Health Insurance

How schools foster boys’ failure and other notable comments

Policy wonk: CBO Score Actually Better Than Expected

The Congressional Budget Office estimate that 24 million fewer individuals will have health insurance by 2026 underneath the GOP replacement bill is overstated but unsurprising, says Avik Roy at Forbes: CBO's original projections of how many would sign up for ObamaCare was also “wildly off.” What is surprising about CBO's scoring “is the ways that helps make the GOP bill look better than expected, and how it points to how the bill can be improved.” The actual concern is “whether or otherwise plans are affordable,” not whether “a weak fine riddled with loopholes and exceptions” – the person mandate – “can force people to buy coverage.” And as the CBO notes, “the bill would cut taxes by $1.2 trillion and spending by $880 billion, for any net deficit reduction of $337 billion.”

Conservative: Is Losing Health Insurance So Bad?

Democrats and also the news media are describing the CBO estimate as “cruel” and “bleak.” But Liz Sheld at PJ Media argues that “this standard of 'universal coverage' is as artificial as the government's bloated healthcare costs.” With premium rates skyrocketing, “if a person or family has to fork out thousands of dollars before seeing healthcare benefits, what's the point? Why not save those funds so when services are essential, pay directly to the concern providers?” That's why “we are visiting a rise in concierge medicine, internet-based medicine and free-market surgery centers.” So perhaps “people wouldn't 'lose' their health insurance but instead would choose to opt out of the artificial system created by the federal government because it doesn't serve their economic interest.”

Foreign desk: Recalling Russia's Great Calamity of 1917

Wednesday marks the 100th anniversary of Tsar Nicholas II's abdication, notes Max Boot at Commentary, “ending 300 years of Romanov rule of Russia and setting happens, later that year, for that Bolshevik takeover” – which sent Russia “hurtling around the trajectory toward the Stalinist terror and mass famine, World War II and also the Cold War.” Now Vladimir Putin “seems to be plotting to reassemble the Russian Empire the Bolsheviks temporarily tore down,” even as he lives “in constant dread of the uprising such as people with took place neighboring Georgia and Ukraine.” Ironically, the tsar's overthrow initially led “to a short flowering of constitutional rule, with political and press freedom allowed for the first time in Russian history.” If perhaps, says Boot, “Russia had had [just] one revolution, rather than two, in 1917.”

In the right: GOP Need to look to Wisconsin

Marc Thiessen in The Washington Post laments the GOP, “with unified Republican government for the first time inside a decade,” isn't “busy enacting a bold reform agenda” since it is “wracked by internal divisions on key issues from healthcare to taxes.” Democrats are vowing disruption and stonewalling, so “if Republicans can't exercise their differences, there is little have completed.” Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker faced an identical situation, he notes, yet “managed to unite his party and overcome Democratic obstruction.” The result: “His legislation passed, and voters rewarded him at the polls.” Walker says Republicans can not be cautious now: “Members of Congress don't get more courageous as time passes.” And “the worst possible outcome will be for Republicans to break their word and do nothing at all.”

Critic: Schools Won't Let Us Raise Successful Boys

Most people “spend hours each day sitting at work” and “science says it's killing us,” notes Bill Murphy Jr. at Inc. Yet “what do we force our youngsters to do every day at school? Sit still for 6-8 hours.” That's especially hurtful for boys, who are “naturally rambunctious.” One survey discovered that “the less 'moderate to vigorous physical activity' the boys had each day, greater it had been to allow them to develop good reading skills.” But “the results didn't apply to girls,” who are “better able to set aside that disappointment and concentrate.” So “until schools figure out how to incorporate lots of movement and play to their schedules, it will be as much as parents to compensate.”