What I’m Reading — September 5^th

Health Care Reform, Meet the Law of Supply and Demand. “Even without an influx of new patients, doctors are likely to be in increasingly short supply nationwide in the coming years. The Association of American Medical Colleges projects a shortage of 124,000 physicians by 2025. Universal health coverage would increase the shortfall by 25 percent, according to the organization.”
Inline Validation in Web Forms. Testing the best ways to provide feedback to users.
George Will Wonders What We’re Still Doing In Iraq.

What I’m Reading — September 4^th

Did Big-Government Labor Policies Cause the Depression?
Charles Kesler on How Conservatives Can Get Back on Track. “It is necessary to reground our conservatism in [America’s] revolutionary [Founding] principles, but it will not be sufficient. Although conservatives cannot remedy America’s problems without them, our principles need to be explained in a contemporary idiom and applied prudently to our present circumstances. That requires, for want of a more comprehensive word, statesmanship. ”
Why High-Speed Rail Won’t Catch on in America. Geography, scheduling and personal preference means air travel will likely dominate in most of the country, Megan McArdle argues.
New York’s Tenured Teachers. Exploring the consequences of the city’s inane union contract.

100 Must-Read Books: The Essential Man’s Library.
How Consumer-Based Reforms Can Fix What Ails Health Care. David Goldhill on how the current system fails us and what to do about it. “The most important single step we can take toward truly reforming our system is to move away from comprehensive health insurance as the single model for financing care. And a guiding principle of any reform should be to put the consumer, not the insurer or the government, at the center of the system.”
Is Conservatism Dead? “Like the liberal writers of the 1950s, Tanenhaus wants to see a conservative movement that accommodates rather than opposes liberalism, and thus one that will accept its role as subordinate to the dominant liberal tradition in American life.”
Should the NEA Promote the Obama Agenda? “Do you think it is the place of the NEA to encourage the art community to address issues currently under legislative consideration?”

Whatever Happened to the Work Ethic? Steven Malanga explores the decline of traditional values like hard work, thrift and self-improvement.
Che Wearing Che T-Shirt T-Shirt. The Onion makes light of the ubiquitous shirts celebrating a communist terrorist.
The Importance of Context to Journalism. What gets left out in the instant analysis and he-said-she-said of modern reporting.

Obama Contradicts Himself on Health Care. “So the health-care status quo needs top-to-bottom reform, except for the parts that “you” happen to like. Government won’t interfere with patients and their physicians, considering that the new panel of experts who will make decisions intended to reduce tests and treatments doesn’t count as government. But Medicare shows that government involvement isn’t so bad, aside from the fact that spending is out of control—and that program needs top-to-bottom reform too.”
Another ‘Public Option.’ How government “competition” is wrecking the private student loan industry.
Market Rationing Isn’t Government Rationing. “Using the government’s coercive power to decide the price of something, or who ought to get it, is qualitatively different from the same outcome arising out of voluntary actions in the marketplace.”