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There's no secret formula when it comes to designing a comprehensive insurance system. In his latest article for VOX, TCF's Harold Pollack explains how an American single-payer system would necessarily replicate our current system’s most glaring defects.
Single-payer would require a serious rewrite of state and federal relations in Medicaid and in many other matters. It would radically revise the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), which strongly influences the benefit practices of large employers. Single-payer would require intricate negotiation to navigate the transition from employer-based coverage. The House and Senate would be in charge of this tension, and at risk of the negotiations among key legislators and committees who hold sway.
Read VOX's article on insurance models by Harold Pollack.
The Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association case that was heard before the Supreme Court last week carries the potential to mar the current public sector union model that has been in place for decades. A Deseret News article outlines Richard Kahlenberg's argument in favor of California Teachers Association which asserts that a universal funding of collective bargaining preserves democracy.
Kahlenberg argues that the court struck a “reasonable balance” in 1977, allowing objectors to opt out of politics but still contribute to bargaining. Allowing non-union members to opt out of collective bargaining costs, he argues, is much like allowing taxpayers to opt out of the portions of government policy they object to.
Read the full article from Deserset News.
TCF fellow Harold Pollack's offhand creation of his personal finance "Index Card" has been gaining popularity—now especially as economists analyze the state of the economy in the new year. His personal finance rules to live by that all fit on an index card were named as recommended reading in a recent Forbes article, as well as the recent book published containing the same rules.
Their [Olen and Pollack] first rule, Strive to Save 10 to 20% of Your Income, echoes Sweeney’s advice. I hope you can do it in 2016 and that you have a wonderful year, personally and financially.
Read the full article from Forbes.
Check out Pollack's book The Index Card: Why Personal Finance Doesn't Have to Be Complicated.
TCF fellow Daniel Alpert explains in his latest piece for CNBC that nearly the only aspect that is performing well in the US economy is job formation, and that even then it is plagued by an unusual level of temporary and low wage hiring. He explains the economic difficulties that the US is facing and predicts a glib future in which the US current account deficit, ex-energy, surpasses even those at elevated levels during the mid-2000s.
Read Alpert's full article from CNBC with his predictions of the 2016 economy.
Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard extended arguments in the Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association case. Writing on the proceedings of the day, TCF fellow Moshe Marvit discussed one point in particular that has made the case "pecular": an assumption within the court that money is speech.
According to the Court’s current First Amendment jurisprudence, money appears to be not only speech, but also the type of speech that deserves the highest form of protection. The problem with this view is that even if one assumes that money does represent some form of speech, it would represent among the most imprecise and inscrutable type of speech.
Read more of Marvit's takeaways from yesterday's extended arguments at In These Times.
Last week, The Century Foundation published a new report from Richard Kahlenberg that spelled out the case for preserving public sector unions, which was argued in the Supreme Court on Monday. Daily Kos ran a segment of the report in their "Abbreviated Pundit Roundup." The segment they ran is as follows:
With the Supreme Court split, unions cling to a thin hope that one of the conservative justices will resist partisan pressure to tilt the political playing field against Democrats. I hope they’re right. Unions aren’t faultless, but they are a crucial source of stability and strength for our democracy.
Check out the full Daily Kos article.
TCF senior fellow Richard Kahlenberg authored an opinion piece featured in the New York Times which expresses concern about the consequences of eliminating union fees and dues for those who dissent with the union. The piece explains how collective bargaining efforts among employees are largely supportive of the democratic livelihood that America is built upon.
Unions serve as what Robert Putnam, a political scientist at Harvard, calls “schools for democracy.” Being involved in workplace decisions and the give and take of collective bargaining, voting on union contracts and voting for union leadership are all important drivers of “democratic acculturation.”
Read Kahlenberg's NY Times opinion piece that lays out the ramifications of Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association.
In May 2014, TCF senior fellow Patrick Radden Keefe received an unusual offer: an opportunity to ghost write the memoir of Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán. Keefe ultimately said "no," and following both the publication of Sean Penn's interview with Chapo in Rolling Stone and Guzmán's capture on Friday, Keefe reflects on this opportunity and shares his thoughts on what's next for El Chapo in a new article.
One challenge of writing about the Guzmán saga is that, for such a tragic story, it has so many elements of farce. One former prosecutor I spoke with on Friday said that until Guzmán is extradited, “They’re probably either going to put him in a Mexican military brig, or they’ll just keep him moving from place to place, so he’s not in any one facility long enough to figure out how to escape.” Instead, on Saturday, Guzmán was shipped to Altiplano—the very prison he tunneled out of in July.
Read Keefe's full discussion of El Chapo's recent interview and capture at the New Yorker.
The Washington Post writer, Valerie Strauss, featured a portion of TCF's latest report on the Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association in an article about the future of public sector labor unions. Strauss cites the report's author Richard Kahlenberg, explaining that if the plaintiffs win, the ability of public sector unions to protect workers will be severely harmed.
"...the legal debate around the case has centered on the free speech rights of dissenting public employees vs. the state’s interests as an employer in keeping labor peace."
Check out the Washington Post article which features an excerpt from Kahlenberg's report.
Rampant corruption and political stalement has bred deeply rooted dysfunction inside Lebanon. TCF fellow Thanassis Cambanis, who currently resides in Lebanon, explains why the United States should learn from the country's problems in a new article:
Lebanon’s garbage problem differs from America’s gun problem in degree. America is not Lebanon, of course, and for all its pathologies the United States is not a failed state. However, it is not immune to failure either. We would do well to look and learn from Lebanon, lest we repeat its mistakes.
Read more from Cambanis on the lessons that can be drawn from Lebanon at the Boston Globe.
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