by Calculated Risk on 4/15/2005 12:18:00 AM

On March 15, Dr. Paul Krugman, Talking Points Josh Marshall and Cato's Michael Tanner debated Social Security at the New York Society for Ethical Culture. The video of the debate is now available.

VIDEO Parts One and Two.

UPDATE: pgl at Angry Bear has some interesting comments: Social Security: Tanner v. Krugman and Marshall


And since I mentioned Krugman, be sure to read his Friday Op-Ed: "The Medical Money Pit". This piece covers most of the same ground as Kash and AB over on Angry Bear. An excerpt:

The authors concluded that Americans spend far more on health care than their counterparts abroad - but they don't actually receive more care. The title of their article? "It's the Prices, Stupid."

Why is the price of U.S. health care so high? One answer is doctors' salaries: although average wages in France and the United States are similar, American doctors are paid much more than their French counterparts. Another answer is that America's health care system drives a poor bargain with the pharmaceutical industry.

Above all, a large part of America's health care spending goes into paperwork. A 2003 study in The New England Journal of Medicine estimated that administrative costs took 31 cents out of every dollar the United States spent on health care, compared with only 17 cents in Canada.

In my next column in this series, I'll explain why the most privatized health care system in the advanced world is also the most bloated and bureaucratic.