The Wonk Room

The WonkLine: April 3, 2009

Welcome to The WonkLine, a daily 10 a.m. roundup of the latest news about health care, the economy, national security and climate policy. This is what we’re reading. Tell us what you found in the comments section below, and subscribe to the RSS feed.

 

Health Care

Confirmation of Gov. Sebelius to head the Department of Health and Human Services “probably won’t take place until after the coming two-week recess because at least one senator has objected to an expedited procedure to move the nomination.”

Harold Pollack points out that this time around, doctors are embracing comprehensive health care reform: “The medical profession is coming to see what many others have also seen. Our existing, increasingly dysfunctional healthcare system doesn’t just work poorly for patients. It works poorly for doctors and for many others, too. That’s one reason I am hopeful we will see a major reform, this year.”

Did FRONTLINE slant the ‘Sick Around America‘ documentary?

National Security

The Washington Independent’s Daphne Evitar reports on the potential consequences of a U.S. district court’s decision that some prisoners held by the United States military in Afghanistan have a right to challenge their imprisonment.

President Barack Obama called for a world without nuclear weapons on Friday after arriving in France for a NATO summit, where he won French endorsement of his new Afghanistan strategy.

The final hours may be ticking away to a long-range rocket launch by North Korea. International leaders are preparing a diplomatic response even as their governments focus on tactical matters of safety in the final hours of countdown before the potential liftoff.

Economy

The Financial Accounting Standards Board altered the mark-to-market accounting rule yesterday, “to give banks more discretion in reporting the value of mortgage securities.” James Kwak and Willem Buiter explain why this was a bad idea.

In 2008, “the median salaries and bonuses for the chief executives of 200 big U.S. companies fell 8.5% to $2.24 million“; this was the first drop in seven years and just the second since 1989.

CQ reports that “if a Thursday budget vote is any indication, the future of the estate tax — and President Obama’s long-term proposal to deal with it — looks murky.”

Climate

In Bonn, White House climate negotiator Jonathan Pershing said Obama’s plan to lower greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by 2020 is in the overlap of pragmatism and science.

Calling on developed nations to cut greenhouse emissions by “at least 45 percent below 1990 levels by 2020,” small island states say current targets are “going to destroy their countries.”

On Wednesday, 15 Democrats joined every Republican senator to preserve the filibuster against green economy legislation, even if “the Senate finds that public health, the economy and national security of the United States are jeopardized by inaction on global warming.”

3 Responses to “The WonkLine: April 3, 2009”

1. stateofthedivision Says:

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   Congress bullied the accounting profession to change fair value accounting. They threatened to write standards if FASB didn’t implement politicians’ will. Welcome to third worldia.

   Between mark to fantasy accounting and off balance sheet items, financial statements could mean nothing.

   April 3rd, 2009 at 10:43 am

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2. stateofthedivision Says:

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   The Congressional goons that threatened FASB’s chief were from the red and blue teams. Repugnican’t and Damnocratic Politicians employ mafia like tactics. Do it, or else we will. That might be a direct quote.

   April 3rd, 2009 at 10:45 am

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3. Connecticut Man1 Says:

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   Given what we already know about T.R. Reid walking away from his own production because PBS eviscerated the truth, misrepresenting the findings of previous work and refusing to allow the Single Payer answer to be discussed, did Think Progress slant its commentary on this?

   Did FRONTLINE slant the ‘Sick Around America‘ documentary?

   On this issue, we would gladly welcome Think Progress back to reality if they would embrace it? But instead you link to articles that do the same as PBS did:

   On the left, Physicians for a National Health Care Program boasts 16,000 members. Although single-payer remains a minority preference among doctors, attitudes have clearly shifted. The April 2009 Journal of General Internal Medicine includes an article by Dan McCormick and colleagues that documents this shift. In a nationally representative 2007 survey, only 9 percent of physicians preferred the current employer-based financing system. Forty-nine percent favored either tax incentives or penalties to encourage the purchase of medical insurance, and 42 percent preferred a government-run, taxpayer-financed single-payer national health insurance program.

   You know darned well that the number of Doctors that support a single payer system is 59%, yet you chose to link to an article based on outdated stats.

   “On the left” remarks are clearly becoming the joke of the Blogosphere and the real world discussions you are refusing to acknowledge. What you are really saying is that 59% of Doctors and around 65% of Americans that support Single Payer options like Medicare are leftists/liberals/communists – and what it means to everyone reading this garbled juice box message is that Think Progress are now all corporatists trying to control the media discussion to avoid reporting the facts.

   If you wish to remain relevant in the healthcare discussions you must actually be relevant to reality.
   

   April 3rd, 2009 at 11:21 am

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