Assorted Links (9/16/2009)

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

Economics and the Financial Crisis

Wall Street Journal: “The time to worry about moral hazard is now.”

Health Care Reform

  • Mandated Health Insurance Squeezes Those in the Middle, by Vanessa Fuhrmans

Wall Street Journal: “President Barack Obama and his congressional allies have made insuring nearly all Americans a major goal of overhauling the nation’s health-care system. One of their toughest challenges will be trying to cover people like Ron Norton of Worcester, Mass.  Mr. Norton, 49 years old, is an adjunct professor at a local community college who earns about $40,000 a year. He’s also one of roughly 200,000 Massachusetts residents who remain uninsured despite a state law requiring residents to have health insurance. “I can’t use up all of my savings just to buy mandatory insurance,” Mr. Norton says. It’s like penalizing “the homeless for refusing to buy a mansion.”

  • Some Firms Are Already Bending Stubborn Health Care Cost Curve, by Roy Ramthun and Merrill Matthews

Investors Business Daily: “President Obama repeatedly says of health care changes that doing nothing would be worse than an overhaul. But exactly why is that? The fact is that health insurance is slowly reforming itself, largely in response to employer and consumer demand.”

  • Another Health-Care Invention

Wall Street Journal: “Obama and the cost of individual insurance.”

Sociology of Religion

  • Fight Nights and Reggae Pack Brazilian Churches, by Alexei Barrionuevo

New York Times: “A growing evangelical movement in Brazil is attracting young people by adopting their culture.” 

Statistics

  • Seeking Accurate Job-Creation Numbers, by Carl Bialik

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