I figure this weekend is a good time to draft a list of expenses that are nice or necessary during a potential stint of unemployment.

• Housekeeper: Nice. My nurses will probably do some cleaning if I ask politely. 
• Broadband Internet: Necessary. Very extremely necessary. What else will I do while I’m laid off? Go outside? Please.
• Cable TV: Nice. You see, there’s this thing called Usenet…
• Mortgage: Necessary. I haven’t missed a payment yet and my credit score shows it.
• My, er, Masseuse: Quite nice. Especially when she does that thing where she–well, never mind. But sacrifices must be made.

My next step is to figure out some temporary gigs to earn a semblance of an income.

Poor Tim Pawlenty. He goes to such great lengths to appeal to the Tea Party faction of the Republican base, but he still wallows in the single digits in most polls. His latest plea for attention comes in the form of an economic plan that would have unnerved even Ronald Reagan. Pawlenty proposes massive tax cuts–on top of the Bush tax cuts–along with deep spending cuts as a viable strategy for growing our way out of debt. He claims that his plan will result in in 5% percent growth for a whole decade, a rate that most economists have dismissed as pure fantasy. Pawlenty is probably smart enough to realize that his plan is absurd, but he’s counting on rabid Tea Partiers getting all starry-eyed when they hear this pabulum. It’s a cynical ploy, but cynicism has long defined his career. And I’m betting the true believers of his party are already getting a whiff of that cynicism and waiting on Bachmann or Palin to deliver the same insanity, but with more heart.

The latest news out of Microsoft and Apple should put to rest any doubts that tech companies are going all-in with touch-based interfaces. Microsoft recently offered a preview of Windows 8, which features customizable “tiles” instead of the traditional desktop environment. The “tiles” are part of Microsoft’s strategy to market Windows 8 as a tablet-friendly operating system. Instead of pointing and clicking, the demo emphasizes swiping and “snapping”. And then there’s Apple, which unveiled Lion, the next version of its desktop operating system. Lion features plenty of gesture-based commands that mimic the gestures used on iPhones and iPads.

I’m sure plenty of people will find these interfaces intuitive and useful, but I worry that these companies will start incorporating touch-based functions that have no keyboard or mouse equivalent. Right now, I can perform almost any Windows function that anyone else can. Will that still be true when I upgrade to Windows 8 or 9? Both Apple and Microsoft have been great advocates and enablers of computer accessibility. I don’t expect that to change overnight, but they may need a gentle reminder that user interfaces should be flexible enough to meet the needs and preferences of the user. Plenty of consumers, gimp and able-bodied alike, simply have no use for a gesture-based and are quite happy with the mouse cursor. Don’t take it away from us.

Michelle Bachmann, Minnesota’s most regrettable contribution to the American body politic, appears poised to run for president. I’m beginning to harbor a morbid hope that Sarah Palin enters the race just so I can watch these two battle each other for the hearts and minds of this country’s paranoid fringe. Bachmann alone is sure to utter some nonsense that will be epic in its lunacy; one can only imagine the absurdity that will ensue if she and Palin become opponents. The possibility makes me giddy. Of course, that giddiness will quickly dissipate on the day I wake up to a Palin-Bachmann Inauguration Day and I’m hauled in for questioning by the local militia.

Suzy Khimm is fast becoming one of my must-read journalists covering health care policy. She seems to understand the nuances of the budget debates over entitlement programs better than many of her peers. Her coverage of Medicaid issues is particularly good, as evidenced in this guest post at Ezra Klein’s blog on Medicaid and managed care. Khimm notes that more states are requiring people with disabilities and the elderly to enroll in managed care as a condition of receiving Medicaid. States hope that a managed-care-for-all model will help control Medicaid costs at a time when nearly every state is facing enormous deficits. The evidence for managed care as a cost containment strategy is dubious at best, but that hasn’t swayed states like Florida from passing sweeping legislation that will transform its entire Medicaid program into a managed care model.

Here in Minnesota, Governor Dayton recently vetoed a human services bill that would have placed people with disabilities and the elderly in Medicaid managed care and similar legislation might be put forward again in a special session. I remain unconvinced that managed care organizations can deliver lower-cost care to a population that is inherently expensive. State legislators’ enthusiasm for the model can mostly be ascribed to two things: a belief that the private sector does everything better and sheer fiscal desperation. And since managed care has not been previously used for these populations, legislators are free to book savings that are mostly conjecture and guesstimates. What remains to be seen is whether these same legislators will still be as enthusiastic boosters of private enterprise when the managed care organizations start demanding more money to serve people like me.