Aimee Mann has a new album out, with Ted Leo. That’s the big news in my world. Tell us what’s new in yours in this open thread.
Archives for April 2014
Omnibus Followup on Trigger Issues for a Small Minority of Commenters
Trigger warning for the S-dog, so it’s under the fold.
Omnibus Followup on Trigger Issues for a Small Minority of CommentersPost + Comments (128)
Compared to what?
I recently took my college referee fitness test. The college fitness test has four events; a distance run, an agility box, and two sprint sets. On each event, the referee can score between zero and five points depending on time/distance. I passed.
My results could be described in the following ways:
- Piss Poor
- Adequate
- Great
These disparate descriptions are accurate.
They are accurate depending on what my results were compared against.
My results were piss-poor when compared against the other nine referees in my testing group. It was me, seven referees whose highest level matches last year were either NCAA semi-finals, or some version of an international match, and two 21 year olds who run the 800 in college. In all four events, I had or shared the lowest score. Against a narrow comparison group, I was slower than molasses.
My results were adequate in that I am fast and fit enough for the games that I work. I met or exceeded external absolute standards.
My results were great because I had personal bests in two events (the distance run and the first set of sprints) and matched my previous personal best scores on the other two events. Against an internal comparison, I improved.
Asking the simple question of what something is being compared against and therefore being evaluated against is a critical question in determining the value of an analysis.
Moving back to the healthcare world, this simple question — compared to what — is critical when looking at the Exchange age mixture.
Jonathon Cohn at the New Republic has a good summary:
And within those marketplaces that the federal government is managing directly, 28 percent of enrollees are ages 18 to 34…
As for the age mix, you may have heard that about 40 percent of the population eligible for coverage in the marketplaces is between the ages of 18 and 34. That’s true and, obviously, 28 percent is a lot less than 40 percent. The worry has always been that older and sicker people would sign up in unusually high numbers, forcing insurers to raise their prices next year and beyond.
But insurance companies didn’t expect young people to sign up in proportion to their numbers in the population. They knew participation would be a bit lower and they set premiums accordingly. Only company officials know exactly what they were projecting—that’s proprietary information—but one good metric is the signup rate in Massachusetts, in 2007, when that state had open enrollment for its version of the same reforms. According to information provided by Jonathan Gruber, the MIT economist and reform architect, 28.3 percent of Massachusetts enrollees were ages 19 to 34, a comparable age group.
Age is a good but not perfect proxy for health. The Exchanges need a population that is roughly similar in health composition to the general population to avoid premium spikes. An Exchange population of only Balloon-Juice blog hosts or 63 year olds with chronic conditions is an extremely expensive risk pool. A death spiral would be unlikely due to subsidy design but total federal costs would increase dramatically. An Exchange population with a good number of healthy people in it means premiums won’t spike.
So when you hear people comment on whether or not the Exchange risk pool composition is good or bad or adequate, ask — compared to what?
Against the most relevant comparison (Massachusetts in 2006), the risk pool composition is at least adequate if not good on a national scale. We don’t have the data to say what the Exchange risk pool looks like in any given state. My suspician is that states that embraced PPACA, the risk pools will be on average, better than the full resistance states. The states that embraced Obamacare have seen higher sign-ups and more effective outreach efforts. Young and healthy individuals have always been the hardest group to bring en masse into social insurance programs, so states that actively outreached to these groups probably would see higher enrollment than states like Georgia that actively ratfucked outreach efforts.
The first year risk pool age composition is not meeting ideals, but a reasonable expectation is that it would never reach ideal composition in the first year.
(Good) Friday Morning Open Thread
Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell first emerged when I was attending a parochial high school, so I can still sing most of both soundtracks from memory. I always preferred Godspell, but I know mine is the minority opinion, so here’s some happy news for those of you who are, or once were, practicing liberal Christians and/or Muppet aficionados, via Paul Constant:
Just in time for the upcoming Easter weekend comes Muppet Christ Superstar, an “album” of nine songs from the 1971 rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar—with the lead characters recast as Muppets. Kermit plays Jesus, of course, with Gonzo playing his backstabbing friend Judas and Miss Piggy filling the role of Mary Magdalene.
And voicing all those roles is 20-year-old songwriter Christo Graham, the mastermind behind the parody and a drama and film student at Bishop’s University in Quebec. Graham told us he recorded the album over a couple nights in his bedroom, and although he plays several instruments and has already released five albums of original music (available on Bandcamp), he used karaoke tracks for Muppet Christ Superstar, singing all parts (even the backing vocals, ostensibly from the Electric Mayhem, and Gonzo’s chickens)…
(Warning: While you should be able to play the entire soundtrack by clicking on the link below, the volume is set on HIGH and I couldn’t figure out how to turn it down in the embed. Adjust your speakers accordingly!)
***********
Apart from nostalgia and related silliness, what’s on the agenda today?
Late Night Open Thread
Apparently we needed a pet pic, at least according to the last comments section. So here you go:
Please remember this picture when you see 20 lb Lily next to 22 lb Steve and want to call Steve fat. He’s not fat. He’s massive. He’s magnificent.
Who Fucking Cares?
Dominance Displays Among the GOP Hardcore
#GOPScamPAC RT @AaronBlakeWP: The Draft Ben Carson super PAC raised $2.4m last quarter. Spent $2.2m on fundraising. http://t.co/mn69shtY2A
— Brad Friedman (@TheBradBlog) April 17, 2014
Jane Goodall explained for us, fifty years ago, how a crafty primate could use the simple tools at hand to increase his noise-producing capacity, and thereby his social dominance in the local tribe. Molly Ball, at the Atlantic, reports on the simple tools heartland patriots of last weekend’s Freedom Summit:
Ted Cruz Is Beating Rand Paul in the Tea Party Primary
… Saturday’s Freedom Summit, billed as an early audition for potential 2016 candidates, provided a rare opportunity for right-wing activists to directly compare the Texan and the Kentuckian. The senators spoke practically back to back, and the crowd clearly loved them both. But Cruz’s theatrical delivery wowed them more than Paul’s comparatively cerebral appeal, and his rhetorical focus on conservative red meat found more favor than Paul’s detours into libertarian concerns….Both headlined weekend events with the New Hampshire Republican Party in addition to appearing at the summit, which was sponsored by Citizens United and Americans for Prosperity. (Yes, the Supreme Court plaintiff that helped deregulate campaign finance and the Koch Brothers’ political nonprofit collaborated—a liberal conspiracy theory come to life.) Cruz finished his speech by asking audience members to subscribe to text-message alerts for his “movement,” a tech-savvy means of building a list of grassroots supporters…
…[T]he decidedly Tea Party crowd also gave a warm welcome to right-wing gadfly Donald Trump and talk-radio host Mike Huckabee, both of whom are also flirting with presidential runs. Potential candidates with more establishment appeal, such as former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, were not on the schedule; Trump castigated Bush for his sympathetic view of illegal immigrants, and multiple speakers, including Cruz, bashed the Common Core educational standards, which Bush vocally supports. Scott Brown, the former Massachusetts senator now running in New Hampshire, also declined to appear at the event…
(Rude aside from a Masshole: Cosmo Boy Brown knows his appeal, such as it is, lies with the ‘moderates’ of what used to be called the Establishment GOP. He’s too lazy to go full-metal anklebiter with the True Believers, especially if he can make just as nice a living touring the country-club luncheons to View with Alarum and deplore the death of bipartisanship, as was in the glory days of Ike and ‘Poppy’ Bush.)
Dominance Displays Among the GOP HardcorePost + Comments (19)