BREAKING FROM SPECIAL COUNSEL: The court has scheduled a plea hearing for Lieutenant General Michael T. Flynn (Ret.), 58, of Alexandria, Va., at 10:30 a.m.
— Steve Kopack (@SteveKopack) December 1, 2017
Open thread
Go long popcorn
by David Anderson| 111 Comments
This post is in: Election 2016, Open Threads, "Lock Her Up!!", Are these Nazis Walter?, Assholes, Blatant Liars and the Lies They Tell, Fucked-up-edness, Good News For Conservatives, Nobody could have predicted, Not Normal
BREAKING FROM SPECIAL COUNSEL: The court has scheduled a plea hearing for Lieutenant General Michael T. Flynn (Ret.), 58, of Alexandria, Va., at 10:30 a.m.
— Steve Kopack (@SteveKopack) December 1, 2017
Open thread
Go long popcorn
This post is in: Anderson On Health Insurance
Andrew Sprung has a good point on the value of $0 Bronze premiums that I want to explore some more:
The prevalence of free bronze plans for enrollees with incomes under 200% FPL (and for a fair number of older buyers over that threshold) is head-turning. But for those who know they need healthcare and have little or no savings or spare income, a bronze plan — free or otherwise — can be close to useless….
Take the case of a family of four, parents aged 46 and 44, with an income of $49,000, just under 200% FPL in Durham, NC (zip 27702), where the state BCBS has a monopoly. The kids are in CHIP, and that’s good. Strong CSR raises the actuarial value of a silver plan — the percentage of the average enrollee’s costs the plan is designed to provide — to 87%, and that’s pretty good by current standards — better than the average employer sponsored plan, in fact. It’s also better than Medicare….
The bronze plan is free — but if the family has no assets or surplus cash flow, it’s largely worth what they pay for it, or may feel that way. No benefits except the mandated free preventive kick in before the enormous deductible. In many markets, bronze plans that do not subject doctor visits or generic drugs to the deductible are available. That’s helpful, but not does mitigate the risk inherent in enormous bronze out-of-pocket maximums.
The silver plan offers more attractive coverage. But $242 per month is a big bite on $49k for a family of four.
The fundamental question is how valuable is additional option space?
In previous years, the same family in the same situation would have had an option to buy the least expensive Bronze for some premium value that was equal to or greater than zero and less than the Benchmark Silver post-subsidy premium price of $257/month. That has always been the case in counties where a Silver and Bronze plan is offered. For this particular family, the least expensive Bronze premium, after subsidy in 2017 would cost slightly more than $100 a month. Now there is a $2,900 difference in annual premiums between CSR Silver and Bronze.
CSR Silver only has incremental value to the family if there are individual medical expenses between $800 and $6,650 without considering the difference in premiums. The additional 6% in family income that is not being spent on premiums pushes the breakeven point of the the CSR Silver $3,700 in medical expenses for one individual or up to $4,500 in expenses for the couple. In 2017, that same set of calculations has Silver CSR having incremental value at $2,000 in medical expenses for an individual.
Most people don’t have $3,700 in medical expenses in a year. Most people don’t have $2,000 in medical expenses in a year. It is a gamble that 2018 will be a decent year of health for a couple in their mid-40s. If they know that they are on multiple medications and are anticipating a minor surgery next year, Silver makes a lot of financial sense. If they think that they are relatively healthy and they are insuring against a cancer diagnosis then Bronze can make sense.
The difference in 2018 versus previous years is that the Silver vs. Bronze trade-off point changed. The option space got bigger.
This post is in: Hail to the Hairpiece, Open Threads, Sports, Trump Crime Cartel, All we want is life beyond the thunderdome, Decline and Fall
Colin Kaepernick has just been named the recipient of the 2017 Sports Illustrated Muhammad Ali Legacy Award. https://t.co/F7LZLShYvp
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) November 30, 2017
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Happy nice news!
Apart from bracing ourselves for the inevitable Friday news dump, what’s on the agenda for the day?
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There’s been a lot of public tone-deafness this week, but Young Prince Jared will not be outdone. per Vanity Fair:
… 2017 has not been the year many of us hoped for. Yet the holiday season—a time for giving thanks, and sharing bounties, and passing around joy—is upon us all anyway, Kushners included, and some semblance of normalcy must be kept. For Kushner Cos., that means continuing an annual tradition of sending around company-branded swag to its usual group of real-estate developers, bankers, and business acquaintances. Three years ago, the company gift was a black, Kushner Cos.-branded hooded sweatshirt with white piping; two years ago, a similarly branded black vest; last year, a pair of headphones. This year, according to a person who has seen the gift, Kushner Cos. sent its friends a white bathrobe embossed with its logo on the right shoulder.
