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You are here: Home / Anderson On Health Insurance / This is not confusing at all

This is not confusing at all

by David Anderson|  March 10, 201712:08 pm| 163 Comments

This post is in: Anderson On Health Insurance

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In the AHCA there is a two year bridge period where the income based subsidies that tie to the second least expensive Silver would be maintained in form. However the bill on page 78 modifies the points at which subsidies attach themselves. The new table is based on income and age. Younger adults get a much better deal than older adults. Below is the age by age attachment point of federal subsidies. This is the expected payment for individuals for the second least expensive Silver as a function of their age and income as measured by the Federal Poverty Level.

It is not confusing at all… not at all.

The goal of this plan is to make insurance more expensive for old people and less expensive for young people. And it will do that. I also think the CBO would score this as having minimal net budget impact as increased subsidies for younger people will be counterbalanced by fewer and lower subsidies for older people.

Data is here for your use.

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163Comments

  1. 1.

    Yarrow

    March 10, 2017 at 12:17 pm

    I was in the car yesterday and listened to a lot of NPR off and on. One segment they interviewed someone about this bill. They talked about this issue that old people will pay a lot more and young people will pay less. The person they interviewed said the Republicans were saying that because insurance will be cheap for young people that they expect a lot more young people will buy insurance and thus in the system. The inference was that this would somehow help the insurance pool and costs.

    I am not sure I agree with that. If they take away the penalty for having no health insurance, will young people really buy it? Don’t young people often think they’re invincible? Has there been any kind of study done to determine at what price point young people will definitely take the time to research and buy insurance?

  2. 2.

    Baud

    March 10, 2017 at 12:20 pm

    At one level, this is the least offensive part to me, given voting patterns.

  3. 3.

    rikyrah

    March 10, 2017 at 12:21 pm

    so, the AARP is right.

    It’s an Age Tax.

  4. 4.

    donnah

    March 10, 2017 at 12:22 pm

    And will the CBO take this on its face, and approve it as a less expensive alternative to the ACA?

  5. 5.

    tony in san diego

    March 10, 2017 at 12:24 pm

    @donnah: we dont need no stinkin’ CBO

  6. 6.

    Clem

    March 10, 2017 at 12:24 pm

    Better save up when you are young for when you get old (50-65) because you are going to need it. What, you say you were trying to save for retirement? Don’t worry, we are going to change the retirement age to 70 and give you more years to save. It’s all good, hahhahah

  7. 7.

    tony in san diego

    March 10, 2017 at 12:25 pm

    @Clem: save? what the hell is “save”? Save what?

  8. 8.

    Major Major Major Major

    March 10, 2017 at 12:27 pm

    @Clem: @tony in san diego: So, like, fewer iPhones, then? I buy those things by the truckload, I guess I could cut back.

  9. 9.

    Yarrow

    March 10, 2017 at 12:33 pm

    @rikyrah: It is an Age Tax. And I just called my Senators and used that exact framing in telling them why I didn’t want them to support the bill. I also told them I’m a constituent, a registered voter and I vote in every election.

    Scare them that the Olds don’t support the bill. Old white people are their base. Scare them.

  10. 10.

    Another Scott

    March 10, 2017 at 12:37 pm

    @donnah: IIRC, there were times in the W mal-administration where the CBO was given explicit instructions to consider some things and not others. “Dynamic Scoring” and all that.

    The details of the CBO findings are probably going to depend very strongly on the instructions they’re given.

    Look for what happens in years 11+. Under the Reconciliation rules, IIRC, these wonky budget numbers only work for 10 years – after that the provisions that blow up the deficit have to end or be voted on via normal (filibusterable) rules (recall all the battles about “making the Bush Tax Cuts permanent”). Don’t be at all surprised if games are played to say everything is fine in years 1-10 but everything explodes (“This is fine!”) starting in year 11.

    And AFAIK, the CBO has no way of factoring in the destruction of the individual insurance market. Yeah, Trumpcare won’t cost very much if nobody can afford it…

    :-/

    We know that Ryan and McConnell and all the rest are going to do everything in their power to pass whatever they want, and Donnie will sign it. They don’t care about the actual numbers, they’ll bend and twist them and make up numbers to try to give their caucuses cover.

    All that said, it’ll be interesting to see what the CBO comes up with, even if it is very unlikely to change the outcome. Only their voters screaming at them has a chance to do that…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  11. 11.

    mdblanche

    March 10, 2017 at 12:38 pm

    @Yarrow: I don’t know about young people in general, but my cousin isn’t feeling very invincible right now after his dirt bike accident this weekend. Fortunately he’s still young enough to be covered by his parents’ insurance…

  12. 12.

    Chet Murthy

    March 10, 2017 at 12:38 pm

    @tony in san diego: For that cardboard coffin. Your American birthright.

  13. 13.

    Yarrow

    March 10, 2017 at 12:39 pm

    @mdblanche: But if his parents are on the exchange and can’t afford insurance (because Age Tax), he won’t be covered either. I wonder if that issue is being factored into the calculations?

  14. 14.

    Clem

    March 10, 2017 at 12:41 pm

    @tony in san diego: I think you have to make a fair amount of money to save anything. I was raised to save money so I tried to save 20% until I retired and when I got there, my savings looked like shit. So not only do you need to make enough to save but you need to save a large amount of dollars. The Yglesias quote from Greg Mankiw is telling about the GOP attitude toward low incomes. If you have low-income, it’s your fault for not providing society with a service society places high value on. Don’t expect any help from the exalted elite.

    Probably goes without saying but if you are in your 50’s especially if you are a woman and you loose your job, you better have some savings to liquidate because there is a real good chance you won’t find another good paying job.

  15. 15.

    Clem

    March 10, 2017 at 12:47 pm

    @mdblanche: I remember when I was young, I rode motorcycle and made sure I had a high deductible insurance plan that covered hospital bills. And I always knew the difference in my savings account and the deductible. I got by with a concussion and major bike damage but there were numerous times I say my life flashing in front of my eyes. When I got married, I upped my insurance to actually help pay for anticipated services.

  16. 16.

    Clem

    March 10, 2017 at 12:48 pm

    David, what is a notch point?

  17. 17.

    jl

    March 10, 2017 at 12:50 pm

    I read that the GOP vision for the ultimate destination is to eliminate risk sharing between healthy and chronically ill. They can’t do it all in one fell blow, so looks like this is the first start in move to very cheap catastrophic coverage for healthy, and then move anyone seriously ill or with chronic condition into a separate pool (edit: which would be designed to be an state-level poverty health program for the sicker people.)

    Beyond the issue of the new plan being an ‘age tax’, is an efficiency issue. Why are their no policies that allow you to buy mutliyear health insurance to protect you against chronic illness or history of serious health issue that would remove your ability to pool risk with the healthy? Oh, that’s right, PPACA did that to some extent.

    Back in the good old days, when the lesser people were stolid, self-reliant and didn’t whine and cry for handouts from the government, the damndest thing happened. Nanny state governments would put in meddlesome regulations to ensure long term insurance policies could exist for some product lines. The prime example was life insurance. That was back from the late 18th century to the 1840s.

    For health insurance, the GOP thinks that is a bad idea, at the beginning of the 21st century.

    Edit: in econ speak, in financial markets as opposed to real goods and services, the social optimum is often not ‘incentive compatable’. People have an incentive to opt out of risk sharing contracts that would benefit everyone. Another way of saying it is that it is difficult to distinguish optimal choice for some people from shirking.

  18. 18.

    mai naem mobile

    March 10, 2017 at 12:50 pm

    Can we at least refer to it as the FUAHCA?

  19. 19.

    Chet Murthy

    March 10, 2017 at 12:53 pm

    Maybe someone can explain something I just don’t understand. Why is there any age-related penalty in Obamacare at ALL? Everybody is young once. Everybody will be old once (and, they hope, forever). So why should young Chet pay less per year than old Chet? We’re not talking about the healthy subsidizing the sick — we’re talking about the young not saving for when they’re old.

    Now, I can imagine two responses, but neither is very convincing:

    (1) what about people who are already old, and thus will free-ride? Answer: yeah, social security had the same problem, eh. It’s the price we pay for social harmony, that we allow free riders. Like, every farmer for the last century who gets $$ from all of us, for not farming.

    (2) maybe the young have less money than the old. This seems like the ONLY decent argument. And this is fundamentally about ABILITY TO PAY. Not about who gets sick and who’s healthy.

    [I’m purposely setting aside the “social insurance” aspect of health insurance, and focusing only on this young-vs-old thing, b/c it’s seems so trivial to knock down. But maybe I’m just slow …]

  20. 20.

    Villago Delenda Est

    March 10, 2017 at 12:57 pm

    Yo, teabagger idiots: they’re fucking you over.

  21. 21.

    David Anderson

    March 10, 2017 at 12:58 pm

    @Another Scott: Actually, the CBO will look at what happens in the employer sponsored insurance (ESI) market as that is a massive fiscal center. ESI gets a huge tax break so anything that touches ESI by either increasing the dollars spent on coverage there or decreasing it by dumping people into the indivdual market has immediate 1st order effects on the budget. ESI will be examined.

  22. 22.

    Baud

    March 10, 2017 at 1:00 pm

    @Chet Murthy: It’s a modified form of community rating that allows rates to reflects costs. Young are cheaper to cover, so their insurance is cheaper.

    You could have one rate for everything, but then more young people would have an incentive not to get insurance.

  23. 23.

    David Anderson

    March 10, 2017 at 1:01 pm

    @Clem: If I graphed this with solid lines instead of dots, it is points where the line either jumps or drops. Look at 39 to 40 and 49 to 50 for notch points.

  24. 24.

    Villago Delenda Est

    March 10, 2017 at 1:01 pm

    @Clem:

    The Yglesias quote from Greg Mankiw is telling about the GOP attitude toward low incomes. If you have low-income, it’s your fault for not providing society with a service society places high value on. Don’t expect any help from the exalted elite.

    This is how one gets onto tumbrel manifests.

  25. 25.

    Villago Delenda Est

    March 10, 2017 at 1:04 pm

    @Baud: Young are cheaper to cover because they are mostly healthy, and thus demand less health care.

    I wonder how much stress retirees put on the active duty health care system for the military. Is it a significant percentage of the overall costs? Remember that most Iraq/Afghanistan veterans are not on that system…they’re with the VA, because they don’t qualify anymore to be on the active duty health care system.

  26. 26.

    Mnemosyne

    March 10, 2017 at 1:07 pm

    Back when I was a Young, I took employer-based health insurance anywhere that offered it, because my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer in her late 20s and died of it when she was 38. I had no illusions that being young meant I was magically protected from getting sick.

  27. 27.

    jl

    March 10, 2017 at 1:07 pm

    @Chet Murthy: I think because to enforce complete risk pooling would be too much stick and not enough carrot. Too many people would opt out of insurance at younger ages, and then have to pay really stiff tax penalties. So, an age adjustment is a compromise.

    Here is the thing. You are young and opt out of the socially mandated formula for smoothing the risk of high health costs over the life cycle. You don’t buy anything, or just buy a very skimpy catastrophic policy that the market currently offers. Well, hell, why mess with that? The wisdom of the market, right? Problem is that, as a function of each person making that kind of choice, what the market offers will evolve towards less and less risk sharing until there is essentially none. Then one day, there are a lot of people who have insurable risks and would like to risk pool with someone, but they are locked out of the market. They are willing to pay fair price for insurance, given their risks, but they can’t. That is called market failure.

    What is an ‘pre-existing condition’ that prevents a person from getting an insurance policy at any price is not an exogenous given. It evolves over time as a function of healthier people making either optimal free market choices (or free riding, which it is depends on your point of view).

    Before the PPACA the process had evolved to such an absurd extent that docs would not honestly record health status in medical records to avoid patients risking being locked out of the market due to evolving standards of what a ‘pre-existing condition’ would be someday, or in another market, or if the patient had to leave the group policy market.

    The fundamental problem with the GOP’s vision is that they want an unregulated free market competitive equilibrium for insurance markets. But that very probably does not exist. So depending on that solution to solve problems will result in certain difficulties. Not even the more consistent reactionary dream of cash-n-carry medicine will not work over the long term. Comprehensive health insurance began as non-profit associations (the Blues) that helped assure that docs could make a living through the depression.

  28. 28.

    Chet Murthy

    March 10, 2017 at 1:08 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: Oh, hell yeah. Mankiw has a really low number! He had the cheek to write that all those banksters deserved their payouts.

    Somewhat OT: anybody noticed how Delong uses “very smart” as an adjective, as in “the very smart Greg Mankiw says …”? And often, Delong is disagreeing with this “very smart” person. At first, it was offputting, but then I decided he was trying hard to not raise hackles. So complimenting before sticking in the shiv, so to speak. Now I find it kinda delicious.

    God, Mankiw is such a hack. And he’s teaching our future leaders at Harvard.

  29. 29.

    Villago Delenda Est

    March 10, 2017 at 1:09 pm

    @jl:

    helped assure that docs could make a living through the depression.

    Making a living is no longer enough.

    Making a killing is the only possible option, no matter who is harmed in the process.

  30. 30.

    Lizzy L

    March 10, 2017 at 1:10 pm

    David, doesn’t the CBO score have to take the AHCA tax cuts into account? How will those factor into the numbers?

  31. 31.

    Villago Delenda Est

    March 10, 2017 at 1:11 pm

    @Chet Murthy: Sarcasm beyond the comprehension range of “conservatives”.

  32. 32.

    amygdala

    March 10, 2017 at 1:12 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: They may or may not be in the VA. It can be astonishingly hard to get into the system, even in the face of, say, losing a limb or something similar. Maybe there’s a system for tracking these vets, but I doubt it. Also, it’s worth remembering that contractors, who also get PTSD and such at high rates, are out of the system, too.

    I don’t think it’s so easy to capture fully these long-term costs of our unending wars.

  33. 33.

    Clem

    March 10, 2017 at 1:12 pm

    @David Anderson: Thanks

  34. 34.

    Clem

    March 10, 2017 at 1:14 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: Yes, one would hope but I’ll bet Trump voters think it’s the word of God helping Trump to make america great again.

  35. 35.

    Chet Murthy

    March 10, 2017 at 1:15 pm

    @jl: Ah. I think you’re saying “Chet, start with the assumption that markets always work”. HA! I didn’t even realize my prior was “markets for insurance don’t work”. So yeah, I get you now.

    It’s all just spillovers. The young want the spillover benefit of their low risk. The old want to be compensated for the spillover harm of high risk. Neither is intellectually honest enough to realize that the two are mirror-images, in each and every individual life.

    It’s like that old joke: “what do you call a libertarian who gets cancer? A liberal.”

  36. 36.

    Villago Delenda Est

    March 10, 2017 at 1:15 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Yah, but you have two synapses to rub together, unlike this guy.

  37. 37.

    SenyorDave

    March 10, 2017 at 1:17 pm

    @Clem: The Yglesias quote from Greg Mankiw is telling about the GOP attitude toward low incomes. If you have low-income, it’s your fault for not providing society with a service society places high value on. Don’t expect any help from the exalted elite.

    Why not just put these less high valued folks on an island and leave them to do? Too slow? Maybe we can learn from some people who really knew how to deal with “undesirables”. Build some camps, fence them in with barbed wire, and put them to work. At that point when society no longer values their services, it will be easy to dispose of them.

    Pretty easy to go all Godwin when you have assholes like Mankiw to work with.

  38. 38.

    jheartney

    March 10, 2017 at 1:17 pm

    Just from a political point of view, the idea of sticking it to the olds while offering a sweet deal to the young seems bonkers. Which of those two groups contains more reliable voters? And which group helped the GOP get in power?

  39. 39.

    Villago Delenda Est

    March 10, 2017 at 1:18 pm

    @amygdala:

    I don’t think it’s so easy to capture fully these long-term costs of our unending wars.

    Which is a good thing or we’d be adverse to getting into them in the first place, thus depriving Darth Cheney’s cronies of their revenue stream.

  40. 40.

    jl

    March 10, 2017 at 1:18 pm

    The descent of Mankiw into an abject hack is sad. He is essentially saying that ALL income and wealth is explained by the marginal productivity theory of income distribution. Back in the day, the marginal productivity theory of income was a little dicey because famous economists pushing it, like Marshall, had difficulty coming up with examples that would work in the real world.

    The marginal theory of income distribution was very frankly and flat out junked and dumped for the sake of achieving a general theory of competitive equilibrium. The commie rat, the late Kenneth Arrow and his sinister collaborator Debreu were a key plotters in that sinister enterprise.

    Anyway, Mankiw is not talking any empirical economics, and not even any coherent theory when he talks like that. His spouting ideology.

  41. 41.

    amygdala

    March 10, 2017 at 1:22 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: Yeah, exactly. From that POV, feature, not a bug.

  42. 42.

    Chet Murthy

    March 10, 2017 at 1:23 pm

    @jl:

    The descent of Mankiw … His spouting ideology.

    Unkindly, b/c he sure deserves worse, I figure it happened when he worked for GWB. He got a taste for all that sweet, sweet power, and never looked back.

  43. 43.

    jl

    March 10, 2017 at 1:26 pm

    @Chet Murthy: Financial market, generically, tend to be unstable. Markets for real flow goods and services tend to be stable, and only require tinkering to ensure consumers have full information about quality of product. Markets for assets that provide real flow services are on a spectrum in between. If you want to be a virtuous civic liberal who believes that markets are useful, that is a good rule of thumb to use to keep your bearings on proper role of government.

    Regarding choices young and healthy make to opt out of full health insurance, I don’t know if it is an issue of intellectual honesty, or just that individual decisions drive market dynamics in unintended direction. I think there is as much of an analogy between individuals deciding not to get a flu shot and their chances of getting flu, as there is in shirking. They don’t think they are shirking. Many of them will be very unpleasantly surprised when no market contract is offered in the future that allows them to get health insurance at anything near a fair price. Their individual decision did not do it, but a bunch of other people made a similar decision, and that drove the market in what turned out to be a surprising direction for them.

  44. 44.

    Baud

    March 10, 2017 at 1:29 pm

    @Chet Murthy:

    It’s all just spillovers. The young want the spillover benefit of their low risk. The old want to be compensated for the spillover harm of high risk. Neither is intellectually honest enough to realize that the two are mirror-images, in each and every individual life.

    It always will be. No health care finance system is going to have a perfect match of risk and costs and benefits.

  45. 45.

    hovercraft

    March 10, 2017 at 1:33 pm

    OT: Oversight Committee Sends Letter Concerning Trump’s Deleted Tweets

    Reps. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and Elijah Cummings (D-MD), chairman and ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, sent a letter Wednesday to White House counsel Don McGahn expressing concern about the President’s habit of tweeting and then deleting posts on his two different Twitter accounts, @realdonaldtrump and @POTUS.

    The letter noted that because Trump is President, his words are part of presidential record, and that he could be in violation of the Presidential Records Act if he deletes a tweet before it can be archived.

    “Many of the messages sent from these accounts are likely to be presidential records and therefore must be preserved,” the letter reads. “It has been reported, however, that President Trump has deleted tweets, and if those tweets were not archived, it could pose a violation of the Presidential Records Act.”

    Trump deletes tweets on a fairly frequent basis, usually to clear up typos.

    The letter also touches on reports that Trump staffers were using private email accounts and encryption apps to communicate about government business. The letter recommends that staffers receive training on proper digital security and asks the administration to follow up with policies and training tools they have implemented to keep data safe.

    “Official business must be conducted in such a way as to preserve the official record of actions taken by the federal government and its employees,” the letter reads.

    “The need for data security, however, does not justify circumventing requirements established by federal recordkeeping and transparency laws,” it continues.

  46. 46.

    Villago Delenda Est

    March 10, 2017 at 1:35 pm

    @jl: Religion. Debasing Economics into something totally faith based. Destroying any semblance it might have had to actual science.

  47. 47.

    Villago Delenda Est

    March 10, 2017 at 1:36 pm

    @hovercraft: The “security” notions of the Trumpites has a lot more to do with ass covering than anything else.

  48. 48.

    ArchTeryx

    March 10, 2017 at 1:38 pm

    Reposting from dead thread (though I don’t think the fellow I was responding to is in this thread yet).

    I’ve been working on that project for 4 years. I’ve had several interviews, but no offers. Someone else always gets the job. (I’ve even done mock interviews with a hiring manager contact of mine to see if something about me is turning off potential employers. So far, nothing obvious. Just bad luck).

    The main problem is that every stinkin’ professional job listing these days comes with what I would call a Purple Squirrel List – a page-long list of qualifications you have to meet or you won’t even be interviewed. (If we screen enough squirrels, sooner or later we’ll have to find a purple one!) Sometimes, these lists get so long no suitable candidate can be found, in which case either a) the listing was fake all along (they already had a candidate) or b) they just keep the position open for several years.

    I’ve also networked locally, but none of my networking contacts have the clout to actually swing me into a job. They’ve gotten me interviews, but as above, no offers.

    That’s not even getting into the obstacle that my illness raises to me working McJobs, even entry-level professional ones.

    A job isn’t going to save me.

  49. 49.

    hovercraft

    March 10, 2017 at 1:39 pm

    @donnah: @tony in san diego:

    Pelosi: Republicans Are ‘Afraid’ Of CBO Score On Obamacare Repeal Bill
    House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Friday morning called out Republicans for moving forward on a House bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act without first seeing an analysis from the Congressional Budget Office.

    “They are afraid of that,” Pelosi said during a breakfast in Washington, DC, for reporters hosted by the Christian Science Monitor, referring to a CBO score that would project how much the bill would cost and how many people would lose their health insurance.

    The minority leader said that Democrats did not move forward with the Affordable Care Act in 2009 without the CBO report, and she noted that Republicans at the time called for the CBO to weigh in on the bill before lawmakers began to assess the legislation. She said that Republicans’ views on the CBO report have been “inconsistent.”…………..

    “I don’t see any Democratic votes for what they’re doing,” she told reporters.

    Asked if she would be willing to talk to President Donald Trump as he works to gain support for the Republican repeal bill, Pelosi indicated that “bowling at the White House” would not earn him any support.

    “I find the charm offensive offensive, I really do,” she said. “I think he’s making fools of his own people, quite frankly.”

    She said that inviting people who disagree with aspects of the legislation to the White House will not on its own help Trump gain support. She indicated she would be willing to meet with Trump only if he were ready to talk about the particulars of the legislation.

    Pelosi also dismissed Trump’s reported back-up plan to repeal — letting Obamacare fail on its own and blaming Democrats. She said the plan is “indicative of his lack of knowledge of the Affordable Care Act.”

  50. 50.

    Chet Murthy

    March 10, 2017 at 1:40 pm

    @jl:

    Regarding choices young and healthy make to opt out of full health insurance, I don’t know if it is an issue of intellectual honesty, or just that individual decisions drive market dynamics in unintended direction.

    You’re far more generous than I.

    Young: “Why should I pay as much as grandpa? I never get sick!”
    Actuary: “What? you think you’ll never get old? And when you get old, you’ll never be sick?”

    Translation: “what, did your mommy drop you on your head when you were a baby?”

  51. 51.

    jl

    March 10, 2017 at 1:40 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: At least Marshall, back in the day, had the honesty to admit that there were problems with saying that ALL income and wealth could be explained by marginal productivity (SOME of it, maybe a lot of it, but sure as hell not all of it). That idea, even then, before anyone knew whether a general equilibrium was logically consistent in general ran smack up against issues that were near and dear to Marshall, like how fixed costs and varying returns to scale explained the economics of business firms.

  52. 52.

    Baud

    March 10, 2017 at 1:49 pm

    @Chet Murthy: Young people today are told nothing they contribute to will be there for them when they get old.

  53. 53.

    raven

    March 10, 2017 at 1:51 pm

    @Baud: I never paid any attention to any of that shit until I was 50.

  54. 54.

    hovercraft

    March 10, 2017 at 1:52 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:
    Of course they are, but will the media call them out on this, will they kick up a fuss the way they did over Hillary? No.
    I’ve a new theory about this, the Obama administration was too clean, it was too boring for the villagers, so every scrap of discord or dissent was sensationalized and then put through the right wing Wurlitzer and by the time it came back as the next Ebola it was the biggest most important scandal ever.

    The next democratic president must have one scandal a week to keep the memes from sticking. Twitler and the GOP are such fuckups that the media can’t keep up and the public misses most of their incompetence because it’s out of the news cycle so fast. Russiagate is penetrating because there are new revelations every day, but even then, it’s not doing as much damage as it should, yet.

  55. 55.

    Miss Bianca

    March 10, 2017 at 1:52 pm

    @hovercraft: But…but…but…HIS TWEETS!!

  56. 56.

    Irony Abounds

    March 10, 2017 at 1:53 pm

    As a general rule, as long as you used an insurance based system, the younger healthier group should be paying less for health insurance than the older folks who use the system more. The question is how much less. The 3-1 range in premiums in the ACA isn’t some magic number derived from some undeniable mathematical formula, it was simply the ratio used. The ACA could be tweaked in a number of ways to make insurance for younger people slightly more affordable and perhaps more enticing for them to purchase. Yes, the younger folks are big winners under the AHCA (well, to the extent anyone wins under that turd), but they are the biggest losers under the ACA. The ACA has shown promise, it is just a damn shame that instead of working with Dems to do some relatively minor repairs, the asshole Republicans are hell bent on fucking things up completely.

  57. 57.

    Chet Murthy

    March 10, 2017 at 1:58 pm

    @Baud: Right. Right. I’m sorry, I keep on failing to connect these dots. When I was younger and faster, I used to say that the greatest confidence trick Reagan played, was to end nearly-free college education. So that every generation would start out indentured to The Man, and have to scrabble for a buck just to stay alive, instead of having the option to think about their fellow citizens.

    You’re pointing out the general rule behind that con, and all the rest.

  58. 58.

    Gindy51

    March 10, 2017 at 1:59 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: AHCA, Republican Eugenics for everyone!!!!!

  59. 59.

    hovercraft

    March 10, 2017 at 2:03 pm

    @ArchTeryx:
    A glimmer, and I do mean glimmer of hope?

    Tom Cotton
    ‎@TomCottonAR

    1. House health-care bill can’t pass Senate w/o major changes. To my friends in House: pause, start over. Get it right, don’t get it fast.

    5:53 AM – 9 Mar 2017

    3,002 3,002 Retweets

    5,632 5,632 likes

    Tom Cotton
    ‎@TomCottonAR

    2. GOP shouldn’t act like Dems did in O’care. No excuse to release bill Mon night, start voting Wed. With no budget estimate!

    5:58 AM – 9 Mar 2017

    1,245 1,245 Retweets

    2,394 2,394 likes

    Tom Cotton
    ‎@TomCottonAR

    3. What matters in long run is better, more affordable health care for Americans, NOT House leaders’ arbitrary legislative calendar.

    6:00 AM – 9 Mar 2017

    1,230 1,230 Retweets

    2,414 2,414 likes

    Maybe the town hall are helping and these jackals will vote against this atrocity? Keep calling, till they vote there’s still a chance.

    ETA: don’t know what’s up with the block quotes, sorry

  60. 60.

    Yarrow

    March 10, 2017 at 2:04 pm

    @ArchTeryx: Did you see my post to you in the previous thread?

  61. 61.

    Sebastian

    March 10, 2017 at 2:06 pm

    I think we should keep pointing out that Trump can’t get healthcare passed, that TrumpCare is dead in the water. Label everything and anything they do as TrumpCare, that’s what they did with ACA.

    And then … keep hammering TrumpCare is Age Tax. TrumpCare is Age Tax. Do you know that, Trump Care is an Age Tax?

    Obamacare and Death Panels, Karma is a bitch.

  62. 62.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    March 10, 2017 at 2:07 pm

    Wait until all those Trump voting 30 and 40 somethings in the burbs and exurbs realize that not only will their own health care costs be an issue, their parents are going to spend all their inheritance and reverse mortgage the house they hoped to sell one day for profit, to pay for health care. Also “filial responsibility” laws.

  63. 63.

    Yarrow

    March 10, 2017 at 2:08 pm

    @Sebastian:

    Label everything and anything they do as TrumpCare, that’s what they did with ACA.

    And then … keep hammering TrumpCare is Age Tax. TrumpCare is Age Tax. Do you know that, Trump Care is an Age Tax?

    Obamacare and Death Panel, bitches.

    YES. THIS! Label it. It’s an Age Tax. TrumpCare is an Age Tax. Why do Republicans hate old people? Why do Republicans want to hurt Old White People? Why does Trump want to hurt sweet, white grandma? Age Tax. TrumpCare. Age Tax. TrumpCare.

  64. 64.

    Yarrow

    March 10, 2017 at 2:09 pm

    @the Conster, la Citoyenne:

    Also “filial responsibility” laws.

    Yes. This, also, too. Can all those nice white people in the suburbs afford to pay for grandma’s nursing home that’s currently being paid for by Medicaid? No? Well, if you can’t pay, grandma comes home to live with you. IT’S THE LAW!

  65. 65.

    hovercraft

    March 10, 2017 at 2:12 pm

    @Miss Bianca:
    Speaking of tweets, paging Adam:
    Shabbat’s not the reason Trump tweets on Saturdays

    Within the White House, Kushner is not seen as a moderating influence so much as a structural influence. He’s concerned with making sure the administration delivers on his father-in-law’s campaign promises and asking big-picture questions about implementation rather than weighing in on the actual policies themselves.

    Trump’s friends said there’s a much simpler explanation for why the president makes his most outlandish statements on Friday night or Saturday morning: his intuitive understanding, honed from years of working the New York City tabloids, of when he can get the most attention.

    “He understands the news cycle,” said NewsMax CEO Chris Ruddy, a Mar-a-Lago member and longtime friend of Trump’s. “It’s an opportunity to get out news on a Saturday, when other news organizations aren’t pushing too much new.

    “He realizes that Saturday is a free media day for him.” Ruddy admitted that it’s not always helpful to the functioning of the government to have Trump tweeting based on information he has seen on television. On Wednesday, for instance, press secretary Sean Spicer had to clean up Trump’s Saturday wiretapping tweet. “There is no reason that we have to think the president is the target of any investigation whatsoever,” he told reporters at the regular White House briefing.

    “So many of the comments may impact various departments of the government,” said Ruddy. Beyond relying on Kushner and Ivanka Trump as the president’s better angels, he admitted, “there may need to be a better process.”

    I don’t but it, I think if his babysitters were on duty they’d stop at least half this crap. Or at the very least ensure there wasn’t a phone in the bathroom during his alone time.

  66. 66.

    schrodingers_cat

    March 10, 2017 at 2:12 pm

    @hovercraft: That man is running for 2020.

  67. 67.

    TenguPhule

    March 10, 2017 at 2:12 pm

    @the Conster, la Citoyenne:

    Wait until all those Trump voting 30 and 40 somethings in the burbs and exurbs realize that not only will their own health care costs be an issue, their parents are going to spend all their inheritance and reverse mortgage the house they hoped to sell one day for profit, to pay for health care.

    The downside to that is that we’re all dead by then. Trump’s plans aren’t designed to last twenty weeks, let alone 20 years.

  68. 68.

    mai naem mobile

    March 10, 2017 at 2:15 pm

    I think people are over thinking the GOP plan – Olds vs.Youngs etc. I think they know they’re on their way out and they want to get the tax cuts for their overlords and then get the hell out of Dodge and get their financial rewards from their overlords. The voter ID stuff, jailing minorities, decreasing non white immigration, deporting non whites are all Hail Mary passes which will give them a few more years. The US is becoming less white. Young people are turning away from GOP positions, people are getting married less, people are becoming less religipus. They aren’t going to change any of that long term.

  69. 69.

    Another Scott

    March 10, 2017 at 2:15 pm

    @David Anderson: Thanks.

    In related health news, US State Department orders NY ME not to release cause of Churkin’s death.

    Hmm….

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  70. 70.

    David Anderson

    March 10, 2017 at 2:16 pm

    @Lizzy L: I don’t know. We will see what the CBO projects soon enough.

  71. 71.

    Kay

    March 10, 2017 at 2:17 pm

    Someone copied me on their email to a GOP House member re: TrumpCare:

    Your staffer lied to me

    There’s more but that’s the general idea.

    Don’t screw with her. She knows this stuff :)

  72. 72.

    hovercraft

    March 10, 2017 at 2:20 pm

    @Another Scott:
    Interesting, I wonder was he a tea drinker, just askin.

    The state department has it’s hands full these days.

    State Dept. Spox: ‘Unaware’ Mexican Official Was Meeting With Kushner

    The State Department appeared to be caught off guard by the news that Mexico’s foreign minister was in Washington and meeting with President Trump’s inner circle on Thursday.

    During his third day of daily press briefings, after not holding any for the first six weeks of the Trump administration, acting State Department spokesperson Mark Toner seemed not to know that Mexican Foreign Secretary Luis Videgaray was in town, meeting with White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster and National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn.

  73. 73.

    Argiope

    March 10, 2017 at 2:22 pm

    If I were really cynical, I’d think this is ZEGS’s plan to gradually defund Social Security and Medicare without actually touching the rules….because fewer older people will be around to collect benefits. I had a 49-year-old woman in rural KY come see me back before Obamacare because she felt that “something’s wrong”—and it sure was. Exam-room positive advanced cervical cancer, that she died of 8 months later. She had no insurance (of course) and hadn’t had a Pap for 23 years.

  74. 74.

    TenguPhule

    March 10, 2017 at 2:23 pm

    @Another Scott: Its not confusing at all! Because he didn’t die from foul play, but the cause of death is a State secret protected by Russia’s diplomatic immunity!

    Perhaps someone should flash the queen of diamonds at Trump and see what happens.

  75. 75.

    ArchTeryx

    March 10, 2017 at 2:24 pm

    @Yarrow: Yes, about Soonergrunt? What should I ask him exactly? I have followed him on Twitter and can now send messages to him.

  76. 76.

    sukabi

    March 10, 2017 at 2:26 pm

    @David Anderson: speaking of employer sponsored health insurance, what do you think of this bill that’s being pushed regarding genetic testing and “voluntary” wellness programs?

  77. 77.

    Aleta

    March 10, 2017 at 2:36 pm

    A woman in her 40s, talking about not reenrolling in her ACA plan, said to me “I don’t get anything out of it — so why should I keep paying in.” (She has a degree in plant science and one in animal science, and has done lab and field research. She also has years of experience paying insurance on her truck.) I can only think she got this idea from the ‘yahoos for fox news’ club members she drinks with.

  78. 78.

    David Anderson

    March 10, 2017 at 2:36 pm

    @sukabi: I have a post in the hopper on that for tomorrow.

    It is a massive tax on bad luck as it will either make people unemployable or lead to much lower wages.

  79. 79.

    MomSense

    March 10, 2017 at 2:40 pm

    @ArchTeryx:

    I’m so sorry, AT. I wish I had words of comfort to offer. I’m rooting for you and praying in my non theist way that you will survive this.

  80. 80.

    Yarrow

    March 10, 2017 at 2:47 pm

    @ArchTeryx: Did you click through to the post I also linked in that comment? It’s where he talks about his daughter.

    I thought you might be able to ask him—probably through DM–if he has any connections in the Crohn’s community and if he knows of any actions that are happening. Let him know you’re a regular poster here and know about his daughter’s diagnosis. Are there any actions in his neck of the woods that you could join in on, or offer your story for. Any parent with a kid who has a chronic condition has to be concerned about their child’s future. It’s just a way of making connections. You indicated you weren’t having luck connecting with the Crohn’s community in terms of them taking action, so maybe someone in a different are might. Not sure it will help but at least it’s an idea. Last I heard he was working in IT in a hospital, so who knows, maybe he knows of some job openings.

  81. 81.

    Brachiator

    March 10, 2017 at 2:49 pm

    @sukabi:

    speaking of employer sponsored health insurance, what do you think of this bill that’s being pushed regarding genetic testing and “voluntary” wellness programs?

    WTF?

    Republican legislators are strange people. They promised the Deluded and the Deplorable that they would repeal Obamacare because it supposedly infringed on their sweet liberty rights to fight good affordable healthcare. And in reality they have all these little provisions that give tremendous power to the insurance companies and trample all over the rights of people who just want to be able to go to the doctor or the hospital.

    I look forward to the David Anderson posting on the “voluntary” wellness programs.

  82. 82.

    jl

    March 10, 2017 at 2:51 pm

    @Argiope: You’re not being all that cynical. Repeal of upper income payroll tax hike will create Medicare funding problems four or five years sooner than under PPACA, and if the Trump/Ryan plan blows up the so-far relatively successful PPACA cost control efforts, even sooner than that.

    More or less assumed in common-sense, reality based policy discussions that going after Medicare is next on Ryan’s agenda, and current bill preps the way for that goal.

  83. 83.

    sukabi

    March 10, 2017 at 2:51 pm

    @David Anderson: for all the crap the GOP push about planned parenthood being all about eugenics, it seems to me that a good portion of the rich white menfolks that run things are working toward employing only genetically ‘perfect’ individuals…

    Not too many of them around, and with them working on gutting the EPA there will be even fewer in the future…

  84. 84.

    Spanky

    March 10, 2017 at 2:54 pm

    @Another Scott: And the State Dept has jurisdiction over the NY State Medical Examiner how, now?

  85. 85.

    rikyrah

    March 10, 2017 at 2:55 pm

    @sukabi:

    @David Anderson: speaking of employer sponsored health insurance, what do you think of this bill that’s being pushed regarding genetic testing and “voluntary” wellness programs?

    But, they are the party of limited government, remember.

    uh huh

  86. 86.

    catclub

    March 10, 2017 at 2:56 pm

    @Clem: Can I just point out that the GOP tax credit plan is a big government one-size-fits-all solution imposed on the states, while the ACA tailors health insurance credits based on individual state insurance markets.

  87. 87.

    Roger Moore

    March 10, 2017 at 2:57 pm

    @SenyorDave:

    Why not just put these less high valued folks on an island and leave them to do?

    Because who will do the work then? This is the real problem: our market does a lousy job of valuing people’s work. We pay people who do essential stuff, like growing food, get paid shit. People who sit at the top and watch other people do work for them get paid like kings. A major reason the ultra-rich are so invested in the idea of markets being perfect is because it morally justifies their wealth. Once you start questioning why we can’t just do away with the poor, it calls a whole lot about our current system into question.

  88. 88.

    hovercraft

    March 10, 2017 at 2:58 pm

    Putting an end to the debate about the GOP as a ‘governing party’
    03/10/17 01:06 PM—Updated 03/10/17 01:44 PM
    By Steve Benen

    MSNBC’s Chris Hayes talked with Rep. Leonard Lance (R-N.J.) last night about the Republican health care plan, which Lance voted for in committee yesterday. Chris asked a simple question early on, which ordinarily wouldn’t even come up after a committee vote: “How many hearings – open hearings with witness testimony and the like – have you had on this bill?”

    Lance dodged, saying Republicans had held hearings about their opposition to the Affordable Care Act, so Chris asked again, “In this Congress, though. How many hearings in this Congress on this bill?” Lance dodged again, referring to 2016 campaign rhetoric. Chris stuck with it, asking, “I get that, but there`s legislative language now. I’m just curious, how many hearings has your committee had on this bill?”

    Lance dodged again, and Chris asked again. The two went back and forth multiple times, with the Republican congressman refusing to acknowledge that his committee hasn’t held any hearings on the American Health Care Act, which some have labeled “Trumpcare.” Lance eventually said he thinks maybe the Senate will hold some “discussion” about the legislation.

    Let’s pause for a moment to note the purpose of a congressional hearing. Members of Congress, even those who’ve made up their minds, participate in legislative hearings to explore an issue in detail, hear from subject-matter experts, ask questions of authorities, dig into substantive nuances, and ideally use the information gleaned from the Q&A to shape legislative language.

    This week, however, House Republicans took up legislation that will affect tens of millions of people, and have a direct impact on a fifth of the world’s largest economy, but instead of holding committee hearings, they held votes. They could’ve discussed policy implications with experts in the field; they could’ve waited for the Congressional Budget Office to tell them how much the bill will cost; they could’ve found out how many Americans will lose coverage if their plan is implemented; they could’ve talked to medical professionals, hospital administers, and governors.

    But they skipped this step. House Republicans proceeded with self-imposed blinders, effectively legislating in the dark, for one painfully obvious reason: they don’t care about substantive policy details. (This unfolded around the time the White House press secretary said his party’s plan is superior to the Affordable Care Act because the former fits on fewer pieces of paper.)

    I wish this were a case in which GOP lawmakers disagreed with stakeholders – doctors, nurses, hospitals, scorekeepers, et al – because Republicans believed the experts were wrong on the merits. That, at least, could be the basis for a credible debate. Instead, GOP members of Congress have declared that the merits simply don’t matter to them. They’re annoying trivialities that simply get in the way.

    And therein lies the broader point: Republicans are offering striking evidence that they are a post-policy party. They’ve abandoned the pretense that substance guides their work in any meaningful way.

    House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) told reporters this week, when asked about intra-party divisions, “I think what you’re seeing is: We’re going through the inevitable growing pains of being an opposition party to becoming a governing party.”

    If that’s true, these “growing pains” have proven to be debilitating, because real governing parties in modern global superpowers would never dream of legislating the way Ryan’s party is.

    The New York Times’ Neil Irwin wrote a good piece a couple of weeks ago, before the new GOP health plan was unveiled, noting the challenges associated with the Republican Party’s “wonk gap.” Irwin explained, “Large portions of the Republican caucus embrace a kind of policy nihilism. They criticize any piece of legislation that doesn’t completely accomplish conservative goals, but don’t build coalitions to devise complex legislation themselves. The roster of congressional Republicans includes lots of passionate ideological voices. It is lighter on the kind of wonkish, compromise-oriented technocrats who move bills.”

    He added that most GOP lawmakers often have an “aversion to doing the messy work of making policy…. If you make a career opposing even the basic work of making the government run, it’s hard to pivot to writing major legislation.”

    The fact that Republicans policymaking muscles have atrophied may be understandable under the circumstances – GOP lawmakers working with a GOP administration haven’t tackled a major legislative initiative since George W. Bush’s first term – but what’s less understandable is how little they’re willing to even try now.

  89. 89.

    Aleta

    March 10, 2017 at 2:59 pm

    @ArchTeryx: (Not helpful to you probably, but) I’ve seen a lot of examples of a). The requirements are written to describe someone who’s already been doing the research on a part-time or one year contract, and now there is funding to make the position full time. They have to list it, but (supposedly) don’t want to waste the time of more general applicants. There’s sometimes a chance that they can decide/afford to keep the soft money position going also, if the right person applies.

  90. 90.

    jl

    March 10, 2017 at 3:01 pm

    @catclub: Saw a graph showing how,for the states on the federal exchange, the one-size fits all approach really takes an ax, a big sharp ax, to folks in most of the deep red Trump majority states. When I have time will look around for where I saw that and post a link.

    I dunno why Trump wants to do favors to blue states on federal exchange, but very hard to make sense of Trump ‘plans’ unless they are so nuts that what happens is mostly dumb luck and brute chance.

  91. 91.

    Ruviana

    March 10, 2017 at 3:01 pm

    @Aleta: Like the blog I like to hate-read sometimes. Both educated, she with a degree in Chemistry!!! and they argue that the sun revolves around the earth.

  92. 92.

    hovercraft

    March 10, 2017 at 3:01 pm

    @rikyrah:
    I think you mean the party of not governing.

    Putting an end to the debate about the GOP as a ‘governing party’
    03/10/17 01:06 PM—Updated 03/10/17 01:44 PM

    By Steve Benen

    I wish this were a case in which GOP lawmakers disagreed with stakeholders – doctors, nurses, hospitals, scorekeepers, et al – because Republicans believed the experts were wrong on the merits. That, at least, could be the basis for a credible debate. Instead, GOP members of Congress have declared that the merits simply don’t matter to them. They’re annoying trivialities that simply get in the way.

    And therein lies the broader point: Republicans are offering striking evidence that they are a post-policy party. They’ve abandoned the pretense that substance guides their work in any meaningful way.

    House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) told reporters this week, when asked about intra-party divisions, “I think what you’re seeing is: We’re going through the inevitable growing pains of being an opposition party to becoming a governing party.”

    If that’s true, these “growing pains” have proven to be debilitating, because real governing parties in modern global superpowers would never dream of legislating the way Ryan’s party is.

    The New York Times’ Neil Irwin wrote a good piece a couple of weeks ago, before the new GOP health plan was unveiled, noting the challenges associated with the Republican Party’s “wonk gap.” Irwin explained, “Large portions of the Republican caucus embrace a kind of policy nihilism. They criticize any piece of legislation that doesn’t completely accomplish conservative goals, but don’t build coalitions to devise complex legislation themselves. The roster of congressional Republicans includes lots of passionate ideological voices. It is lighter on the kind of wonkish, compromise-oriented technocrats who move bills.”

    He added that most GOP lawmakers often have an “aversion to doing the messy work of making policy…. If you make a career opposing even the basic work of making the government run, it’s hard to pivot to writing major legislation.”

    The fact that Republicans policymaking muscles have atrophied may be understandable under the circumstances – GOP lawmakers working with a GOP administration haven’t tackled a major legislative initiative since George W. Bush’s first term – but what’s less understandable is how little they’re willing to even try now.

  93. 93.

    Yarrow

    March 10, 2017 at 3:02 pm

    @hovercraft: That’s got to be BS covering after the fact. At some point they probably realized it’s a kind of dead day for news, so in some ways it keeps him in the news. And in his former incarnations all publicity is good publicity. But there’s zero way they can make him stop tweeting.

    No adviser in their right mind would have had him tweet what he did last Saturday. He released information that wasn’t already in the public about an ongoing investigation by the DOJ. It’s an impeachable offense. See: Nixon, Richard.

  94. 94.

    Another Scott

    March 10, 2017 at 3:02 pm

    @Spanky: The Great and Powerful O.Z.P.I.N.H.E.A.D. Trump can tell anyone what to do and they better step-to-it!!1

    :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.
    (Who noticed that, also too.)

  95. 95.

    TenguPhule

    March 10, 2017 at 3:04 pm

    I’m amazed the Trump people managed to hide it this long

    Seriously, its becoming a running gag at this point.

  96. 96.

    HRA

    March 10, 2017 at 3:04 pm

    My health insurance provider has been giving wellness programs for some years now. You can find it here:

    https://www.independenthealth.com/IndividualsFamilies/ToolsFormsMore/WellnessDiscounts#!/

  97. 97.

    TenguPhule

    March 10, 2017 at 3:05 pm

    @Yarrow:

    No adviser in their right mind would have had him tweet what he did last Saturday.

    Haven’t we already established that NONE of his advisers are in their right minds?

  98. 98.

    Baud

    March 10, 2017 at 3:05 pm

    @jl: If there is any thought to it, it could be they think their stranglehold on the red states is complete, so this is a way to gain support among D voters.

  99. 99.

    catclub

    March 10, 2017 at 3:06 pm

    @hovercraft:

    If you make a career opposing even the basic work of making the government run, it’s hard to pivot to writing major legislation

    but easy to get a job heading the EPA.

  100. 100.

    rikyrah

    March 10, 2017 at 3:09 pm

    Republicans take aim at men paying for prenatal care
    03/10/17 10:44 AM—UPDATED 03/10/17 10:48 AM
    By Steve Benen
    One of my favorite moments of the legislative debate on the Affordable Care Act came in September 2009, during an otherwise unremarkable committee hearing. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), at the time the Senate Minority Whip, was complaining bitterly about proposed benefits to be included in a standard benefit package.

    To drive home his point, the Arizona Republican said, “I don’t need maternity care.”

    ”I think your mom probably did,” Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) replied.

    While that should’ve effectively ended the argument forever, four years later, this came up again during a House hearing, when Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.) also complained about standard benefits covering maternity care. “To the best of your knowledge has a man ever delivered a baby?” the Republican congresswoman asked Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

    This week, as the Washington Post reported, it happened once more, as yet another GOP lawmaker took aim the “Obamacare” provision that requires health plans to cover pregnancy and childbirth.

    At the start, Democratic Rep. Mike Doyle (Pa.) was talking with Republican Rep. John Shimkus (Ill.) about Shimkus’s objections to the Affordable Care Act’s requirements for health-insurance plans…. “What mandate in the Obamacare bill does he take issue with?” Doyle asked Shimkus, using the formal parlance of congressional committees.

    “What about men having to purchase prenatal care?” Shimkus said.

    At that point, one could hear the room start to stir. “I’m just … is that not correct?” Shimkus said. “And should they?”

  101. 101.

    catclub

    March 10, 2017 at 3:10 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    We pay people who do essential stuff, like growing food, get paid shit

    The relative pay scales of airline pilots and bus drivers are comparable, and many lives depend on their work, but tax accountants are probably paid far more than either of them.

  102. 102.

    Yarrow

    March 10, 2017 at 3:10 pm

    @Ruviana: Oh, I’ve read that blog before! They seem kind of nuts. They are really committed to their chosen lifestyle, that’s for sure.

  103. 103.

    Roger Moore

    March 10, 2017 at 3:11 pm

    @Baud:

    Young people today are told nothing they contribute to will be there for them when they get old.

    This. This is the whole point of the Republican lie that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. It’s divide and conquer. They set the young against the old by claiming programs for the old are an inter-generational ripoff, and then use that as a justification for destroying those programs.

  104. 104.

    rikyrah

    March 10, 2017 at 3:12 pm

    In the Russia scandal, many key players have bad memories
    03/10/17 11:26 AM
    By Steve Benen
    During his Senate confirmation hearing, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said he did not meet with any Russian officials during the 2016 campaign, despite two meetings he had with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Asked about the purpose of the meetings, Sessions said last week he didn’t fully remember.

    Michael Flynn talked to Ambassador Kislyak during the transition period, and after insisting that U.S. sanctions against Russia didn’t come up during their conversations, Flynn later said he didn’t remember whether sanctions were part of the discussions or not.

    Maybe memory loss is contagious? CNN had an interesting report late yesterday:

    In an October speech to the Detroit Economic Club, Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States, denied meeting with Donald Trump or campaign officials during the course of 2016 presidential election, but acknowledged that he met with members of Congress and others who approached him at events.

    Kislyak spoke to the Detroit Economic Club on Oct. 27th of last year.

  105. 105.

    hovercraft

    March 10, 2017 at 3:17 pm

    @Yarrow:
    Calling his rage tweeting strategery is dumb and makes them look dumb, @TenguPhule: is right, these people are all special, most smart people like to surround them selves with smart people, knowing that they’ll make them look smarter, Twitler is too insecure to do that so his crew is a bunch of moron sycophants. @catclub: case in point, Pruitt.

  106. 106.

    Patricia Kayden

    March 10, 2017 at 3:18 pm

    @Baud: It is odd that Republicans are going after older voters, most of whom reliably vote for their kind. Very odd.

  107. 107.

    Roger Moore

    March 10, 2017 at 3:18 pm

    @schrodingers_cat:

    That man is running for 2020.

    I don’t really care. As long as Republicans think not going crazy in repealing ACA is a good idea, that’s a win for us.

  108. 108.

    Yarrow

    March 10, 2017 at 3:19 pm

    @TenguPhule: Fair point. And it’s clear at this point that not everyone who tweets on his account is him. Syntax and word choice differs.

  109. 109.

    hovercraft

    March 10, 2017 at 3:20 pm

    @rikyrah:
    We already knew that they don’t care what happens to women one the seed is planted, or even how the seed is planted, so long as it stays in there till it’s ready. Now how you pay for all the related expenses before, during and after is your problem, it has nothing to with men, it’s not happening in their bodies, after all, don’t you know it’s all about personal responsibility.

  110. 110.

    catclub

    March 10, 2017 at 3:23 pm

    @Patricia Kayden: Did you see that chart of state-by-state likely increases in insurance costs under GOP Trumpcare? (I saw it a Kevin Drum’s place) Alaska residents on ACA get an average $10k increase in health insurance costs. Only two states have decreased costs. I am not sure how they do it.

  111. 111.

    Roger Moore

    March 10, 2017 at 3:24 pm

    @Brachiator:

    They promised the Deluded and the Deplorable that they would repeal Obamacare because it supposedly infringed on their sweet liberty rights to fight good affordable healthcare. And in reality they have all these little provisions that give tremendous power to the insurance companies and trample all over the rights of people who just want to be able to go to the doctor or the hospital.

    You’re wrong. Obviously, only the government can trample all over people’s rights. When a private enterprise does exactly the same thing, it’s freedom.

  112. 112.

    hovercraft

    March 10, 2017 at 3:26 pm

    @Patricia Kayden:
    The money men are running out of blacks and browns to screw over so their moving on to the base. In the past, republicans were politically savvy enough to know not to go there, but the money figures after their huge investment over the last few decades it’s time to pay up, soon demographics will tip the balance of power and they won’t be able to get this, they’ll take the win even if it means sacrificing control. Once the dust settles this will get ugly, it’s easy enough to lie and get it through, but unlike the death panels and all that other shit that never materialized, this shit will hit and it will hit hard.

  113. 113.

    Patricia Kayden

    March 10, 2017 at 3:26 pm

    @Sebastian: Democrats would be foolish not to hammer home that this “healthcare” bill is intentionally designed to harm seniors. Intentionally designed to hurt seniors. Intentionally designed.

    Hammer. Hammer. Hammer. Tweet. Tweet. Tweet. If the shoe was on the other foot, you bet that Republicans would be screeching this out every chance they got. All their screeching helped to make the ACA relatively unpopular during Obama’s term in office so Democrats should extend the same treatment to TrumpCare.

  114. 114.

    Brachiator

    March 10, 2017 at 3:26 pm

    @hovercraft:

    I wish this were a case in which GOP lawmakers disagreed with stakeholders – doctors, nurses, hospitals, scorekeepers, et al – because Republicans believed the experts were wrong on the merits. That, at least, could be the basis for a credible debate. Instead, GOP members of Congress have declared that the merits simply don’t matter to them. They’re annoying trivialities that simply get in the way.

    Didn’t someone post something about this the other day, that the GOP and a chunk of America is anti-expert. “Experts don’t know anything!”

    And the only stakeholders they care about are the insurance companies.

    For them, to quote an old Ferengi proverb, the proof is in the profit.

    He added that most GOP lawmakers often have an “aversion to doing the messy work of making policy…. If you make a career opposing even the basic work of making the government run, it’s hard to pivot to writing major legislation.”

    The fact that Republicans policymaking muscles have atrophied may be understandable under the circumstances – GOP lawmakers working with a GOP administration haven’t tackled a major legislative initiative since George W. Bush’s first term – but what’s less understandable is how little they’re willing to even try now.

    This is a feature, not a bug. The Tea Party/Libertarian ad hoc Trump will believe that the role of government is to apply some religious restrictions to society and then let the free market, usually embodied by corporations and plutocrats, run society. Laws exist to serve business interests.

  115. 115.

    Patricia Kayden

    March 10, 2017 at 3:28 pm

    @hovercraft:

    but unlike the death panels and all that other shit that never materialized, this shit will hit and it will hit hard.

    Yep. This is for real. Democrats don’t have to make up ish to get their message across that this bill is awful and dangerous.

  116. 116.

    schrodingers_cat

    March 10, 2017 at 3:28 pm

    @Roger Moore: I don’t trust Cotton.

  117. 117.

    Patricia Kayden

    March 10, 2017 at 3:30 pm

    @catclub: I recall seeing that chart and remember that New Hampshire, for some unknown reason, actually will have decreased costs. Looks like TrumpCare will hit a lot of Trump voters upside their bigoted heads. Hate to sound mean, but their tears will be delicious.

  118. 118.

    catclub

    March 10, 2017 at 3:31 pm

    @Patricia Kayden:

    Democrats would be foolish not to hammer home that this “healthcare” bill is intentionally designed to harm seniors. Intentionally designed to hurt seniors. Intentionally designed.

    The taxes parts of the bill are designed to intentionally bankrupt Medicare sooner.

  119. 119.

    Roger Moore

    March 10, 2017 at 3:32 pm

    @catclub:
    I makes me expect Murkowski to be on the short list of Republican Senators who will vote against Trumpcare, assuming Ryan can actually move it out of the House.

  120. 120.

    jl

    March 10, 2017 at 3:33 pm

    @hovercraft: Beyond the misogyny and vicious sexism, it’s to destroy the idea of an insurance line that provides the most help to people who aren’t rich. Slice up the risk pool into ever finer chunks. Men versus women, young versus old, those with chronic diseases versus those yet to contract them, urban versus rural.

    Apply the same logic to, say, federal flood insurance for their expensive coastal properties, and they won’t like it a bit. Applied to that case, they will find their own line of reasoning absurd, offensive, perhaps political hate speech and personal threat. Uncivil! Unfair!

  121. 121.

    catclub

    March 10, 2017 at 3:34 pm

    @Patricia Kayden:

    for some unknown reason,

    a little thought says that NH is relatively prosperous, so the average ACA subsidy is less than the $2k-$4k that GOP Trumpcare offers.
    Would imply that healthcare is relatively inexpensive there – or better competition in the insurance markets.

  122. 122.

    Doug R

    March 10, 2017 at 3:34 pm

    @Ruviana: Actually the sun and earth revolve around their common mass. Since the sun is much more massive than the earth, the rotation point is really close to the sun’s center.

  123. 123.

    hovercraft

    March 10, 2017 at 3:35 pm

    I don’t watch the daily Spicey trainwreck show, but if these headlines are anything to go by, today’s is a dozy.

    Spicer: ‘No Question’ That ‘Deep State’ Is Working To Undermine Trump
    President Donald Trump is in fact under fire from shadowy operatives working inside the…

    Spicer Calls Flynn’s Lobbying For Turkish Interests A ‘Personal Matter’ 9 minutes ago
    White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer on Friday swatted away a swarm of questions…

    Spicer: Trump Says Formerly ‘Phony’ Jobs Numbers Are Now ‘Very Real’
    President Donald Trump, through his spokesperson, said Friday that while he repeatedly called employment numbers “phony” during the presidential campaign, they were “very real now.”

  124. 124.

    Roger Moore

    March 10, 2017 at 3:37 pm

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I don’t trust Cotton.

    I trust Cotton to do what he thinks will benefit himself the most. If he’s decided that involves opposing Trumpcare, I think that’s a good thing, especially because he’s unlikely to be the only Republican Senator to make that calculation.

    Looking at what he’s saying, I think he’s trying to slow things down so they die in the House and never make it to the Senate. That way, he can preserve his personal stance of opposing Obamacare without having to take the risky step of voting on a bill that’s as obviously flawed as Trumpcare is.

  125. 125.

    catclub

    March 10, 2017 at 3:37 pm

    @Roger Moore: If she votes in favor of raising health insurance costs by $10k for her consitituents…
    that should be political suicide.

    But I have seen the Mississippi GOP turn down billions of dollars to improve the healthcare of its citizens, get soundly re-elected.

    Depends on the framing.

  126. 126.

    Roger Moore

    March 10, 2017 at 3:40 pm

    @catclub:

    Depends on the framing.

    It’s one thing to turn down an opportunity at improvement. It’s something very different to take away an improvement people have started to get used to and return them to the bad old days.

  127. 127.

    Ruviana

    March 10, 2017 at 3:43 pm

    @Yarrow: I kind of like reading about the farming and cooking stuff, and to their credit they don’t pretty it up. But they can be annoying as well.

  128. 128.

    Yarrow

    March 10, 2017 at 3:48 pm

    @hovercraft: Speaking of Spicey, this is hilarious. Click through to picture and look at his flag pin.

    "Flying the American flag upside down is an officially recognized signal of distress." Exhibit 'A' from the WH presser today with Spicey: pic.twitter.com/Lt5S7lfknx— JΞSŦΞR ✪ ΔCŦUAL³³º¹ (@th3j35t3r) March 10, 2017

  129. 129.

    eclare

    March 10, 2017 at 3:48 pm

    @catclub: Tax accountant here, no, we do not make anywhere near what airline pilots make.

  130. 130.

    Yarrow

    March 10, 2017 at 3:49 pm

    @Ruviana: Yeah. And she’s good on the fermentation and canning stuff. That’s how I ran across her blog in the first place.

  131. 131.

    NR

    March 10, 2017 at 3:51 pm

    @Irony Abounds: The Republicans opposed the ACA because it was a Democratic bill. However, the ACA was simply the old Republican Romneycare with a Democratic label slapped on it. The Republicans never expected to be in a position where they actually had to present an alternative. So they could run on the basis of repealing the ACA without worrying about replacing it. But then the unforeseen happened. The Democratic party leadership shit the bed and handed the Republicans the Presidency and both houses of Congress. These wins have put them in the unusual position of a lose-lose situation on healthcare. Either they go against what their base needs, or they go against their ideology and corporate sponsors. What I expect them to do is what they have done. They will deliver to their corporate sponsors and seek to lie to and divide the rubes, and maybe even hope the Democrats throw them a lifeline. Bottom line though is that any Republican proposal will be worse than the ACA, and neither Democrats nor Republicans will push, or even mention, the one plan (universal single payer) that would be cheaper AND provide better health care for the nation.

  132. 132.

    Yarrow

    March 10, 2017 at 3:51 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    I think he’s trying to slow things down so they die in the House and never make it to the Senate. That way, he can preserve his personal stance of opposing Obamacare without having to take the risky step of voting on a bill that’s as obviously flawed as Trumpcare is.

    I agree. I think a lot of Senators want it to go that way. They want to retain their purity and not have a vote for or against it on their record.

  133. 133.

    catclub

    March 10, 2017 at 3:57 pm

    excellent article on the tax repeal parts of GOP at the front.
    Elizabeth Rampell at WAPO

    //www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-republican-health-care-plan-isnt-about-health-care-at-all/2017/03/09/0b2cdb34-050c-11e7-b1e9-a05d3c21f7cf_story.html

  134. 134.

    Roger Moore

    March 10, 2017 at 4:00 pm

    @eclare:

    Tax accountant here, no, we do not make anywhere near what airline pilots make.

    Are you sure about that? The pilots on regional airlines (i.e. the little puddle jumper planes) get paid very poorly.

  135. 135.

    catclub

    March 10, 2017 at 4:00 pm

    @eclare: Don’t be too sure. The pilots for the cut rate airlines are barely making ends meet.
    I think the airlines can really take advantage of them because there is a large enough group who will do about anything to be able to fly.
    They probably make less than a lot of bus drivers.

  136. 136.

    hovercraft

    March 10, 2017 at 4:01 pm

    @Yarrow:
    Paging Melissa, I’m sure there was nothing Freudian about this slip.

  137. 137.

    catclub

    March 10, 2017 at 4:01 pm

    @Roger Moore: beat me to it.

  138. 138.

    Mike J

    March 10, 2017 at 4:04 pm

    OT, but does anyone know anything about Chaldean Neo-Aramaic?

    I ask because somebody using a US capitol ip address changed all the references to Assyria to Mesopotamia in its wikipedia article. I feel like there’s a personal axe being ground, but I don’t know the underlying issues well enough to even know what it is.

  139. 139.

    jl

    March 10, 2017 at 4:06 pm

    @NR: Single payer would be fine with me. But a PPACA approach could work by going Swiss. That would provide better care at about a third less cost than we have now. Swiss approach is expensive compared to other high income countries but cheap compared to us.

    Some things could happen easily, if there were political will. Like mandating a separate market for a universal uniform minimum policy. Mandated universal coverage. All the metal variations would be supplemental policies sold on a separate market. And real cost effectiveness tests for what is covered on basic uniform minimum policy market (but not for policies sold on supplemental market because these would get no or very small subsidies, much smaller government aided risk spreading). Soft price controls through allowable bands for increase, and requests for bigger trigger a complete open book audit.

    Other needed factors would be much harder in US legal environment. Providers, docs, labs, would have to negotiate uniform pricing structure for goods and services, for price transparency. Could vary by state, or substate region, but need to vastly reduce public list (‘sticker’) and secret discount price lists.

    Free market fanatics tried to dangle Switzerland as a model unregulated free market system in an attempted bait and switch operation some time ago. Liberals could take them up on it if the liberals were prepared to fight tough.

  140. 140.

    catclub

    March 10, 2017 at 4:10 pm

    @Mike J:

    but does anyone know anything about Chaldean Neo-Aramaic?

    1. How about Comic Sans?

    Apparently, Turkey pays well for this kind of stuff. Just try to get a condemnation of Armenian genocide through congress.

  141. 141.

    Brachiator

    March 10, 2017 at 4:11 pm

    @NR:

    What I expect them to do is what they have done. They will deliver to their corporate sponsors and seek to lie to and divide the rubes, and maybe even hope the Democrats throw them a lifeline.

    This is becoming painfully obvious. Nothing special here.

    Bottom line though is that any Republican proposal will be worse than the ACA, and neither Democrats nor Republicans will push, or even mention, the one plan (universal single payer) that would be cheaper AND provide better health care for the nation.

    Yawn. The Republicans are ideologically opposed to universal health insurance, so of course they will never mention it.

    And (double yawn) once again universal health care and single payer are not the same thing.

    And it is unlikely that we would ever get universal health care here until there is some movement toward consensus and compromise again.

  142. 142.

    joel hanes

    March 10, 2017 at 4:18 pm

    @Another Scott:

    O.Z.P.I.N.H.E.A.D.

    Another one who has read the books, and remembers them.

  143. 143.

    Millard Filmore

    March 10, 2017 at 4:19 pm

    @SenyorDave:

    the GOP attitude toward low incomes. If you have low-income, it’s your fault for not providing society with a service society places high value on.

    The problem is that low skill labor is really very valuable to society. That is why slavery was so desirable an institution back in the day. That is why big companies like Target and Walmart rake in the money. The true value of labor is heavily skimmed.

  144. 144.

    glaukopis

    March 10, 2017 at 4:21 pm

    @schrodingers_cat: Are you still looking for a pussyhat? I have one to give (I’m only making a few, so not bothering to set up an etsy site).

  145. 145.

    Miss Bianca

    March 10, 2017 at 4:31 pm

    @NR: Didn’t you post this identical screed a couple days ago? The “Democrats shit the bed” dig was the giveaway. Do your Russian masters not care when you repeat yourself, or do you get paid per post no matter whether you’ve actually put new content in it or not?

  146. 146.

    rikyrah

    March 10, 2017 at 4:31 pm

    @Patricia Kayden:

    Democrats would be foolish not to hammer home that this “healthcare” bill is intentionally designed to harm seniors. Intentionally designed to hurt seniors. Intentionally designed.

    AGE TAX
    AGE TAX

  147. 147.

    rikyrah

    March 10, 2017 at 4:32 pm

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I don’t trust Cotton.

    Cause you’re smart.

  148. 148.

    TenguPhule

    March 10, 2017 at 4:35 pm

    @NR:

    neither Democrats nor Republicans will push, or even mention, the one plan (universal single payer) that would be cheaper AND provide better health care for the nation.

    Get off your unicorn and realize that we’re all in danger of losing what healthcare WE HAVE NOW.

    Worry about utopia healthcare after the Republicans are dead or driven off.

  149. 149.

    NR

    March 10, 2017 at 4:54 pm

    @Brachiator: Single-payer costs less and provides better health care than the system we have now.

    That is a simple fact.

    And neither major party will mention it.

  150. 150.

    NR

    March 10, 2017 at 4:55 pm

    @Miss Bianca: You guys need some new material. Your “you’re getting paid by the Russians” schtick is getting old.

  151. 151.

    NR

    March 10, 2017 at 4:56 pm

    @TenguPhule: Single-payer isn’t a “utopia,” it’s simply a better system than we have now, that could be implemented if one of our major parties was willing to push for it.

    But there’s *always* an excuse not to do it now. And rubes like you keep buying them.

  152. 152.

    Chet Murthy

    March 10, 2017 at 5:16 pm

    @schrodingers_cat: Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma: there’s a winning strategy, “tit for tat”. Until Cotton demonstrates repeatedly that he’s a “cooperator”,we MUST treat him as a “defector”.

    To do otherwise is to lose the game.

  153. 153.

    Chet Murthy

    March 10, 2017 at 5:19 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    It’s one thing to turn down an opportunity at improvement. It’s something very different to take away an improvement people have started to get used to and return them to the bad old days.

    Thanks, Obama!

    [Bloody Bill Kristol predicted it, didn’t he? *grin*]

  154. 154.

    Chet Murthy

    March 10, 2017 at 5:24 pm

    @NR:

    However, the ACA was simply the old Republican Romneycare with a Democratic label slapped on it.

    Uh, no. From LGM, back in the day: The ACA v. the Heritage Plan: A Comparison in Chart Form

    I’m with the LGM FPers: we Dems shouldn’t say this, b/c it denigrates the achievement. The ACA is a LOT MORE than the HF plan, and in ways that matter to Americans.

  155. 155.

    germy

    March 10, 2017 at 5:27 pm

    @Chet Murthy: Thank you. I was reminded of it, but I had no idea how to dig it up.

  156. 156.

    Chet Murthy

    March 10, 2017 at 5:32 pm

    @germy: As someone else said, either here or on LGM or Booman Tribune (or Wash Monthly, geez, I forget where), an IMPORTANT task for us is to turn Obama’s legacy into something to rival and eclipse Reagan’s. It’s important not just for paying due respect to Our President, but because that’s how you create a generational change (again, neither my words nor ideas, but most assuredly my errors).

    Branding Obamacare as (“the HF Plan”//Romneycare) directly vitiates that effort. So even if it weren’t true, we should insist that Obamacare were different and better. Happily, it IS different and better.

  157. 157.

    Villago Delenda Est

    March 10, 2017 at 5:34 pm

    @catclub: This is absolutely correct.

    This bill is about repealing taxes on the parasite overclass.

  158. 158.

    germy

    March 10, 2017 at 5:36 pm

    @Chet Murthy: Well said. The gop assholes want to “Carter-ize” Obama. We should resist them whenever possible.

  159. 159.

    schrodingers_cat

    March 10, 2017 at 5:41 pm

    @glaukopis: Yes indeed! You can send me an email on my bloggy site.
    [email protected]

  160. 160.

    NR

    March 10, 2017 at 6:21 pm

    @Chet Murthy: They’re not exactly the same in every single detail, but the core of the plans–the mandate–is exactly the same.

  161. 161.

    catclub

    March 10, 2017 at 6:42 pm

    @Chet Murthy: Don’t feed the troll.

  162. 162.

    john fremont

    March 10, 2017 at 7:05 pm

    @catclub: Well us aircraft mechanics and avionics technicians make less than auto mechanics do on average. A lot of wealthy customers need to have their Lexus, BMW’s etc in tip top condition to get back and forth to work or their businesses. That Cessna or Beech craft that they play with on sunny weekends is a hobby. These guys will nit pick every item on their bill to keep their recreational aircraft maintained despite the fact that if their car breaks down they just pull over, an airplane becomes a giant lawn dart.

  163. 163.

    Another Scott

    March 10, 2017 at 9:28 pm

    @joel hanes: I’ve read The Wizard …, but none of the rest (yet). Wikipedia is my friend. ;-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

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