This is all incredibly hard. If you're a survivor of sexual violence and need help, you can call the National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-4673
— Jessica Valenti (@JessicaValenti) September 24, 2018
Archives for September 2018
Like a drunk in a midnight choir
I’m really just here to fundraise but I couldn’t not use this title after this article.
If this lying POS gets to the Supreme Court, we should impeach him for perjury with our new House majority. Give here to the Balloon Juice Forty House Seats to Freedom Fund. It’s all the Republican seats listed as Toss Up or Lean Democrat plus four more candidates nominated by you the readers.
Here’s the full list of candidates. You can just give to one or two at a time (it’s an option when you click through above to contribute) to avoid getting on too many mailing lists.
Cindy Axne (IA-03)
Andrew Janz (CA-22)
Paul Davis (KS-02)
Antonio Delgado (NY-19)
Katie Hill (CA-25)
Angie Craig (MN-02)
Abigail Spanberger (VA-07)
Jessica Morse (CA-04)
Colin Allred (TX-32)
Mike Levin (CA-49)
Mikie Sherrill (NJ-11)
Katie Porter (CA-45)
Gil Cisneros (CA-39)
Dean Phillips (MN-03)
Vangie Williams (VA-01)
Elissa Slotkin (MI-08)
Haley Stevens (MI-11)
Harley Rouda (CA-48)
Kim Schrier (WA-08)
Aftab Pureval (OH-01)
Abby Finkenauer (IA-01)
Andy Kim (NJ-03)
Brendan Kelly (IL-12)
Conor Lamb (PA-17)
Jason Crow (CO-06)
Dan McCready (NC-09)
Sean Casten (IL-06)
Xochitl Torres Small (NM-02)
Cathy Albro (MI-03)
Lizzie Fletcher (TX-07)
Sharice Davids (KS-03)
Jennifer Wexton (VA-10)
Tom Malinowski (NJ-07)
Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ-02)
Jared Golden (ME-02)
Susan Wild (PA-07)
Elaine Luria (VA-02)
Josh Harder (CA-10)
Anthony Brindisi (NY-22)
Amy McGrath (KY-06)
Medical Loss Ratio rebates and 2019
Medical Loss Ratio (MLR) rebate letters are starting to arrive:
I JUST GOT AN MLR REBATE IN THE MAIL!!!
— Colin Baillio (@colinb1123) September 25, 2018
MLR is part of the ACA. The regulation requires insurers to refund customers money if the small group or individual market plans spend less than 80% of net premiums on claims or quality improvement expenses and for large groups, the insurer must spend 85% of net premiums on claims or quality improvement.
MLR has not been a big deal. Insurers quickly adjusted their pricing schemes and provider contracts to minimize their MLR exposure. Individual market insurers had massive MLRs in 2014 and 2015, meh MLRs in 2016 and “normal” MLRs in 2017.
MLR is a minor story this year. It is $76 here and $122 there. If I got a $122 check in the mail, I know I won’t complain but it is not huge income shock and given insurer pricing it is not a common income shock.
However, I am expecting MLR to be a big deal in 2019 for individual market buyers. The big story on the ACA individual market pricing is that insurers massively overpriced 2018. Bob Herman at Axios has done yeoman work
Between the lines: These data suggest the Blues have raised premiums well beyond what they thought they’d ultimately pay to providers….
MLR is based on rolling three year calculation. The Fall 2019 rebates will be based on a “meh” 2016, a “normal” 2017 and a “wicked low” 2018. I think states that had mostly monopolistic insurance markets in 2017 and 2018 (including North Carolina) will be more likely to have significant and widespread MLR rebates to the individual market buyers than states with very competitive markets.
MLR rebates in 2019 will be widespread and they could be large in some states. This is going to be a fascinating economics experiment and an interesting political event.
Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Useful Advice
(h/t commentor Chris)
Margaret Sullivan, whom the Washington Post was smart to snap up, with “A user’s guide to the media maelstrom“:
… ● Consider actually reading that story before you share it on social media. It’s astonishingly common to see a story hit Twitter and see it retweeted with outraged commentary even before it could possibly be digested…
● Know your source. …
● Trust the stories you like even less than those you don’t want to believe. At the very least, it’s a good exercise in critical thinking to employ extreme skepticism to fight the confirmation bias we’re all guilty of. Seek out reaction and commentary from the other side of the situation; you don’t have to believe it, but you ought to consider it.
● Wait and see. Know that cable news anchors — and all who deliver breaking news — may be scrambling in the first hours of a development…
● Know who is paid to say what on cable. Remember that cable commenters — particularly Trump surrogates — are paid to bring a particular point of view to the table. They may be legally constrained by nondisclosure agreements from doing anything other than gushing positively. Take this, therefore, with a few extra pounds of salt..
● Compare and contrast.…
● Take a break. The news never stops, so put down your phone, turn off your TV and do something else for a few hours. Cook a meal, take a walk, go to a yoga class, read a 19th-century novel…
Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Useful AdvicePost + Comments (87)
On the Road and In Your Backyard
Good Morning All,
On The Road and In Your Backyard is a weekday feature spotlighting reader submissions. From the exotic to the familiar, please share your part of the world, whether you’re traveling or just in your locality. Share some photos and a narrative, let us see through your pictures and words. We’re so lucky each and every day to see and appreciate the world around us!