A full-length branded bathrobe would be, in any year, an unusually intimate corporate gift to send around. But in late 2017, as several recipients have noted, a bathrobe comes loaded with suggestive connotations. The bathrobe figures prominently in several women’s accounts of alleged sexual harassment by both Harvey Weinstein and Charlie Rose. Images of Trump in a robe of his own proliferated online earlier this year after Sean Spicer, responding to a New York Times story depicting the president wandering the East Wing in a bathrobe, denied that he even owned one. It has become a symbol, fairly or not, of something unseemly—hardly something that anyone wants to be reminded of as they unwrap presents around the menorah or tree.
“There are plenty of people who have gotten [the robes] who are shocked,” one person who saw the robes and spoke with others who received them told me. “Lots of rich white guys can’t believe it, given what’s going on in the world, with harassment and misuse of bathrobes. It’s the most tone-deaf holiday gift of all time.”
“Custom holiday gifts are ordered many months ahead of time—long before bathrobes were in the news,” Christine Taylor, a Kushner Cos. spokeswoman, said. “So not tone deaf at all, just a thoughtful holiday gift.“
“Sometimes a robe is just a robe,” she added…
Yeah, like you’ve never felt the urge to just slop around the house Oval Office, too exhausted even to dress properly. Poor lad is just depressed, is all. And can you blame him! [/snark]
Underground bunker sales have increased 8-fold since Trump’s election, with about 50% of business in DC, @noradshelters tells @washingtonian. pic.twitter.com/WynnZZui4o
— Sabe Penn (@CitiBE) November 30, 2017
This post is in: Hail to the Hairpiece, Open Threads, Republican Venality, Republicans in Disarray!, Decline and Fall, Ever Get The Feeling You've Been Cheated?
"He has asked friends about how a shutdown would affect him politically and has told several people he would put the blame on Democrats." https://t.co/gNE5cU8xnf
— Dan Zak (@MrDanZak) December 1, 2017
President Trump has told confidants that a government shutdown could be good for him politically and is focusing on his hard-line immigration stance as a way to win back supporters unhappy with his outreach to Democrats this fall, according to people who have spoken with him recently.
Over the past 10 days, the president has also told advisers that it is important that he is seen as tough on immigration and getting money for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, according to two people who have spoken with him. He has asked friends about how a shutdown would affect him politically and has told several people he would put the blame on Democrats.
Trump’s mixed messages on a partial government shutdown could hamper the ability of congressional Republicans to negotiate with Democrats, whose support they need to pass spending legislation in coming weeks. Many Republicans said this week that a shutdown is a possibility they hope to avoid. Even inside the White House, aides fret about the possibility, saying it would not poll well…
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THIS IS FINE, Repubs reply.
"Mr. Trump also called other lawmakers over the summer with requests that they push Mr. Burr to finish the inquiry" https://t.co/DsqptA5Pwy
— Katherine Miller (@katherinemiller) December 1, 2017
President Donald Trump over the summer repeatedly urged senior Senate Republicans, including the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, to end the panel’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, according to a half-dozen lawmakers and aides. Trump’s requests were a highly unusual intervention from a president into a legislative inquiry involving his family and close aides.
Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, the intelligence committee chairman, said in an interview this week that Trump told him that he was eager to see an investigation that has overshadowed much of the first year of his presidency come to an end.
“It was something along the lines of, ‘I hope you can conclude this as quickly as possible,’” Burr said. He said he replied to Trump that “when we have exhausted everybody we need to talk to, we will finish.”
In addition, according to lawmakers and aides, Trump told Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate Republican leader, and Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., a member of the intelligence committee, to end the investigation swiftly…
Trump’s requests of lawmakers to end the Senate investigation came during a period in the summer when the president was particularly consumed with Russia and openly raging at his own attorney general, Jeff Sessions, for recusing himself from any inquiries into Russian meddling in the election. Trump often vented to his own aides and even declared his innocence to virtual strangers he came across on his New Jersey golf course.
In this same period, the president complained frequently to McConnell about not doing enough to bring the investigation to an end, a Republican official close to the leader said.
Republicans downplayed Trump’s appeals, describing them as the actions of a political newcomer unfamiliar with what is appropriate presidential conduct…
During this time, Trump made several calls to senators without senior staff present, according to one West Wing official. According to senators and other Republicans familiar with the conversations, Trump would begin the talks on a different topic but eventually drift toward the Russia investigation.
In conversations with McConnell and Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Trump voiced sharp anger that congressional Republicans were not helping lift the cloud of suspicion over Russia, the senators told political allies. The Times reported in August that the president had complained to McConnell that he was failing to shield Trump from an ongoing Senate inquiry…
Trump “even declared his innocence to virtual strangers he came across on his NJ golf course.” https://t.co/mADndNpbIq
— Nick Riccardi (@NickRiccardi) December 1, 2017
So Trump has pressured the AG, DNI, head of CIA & NSA, members of Senate committee investigating him & fired the head of FBI to stop Russia investigation … but there’s nothing to the investigation
— Michael Cohen (@speechboy71) December 1, 2017
Open Thread: The Dim-Witted, Angry, Acting-Out Madness of “King” DonaldPost + Comments (22)