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Ideas & Action Blog

Where Do the Interests of Small Business Really Lie in the Health Care Debate?

Posted by Michael Lipsky at 3:02 PM on July 21, 2009

Last week the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), the indisputably powerful small business association in Washington, sent a letter to House members informing them that the organization could not support a substantial role for government in administering American health care. Widely credited with helping to scuttle the Clinton health care plan when the subject was last on the national agenda, the NFIB has taken a stand against a 'public option' after months of supporting health care reform, but hedging its bets on the best way to achieve it. NFIB has also come out against requiring employers to provide health insurance for their workers or pay a fee to cover them.

Healthcare | Business & Industry

Voting Rights Groups Sue Indiana and New Mexico for Neglecting Low-Income Voters

Posted by Allegra Chapman at 4:56 PM on July 10, 2009

Last week, voting rights groups--including Project Vote, Demos, the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the NAACP, the ACLU of Indiana--and several pro bono law firms filed lawsuits on behalf of ACORN and individual plaintiffs against Indiana and New Mexico for gross violations of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), a federal law passed in 1993 requiring public assistance agencies and departments of motor vehicles to provide voter registration services. Research has shown that Indiana and New Mexico, among other states, have effectively deprived tens of thousans of citizens of the chance to register to vote.

National Voter Registration Act | Voter Registration | Election Administration

Healthcare Coverage: When Will Something Be Better Than Nothing?

Posted by Jennifer Wheary at 9:55 PM on July 9, 2009

An hour into Obama's town hall on health care reform, I was walking through Red Hook, Brooklyn.

Red Hook-- an area with one of the highest poverty rates in New York and estimated unemployment of around 20%--is a world away from the White House.

Red Hook inhabitants--who include residents of several large housing projects, artists and freelancers looking for cheap space, and working class families struggling to make their rent - have seen their community plastered with medium-sized posters in recent months offering an alternative to lack of health insurance.

The posters advertise a URL and toll-free number for an outfit called IHaveNoCoverage.com.

Healthcare

The Problem with "Recession Porn"

Posted by Nancy K. Cauthen at 11:39 AM on June 26, 2009

Reading the New York Times, one could be forgiven for thinking that the well-heeled have suffered the most from the recession--we learn how "bankruptcies jolt a ski haven for the superrich" and why Ruth Madoff is the "loneliest woman in New York." Leave it to Barbara Ehrenreich to remind us of the deepening struggles of those who are "too poor to make the news." But the problem with "recession porn," as Ehrenreich and others have called it, goes far beyond the invisibility of poverty in the media's recession narrative. Recession porn deflects our attention away from the far more dire story of dwindling economic opportunity and mobility in America.

Senator McConnell: If the DMV is a Model for a Public Health Care Option, Sign Me Up.

Posted by Michael Lipsky at 2:45 PM on June 23, 2009

Cross-posted at OpenLeft.com

In a recent speech on health care reform on the Senate floor, Sen. Mitch McConnell argued that a 'public option' to compete with private insurers would result in a bureaucratic nightmare. Leaning on a tired rhetorical crutch, he said that Americans "don't want the people who brought us the Department of Motor Vehicles making life-and-death decisions for them."

The Senate minority leader is behind the times, repeating reflexively a Conservative talking point favored by Republican strategists and such commentators as Rush Limbaugh and Frank Pastore. This view of the DMV is behind the times, but it pervades our popular culture, to judge from the way Jay Leno, Jon Stewart and other late night comedians pick on the DMV whenever they want an easy laugh.

Role of Government and the Public Sector | Healthcare

Recession Narrowing College Access for Low Incomes Students

Posted by Viany Orozco at 1:50 PM on June 22, 2009

Cross-posted at WireTap Magazine

The silver lining of a recession could be that it incents people, particularly those who are unemployed, to return to school and upgrade their skills, or to finish degrees they started but never finished. For recent high school graduates, who face the highest unemployment rates of all age groups, going to college should be a no brainer. Our current financial aid system, however, leaves low income students with high levels of unmet need for their education. Therefore, a vast majority of them finance their education through work. Under double digit unemployment rates among young people, then, the flaws inherent in this financing model are glowing.

Economic Challenges of Young People

Public Assistance Agencies Fail to "Measure" Up

Posted by Scott Novakowski at 2:22 PM on June 18, 2009

Yale Law School professor Heather Gerken's new book, The Democracy Index: Why Our Election System is Failing and How to Fix It, has been receiving a good deal of attention in election reform circles recently.

And for good reason.

The book is an excellent read and presents a thoughtful, and highly workable, idea. While there are clearly some kinks that will need to be worked out, Gerken's plan has as its foundation an issue that should be of utmost importance to those interested in improving the democratic process: the need for accurate and reliable elections data. And nowhere is this need more apparent than in the field of public assistance voter registration.

National Voter Registration Act | Voter Registration | Election Administration

Another Option to Paying Poor Countries to Fight Climate Change

Posted by Cristina Vasile at 11:36 AM on June 18, 2009

The New York Times blog, Green Inc. recently asked how much poor countries should be paid to fight climate change. Indeed, this is an important question, given the upcoming Copenhagen talks in December to renegotiate the Kyoto Protocol. It has been made clear by the United Nations Climate chief Yvo de Boer that,

"Without a clear commitment from industrialized countries to less developed countries, there will not be a deal at Copenhagen."

The fact that some sort of financial aid must be given to developing nations is irrefutable. The question is how much, and what form should it take?

Trade

Can't Buy Me Justice?

Posted by Brenda Wright at 1:31 PM on June 8, 2009

When a company has a $50 million verdict against it hanging in the balance, and the chairman and principal officer of the company spends $3 million to help elect a judge to the court that will decide the case, can that judge render impartial justice in the case? Common sense says no, but until today the Supreme Court never had ruled that campaign spending to help elect a judge could create a Due Process violation when that judge then sits to decide his supporter’s case.

Campaign Finance

What's the Matter with Minnesota?

Posted by Steven Carbo at 5:14 PM on June 2, 2009

The issue of voter registration continues to be as partisan an issue in the 2009 legislative sessions as it has been in recent years.

In Minnesota, Democrats passed bills at the end of session to automatically register eligible voters and inform felons of their reinstated right to vote, only to have the bills vetoed by Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty. It's hard to see a way off these pitched political battles anytime soon.

National Voter Registration Act | Voter Registration

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