Word: big
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...sitting. But he's had good streaks, too—a grand-prize package that included partying with Charles Barkley and, not to mention, about $80,000 in profits over the past year. You see, Darkhawk is a professional poker player. He's out to win big, and win hard...
...called "opt-out" provision, giving states the ability to decide not to offer a small share of their residents the chance to buy into a government-run health-insurance alternative. Ostensibly, such a provision would appeal to moderates, who object to the public option as giving the government too big a role in health care. But in practice, it is difficult to see why any state would actually make the decision to opt out, considering that no one would be forced to buy into the public option, and it would not cost states any additional money. Reid offered few details...
...impressive bipartisan consensus regarding the power of inertia. For all the disagreements over the public option, almost everyone agrees that making it the default is a big deal, and that the compromise allowing opt-outs is a pretty modest compromise. That's because reams of studies have shown that default settings really, really matter. If Reid's legislation had omitted a default public option but allowed states to opt in if they wanted one, insurers would be ecstatic and liberals would be furious...
...Administration has pushed one nudge after another, from simplified financial-aid forms after studies showed they could increase college-attendance rates to automatic savings plans for small businesses. It even doled out our payroll-tax cuts in the stimulus bill by decreasing our weekly withholding rather than cutting us big lump-sum checks, because the research suggested we'd be less likely to notice it and more likely to spend...
...There is, however, one big difference between the Reid legislation and other opt-out strategies: a state is not a person. An individual might end up in a public-health plan out of pure inertia, but it's not clear whether a conservative state like Louisiana would exhibit the same status-quo tendencies. Governor Bobby Jindal is an outspoken opponent of the public option, and an ambitious politician; Louisiana legislators might be eager to distance themselves from President Obama and the Democratic Congress...