“Generation Opportunity” urges young people not to buy health insurance

By Dan Brooks in Politics versus Government 2 Comments

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7cRsfW0Jv8

The commercial above was produced by Generation Opportunity, a Koch brothers-funded political activism group that encourages young people to “opt out” of Obamacare by not buying health insurance. First of all, it’s good to see the leprechaun from Leprechaun working again. Second, the “opt out” campaign is designed to sabotage the Affordable Care Act by disrupting state insurance exchanges. For insurers to offer lower premiums, they need to enroll large numbers of relatively healthy young people, who dilute the risk pool for everyone else. If large numbers of young Americans refuse to buy health insurance, the exchanges will falter, [ill-defined step two] and, finally, Obamacare will disappear. Unintended consequences after the jump.

Continue reading

Friday links! Old-time conservatism edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links 0 Comment
Milton Friedman grasps his dome.

Milton Friedman grasps his dome.

I went to the Western Montana State Fair and Rodeo last night, where I remembered that the experience of American culture varies wildly from person to person. For one thing, this year’s clown sucked. His first interaction with the audience was built around the joke, “can a bald man get a hairline fracture?” Fertile comic ground though it was, we did not respond, so he launched immediately into one of those math tricks that involves thinking of a number, adding six, dividing it by three, subtracting the original number, et cetera. Math tricks! Fortunately, he won us back with a dog routine. The people behind us went insane, occasionally describing what was happening with gleeful incredulity—e.g., “He can’t get out!” when the clown get stuck upside-down in a garbage can—and generally reminding us of the values of a bygone era. Today is Friday, and a substantial portion of the populace loves Milton Friedman and Dennis the Menace. Won’t you focus your nostalgia on an age that never existed with me?

Continue reading

Chuck Grassley’s Twitter a series of riddles

By Dan Brooks in Uncategorized 1 Comment
Senator Chuck Grassley (R–IA)

Senator Chuck Grassley (R–IA)

As you can see from the picture above, in which he takes the con position at the annual Symposium On the World, Chuck Grassley is very old. At 79, he has been a United States senator slightly longer than my brother has been alive. The invention of the internet happened shortly before he qualified for Social Security, and neither of Al Gore’s brainchildren pleases him much. Yet he uses them both. I presume he cashes his Social Security checks in nickels at the grocery store with only his customer loyalty card as ID, because his Twitter is baffling cipher. Props to Ben al-Fowlkes for drawing it to our attention.

Continue reading

MT rejects federally-funded Medicaid expansion, possibly by accident

By Dan Brooks in Montana Politics 0 Comment
The Montana State House

The Montana State House

The 2013 session of the Montana state legislature ended last week, and now the state House and Senate will slumber until 2015. Legislators in Montana meet for 87 days every two years, which means that A) there’s a lot of pressure to get everything done and B) not everybody has had a ton of practice. The second phenomenon became evident earlier this month, when Rep. Tom Jacobson (D–Great Falls) accidentally voted the wrong way on a parliamentary objection, causing a tie in the House that allowed Speaker Mark Blasdel to reject federal funding for Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act.

Continue reading

What is Paul Ryan’s budget for?

By Dan Brooks in Politics versus Government 0 Comment
I will never stop loving this photograph.

I will never stop loving this photograph.

Paul Ryan has released his new budget plan, and it is not well received. The editorial board of the Washington Post starts with the good ideas to be found therein, “since that is the shortest list.” At the New Yorker, John Cassidy all but calls it a work of fantasy. It balances the budget by 2023. It fixes the top marginal income tax rate at 25%. To reconcile these two conflicting and unrequested achievements, it A) forecasts much higher economic growth over the next ten years than any reputable economists predict, and B) repeals Obamacare while keeping the tax increases on high earners and $700 billion in cuts to Medicare that pay for it. You might remember that $700 billion as an aspect of Obamacare that Ryan and Mitt Romney relentlessly criticized in the 2012 election; now Ryan likes it. In fact, you might remember the whole budget as one of the most unpopular ideas of last year. Which begs the question: why is he proposing it again?

Continue reading