The Liberal Order

Is Health Care "Insurance" Really Insurance?

John Cochrane has an excellent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. It's regarding the mandate that all employer-provided health care insurance covers prescription contraceptives, but Cochrane does an outstanding job of explaining why health care coverage for foreseen expenses is a bad bet, including this great example.

The minute pills are "free," under insurance, the incentive for drug companies to come up with cheaper versions vanishes. So does their incentive to develop safer, more convenient, male- centered or nonprescription birth control. And by making pills free but not condoms, the government may inadvertently be contributing to an increase in sexually transmitted diseases.

 

Dating Tips for Single People

In fact, nearly half of all singles surveyed (46%) say their political views have not changed in the last 10 years — including men and women of all major ethnic backgrounds (African Americans, Caucasians, Asians, and Latinos fall into the 92-96% range) and those of different sexual orientation (94% of straight men, 96% of straight women, 93% of gay men and 89% of lesbians). So if you date someone across the political aisle from your own, accept that you probably won’t be able to change anyone’s beliefs one way or the other — and get ready to make some real compromises for the sake of your relationship. 

It seems that politics is a greater minefield for a couple to navigate than any other issues they may encounter. If you can't compromise and accept someone for their political differences, are you really going to compromise and accept someone for dysfunctional behaviors like smoking, drug use (illegal and legal), sports attendance and participation, and video game use?

From a different story comes this interesting item of note relative to the story above:  

Conservatives are far more open to reaching out to someone with a different point of view than a liberal is.” That is, when it comes to looking for love, conservatives are more open-minded than liberals. 

See here. (HT: Tyler Cowen for the second story.)

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all, and congratulations to those who graduated this semester.

Good Information for Parents to Have

Which cereals contain the most sugar? Check out this graph. And I've only seen King Vitamin in Food Lion.

Another Reason For Finishing College . . . Or Never Starting

Once education was factored in, the NCFMR found, with the exception of Asians, the highest rate of first divorce was among women with some college, regardless of race or ethnicity.

"Contrary to the notion that women with a college degree face the lowest chances of divorce, those without a high school degree actually have similar low odds ofdivorce," explained Dr. Susan Brown, NCFMR co-director. "The relationship between education and divorce is not straightforward."

- - - -

The association between education and the first-divorce rate held up even when race was factored in. Among African-Americans, Asians and Hispanics, women with less than a high school degree had a similar divorce rate to women who graduated from college. Among African-American and Hispanic women, the lowest first-divorce rates were found among women with less than a high school diploma.

Story here.

A few more things need to be teased out of the data. For example, first marriages that occur due to forced sexual intercourse are far more likely to end in divorce than those that did not occur for the same reason. (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_23/sr23_022.pdf see Chart 22) It could be that more women who never completed their degree did so due to unwanted/unexpected pregnancy or some other obligation arising from unwanted intercourse while in college. Such beginnings hardly make for successful relationships, both short and long term.