Entries for December 2008

By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

Is health insurance biased against women because in many states women pay higher rates when they are younger?

The city of San Francisco is challenging state legislation that allows insurance companies to charge women more than men for health coverage.

In a practice known as gender rating, women in California pay up to 39 percent more than men for coverage in the individual insurance market, which is where people who aren't covered by employer plans or state health programs get their insurance. Nationwide, about 7 percent of women buy their health coverage directly from insurance companies.

At first blush, the answer to my question above is "Of course!" But continue reading the article and you'll find that bias, and cost, are reversed as people age.

By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

No one should feign surprise at a new poll showing women more supportive of Caroline Kennedy's bid to replace Hillary Clinton as New York's junior U.S. senator. But what is interesting about this poll is why men are less likely to support her:

Fifty-seven percent of the women taking part in the new CNN-Opinion Research Corp. Poll said that Kennedy is qualified to be a senator from New York. But only 47 percent of men agreed.

...

CNN's polling director, Keating Holland, says that the gender gap reflects dramatically different perceptions of Kennedy's record.

"Men may think of qualifications for public office in terms of work experience, while women may be looking at a candidate's life experience," says Holland. "Caroline Kennedy has a personal history that may be compelling to many women, but her resume is not very long, and that may be a mark against her to some men."

Do I smell a bit of sexism in men's decision-making processes? Would those same men have held it against Barack Obama that he had only two years in the Senate when he started running for president? What about Arnold Schwarzenegger's long legislative career or that of Ronald Reagan when he ran for governor?

Caroline Kennedy is certainly not qualified for the office she seeks. But qualifications seem to be much less important to men when male action stars seek office.

By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.

I commend to your attention a new article on Vanity Fair's website that tries to explain how so much could go wrong in so few years. In less than 8 years, the Bush White House managed to accomplish the following: 

The threat of 9/11 ignored. The threat of Iraq hyped and manipulated. Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib. Hurricane Katrina. The shredding of civil liberties. The rise of Iran. Global warming. Economic disaster. How did one two-term presidency go so wrong?

By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

Now that the Obama cabinet selection process is about over, the final tally is close to what I expected it to be, and disappointing to a number of the president-elect's key constituencies. There is one cabinet-level appointment yet to be announced, out of 15 cabinet positions (filled with today's announcements) and at least seven cabinet-level appointments. From among these 22 coveted jobs, five appointees are women. Since women are 52 percent of the U.S. population and Obama's transition team promised a cabinet that "looked like America," one would have to say that, in terms of gender, Obama has failed.

By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

OMG! President Bush has actually done something good. Finally! You know what they say about stopped clocks. Early today the Bush administration agreed to bail out the two worst-off of the Big Three automakers:

By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

Why is the whole economic world dreading deflation? Just today, Reuters reported:

Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Richard Fisher said on Thursday that the U.S. central bank's duty now was to do everything it could to prevent deflation and it could worry about inflation later.

"Price pressures now are in the other direction," he said in response to a question at a World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth luncheon about potential future inflation. "We have to do everything we can to lift the economy up and prevent deflation from taking (hold)."

By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

CNN just ran some video this morning of President Bush speaking at the American Enterprise Institute and of him responding to a question about the auto industry bailout. It was a surprisingly candid moment, and the president actually seemed to be at ease and reasoning thoughtfully—a rare view of him.

Bush shared his thoughts about whether or not to bail out the industry. His concerns included not allowing a ripple effect to hurt the average American (if the industry were to fail) and not throwing "good money after bad" if the government were to bail out the Big Three and it still went bankrupt at some not-too-distant point in the future.

His last concern, however, was the most unexpected. He said he had thought about what he would feel like if he were just becoming president now and inheriting the current financial mess. And he said he did not want to leave an economic catastrophe (my words, not his) behind. Good thinking! Just about eight years too late.