I could sit around and watch footage of 70s music performances all day. This one is great.
Talk about whatever.
by DougJ| 105 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
I could sit around and watch footage of 70s music performances all day. This one is great.
Talk about whatever.
This post is in: I Smell a Pulitzer!, Mainstream Media's McCain Mancrush
A couple of commenters in the last thread picked up the same item that’s had me stewing for a few hours already, so I thought I’d share the bile with the lot of you:
During a segment on “Morning Joe,” former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) speculated that most opponents of the Affordable Care Act have been fed erroneous information about the law. Todd said that Republicans “have successfully messaged against it” but he disagrees with those who argue that the media should educate the public on the law. According to Todd, that’s President Barack Obama’s job.
“But more importantly, it would be stuff that Republicans have successfully messaged against it,” Todd told Rendell. “They don’t repeat the other stuff because they haven’t even heard the Democratic message. What I always love is people say, ‘Well, it’s you folks’ fault in the media.’ No, it’s the President of the United States’ fault for not selling it.”
Back in the old days (Get Offa My Lawn!….), us print folks used to snort at the way TV types styled themselves journalists. When we did, we’d point to folks our Mr. Todd resembles: stenographers with cameras.
Nowadays, of course (and much more than we wanted to admit back then) there’s nothing medium-specific about the utter intellectual failure of elite American political journalism. But after today I’d say that even in that dismal lineup Todd is a special snowflake.
What’s infuriating is that he really isn’t stupid. He has a body of knowledge and some genuine expertise. But the claim above is so — self-castrating is about the best I can say for it. What professional with any jot or tittle of pride in his or her work would say “Hey! Don’t look at me! I don’t write this stuff; I just deliver my lines.”
Truly: Todd’s quote reads to these eyes like a resignation letter. If you can’t rouse yourself to meet the minimum requirement of a cub reporter covering a school council meeting — ask if that thing Councilmember Doe just said, was, you know, actually true? — then perhaps you should take a bit more time with your family.
Or rather:
Yo! Chuck: you’re stealing paychecks from the Peacock and wasting everyone else’s time. Go home.
Image: Gerard ter Borch, An Officer Dictating a Letter, c. 1655-1658
by David Anderson| 26 Comments
This post is in: Anderson On Health Insurance, Tax Policy, The Failed Obama Administration (Only Took Two Weeks)
Good news, there is no need this year for the Independent Payment Advisory Board to meet. IPAB is an entity created by Obamacare that is designated to make payment reforms to Medicare to bring down the rate of Medicare spending inflation to the general rate of growth in the economy. Congress can overrule IPAB’s recommendations if they come up with a seperate plan that saves as much or more than IPAB’s plan.
However IPAB is not needed when medical inflation for Medicare is beneath the rate of economic growth. And that is what is happening.
Prices for personal consumption expenditures (PCE) on health care goods and services rose just 1.1 percent over the twelve months ending in May 2013, the slowest rate of increase in nearly 50 years. The slowdown in PCE health care inflation has been widespread…
Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Employer Costs for Employee Compensation survey indicate that for private sector employers offering health insurance, the annualized growth rate of real (inflation-adjusted) costs for workers’ health insurance has slowed from 2.2 percent a year from 2006:Q4 to 2009:Q4 to 1.8 percent a year from 2009:Q4 to 2012:Q4
What this means, if it is a sustainable trend, is systemically, health care is going from a red alert, going to destroy the federal budget, apple pie and day/night doubleheaders to a medium size problem that needs consistent monitoring, tinkering and experimentation. CBO is figuring federal Medicare/Medicaid committments in 2020 are $200 billion less than what they projected a few years ago. As the saying goes, a few hundred billion here, a few hundred billion there, and sooner or later we’re talking about real money.
by DougJ| 100 Comments
This post is in: Riveted By The Sociological Significance Of It All
Ezra Klein on the increasingly likely government shutdown:
Here’s the Republican Party’s problem, in two sentences: It would be a disaster for the party to shut down the government over Obamacare. But it’s good for every individual Republican politician to support shutting down the government over Obamacare.
It’s a good summary, but there’s more to it: part of the reason Republicans may cause a shutdown is that a shutdown won’t be that much of a disaster for the Republican party. First of all, the media will say both sides did it and why can’t Obama lead. Secondly, about 40% of the country will stick by Republicans no matter what, about 45% of the country will hate Republicans no matter what, and a big proportion of the remaining 15% believes the both-sides-do-it cant, so the needle won’t move much regardless of what they do.
Let’s say the shutdown moves the country 2% away from the Republican and towards the Democratic party. Is that such a disaster? No, not in and of itself. It’s when you start to pile the fuck-ups on top of more fuck-ups that the GOP starts to bleed, and, yes, a shutdown will add to the pile. But by itself, it’s not a big deal politically.
That’s the Republicans’ problem. Their imperviousness to any single blow makes them more likely to suffer death by a thousand cuts.
