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Megan McArdle

Megan McArdle - Megan McArdle is a senior editor for The Atlantic who writes about business and economics. She has worked at three start-ups, a consulting firm, an investment bank, a disaster recovery firm at Ground Zero, and The Economist. She is currently on leave.
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Megan was born and raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and yes, she does enjoy her lattes, as well as the occasional extra-dry skim-milk cappuccino. Her checkered work history includes three start-ups, four years as a technology project manager for a boutique consulting firm, a summer as an associate at an investment bank, and a year spent as sort of an executive copy girl for one of the disaster-recovery firms at Ground Zero � all before the age of 30.

While working at Ground Zero, Megan started Live From the WTC, a blog focused on economics, business, and cooking. She may or may not have been the first major economics blogger, depending on whether we are allowed to throw outlying variables such as Brad Delong out of the set. From there it was but a few steps down the slippery slope to freelance journalism. She has worked in various capacities for The Economist, where she wrote about economics and oversaw the founding of Free Exchange, the magazine's economics blog. She has also maintained her own blog, Asymmetrical Information, which moved to The Atlantic, along with its owner, in August 2007.

Megan holds a bachelor's degree in English literature from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago. After a lifetime as a New Yorker, she now resides in northwest Washington, D.C., where she is still trying to figure out what one does with an apartment larger than 400 square feet.

Back to the Drawing Board?

By Megan McArdle
Feb 10 2010, 9:54 AM ET Comment

A new Washington Post poll apparently shows that people want Congress to keep looking for a way to pass comprehensive health care reform.  The graphic is rather striking:

Poll1.gif


This does not mean that the public wants Congress to pass any of the current bills, though we don't know yet, since the Post seems to be dribbling out the numbers over a few days.  But I'll be surprised if they get more "ayes" than "nays" on passing HCR in its current form, which hasn't happened since Kaiser got a 42% favorable a month ago.  No, I'm betting that what the public, God bless 'em, really wants is for Congress to go back and find a fairy bill that covers a bunch of people, doesn't cost anything, offends no popular special interests, and generates broad bipartisan support.  While they're at it, I want a pony.  And a sous vide machine.

So will Congress keep searching for this miracle piece of legislation?  That depends, I think, on how strong this preference is to have them "keep on truckin' " on a health care bill.  As I've observed a zillion times, almost everything polls well in isolation.  Of course the public wants Congress to try to clean up the uglier bits of our health care system.  But does the public want Congress to use its finite energy on creating a new health care bill more than it wants that same legislative effort expended on jobs, banking regulation, or the economy?  All the other polls I've read say "no".

Update:  Yup, they may want Congress to move forward, but not on the plans currently on the table.


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