Sometimes when I disagree with friends or family about contentious issues, and they accuse me of being partisan, I try to defend myself by explaining that I am basing my position on science, not politics. According to a recent poll, my defense is flawed, because it seems that science itself is partisan. Across a relatively…
The always informative Jonathan Cohn at the New Republic recently wrote about an opinion poll that seems to show significant support for at least one part of The Affordable Care Act. It showed a majority not only of Democrats and independents, but also Republicans, supporting Medicaid expansion: Only one problem with that finding. Ask the…
I have done some research on political partisanship, as well as some writing. I think political dysfunction in this country threatens our future. So it was nice to read this opening paragraph, in a relatively recent and wonderfully written article in Time magazine: Here’s a rainy-season parable about cooperation in American politics: In July 2012,…
Politics in the US is discouragingly partisan. National politics has become increasingly partisan since at least the late ’60s, when the passage of civil rights legislation influenced many conservative southern Democrats to join the Republican Party. Even state politics has become more partisan, where even famously nice people in Wisconsin have found themselves battling their neighbors across…
I recently reread a very informative New Yorker article by Ryan Lizza, called the Obama memos. I have assigned the article to my undergraduate health policy class, to help them understand the political climate surrounding the passage of The Affordable Care Act. And that climate was one of severe polarization, which cut against Obama’s naïve…
Here is a nice picture, from a HuffPo article , showing how much money states are losing by not expanding Medicaid in accordance with the Affordable Care Act: Not a small change, by any measure. Shows how much it means to some folks to prove their anti-ACA bonafides. What is too often lost, in this…
I wrote a while back about some research I conducted with Jason Reifler and Brendan Nyhan on how fact checking influences people’s belief in whether Obamacare created death panels, to decide which old or disabled peoples to kill. Yesterday, Cass Sunstein wrote about our study, and mused on several really interesting related issues. Check out…
In 1895, Teddy Roosevelt was asked if he was hoping some day to be President. He flew off in a rage. Part of his rant is revealing, and might have helped Mitt Romney if he’d come across this quote earlier in his life: “I must be wanting to be President. Every young man does. But…
In August of 2009, Sarah Palin claimed that the health legislation being crafted by Democrats at the time would create a “death panel,” in which government bureaucrats would decide whether disabled and elderly patients are “worthy of healthcare.” Despite being debunked by fact-checkers and mainstream media outlets, this myth has persisted, with almost half of…
Here is a link to an Op-Ed I wrote with two colleagues at Duke, in which we provide a novel explanation for why so many Americans hate Obamacare.