Welcome to The WonkLine, a daily 10 a.m. roundup of the latest news about health care, the economy, national security and climate policy. This is what we’re reading. Tell us what you found in the comments section below, or subscribe to the RSS feed.
Climate
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Energy and Environment Subcommittee Chair Ed Markey (D-MA) are unveiling green economy legislation today that will set national standards for energy efficiency, renewable energy, and global warming pollution — but leaves open whether polluters will be subsidized to achieve those standards.
Biotech giant Monsanto has not only launched an ad campaignn aimed at food’s “thought leaders,” it’s funding “a new Facebook presence, Twitter stream, and a blog, Monsanto According to Monsanto.”
Charlie Brandts, a White House carpenter for 25 years, is now the First Beekeeper.
Health Care
Speaking with the Health Affairs Blog, Jonathan Oberlander speculated that “whether comprehensive health reform passes this year is likely to depend on whether Senate Democrats are willing to use the so-called ‘budget reconciliation process‘.”
Joe Paduda explains “why a public health plan option isn’t anti-competitive.” “Even if a service area was dominated by a public plan, a private plan that did a really good job of keeping members healthy and out of the hospital would deliver lower costs – even if their hospital stays, when they did occur, were more expensive.”
Some health reformers “wonder whether [Sen.] Baucus may strain too hard to cut a deal with Republicans” on health care reform.
National Security
Last year, the Pentagon experienced “staggering” cost overruns — totaling nearly $300 billion — on major weapons system development, according to a new GAO report.
The United States will commit $40 million toward the cost of holding elections in Afghanistan this summer, Secretary of State Clinton told reporters yesterday.
National Security Adviser Jones said that in Afghanistan, “we’re trying to put a three-legged stool together. We have done the security leg pretty well, but we haven’t done the other two legs — that is, economic development, and rule-of-law and government.”
Economy
The New York Times finds that “facing fallen endowments and needier students, many colleges are looking more favorably on wealthier applicants as they make their admissions decisions this year.”
The House and the Senate “will take aim this week at the credit card industry, sparking a lobbying frenzy by banks, card issuers and consumer groups.”
Noam Scheiber presents a new theory of the AIG catastrophe: “[T]he difference between a successful risk enterprise and an unsuccessful one often has less to do with the complexity of its schemes than with its leaders’ fanaticism about discipline.”
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