If you’re confused about your health insurance,  a personal health care advisor can help you save money and navigate the system. The Health Care Service Corporation, which operates Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans, recently analyzed  its own “Benefits Value Advisor” program. More than 90 percent of consumers who worked with the advisor were told they could save […]

We wrote a couple of days ago about the ‘Schroedinger’s Cat’ moment through which the country was passing. We knew that there had been a terrible attack in Boston, but we did not know who was responsible. For us, this represented an opportunity to reflect on the pure evil of an attack on peaceful citizens […]

The Obama administration is losing control of its Middle East policy and with it, Washington’s credibility. Yesterday the State Department and Pentagon gave conflicting accounts of the administration’s Syria policy before a bewildered Senate Armed Services Committee. While Secretary of State John Kerry reported working “very, very closely” with “the moderate, legitimate opposition” in Syria, […]

Today, April 19, marks the 70th anniversary of the beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. What can one possibly say about this event that has not already been said many times over many years? What is there, if anything, that might be noteworthy about a 70th anniversary?Maybe there is something to say; hence this post. […]

Four toddlers died in a fire when 22-year-old day care operator Jessica Tata left the children under her care unsupervised during a quick run to Target. This is just one story among many illustrating the desperate need for federally funded child care, or so argues Jonathan Cohn in the New Republic: A 2007 survey by the National […]

Canyon Lake, a small gated city in Southern California, has just announced plans to withdraw from Calpers. The move comes in response to the pension fund’s recent suggestion that cities kick in as much as 50 percent more to the fund to keep benefits secure. Calpers requires a “termination fee” for any municipality looking to exit, […]

The battery of the future will be measured in millimeters and recharged in seconds. Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have designed a new lithium-ion battery that’s 2,000 times more powerful than current storage technology and can be recharged 1,000 times quicker: The batteries owe their high performance to their internal three-dimensional microstructure. Batteries […]

Perversely, China accused Japan today of escalating tension in the East China Sea by scrambling fighter jets every time Chinese aircraft or ships violate Japan’s territory. Japan announced yesterday that it had sent its own planes to intercept Chinese aircraft a record 306 times in the year ending March 31, double the number of times in the previous […]

Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) is now warning that the Affordable Care Act, much of which he helped write, is heading for a “huge train-wreck.” At a Senate hearing yesterday, Baucus took HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to task for the botched implementation of the ACA. In particular, he argued that the insurance exchanges consumers will use to buy […]