The hand you hold is the hand that holds you downPost + Comments (100)
This post is in: World's Best Healthcare (If You Can Afford It)
With a h/t to my spouse, this piece from a couple of days ago offers a beautiful (not really the mot juste) window onto the multiple levels of fail of US medical business and (or rather, hence) practice. The action gets going as a young physicians assistant named Andrew T. Gray describes waking up an upset stomach, which over the course of the day blossoms into really nasty pain. Then comes the twist:
Crawling into bed, however, I realized that my pain had coalesced in the right lower quadrant of my abdomen. Could it be appendicitis?
Panic flooded me. After six weeks at my new job, I now qualified for health insurance, but I’d neglected to fill out the necessary paperwork.
Only an hour after leaving the clinic, I returned. Almost hysterically, I completed and faxed in the insurance forms.
“Go to the emergency room right now,” urged one of my supervising physicians.
Instead, Gray waited overnight so as to reduce the odds of insurance company shenanigans. The next morning, though he can’t wait anymore:
Waiting for the ER doctor, I recalled that, at some point in my schooling, I’d read a Swedish study about treating appendicitis with antibiotics. Googling the study on my smartphone, I found it.
By the time the ER resident approached, I was ready.
“I don’t have health insurance,” I said calmly. “Can I be treated with antibiotics instead of surgery?”
“I doubt they’re going to let you do that here,” he said. “But keep expressing interest.”
When the ER attending physician came in, I repeated the question.
“Absolutely not,” he replied flatly. “This is America, not Sweden. If you have appendicitis, we operate.”
The story gets better — which is to say from a policy and medical care point of view, worse. Go read the whole thing.
As to its relevance beyond itself. Well, Gray’s telling an anecdote, of course, a single encounter in a system that touches millions every day. Even so, there are at least two key points I can draw: (a) there are structural problems with the culture of medical practice in the US that both drive up costs and affect (not for the better) patient outcomes. “This is America…we operate.”
And (b): there are lots of reasons medical costs in the US seem both arbitrary and excessive. But (a) they are and (b) it actually matters to know what happens elsewhere, because from such knowledge it finally becomes much easier to see that US health care is exceptional alright — but not how the foaming hordes raving against tyranny in the form of Obamacare would have it. We sure do lead the world in what we pay. Just not in getting what (we think) we’re paying for.*
*This is not to say that for particular conditions in particular cities there is no better place in the world to receive care than, say, my current dwelling place, Boston. But brilliant tertiary care available to those clued in and covered in just the right ways doth not a system make.
Image: Hans Holbein, Henry VIII and the Barber Surgeons, 1543.
American Exceptionalism, Healthcare DivisionPost + Comments (84)
by $8 blue check mistermix| 86 Comments
This post is in: Teabagger Stupidity
A soon-to-be-released government audit (Now public, see update below) says the Navy, in an attempt to reduce costs, let down its guard to risks posed by outside contractors at the Washington Navy Yard and other facilities, a federal official with access to the report tells TIME.
The Navy “did not effectively mitigate access-control risks associated with contractor-installation access” at Navy Yard and other Navy installations, the report by the Department of Defense Inspector General’s office says. Parts of the audit were read to TIME by a federal official with access to the document.
Why was the Navy reducing costs? What did the Republican House force upon us as a condition of the continued existence of the country? Hint: it starts with an “S” and the last syllable rhymes with “fester”.
I’ll lay off this topic after this post, but I wish a motherfucker would hang this around Ted Cruz and Louie Gohmert’s neck, among others.
In Bar Light She Looked Alright, In Daylight She Looked DesperatePost + Comments (86)
by $8 blue check mistermix| 39 Comments
This post is in: Teabagger Stupidity
Benen and Drum both link to this Robert Costa fellow at NRO on occasion, so apparently he’s like a Dr. Dolittle who can figure out what the Tea Party animals are going to allow John Boehner to do. His latest take is that that Boehner is going to be allowed to pass a continuing resolution that funds the government and defunds Obamacare:
Here’s how my sources expect the gambit to unfold: The House passes a “defund CR,” throws it to the Senate, and waits to see what Senator Ted Cruz and his allies can do. Maybe they can get it through, maybe they can’t. Boehner and Cantor will be supportive, and conservative activists will rally.
But if Cruz and company can’t round up the votes, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid rejects the legislation, the House leadership will likely ask Republicans to turn their focus to the debt limit, avert a shutdown, and pass a revised CR — a stopgap spending bill that doesn’t defund Obamacare.
Love that “if” in the second paragraph–have two letters ever done heavier lifting? Anyway, back here on planet Earth, once this thing arrives stillborn on the floor of the Senate, we know that there are between 49-87 Republicans who will join in with Democrats and vote on something sane. The question is whether this vote will happen before or after a government shutdown. The Noam Scheiber piece that DougJ mentioned yesterday says that this vote will occur after a shutdown and he’s probably right.
One of these days, Boehner is going to let something come to the floor and pass that will alienate a majority of his crazy caucus. At that point, they will want to elect another speaker. Who could do a better job than Boehner with that animal farm? My guess is nobody. The problem in the House isn’t the player, it’s the game, and the game, at least in public, is defunding Obamacare, keeping every sperm sacred, and hating poors, browns and gays. If that’s your agenda, your Speaker is going to be weak, no matter who he is.