Jon Chait had an interesting interaction with Republican Senate staff.
The Republican Senate staff objects that my item failed to include a hyperlink to a post by Aaron Caroll, on whose analysis I partly relied. I apologize for the oversight. Sessions’s office further contends that Carroll, whom it correctly if incompletely characterizes as “a pediatrician,” is not a reliable source on matters of health-care finance. I replied that I consider Carroll, who is also director of the Center for Health Policy and Professionalism Research at the University of Indiana, and a co-author of the respected health economics blog the Incidental Economist, a reliable source on these matters. We agreed to disagree on this point.
Let’s be clear, “health-care finance” is just math, which Aaron can do. But this story doesn’t even require math. The GAO spelled it all out, as Aaron posted. I’ve yet to see anything that articulates a logical problem with that post. The rest of Chait’s piece corroborates it.
