16 July 2009 
The president is correct that health care reform is essential to a strong economy. He accurately identifies the underlying problem as extraordinary growth in health spending, leading to slower wage growth, too many uninsured and unsustainable government spending. He is correct that reform needs to “bend the cost curve” downward to stop families, employers and governments from chasing their own tails. Unfortunately, the legislation being developed in Congress moves in the opposite direction.
After the vice president admitted the administration had misread the economy, the president said administration officials, instead, had incomplete information – but yet they would not have done anything different in the too-slow stimulus. We need to prevent a recurrence of the stimulus mistake on health care.
At a time of rising unemployment and extraordinary short-term economic weakness, these bills would hurt the U.S. economy. The economic damage they would cause outweighs the benefit of reducing the number of uninsured.
re:
“The American economy is too fragile to further damage it with the wrong health care reform. We cannot afford two big economic mistakes in one year. LetÂ’s, instead, get the incentives right and accomplish the worthy goals laid out by our president.”
46m people with no insurance and you are worried about the economic train wreck caused by 8 years of Republican Lafler curve stock portfolios. Where were you 8 years ago?
“Economic train wreck caused by 8 years of Republican Lafler curve stock portfolios.” Evidence please.
I can find abundant evidence of an economic train wreck created significantly by poor government policy (magnitude + quantity, local and national), especially in housing/mortgage that started the debacle off. I can find abundant evidence where cries for regulatory changes (better, not necesarily more) went unheeded to disasterous effect. I can see evidence where both of the above created a veritable cornucopia of poor business practices – some immoral, some illegal and some disasterously dumb. I can see where all of the above, combined with horrendous failures by ratings agencies pushed us over the edge.
Republican Lafler curve stock portfolios is new to me.