Nifty! Thanks, Chris.

I only make this joke because I drive a Subaru.

June 26, 2009 at 12:07 pm

Because Alex and Jaime will want this …

"Whether or not you count illegal immigrants in those numbers or not, the number of uninsured in the United States is far too high and is a travesty. It is nothing short of a massive market failure to provide a service to the general populace. It’s a damning blow to privatization of for-profit healthcare."

The concept of anyone guestposting on gfmorris.com is weird to me, but if I gave in to the temptation, Bry would be my guy.

Yes, I have like four versions of this show now. You think I'm crazy, right? No, I'm just going to matrix them together … FOR GREAT JUSTICE!

"What Will's position reflects instead is ideology: who cares that the federal government could build a better mousetrap? They're the government and that's bad. His argument is really no more sophisticated than that. If a libertarian conservative wants to make this argument, more power to them, but they absolutely should not be turning around and suggesting that a public option would raise health care costs. They're saying, rather, that they're morally opposed to the cost savings that would ensue.

"If you've been reading me for a while, you'll know that, as compared with most self-described liberals, I'm unusually sympathetic toward the notion of the profit motive and private industry; I've defended Wall Street bankers and the AIG bonuses at various points during the financial crisis, among other things. It's my belief that private industry is usually able to deliver more efficient outcomes to the consumer than the government could.

"But usually isn't always."

Jeff and Amy, I'm grabbing this for you.

So do I. I really dig it.

I always learn something from Maciej.

"Driving home from work, listening to NPR's story about health care costs, I couldn't help but be struck by a couple of numbers. The Obama health plan will cost a trillion dollars we're told. A TRILLION sounds big enough to end the debate, doesn't it?
"Then I hear, almost as a footnote, that that trillion is over ten years. That's still a big number to be sure. A hundred billion dollars a year. But then later in the story, I hear that US total health care costs are $2.2 trillion a year. Suddenly, that $100 billion a year doesn't sound so big. That's only a 4.5% increase.
"Doesn't it strike you as just a bit odd that we accept those kinds of increases from our insurance companies every year as a routine cost increase, but balk at the amount when it is presented as an attempt to overhaul the system?"

I'm kidding, Chris.

Chris gives enough time to Fever that I'll buy it.