Jacob Hacker
- : http://pantheon.yale.edu/~jhacker
- : Jacob S. Hacker is Professor of Political Science at Yale University and Fellow at the New America Foundation. He is the author of The Great Risk Shift: The Assault on American Jobs, Families, Health Care, and Retirement—And How You Can Fight Back, just published by Oxford University Press. His previous books include The Divided Welfare State and (with Paul Pierson) Off Center: The Republican Revolution and the Erosion of American Democracy. A frequent commentator on NPR, PBS, and CNN, Hacker has written for The New Republic, The Nation, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and other publications.
Thinking Big -- And Thinking Realistically
My thanks to Jon for writing such a wonderful book and for raising such an important set of issues with his initial post. As Jon would be the first to admit, Sick is not a policy book; it's a deeply...more »
Posted on April 10, 2007 2:09 PM
The Emerging Debate over Health Insurance
In a sign, I believe, of a major emerging debate, USA Today and ABC News have teamed up to run an entire week of stories on the problems in American health insurance and how they can be fixed. In recent...more »
Posted on October 17, 2006 6:00 AM
It's Worse
My thanks to Elizabeth for her kind post (which I read just after flying into D.C., where I am doing a series of talks on the book -- for those interested, I will be at the New America Foundation at...more »
Posted on October 16, 2006 7:20 PM
Providing Security to Expand Opportunity
As I've argued, Democrats need a clearer and more forward-looking economic vision, and that vision should combine a commitment to economic security with a faith in economic opportunity. This vision—which I call an “insurance and opportunity society” (but which Jon nicely...more »
Posted on October 13, 2006 12:03 PM
A Novel Solution to the Great Risk Shift
I'm going to be writing about what can be done to counter the growing economic insecurity of American families later today. But I just discovered an idea I hadn't thought of -- on p. 18 of today's Times.Just Asking to...more »
Posted on October 13, 2006 7:10 AM
What a "Security and Opportunity" Society Means
 I am chagrined to note that Jon comes up with a better title for my vision than I do in my book (the phrase I use is "insurance and opportunity" society). But whatever it's called, the basic idea is simple:  Just...more »
Posted on October 11, 2006 5:52 AM
Securing the Future
Let me start by thanking Elizabeth for having me as a guest on her terrific blog.  I’ve long admired Elizabeth’s work and had the good fortune to share the podium with her several times and to travel up to Cambridge...more »
Posted on October 10, 2006 3:41 PM
The Greatest Threat to America's Role in the World Today Is...
Medicare. That's right. In his Times column today (available online, unfortunately, only to the "TimesSelect" elite), Tom Friedman warns that Medicare will bankrupt America, forcing the nation to retreat into isolationism. The only solution? "Trim the Medicare and Social Security benefits promised to [baby] boomers."...more »
Posted on January 5, 2006 1:22 PM
Still going...
The scorecard that most political analysts will probably post after today's big Senate showdown is one for two. Republicans -- with the help of Dick Cheney, who rushed back from the Middle East to cast the tie-breaking vote -- managed...more »
Posted on December 21, 2005 1:58 PM
The Wal-Mart Smoking Gun -- and the Future of American Health Insurance
It's rare that critics of America's messed-up insurance system get an inside glimpse of what companies really think about health benefits. But, as Nathan Newman reports, today's New York Times contains a must-read article on Wal-Mart's covert deliberations about its embattled health...more »
Posted on October 26, 2005 8:19 AM
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Well, the quote I presented -- and his broader discussion -- makes clear that he thinks that it's the growing population of baby boomer that's the problem, and that he thinks "trimming" Social Security and Medicare is the solution. You and I are in almost complete agreement. I am pretty sure Tom Friedman and you are not in complete agreement -- or at the very least, that he's not nearly as clear about what he thinks as you are.
Posted at January 6, 2006 10:12 AM in response to The Greatest Threat to America's Role in the World Today Is...
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Of course, I meant "hardly MORE likely than tax increase."
Posted at January 6, 2006 6:33 AM in response to The Greatest Threat to America's Role in the World Today Is...
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I am not sure I understand how I misinterpreted Friedman. I didn't say that he said health care wasn't important. I said that he linked a future withdrawal from foreign engagement with the rising costs of Social Security and Medicare. Did I misread him?And my point was that the best Medicare fix that's consistent with his broader argument about an ever more globalized economy is cost-effective universal health insurance through Medicare (notice I don't say "single payer" -- Medicare relies on private health plans, and under the proposal for "Medicare Plus" I've authored, there would be more private options, not fewer.
As for taxes, it's incumbent upon those who think they won't be raised to explain how the ongoing shortfall in U.S. fiscal policy (caused in the short term mostly by tax cuts and in the long term by a mix of tax cuts and the rising costs of social programs) will be closed. By a massive retrenchment of Social Security and Medicare? Given the Medicare prescription drug bill (bad as it is, it did increase spending substantially) and the President's Social Security rout, that seems to me hardly less likely than tax increases. (By the way, Bush Sr. also raised income taxes in 1990, and payroll and state taxes rose in the 1980s and 1990s.)
As Herb Stein once said, "If something can't go on, it won't." Taxes will go up -- one way or another. But if we thought about our public and private spending on social goods like health care and retirement protection now, we could spend a lot less in total social resources to close the gap.
Posted at January 6, 2006 6:08 AM in response to The Greatest Threat to America's Role in the World Today Is...
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They can be raised, and they will be raised -- whatever is done with Medicare. I wanted to append a separate discussion of this point to my post, but I decided it's deserving of its own post. Thanks for bringing it up. I hope others will have something to add.
Posted at January 5, 2006 4:15 PM in response to The Greatest Threat to America's Role in the World Today Is...
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You're welcome. Let the outrage begin...
Posted at January 5, 2006 2:26 PM in response to The Greatest Threat to America's Role in the World Today Is...
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Actually, as the next comment suggests, social insurance is an exception to conventional wisdom about government inefficiency. Please see my piece on this for the American Prospect: http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPri
nt&articleId=9549.
Posted at October 26, 2005 8:42 AM in response to The Wal-Mart Smoking Gun -- and the Future of American Health Insurance
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You're entirely correct. We have corrected the text. Thanks.
Posted at October 11, 2005 12:45 PM in response to The Mystery Solved
