives but felt little attachment to organized politics. With astonishing speed, the tea party evolved into a powerful force that helped overturn the political order in Washington.
But as a new cast of lawmakers takes the reins in the Capitol, Bell and many of her fellow tea partiers across the country are feeling adrift, wondering what they are supposed to do next. The movement is changing, in their view, and not necessarily for the better.
Gail Collins has a multiple choice test for you:
IV. Multiple choice:
- The Wall Street Journal reported that at least 15 percent of the incoming House freshman plan to:
A) Sleep in their offices.
B) Use the word "refudiate" in their official correspondence.
C) Twitter 24/7.
D) Try to get invited to Prince William’s wedding.