Research desk is open

Do more doctors in an area increase medical costs (common belief) or decrease costs (what you'd expect from increased supply)?

What is the truth about the CLASS Act?

The following exchange took place in the comments section of yesterday's Wonkbook.

""Howard Gleckman defends the CLASS Act"

Actually he doesn't defend it at all. He doesn't even try to refute the points Capretta made, he just says "Yeah it might be flawed, but maybe we can fix it." He completely ignores that every actuary who has looked at this program says it is a fundamentally poor design that is doomed to insolvency. He also completely ignores that the program creates a new unfunded liability because the Democrats are spending the excess premiums in the early years to pay for health reform, a point that Ezra has repeatedly refused to address.

Posted by: ab_13 | July 28, 2010 10:22 AM"

"@ab_13:

looking at CLASS as an isolated program is moronic.

if it runs a deficit of $20 billion every year from 2030 on, but saves $40 billion in federal medicaid dollars (not to mention savings to the state medicaid programs) each of those years,

sure it's "unsustainable" as an isolated program, but it's a nonsensical view to take.

the federal budget outlook going forward is improved by CLASS.

the state budget outlooks going forward are improved by CLASS.

health care outcomes of americans going forward are improved by CLASS.

those are the things that matter.

Posted by: eggnogfool | July 28, 2010 12:37 PM"

What is the right way to look at the CLASS Act?

Who would win in a fight between Doctor Doom and Batman?

What are the projected GHG emission reductions of the various regional cap and trade programs, and how do they compare to the targets set in the various bills that just died in the Senate?

China recently announced an effort to lower the country's carbon intensiveness by 45% by 2020. What would be the resulting reduction/increase of GHG emissions?

How does the the rate of bankruptcies in Massachusetts compare to the country as a whole from 2002-present. Does it appear that Romneycare had any impact on the bankruptcy rate in the Bay State?

overall debt/gdp and publicly held debt to gdp.

Which matters to bond investors and why?

I would be interested in the expected impact of allowing corporations to deduct paid dividends for tax purposes. Benefits would include encouraging a higher level of dividends (corporations are hoarding cash now, so the effect would be stimulative) and ending the preference for debt over equity (which makes companies more vulnerable to downturns due to leverage). You'd have to pay for this, so my suggestion would be to end the preferential rates for dividend income received by shareholders as well as for capital gains (i.e., tax both at ordinary income rates). How would this all add up?

Hillarycare, Romneycare, Obamacare. What strategy should we pursue to make people stop using these terms?

This may be outside of Dylan's bailywick, but I'm interested to know more about the EPA regs relating to carbon. My understanding going into this administration was that the plan was to have the EPA put out really scary regs which would cause business to deliver a few GOP votes in favor of a market-based cap-and-trade system.

Then the GOP decided on its "Obama delenda est" strategy and the selling out to coal interests began, until finally a bill couldn't even be talked about, much less beat a filibuster.

So I was wrong about the plan. The regs weren't the stick, they're back up plan. Can they be made the stick now by making them very strong? Or in light of the dysfunctional legislature, maybe they should be made for the long term (and of course you need to survive judicial review with a bench stocked with conservatives.)

So, that's my question--what's the deal? I guess it's not answerable with Excel though. Sorry if I'm missing the point of the assignment desk!

Among the various proposals to reform either the filibuster or Senate Democrat Caucus rules for more party-line voting on procedural matters, where do various leadership members stand and when are their next re-election? Among those against such reforms, openly against, when are their next re-election and what chances do they have?

Unemployment benefits are touted as effective economic stimulus because money paid out to the unemployed is generally spent immediately, hopefully contributing to demand for goods and services.

In light of the debate over the expiration of the Bush tax cuts on top earners, I wonder if there is any data on the effectiveness of putting more money in the pockets of the rich.

My impression is that rich people get/stay rich by NOT spending money. Encouraging capital investment is one rationale for continuing the tax cuts. But companies reportedly have money, they're just not currently spending it on payrolls. Is there any evidence that tax cuts for the rich might immediately impact demand for good/services? Would the rich spend their tax cuts?

One argument against extending UI is that it keeps unemployment higher. There have been more job openings recently, but it cannot all be explained by UI (for background see macroblog: http://macroblog.typepad.com/macroblog/2010/07/a-curious-unemployment-picture-gets-more-curious.html#trackback).

If the data is available, can you graph a breakdown of the job skills required by these new jobs vs. the previous experience of the now unemployed? Also, it may be interesting to plot the location of the job openings vs. that of the unemployed?

by "it" I meant high levels of unemployement and deviations from models.

Dylan,

We keep hearing about the supplemental expenditures on the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

What I want to know is where that spending is actually allocated. Is it not true that a majority of that spending is actually combat pay for soldiers and really much of that money is then sent back for families to spend on groceries?

My question is what percentage of war funding is increased pay to soldiers? Is that not "stimulative" for domestic economics?

Is there any data, maybe a nice chart, for Ezra's sake, on how many homes will be lost to foreclosure now that the 99'ers have no UI coming in?

Have you heard of anything that the EU, UN, etc, are contemplating to force the US to adopt lower carbon emissions?

R

Is there any data, maybe a nice chart, for Ezra's sake, on how many homes will be lost to foreclosure now that the 99'ers have no UI coming in?

Have you heard of anything that the EU, UN, etc, are contemplating to force the US to adopt lower carbon emissions? Start a trade war? Or just be happy they will kick our ass in the clean energy field?

R

How many additional school lunches could be funded if Congressional Democrats and their staff members paid their entire federal tax bill when due?

If we let the Bush tax cuts expire for those making more than $250,000, what will be the distribution of those increased taxes? How much of that increase will millionaire's pay? How much is the share of the increase paid by people making less than say $400,000, who are only paying an increase on the top end of their income? How much of it will be paid by small business owners? Thanks.

Hi Dylan,

I would love to see a graph comparing military spending vs other spending in Iraq over the years and also include civilian casualities from 2003 to most recent data. On a site I was at yesterday it shows spending on Iraq growing despite us drawing down troops. What gives?

@RMG: sane rational argument time must be over for you.