Tag Archives: Education

This article is easy reading exploring some the differences and why people may choose one plan over the other plan. Attached is also a Commonwealth Fund article with more detail. Medicare Plan Commissions May Steer Beneficiaries to Wrong Coverage, MedPage Today, Cheryl Clark. Agents and brokers selling Medicare plan coverage often steer their clients to a Medicare Advantage (MA) plan because it earns them a higher commission compared with a...

Peter Dorman’s critical review of “The Guest Lecture.” His review was first posted at Econospeak. Economic Insomnia? A Review of “The Guest Lecture” by Martin Riker. It’s a rare day when an economist plays the key role in a novel, and even rarer when one of the supporting players is John Maynard Keynes himself.  So, spurred on by enthusiastic reviews, I sailed through Martin Riker’s The Guest Lecture this week, a novel in which a woman, just...

A different viewpoint by the Physicians for a National Health Program. Mainly speaking as advocates for a universal national health program which would be as cost-effective as possible. They are proposing the plan could be constructed as an improved form of Traditional Medicare. They do too find similar issues as what Gilfillan and Berwick extensively discussed in the commentary Medicare ‘Money Machine, Part One and Part Two. Comments on CY 2024...

Quick two weeks went by and have been pretty busy. Starting to warm-up in Arizona. Been spending more time outside while I can and before it gets hot. Environment, Consumerism, Technology Micro-Apartment Makeover Includes Mini-Loft and Space-Saving Furniture, treehugger.com, Kimberley Mok. The comfort and livability of a 300-square-foot apartment are beautifully improved in this smart renovation. What changes after the Norfolk Southern...

The NYT addresses the increasing use of child labor in the US (the link allows access to the article whether you have a subscription or not): Arriving in record numbers, they’re ending up in dangerous jobs that violate child labor laws — including in factories that make products for well-known brands like Cheetos and Fruit of the Loom. “It was almost midnight in Grand Rapids, Mich., but inside the factory everything was bright. A conveyor...

What is it that the good folks in Idaho, Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, Florida, Alabama, (13 states and counting) have against LGBTQ folks? We hear a lot of, “I believe ….”, and “god said, …, ” from them. They may well, but, for sure, he-she-they didn’t. Folks, it turns out that the same percentage of your kids are LGBTQ as are anyone else’s. Seems it is all a part of the spectrum of being humans. Speaking of which, what sort of parent would be...

Part Two explores where Medicare should be going forward as determined by doctors Richard Gilfillan and Donald M. Berwick. It is an endorsement of the ACO model with changes to it creating greater efficiency. I am not so sure Kip Sullivan would endorse this approach as opposed to Single Payer. Ultimately Single Payer is less costly when we consider the elimination of much of the administration effort. There is another post I will be putting up when I...

What Every Conservative Needs to Know about Student Loans, Alan Collinge, Medium. Conservatives have been tricked into defending the worst big-government loan scam in U.S. History; a slight majority of the borrowers identify as either republican, or independent. The 2020 election was a huge loss for the republicans. Even so, Conservatives buoyed by recent election wins, and the current unpopularity of the President. There is one issue that...

Just finished reading “Bloodlands,” a book by Yale historian Timothy Snyder. It was published in 2010, but now has a lengthy afterword that discusses the book’s reception and ties the theme to current events. I was inspired to read this book because of events in Ukraine and I believe that I have a much better understanding of the current conflict from having read it.The bloodlands refers to the territory lying between central Poland and, roughly, the...

Japan, The U.S., The Moon And More, Weldon Berger, Bad Crow Review Links are at the end, with the steam trains. The train station had a 7-11 outside the platforms. The station was near my hotel and I went there for evening snacks a few times—bentos and musubi and azuki bean pastries and the like. Good food, really, in context. I miss trains, as regular readers will know. Trains and crows, neither of which I got any good shots, the latter...