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Sunday, November 03, 2013

Chait Too

In a generally good post countering the Frum post which I denounce below, Jon Chait manages two impressive howlers. One is really for the ages (the middle ages) "You may pose a low actuarial risk today, but you cannot be certain your luck will continue for the rest of your life (or until you qualify for Medicare). Even people living the healthiest lifestyles suffer illnesses and accidents, or marry people who have a uterus." Some of the people living the healthiest lifestyles were born with uteruses. Chait accidentally proposes that being born with a uterus is like smoking or eating too much. Then the lesser howler which is the same as Frum's " That is what Obamacare advocate Jon Gruber is getting at when he concedes that 3 percent of Americans will be worse off under the new law. " Gruber conceded no such thing. In fact Chait explained very clearly why many of the people who will be forced to buy more complete coverage by the ACA will be better off starting in 2014 (even if they don't come anywhere near any risky uteruses) . I now feel bad that I calle Frum a liar. Chait is not lying (I think he is honest and in any case the error works against his argument). He is literate (at a level I can't even dream of).. But he just can't associate words with numbers. He concedes to Frum et al that Gruber wrote 3% but does not note that Gruber didn't concede those roughly 9 million would be financially harmed by the ACA. I link to an explaination plain English to help a second master of the language (who is a much better writer than Frum who is a much much much better writer than I) in the post below.

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