Twitter roundup

From my Twitter feed:
-David Brooks: Hacky and wrong
-Brad DeLong values bloggers on the Kaus scale -- I'm available at those rates!
-Rep. Alan Grayson has a dignity problem
-Vaccine/autism link again discredited -- someone tell the Huffington Post
-I guarantee you've never heard anyone rap around Rutherford B. Hayes before
-Judge concludes Filegate was "nothing more than a bureaucratic snafu"
-Myth Obama is going to ban sport fishing spreads rapidly despite being totally bogus
-TNR's Jon Chait on the health care reform debate as "a low point in our national political psyche"

Comments

[David]

I agree with Jon Chait that the health debate is a low point, but my reason is ignorance. Chait says the reform will bring "some measure of reason to the health care system." How does he know?

Perhaps Chait is a health insurance actuary as well as a medical doctor who has spent years doing high level medical administration. Perhaps he has read and analyzed the thousands of pages in the various bills. Maybe he can predict with perfect accuracy what the final bill will say and what key administrative decisions will be made subsequently. He may fully comprehend how each of the 111 new bureaucracies will operate and how these bureaucracies will interact with each other and with in-patients, out-patients, emergency patients, doctors, psychiatrists, chiropractors, psychologists, nurses, nurse-practitioners, orderlies, hospitals, drug companies, insurance companies, HMOs, medical schools, medical research facilities, etc. He may have figured out the long-term costs and made plans to somehow raise the additional money needed in the face of trillon-dollar deficits.

Somehow, I don't think any of that is the case. I think Chait is talking out of his tuchus and so are other participants in this debate. That's why the debate is a low point.