Assorted Links (8/28/2009)

Here’s a list of articles that I have been reading today (organized by topic):

Economics

Global Warming

Health Care Reform

  • A Strategy to Save Obamacare, But at What Cost, by Charles Krauthammer
    Washington Post: “Obamacare Version 1.0 is dead. The 1,000-page monstrosity that emerged in various editions from Congress was done in by widespread national revulsion not just at its expense and intrusiveness but also at the mendacity with which it is being sold. You don’t need a PhD to see that the promise to expand coverage and reduce costs is a crude deception, or that cutting $500 billion from Medicare without affecting care is a fiction.”
  • Some Roman Catholic Bishops Assail Health Plan, by David Kirkpatrick
    New York Times: “Despite the church’s push on the issue, some are raising concerns over abortion and alarms about ‘rationing.’”
  • Fixing Health Care Is Good for Business, by Gary Locke
    Wall Street Journal: “How many aspiring entrepreneurs are stuck in dead-end jobs because of health concerns?”President Obama’s Secretary of Commerce asks a very pertinent question here. However, as I have previously noted, the question of whether the health care system should be reformed is not particularly controversial; what is controversial is the manner in which health care reform ought to be structured and implemented.

Miscellaneous

  • How Facebook Ruins Friendships, by Elizabeth Bernstein
    This essay from today’s Wall Street Journal ought to be required reading for all Facebook users!

Religion

  • The Benefits of Religion
    Freakonomics: “A new study by Angus Deaton uses an expansive dataset to analyze the determinants and benefits of religiosity around the world.”

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