This month, China started operating the fastest high-speed rail system in the world—a 600-mile line between Wuhan and Guangzhou that clocks an average of 193 miles per hour (and peaks at 245). MIT Technology Review explains what makes the new train so fleet. It's the tracks:

Peter Harbage is a Washington DC-based health policy analyst who worked with both Senator John Edwards and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on their individual mandate proposals. He has also worked at both the Center for American Progress and the New America Foundation.

In the context of legislation that would cost nearly a trillion dollars, it's easy to overlook a provision that, on its own, would cost a mere billion. But one such provision in the House bill could make a huge difference in the success of reform--if House-Senate negotiators put it in the final package and especially if, upon doing so, they make it even stronger.

The provision, Section 104 of the House bill, would make $1 billion available to states in order to monitor possible insurer price gouging during the transition to health reform. The idea, in a nutshell, is to provide states with resources to review premium increases in the next few years--and to make recommendations on whether or not price gouging has occurred.

The Senate bill has no corresponding section. But it really should. Health insurance premiums can increase by double digits year after year, with small businesses taking the hardest hits. Insurers could use health reform as an excuse to force even bigger increases, enlarging profits and discrediting health reform in the process.  As one of the “immediate reforms” under the House bill, the provision’s success or failure would help set the tone for how people see health reform in 2010. 

But it’s not enough for the federal government simply to make the money available. The bill must make sure the funds are used effectively.

Are regional college education rates a stay against metro unemployment in bad times? It sure seems like it. Just take a look at the varied metropolitan area unemployment rates reported last week by the Metro Program’s quarterly MetroMonitor and its companion Mountain Monitor, the inaugural edition of which begins coverage of recession and recovery conditions in the metropolitan areas of the six-state Intermountain West. In that document, we noticed that the Mountain region’s third-quarter unemployment rates seemed to have a lot to do with metros’ college education levels, but we didn’t make too big a deal of it. Here, we thought we would belabor the point a bit more and ask why it’s so.

First, we’ll just note that others like Ed Glaeser have noted this connection before, and observe further that it’s hardly surprising that skills might explain metropolitan unemployment rates during the Great Recession given the huge and longstanding employment gap between skilled and unskilled workers at all other times.

Still, it really is striking to survey the extreme variation in unemployment rates revealed by the  MetroMonitor and MountainMonitor maps and connect it to local education levels. Nationally, highly educated metros like Washington DC, Bridgeport, Madison, and Des Moines (with BA attainment rates of 47.3, 42.7, 40.5, and 32.5 percent respectively) have much lower unemployment rates  than less educated metros like McAllen, Stockton, and Lakeland-Winter Haven (with BA attainment rates of 14.8, 16.8, and 17.7 percent, respectively), and this is not just because of regional or even state characteristics. Within the same state, there are still large and significant differences between well- and poorly-educated metros. For example, San Francisco, San Jose, and Austin are doing considerably better than their intra-state peers like Riverside, Bakersfield, and McAllen.

Yesterday’s release of the Case-Shiller Home Price Index has economists—and probably the Obama administration—on edge. The reason: an apparent softening of demand in October, which translated into weak home price growth across the 20 markets that the index tracks. That followed stronger, more widespread price growth in the summer months. The news has stoked fears of a “double dip” in house prices and the resulting havoc it might wreak in the mortgage market.

Like the economy itself, though, what you make of U.S. home prices depends on where you look. The latest Case-Shiller data portray an eclectic collection of metropolitan housing markets, experiencing divergent trends in recent months. The 20 metro areas tracked by Case-Shiller seem to break down into five types:

Consistent recovery. The three big coastal California metro areas—San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego, along with Phoenix and Detroit, posted price gains in October, following at least three consecutive months of price growth. Prices in San Francisco were up a considerable 12 percent from their trough in April 2009.

Peter Harbage is a Washington DC-based health policy analyst who worked with both Senator John Edwards and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on their individual mandate proposals. He has also worked at both the Center for American Progress and the New America Foundation.

With the release of the Congressional Budget Office report on the Senate Finance health bill, there has been significant concern about how health reform may not cover all of the uninsured.  From leaders in the progressive movement (read Jon's list of top health reform issues) to Karen Ignagni's October 11 cover memo on the infamous PwC "report", people have been talking about the size of the penalty for families failing to purchase insurance.  It's a good question, but it misses the point.  Getting everyone covered depends on a three step process:  coverage must be made affordable, coverage must be made easily available, and once that is achieved, then you can have an effective mandate and penalty.

It is this second step--making coverage easy to get--that has gotten too little attention. Six out of ten children eligible for Medicaid and CHIP (basically free coverage) are estimated to be eligible and not enrolled. The forms involved can be overly complex and the system can be difficult to navigate. In fact, today's health insurance system is seemingly designed to keep you out of insurance. Job change, marriage, change in age, all mean that you could lose your current insurance.  

The magazine is currently looking for two college students or recent graduates who are web savvy and interested in helping TNR increase its reach on the web. Internships are unpaid but offer substantial experience in both the production and marketing of a daily online publication. Interns must be able to work in our Washington DC office, and a full-time commitment is preferred. Responsibilities include:

At this week’s Association of the U.S. Army Annual Meeting and Exposition in Washington DC, Defense Secretary Robert Gates offered a startling blunt rebuke of General Stanley McChrystal, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. While the commentariat buzzed about rifts in the Obama administration and a potential  Truman-MacArthur showdown, I couldn’t help but wonder: What the heck is the Association of the U.S. Army Annual Meeting and Exposition? I skipped lunch yesterday and headed to the DC convention center to find out.

The New Republic is now accepting candidates for our Multimedia Fellowship. The fellow will be responsible for all video content on TNR.com, which receives millions of unique viewers each month. Opportunities include:

The magazine is currently looking for two college students or recent graduates who are web savvy and interested in helping TNR increase its reach on the web. Internships are unpaid but offer substantial experience in both the production and marketing of a daily online publication. Interns must be able to work in our Washington DC office, and a full-time commitment is preferred. Responsibilities include:

I celebrate myself; And what I assume you shall assume; For every atom belonging to me, as good belongs to you.

...

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself? (I am large--I contain multitudes.)

            Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass