Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

Republicans do not trust women.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

We still have time to mess this up!

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

The arc of the moral universe does not bend itself. it is up to us to bend it.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

The only way through is to slog through the muck one step at at time.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Come on, man.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

Is trump is trying to break black America over his knee? signs point to ‘yes’.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Disingenuity

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Disingenuity

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Lots of Repubs deliberately not getting the point…

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114Comments

  2. 2.

    Baud

    “This guy, Bill Cassidy, just lied right to my face.”

    Jimmy Kimmel became an unlikely figure in the Republican health care debate a few months ago when he reached an accord of sorts with Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), setting standards that any bill to repeal and replace Obamacare should meet.

  6. 6.

    Izabela

    I try to think the best of people, but the way the GOP wants to f over healthcare in this country is an issue which makes me think they are nothing but immoral monsters lacking intellectual honesty and moral decency.

  7. 7.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I keep wondering where the Oaf Creepers and 3 IQers are with their Second Amendmenty solutions to government tyranny, and suddenly remembered – now they’re WITH the cops and WITH authority, because n****rs.

    Funny how that all works.

  8. 8.

    SFAW

    Do these evil motherfuckers have anything in their play book other than “whatever variation of Cleek’s Law will be most effective today”?

    Example #4793 for proof of the absence of a Just God.

  10. 10.

    SFAW

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    I keep wondering where the Oaf Creepers and 3 IQers are with their Second Amendmenty solutions to government tyranny, and suddenly remembered – now they’re WITH the cops and WITH authority, because n****rs.

    Funny how that all works.

    Well, if you’re old enough, you’ll remember that the greatest threat(s) to Americas EVER!!! was/were Tommie Smith and John Carlos.

  13. 13.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    So I called McCain’s office yesterday for the first time ever.

    What the hell: though I’m not an AZ resident, I have a relative who is.

    WashingtonDC (202) 224-2235 – press #1

    The DC has voice mail, at first the automated message suggests using email, but if you hang on it will connect you to voicemail.

    I asked him not to vote for bill that has no bipartisan support, nor a bill that only has 50 votes, nor a bill that tampers with pre-existing conditions, nor a bill that tampers with medicaid. Today I’m going to add don’t vote for a bill that doesn’t have a CBO score.

    Every bit helps.

  14. 14.

    clay

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: When people blather about ‘government tyranny’, it’s never about local or state government. (I don’t think they realize that cops actually count as government.)

    No, and it’s always jack-booted federal thugs who fill their solipsistic revolution fantasies. And, ironically, they never worry about the actual federal fascists, i.e., ICE.

  17. 17.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    Katy Tur: there are no protections for essential health care benefits in Graham-Cassidy

    Sen. Barasso: There shouldn’t be

  19. 19.

    Baud

    Not good precedent for people who want to sue Equifax

    A District of Columbia court has dismissed two lawsuits over the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) data breach disclosed in 2015.

  24. 24.

    bystander

    My only reaction to the picture of those grinning ghouls is to wonder why there’s never a meteor when you need one.

    I endured about ten minutes of Moanin’ Joe and David Ignominious tell me how twitler’s UN speech was really quite normal. So, now it’s on to Jacques Pepin to divert my attention.

  25. 25.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    @Baud: even if they had standing and demonstrated damages, I would think they would bump up against sovereign immunity.

  28. 28.

    bemused

    @Baud:

    Heh, happy to see Kimmel call out lying, liar Cassidy to his huge audience. I think I read Cassidy would have a statement today but I can’t imagine he will justify the bill in any new or creative way. They just don’t bother anymore.

  31. 31.

    Baud

    @bemused:

    Asked for a response to Kimmel’s comments, Cassidy focused on the looming Sept. 30 deadline for Senate Republicans to pass a health care bill.

    “We have a September 30th deadline on our promise. Let’s finish the job,” he said in a statement provided by his office. “We must because there is a mother and father whose child will have insurance because of Graham Cassidy Heller Johnson. There is someone whose pre-existing condition will be addressed because of GCHJ.”

    “I dedicated my medical career to care for such as these,” Cassidy said. “This is why GCHJ must pass.”

  32. 32.

    hueyplong

    @Baud

    “I dedicated my medical career to paydays such as the $400 million the Koch’s promise if and only if we pass this. That is why CGHJ must mass.”

  33. 33.

    debbie

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Here, four cops were so overzealous, they beat a suspect right out of his clothes. The booking video was released last night, showing he had been dragged into the station unconscious and only wearing his boxers. He has now been cited for contempt for not appearing at a hearing because he says he can’t walk.

  34. 34.

    SFAW

    @Baud:

    Graham Cassidy Heller Johnson.

    Ron Johnson?
    If only Hitlary had visited Wisconsin, right?

    And interesting to see Heller give up any pretense of being a non-asshole.

  42. 42.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I have never watched him before – the clip is good. He did a good job. I LOVE that he said he IS politicizing his son’s health problems. They’ve gotten away with that for a long time- the phony politeness rule where you aren’t allowed to talk about anything real.

  43. 43.

    Elizabelle

    I am grateful to Hurricane Maria for displacing Hurricane Trump from the cables.

    Had CNN on; could hear the whistling intensity of the winds. Unsettling.

  44. 44.

    Baud

    @Kay: To be frank, I believe he did it the right way. He was serious but composed. I do feel that sometimes the noise of protestors overwhelms the content. But it’s hard to strike the right balance.

  45. 45.

    LaNonna

    We’ve faxed, called and emailed (our reps are blue NYers), and we’re here in Italy for Il Nonno to have experimental medical treatment. I swear if this shit keeps up I’ll be encouraging the 3 children and 7 grands to seriously think about doing the family re-unification visas for residency here, just to protect themselves from “our government”* . It’s just unbelievable how hurtful and evil this administration, and those who support it, truly are. MAGATs

  47. 47.

    Kay

    It’s a shame no one covered health care in the last election since it has absolutely dominated Trump’s first year in office and would have dominated Clintons. In ’08 there were whole weeks where McCain and Obama battled over health care- what happened? How could a billion dollar political coverage industry miss healthcare?

  52. 52.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @clay:

    Well, them goldurned fed’rul jackboots keep ‘decent, law abidin’ folks from imposin’ the natural order o’ things on them n****rs, ch**ks, sp*cs, f*gs, d*kes ‘n hippies.

    So of course it’s tyranny.

  57. 57.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I agree. I was afraid it would be ranty but it wasn’t. Perfect. I went to a candidate training once put on by the Ohio Dems. They filmed us answering a question – the idea was make it good enough so local tv news would use it. It was difficult to do.

  60. 60.

    bemused

    @Baud:

    They just go on to be lobbyists, hedge funders, etc as do GOP staffers. Their time in government is just prep time for raking the big money in later.

    A five year ban on that after leaving office should be law for federal and state reps and senators. Like that will ever happen…

  61. 61.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    The coverage of that election could have been titled “issues of interest to the base of the Republican Party”

    I saw a Husted ad yesterday. He’s the Ohio Sec of State and he’s savvy. I consider him the big threat to Democrats winning the governor’s race. He’s promising to repeal “The Common Core”. This is a totally made up far Right issue. It’s nonsensical. I cannot even believe this is the focus of his ad, but as I said he’s a good politician. He must feel firing up the lie machine is the way to go.

  62. 62.

    Baud

    @bemused: To be fair, few actually voluntarily leave off before they are very old. It’s more of an insurance policy.

    I’m really not sure how a ban would work. What employment would be permissible?

  63. 63.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Kay:

    Emails.

    We’re fucked. When well meaning democrats talk about fighting and people march in nonviolent protest, I’m afraid that we’re well and truly boned in the face of scads of money, single party control and a deliberate course by the leaders of that party to act as if they have a mandate all while they shatter a seven decade set of norms.

    Marches can help, but conservatives need fear to back the fuck off – fear of violence from their victims, fear of organized political violence against their totems, possessions and families. Fear of economic ruin by general strike.

    Nobody honors pickets anymore. Scabs don’t get beaten, deliveries get made, subcontracted site work on a workplace with a striking labor force still gets done. In a lot of ways, we are back to the 20s in terms of management control of the workplace – it will take similar efforts by labor to flip that.

    I want the Koch brothers to have to hire somebody to sweep the bottom of the car every time it goes out, and to check for IEDs on motor routes. I’d like for there to have to be food testers at every Club for Growth or Federalist Society event. I want them to feel fear on a daily basis, that this is the day.

  64. 64.

    bystander

    Apropos Moanin’ Joe’s “Well done!” to twitler this morning, here’s Adam on his thread about the UN speech yesterday:

    Eventually the bad reviews will filter up to the President’s attention, whether tonight when he’s back in the residence this evening on his own watching cable TV or tomorrow morning when he’s watching Morning Joe. At that point expect the usual tweetstorm.

    Yesterday afternoon’s tv coverage was uniformly how awful he was. Joe did bring on Madeleine Albright and John Kerry who both calmly eviscerated twitler.

  66. 66.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I feel as if “talking on tv” is one of the many, many things people assume they could do well or better than people who do it for a living and really they can’t.

    I tried golf once. How hard could it be? Really hard. It’s almost impossible :)

  67. 67.

    Baud

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    conservatives need fear to back the fuck off – fear of violence from their victims, fear of organized political violence against their totems, possessions and families. Fear of economic ruin by general strike.

    Unless it’s white people doing those things, conservatives will just welcome it. Even if it’s white people, they will blame liberals and will still welcome it.

  68. 68.

    Baud

    @Kay: Yeah, I’m getting tired of hearing people on the internet talk about how they could do things better. Then why haven’t you?

  69. 69.

    Baud

    The reality is that the formula for stopping the right has always been very simple: Dems control the federal government for three elections, two of which are presidential. That would force change. But implementation is hard.

  70. 70.

    Kay

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    I have read quite a bit of labor history over the years and you really have to put yourself back into that time frame totally to get it. They had very few labor laws. There was no “floor”. The labor movement itself inspired the labor laws partly as a way to tame it- to make it less chaotic, more predictable. Once the basic state and federal protections for labor went in people got complacent.

    It’s like the “safety net”. At the height of the crash we had 16% unemployment. It was scary how many people were out of work. Page after page of foreclosures in the paper. But they had food stamps and unemployment and home heating assistance so there were no bread lines. The laws themselves act to tamp down some the anger and urgency and the laws come out of the prior movement. A successful “movement” puts itself out of a job because the need for really fierce action diminishes.

  71. 71.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Baud:

    Oh, granted – Appalachian Americans and Rust Belt WWC will welcome it, but money won’t. Hedgies and Silicon Valley VC boys and that network of NYC directors won’t like it one bit. Those guys are craven and evil and not stupid – they can easily shrug off a peaceful with a “who cares”, and write a check to some useless vanity “charity”, but if they have to worry whether they’re going to die, they will make changes.

  72. 72.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Kay:

    The combination of laws AND norms made it work back then.

    The norms have been shattered, though, and the laws are not being enforced or interpreted out of existence. This has been on the fast track since 2009.

  74. 74.

    bemused

    @Baud:

    It’s what I’d like to see happen, at least a couple of years. A fantasy, I know.

    Two years ago we had a MN Dem senator in my area who wanted to accept position as executive director of an association group that helps Iron Range cities and schools get funds from state and local sources while still keeping his senator seat. That went over like a lead balloon with D’s and R’s alike so he had to give up that idea. Pissed off a lot of Dem voters including me.

  75. 75.

    Kay

    My son and daughter in law have a Danish exchange student this year. He’s going to a Chicago high school, living exactly as one would if one lived in their neighborhood. He speaks and reads English but still- he’s so far from home!

    They both have to work the week between Christmas and New Years and I take that week off so we’re taking him for those days. So far all I know about him is he loves soccer.

  76. 76.

    Tenar Arha

    @Kay:

    The laws themselves act to tamp down some the anger and urgency and the laws come out of the prior movement. A successful “movement” puts itself out of a job because the need for really fierce action diminishes.

    QFT

  77. 77.

    Kay

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    I try to educate people about the laws- you don’t have to work for free, etc. I feel as if there’s a kind of historical mass memory that fades, though. My son is in an electrical workers union and the union backed Clinton and, as unions do, came out and told them to vote for her. Of course it;s not “required” but they don’t make any bones about the candidate they support. His young co-workers were making fun of the leadership “this is like Nazi Germany”. They don’t understand any of this. It’s as if these things have existed for all eternity and will always be there. That’s just not true.

  79. 79.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    We have a factory here that makes really high quality precision tooling- the tools that make machines. It is the best job in the county. They get hundreds of applicants for every open position. They’re union and they asked me to come reassure members about guns in ’08. I can’t help it – I see their paychecks. Get off the fucking GUNS already you morons.

    They have the luxury of worrying about stupid Facebook gun-grabbing rumors. They won’t have a house but they’ll have 15 guns.

  81. 81.

    Elizabelle

    Those smiling Republican Senators in the top photograph? They are terrorists.

    We made a good start — not far enough — on Obamacare. They’ve lied and scaremongered, and now they want to grab it back from us.

    Because two whackjob gazillionaire Republican party donors have more power than the millions upon millions of Americans who did NOT vote for any of this.

    This is terrorism.

  82. 82.

    FlipYrWhig

    “people want insurance for their own families, not other peoples’ “

    Unless there’s a lot more context, this line from Harwood doesn’t seem to be about the healthy subsidizing the sick, but about the white subsidizing the black. Which is the whole reason why Republicans hate Obamacare. AND NO ONE EVER FUCKING SAYS IT BUT ITS COMPLETELY THE SOURCE OF THE WHOLE FUCKING FIASCO CHRIST ALMIGHTY

  83. 83.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: I worked with a lot of guys like that. Being in a rural local it was nearly all of them, guns over anything else. I always wondered if they’d like their guns with ketchup.

  85. 85.

    Elizabelle

    @FlipYrWhig: I don’t think we should make this a racial issue.

    I see it, and there is not always a racial context. It’s about “takers”.

    We have too many uninformed people who don’t, apparently, understand the concept of insurance, or herd immunity, or how and why more affordable coverage brings down costs for the whole population, over time.

    Fuck them. Just, fuck them.

  87. 87.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: High in roughage and iron! Very good for the anemic among us. Sadly, a hike in lead poisoning among family members has been detected. Studies are now being done to pin point it’s source.

  88. 88.

    rikyrah

    The Danger to Obamacare Is Real
    by Martin Longman
    September 19, 2017

    In this case, the Democrats are correct. The reason that House Speaker Paul Ryan and the White House are loudly signaling that they have no interest in pursuing the bipartisan negotiations between Senate HELP Committee leaders Lamar Alexander and Patty Murray is because they’re engaged in a whip operation in support of the Graham-Cassidy Obamacare repeal bill:

    Democrats portrayed the rejection of the bipartisan push as intended to create pressure on Senate Republicans to hold their nose and support the Graham-Cassidy bill, and as the only way out of the party’s political quagmire. If that bill fails, Republicans may have to return to bipartisan talks, particularly if Trump again threatens to halt subsidy payments.

    A few things have happened in recent weeks that have revived the Republicans’ interest in giving repeal another go. One is that Trump started talking aggressively about turning to the Democrats to make deals since the Republicans clearly cannot deliver on their own. Another is brutal polling data. Gallup has approval of Congress at somewhere between 16 percent and 18 percent in August and September among Republican voters. It was at 50 percent among Republicans in February. For context, Democratic voters give Congress a 14 percent approval number. Probably more importantly, a quick glance at the generic congressional preference polling shows that the GOP’s position has deteriorated badly since the failure in early August to repeal Obamacare. Before August, the Dems’ advantage ranged roughly between two and six percent, with only a couple of more disturbing outliers. Since the failed vote on Obamacare, however, the range is more like six to nine percent. The RealClearPolitics rolling average is actually at 9.2 percent at the moment, which is high enough to predict a wave election that could cost the Republicans control of the House of Representatives. A third recent development is that the Senate parliamentarian clarified that the Republicans must repeal Obamacare by September 30th or give up trying. That’s because their special budget reconciliation instructions will expire at the end of the fiscal year.

  89. 89.

    rikyrah

    Trump Is Isolating the U.S. From the Rest of the World
    by Nancy LeTourneau
    September 20, 2017

    Here is the part of Trump’s speech to the United Nations General Assembly that has received the most attention.

    No nation on Earth has an interest in seeing this band of criminals arm itself with nuclear weapons and missiles. The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea. Rocket man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime. The United States is ready, willing, and able, but hopefully this will not be necessary. That’s what the United Nations is all about. That’s what the United Nations is for. Let’s see how they do.

    The president of the United States just threatened to destroy a nation of 25 million people. He also taunted their leader with one of his ubiquitous nicknames: rocket man. That is exactly the kind of alpha male approach we’ve come to expect from Trump. It also plays right into the hands of the other alpha male he is dealing with.

    We are becoming the existential threat Kim Jong Un told his people we were to justify their oppression.

    — John Cho (@JohnTheCho) September 19, 2017

    Of course, the same could be said for the president’s remarks yesterday about Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela. That is why this tweet struck me as the best summary of the entire speech.

    Hard to overstate how much work Trump is doing here to isolate the US instead of our adversaries.

    — Matt Duss (@mattduss) September 19, 2017

  90. 90.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Elizabelle: But when they imagine “takers” they’re inevitably thinking of lazy black people in cities (“thugs” and “welfare queens”) and brown people who shouldn’t be here (“illegals” and “refugees” who are probably lurking terrorists). Maybe sometimes they’re also thinking of their shiftless brother-in-law who sits on the couch playing video games all day. But it’s always, always “welfare,” and welfare, they think, flows away from them to Those People. I am not kidding: this is virtually 100% of what animates white people who aren’t rich to be Republicans in the first place.

  91. 91.

    rikyrah

    Trump uses RNC donor money to pay his Russia scandal legal bills
    09/20/17 08:00 AM
    By Steve Benen

    As the Russia scandal has intensified in recent months, Donald Trump has been forced to assemble an outside legal team, featuring a curious mix of attorneys who keep making embarrassing mistakes. What we didn’t know until yesterday, however, is who’s paying their bills.

    Many assumed the president himself was footing the bill for his own legal team – as a self-professed billionaire, he can afford it – but as Reuters was first to report, it looks like Trump prefers to have Republican donors pick up at least some of the tab.

    U.S. President Donald Trump is using money donated to his re-election campaign and the Republican National Committee to pay for his lawyers in the probe of alleged Russian interference in the U.S. election, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

    Following Reuters exclusive report on Tuesday, CNN reported that the Republican National Committee paid in August more than $230,000 to cover some of Trump’s legal fees related to the probe.

    RNC spokesperson Cassie Smedile confirmed to Reuters that Trump’s lead lawyer, John Dowd, received $100,000 from the RNC and that the RNC also paid $131,250 to the Constitutional Litigation and Advocacy Group, the law firm where Jay Sekulow, another of Trump’s lawyers, is a partner.

    As Rachel noted on last night’s show, no other American president has ever used donor money this way – a decision made all the more curious given Trump’s vast independent wealth.

    Making matters slightly worse, the Wall Street Journal reported overnight that the Republican National Committee has also helped pay for the legal defense of Donald Trump Jr.

  97. 97.

    rikyrah

    Jimmy Kimmel: GOP’s Cassidy ‘lied right to my face’ on healthcare
    09/20/17 08:40 AM—UPDATED 09/20/17 08:41 AM
    By Steve Benen

    Several months ago, late-night host Jimmy Kimmel took on an unexpected role in the national health care debate, talking to his audience about his young son’s heart surgery, and his belief that all Americans should have access to affordable, potentially life-saving, care.

    Soon after, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) began referencing the “Jimmy Kimmel Test”: for a health care proposal to have merit, the Louisiana Republican said, it should ensure families are covered regardless of income. Cassidy even appeared on Kimmel’s show, vowing to protect Americans who need protecting.

    That was then; this is now. Cassidy is currently pushing his own right-wing Graham-Cassidy legislation, which does largely the opposite of what he publicly vowed to do, and which clearly fails the “Jimmy Kimmel Test.” Last night, the ABC host let the country know just how outrageous this is.

    [I]n his monologue on Tuesday, Kimmel said that Cassidy “wasn’t very honest,” pointing to the legislation that Cassidy co-authored with Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

    “I don’t know what happened to Bill Cassidy,” Kimmel said. “But when he was on this publicity tour, he listed his demands for a health-care bill very clearly. These were his words. He said he wants coverage for all, no discrimination based on preexisting conditions, lower premiums for middle-class families and no lifetime caps. Guess what? The new bill does none of those things.”

    The host added that “this new bill actually does pass the Jimmy Kimmel test, but a different Jimmy Kimmel test. With this one, your child with a preexisting condition will get the care he needs if, and only if, his father is Jimmy Kimmel. Otherwise, you might be screwed.”

    Before pleading with his audience to call Capitol Hill and urge lawmakers to defeat the bill, Kimmel went on to note that Cassidy “just lied right to my face.”

  98. 98.

    Elizabelle

    @rikyrah: I would like to see Cassidy go DOWN for this one. No awe shucks physician persona. He absolutely lied. It’s on tape.

    WRT Graham: I wonder if he’s decided he’s on his last Senate term? He was able to count on soft support from Democrats; he’s usually the least awful option on the Republican side. No longer. He’s trying to gut health insurance nationally, and his actions will literally kill and injure many Americans.

    The genial goober mask is off both of these Senators. They are whores. (Apologies to sex workers.)

  99. 99.

    rikyrah

    Winners and losers in GOP’s last-ditch health overhaul

    The GOP’s last-ditch effort to repeal “Obamacare” would redistribute hundreds of billions of dollars in federal financing for insurance coverage, creating winners and losers among individual Americans and states in ways not yet fully clear.

    Independent analysts say the latest Senate Republican bill is likely to leave more people uninsured than the Affordable Care Act, and allow states to make changes that raise costs for people with health problems or pre-existing medical conditions.

    After closed-door meetings Tuesday, supporters seemed confident but acknowledged they’re not sure if the bill can pass. There’s only a narrow window for the Senate to act under special budget rules that expire at the end of the month.

    The Congressional Budget Office has said it doesn’t have time to complete a full analysis of the impact on coverage before the deadline.

    The biggest changes would start in 2020 — the next presidential election year. That’s a political risk for Republicans, since health care changes often involve unforeseen problems.

    A key feature of the legislation from Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana would put the ACA’s financing for subsidized private health insurance and Medicaid expansion into a giant pot and redistribute it among states according to new formulas. States could obtain federal waivers allowing them to modify insurance market safeguards for consumers. For example, states could let insurers charge higher premiums for older adults.

    The 31 states that expanded Medicaid are likely to see a funding reduction over time, as well as states, like Florida, where many residents received subsidies for private health insurance, said Larry Levitt of the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.

  101. 101.

    rikyrah

    Tom Price’s private-jet travel raises eyebrows
    09/20/17 09:20 AM
    By Steve Benen

    In September 2009, Tom Price, at the time a far-right congressional Republican, appeared on CNBC and railed against government use of private jets. Now, in September 2017, Politico has a report on that same Tom Price, the current Secretary of Health and Human Services, taking full advantage of private jets.

    In a sharp departure from his predecessors, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price last week took private jets on five separate flights for official business, at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars more than commercial travel.

    The secretary’s five flights, which were scheduled between Sept. 13 and Sept. 15, took him to a resort in Maine where he participated in a Q&A discussion with a health care industry CEO, and to community health centers in New Hampshire and Pennsylvania, according to internal HHS documents.

  102. 102.

    Mandarama

    @oatler.:

    If the South had won the war it would behave…just like it is behaving. And Fuck the South.

    8th gen southerner / 6th gen MS native here, cosigning. No one should let us lead on much of anything; look at our track record and statistics. ?

  104. 104.

    rikyrah

    From Andy Slavitt:

    Andy Slavitt
    @ASlavitt

    JUST OUT: Under Graham Cassidy ACA repeal…..
    – a 31% cut to Medicaid FOR KIDS
    – a 15% for people with disabilities

    I say never.

    Please RT
    8:31 AM-Sep 20, 2017

  107. 107.

    WaterGirl

    @rikyrah: People can be funny about how their donation money is spent. I wonder whether this will make people STOP giving to the RNC or whether this will actually increase donations. Could this actually be considered winning by people stupid enough to support Trump?

  109. 109.

    Mandarama

    @schrodingers_cat: Agreed, and it is just rage-inducing. My husband is a MA native, and it became clear to us early on that we really grew up in two separate countries. Ironically, he used to be a Republican. Living in the mid-south, the rise of the crazies, and deep respect for President Obama has cured him of any of those tendencies, thank Dog.

  110. 110.

    rikyrah

    Senate Republicans derail bipartisan health care compromise
    09/20/17 10:00 AM
    By Steve Benen
    The effort hasn’t generated much attention, but in recent weeks, there have been meaningful bipartisan negotiations in the Senate on a compromise health care measure. As of late yesterday, however, that measure is now dead – and it’s important to understand why.

    The top two members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee (HELP) – Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Ranking Member Patty Murray (D-Wash.) – have quietly been moving forward on an important bill, acting like you’d expect real senators to act. They’ve held real hearings, listened to real testimony, and have tried to find a real solution that both parties could live with. The emerging agreement was fairly narrow, but senators like John McCain (R-Ariz.) have praised the work and urged his colleagues to support it.

    That won’t happen. Yesterday, as TPM reported, the compromise measure was taken off the table.

    Senators who have been working for months on a bipartisan bill to stabilize Obamacare’s individual market and take away one of President Trump’s ways to sabotage it are throwing in the towel, saying the GOP’s last-minute effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act has ruined their chance of passage. […]

    The news broke a few hours after House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and the White House told Senate leaders on Tuesday that they oppose the stabilization bill and want all efforts focused on repeal.

    ……………………………….

    With Republicans opposing the compromise, that window quickly closed. Patty Murray left no doubt that the GOP’s repeal crusade was responsible for killing the bipartisan deal.

    As a matter of partisan strategy, I suppose this isn’t too surprising. Republicans want to destroy the existing system, not make it more stable. So long as there was a bipartisan compromise in the works, McCain and others would see it as a better alternative to the right-wing Graham-Cassidy bill.

    So GOP leaders scuttled the deal, narrowed everyone’s focus, and left Republicans with a choice between Graham-Cassidy and nothing.

  112. 112.

    rikyrah

    This new study deals a blow to Trump’s latest Obamacare repeal push
    By Greg Sargent
    September 20 at 9:11 AM

    Senate Republicans are stumbling forward with their new zombie Trumpcare bill to repeal Obamacare — and they will hold a vote this month, before the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office tells them how many people might be tossed off of coverage if it becomes law. The drawback of this — or is it a benefit, given that the public is also being kept in the dark? — is that Republicans will vote on the bill without knowing all that much about how it would impact their own states, not to mention the rest of the country.

    Unfortunately for the bill’s supporters, a new study just came out that will enable Republicans to make a somewhat more informed decision about this legislation, after all. And it could deal a blow to the bill’s chances. It should, anyway.

    The study, which was released this morning by Avalere Health, a consulting firm, finds that many states will see sizable cuts to the federal money that would flow to their states, relative to current law. Some of those states are represented by the GOP senators who are currently deciding whether to back the bill, including Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Susan Collins (Maine), Rob Portman (Ohio) and John McCain (Ariz.).

  113. 113.

    O. Felix Culpa

    dis·in·gen·u·ous :

    adjective

    not candid or sincere, typically by pretending that one knows less about something than one really does.
    synonyms: insincere, dishonest, untruthful, false, deceitful, duplicitous, lying, mendacious; hypocritical

    Yup. That about sums it up.

  114. 114.

    TenguPhule

    @Baud:

    I hope CA and NY cut services to their red areas to pay for the cuts.

    It should be a crime to be a Republican.

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