Quick Hits Tuesday

Adventures in high deductable health care, girl parts edition.

The Christian Science Monitor reports on the disproprortionate impact the housing crisis is having on people of color. "'The subprime lending debacle has caused the greatest loss of wealth to people of color in modern US history,' says Amaad Rivera, lead author of a 2008 report by United for a Fair Economy. The Boston-based research group estimates that black/African-American borrowers will lose between $71 billion and $92 billion in the current foreclosure crisis, while Latino borrowers will lose between $75 billion and $98 billion."

Economic sucktitude and the U.S. political debate go together like bananas and peanut butter, but no one wants to admit it, says Matt Taibbi over at AlterNet. "[T]his is a class issue that is being intentionally downplayed by a political/media consensus bent on selling the public a version of reality where class resentments, or class distinctions even, do not exist. Our "national debate" is always a thing where we do not talk about things like haves and have-nots, rich and poor, employers versus employees. But we increasingly live in a society where all the political action is happening on one side of the line separating all those groups, to the detriment of the people on the other side."