Yes, Medicare costs...

...are rising, but as this chart from Paul Krugman's blog shows, not as fast as private insurance.

More evidence (to me)...

...that the GOP establishment is getting behind Tim Pawlenty: Jack Welch is on board.

Tom Tracy, the song of the day...

...is for YOU.

Jim Northrup, star outfielder...

...for the Detroit Tigers, died at age 71. In 1968 (my emphasis):

The Tigers, managed by Mayo Smith, won the World Series after falling behind, three games to one. They had had a dominant year, rolling to 103 regular-season wins behind the pitching of Mickey Lolich, the Series’ seventh-game winner, and Denny McLain, who went 31-6, the last major league pitcher to win 30 games or more.

Northrup, a brawny 6 feet 2 inches, set a major league record that year when he hit three grand slams in one week. He also hit a grand slam in the sixth game of the 1968 Series. In the same season, he hit a home run out of Tiger Stadium, joining a short roster of sluggers to have done so, and went 6 for 6 in a game, a feat not accomplished by a Tiger since Ty Cobb 44 years earlier.

Two items in the news...

...caught my attention this week. The first was from Politico (my emphasis):

South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson is endorsing Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty for president, Pawlenty’s campaign announced Thursday.

Wilson, first elected to Congress in 2001, famously yelled “you lie!” during Barack Obama’s speech to a joint session of Congress ... is the first member of Congress outside of Minnesota to endorse Pawlenty.

The second was from today's Times article about the implosion of Newt Gingrich's campaign:

Former Gov. Sonny Perdue of Georgia, a national co-chairman of the Gingrich campaign, withdrew his endorsement and said he would support Tim Pawlenty, a former governor of Minnesota.

The Republican establishment may be making its move. Looks like they've given up on a White Knight entering the race and are now coalescing around T-Paw as the un-Romney. Even the Wall Street Journal is on board.

The song of the day:

The Economist weighs in...

...on David Brooks's recent column on health care reform (my emphasis):

DAVID BROOKS had an op-ed in the New York Times yesterday that proclaimed the near impossibility of restraining costs in health care through centralised government efficiency evaluations, which is being justly ridiculed by people (Jon Chait, Jonathan Cohn, Ezra Klein) who note that every single one of the world's centralised government-regulated health-care systems is far cheaper than America's relatively decentralised private-sector one. Mr Brooks has surely had this explained to him a thousand times by now, and his failure to process the fact or incorporate it into his worldview seems to me most likely to reflect an absence of the ideological furniture on which the fact could sit. Mr Brooks doesn't seem to have an instinctive understanding of how it can be possible for unregulated free-market health-care systems to cost more and deliver inferior care than strongly regulated systems with heavy government involvement, and that's why, while he occasionally must have to acknowledge the existence of the French health-care system, he can't seem to retain it.
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Health care is different from buying shoes. Which is why it wouldn't be at all surprising if a board of 15 experts could play a major role in reducing expenses and improving care outcomes in the American medical industry. That's what corresponding boards of experts in France, Germany, Britain, Canada, the Netherlands and so on do, which is why their health-care systems cost half what ours does, cover everyone in their countries, and generally provide better care.