Tag: GDP

Why It’s Hard to Calculate the Cost of Single Payer in the United States

Lately there has been some back and forth in the states over the expected cost of single payer healthcare. There is a lot of disagreement over how much single payer will cost because single payer grants the state a monopoly over the healthcare system. This means that the state can dictate how much it is going to pay its doctors, its administrators, its nurses, its drug and equipment manufacturers, and so on. Because the state can dictate the cost of single payer, the true cost of the proposal depends on how much the particular people implementing the proposal intend to spend.

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National Self-Determination is Overrated

I have a new piece out for Current Affairs about the importance of political unions in the 21st century. Here’s the link:

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/11/national-self-determination-is-overrated

The original title was “In Praise of Unionism: What the European Left Can Learn From America,” but we souped it up a bit. It’s a bit longer and more comprehensive than the stuff I usually do here. The folks at CA are delightful to work with. They’re putting out some really terrific long-form pieces that dig into things more deeply than a lot of what we see on the web these days.

If Donald Trump Wants to Help Puerto Rico, He Should Help It Become a State

President Trump said he wants to help Puerto Rico deal with its debt (though his administration immediately U-turned on this). The territory has been devastated by multiple hurricanes and a long-running economic crisis. But while disaster aid and debt relief would be very good for Puerto Rico, what it really needs in the long-run is statehood. Here’s why.

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