Submissions from commenters are welcome at tools.balloon-juice.com
Have a wonderful day – prepare yourself, for today is truly amazeballs! Sometime I’ll post about the grand meteor, eclipse, and space station experiences I had while living in Colorado. But enough about me, it’s Wednesday…
—
Lots of submissions are coming in, hurrah, but do keep submitting.
Troubleshooting We have an improved setup and plans for further development. I hope the new setup works as well for you as it has in testing, but should you have issues, please email [email protected] This new submission tool is one of many more we’ve got planned, and your feedback helps us craft them to your needs.
#UniversalFacePalm Open Thread: Trump Against the World
Congratulations to president Trump for achieving something Obama never could – Being laughed at by the UN.
— The Volatile Mermaid (@OhNoSheTwitnt) September 25, 2018
WATCH: Laughter in UN General Assembly as President Trump touts his administration's progress in past 2 years: "Didn't expect that reaction, but that's OK." pic.twitter.com/V7GViB5g4B
— NBC News (@NBCNews) September 25, 2018
Spencer Ackerman, at the Daily Beast:
Diplomats and heads of state from all over the world laughed at President Donald Trump’s boast that he has “accomplished more than any administration in the history of our country.” At the podium of the United Nations General Assembly, Trump took it on the nose—“Didn’t expect that reaction, but that’s OK”—and then sleepily delivered a bellicose, 35-minute presentation of international cooperation as a threat to America…
Trump’s message was hardly one of leaving the world to its own peaceful devices. It was one where Trump sets the conditions for the world to follow, cloaked in revisionist history. Global free trade, for decades pushed on developing economies by the U.S. and yielding substantial wealth transfer upwards, was portrayed as a mechanism for other countries to “rig the system in their favor.” In between praising the Trump-coaxing regime of Saudi Arabia, Trump attacked OPEC as “ripping off the rest of the world” before demanding protection money: “We want them to start lowering [oil] prices, and they must contribute substantially to military protection from now on.” U.S. efusal to participate in the 2016 Global Compact on Migration, an entirely voluntary framework, was premised on preventing an “international body unaccountable to our own citizens.”
Everywhere Trump looked, he saw global avarice encircling to choke the life out of America–an America he defined in the blood-and-soil terms of “a culture built on strong families, deep faith, and strong independence”…
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The U.K., Germany, France, Russia and China have agreed to establish a special payments system to circumvent U.S. sanctions on Iran stemming from Trump's unilateral withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal, the Financial Times reports.https://t.co/cElx3fGr5X
— Axios (@axios) September 25, 2018
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Trump: "The United States is the biggest giver in the world by far of foreign aid, but few give anything to us."
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) September 25, 2018
#UniversalFacePalm Open Thread: Trump Against the WorldPost + Comments (63)
GOP Misogyny Open Thread: “A Female Assistant”
.@SenateMajLdr: "We have hired a female assistant to go on staff and to ask these questions in a respectful and professional way. We want this hearing to be handled very professionally not a political sideshow…" #Kavanaugh pic.twitter.com/N0hGKA6NqX
— CSPAN (@cspan) September 25, 2018
Shorter McConnell: We are powerful white men, and when we make a mess, it is our right to demand that a woman come in and clean up after us. Per the Washington Post:
Republican senators have selected Arizona prosecutor Rachel Mitchell to question Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh and the woman who has accused the Supreme Court nominee of sexually assaulting her when they were teenagers, a top senator announced Tuesday.
Mitchell is the chief of the special victims division of the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, which deals with sexual assault cases, among others. A registered Republican, Mitchell has worked for in the county attorney’s office for 26 years.
In enlisting Mitchell to join their staff, Republican senators are taking an unusual step. They are turning to her to ask what are expected to be personal and potentially painful questions about the woman’s youth on live television, sparing the all-male panel of 11 Republican senators on the committee some uncomfortable exchanges that could sway the public’s opinion about the session…
The division Mitchell heads deals with family violence, physical and sexual abuse of children, and sex offenses, including sex assault cases. Mitchell oversees about 40 to 50 people in the division, said Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery.
Mitchell has a long history of investigating years-old sex crimes and allegations that are difficult to corroborate, including in her role re-examining hundreds of cases that were unresolved and inadequately investigated by the sheriff’s office, Montgomery said.
“Over the course of Rachel’s career, she has dealt with victims in this very circumstance of delayed disclosure and circumstances where allegations were difficult to corroborate,” Montgomery said. “She has had to make a decision as a prosecutor whether or not those cases can move forward.”…
You’ve got to hand it to these guys that they think introducing a “sex crime prosecutor” into this story still doesn’t look as bad as if they asked the questions.
— Schooley (@Rschooley) September 26, 2018
If the Republicans need a woman on the Judiciary Committee to ask questions for them, they can borrow one of ours. We have four.
— shauna (@goldengateblond) September 25, 2018
GOP Misogyny Open Thread: <em>“A Female Assistant”</em>Post + Comments (37)