Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

The gop couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

This fight is for everything.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

Let me file that under fuck it.

White supremacy is terrorism.

Maybe you would prefer that we take Joelle’s side in ALL CAPS?

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Cole is on a roll !

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

The lights are all blinking red.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

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Archives for April 2019

Fuzzy Things Open Thread

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Here’s 3/4ths of Badger, who was photographed recently while basking in the last sunbeams before nightfall:

I posted this on Twitter the other day, and a friend said Badger looks like he should have a martini and cigarette holder in his paws, which is true. He’s still a fuzzy boy, though — too young to drink or smoke!

There are all sorts of fuzzy things to look at in the swamp these days. I could swear I saw one of those adorable limpkin chicks I shared with y’all the other day achieve brief liftoff from its ground nest on a nearby island. Could be wrong though.

I keep trying to get a photo of a Sandhill crane pair and their two long-legged fuzzballs, but I can’t seem to catch the family at a time when I have a combination of my camera, good lighting and adequate cover so I don’t disturb them.

Moving to not-so-fuzzy critters, the frogs, cicadas, etc., were deafening last night. The weather was nice, so I had the windows open, and I almost shut everything down and turned the A/C on just to drown out the din of the frogs and insects.

The alligators are frisky too. Have you ever heard a gator mating call? It’ll make the hair on the back of your neck stand up if you happen to be outside in the dark when you hear it. Sounds like Satan’s drainpipe or something — hard to describe.

Anyhoo, all topics welcome in this open thread, even further re-hashing of Biden 2020. But talk of fuzzy things would be nice.

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Biden Makes Me Sad

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The whole Joe Biden announcement makes me sad. It’s just going to end so badly, he is never going to win*, and we’re just going to watch someone who is a shell of his former self ruin his entire legacy. It’s going to be like watching an aged Ali get totally trounced by Larry Holmes, although comparing Joe to Ali is in itself problematic, because Ali was a champion. Joe has run several times before and it has always ended badly.

When you look where he is on the issues, he’s just not where America or the Democratic party is right now. Middling centrism is most definitely not where the party is, and if you look at the totality of his record, including his war on drugs, his shepherding of the Bankruptcy Bill, the Anita Hill hearings, and so many other things, you can almost forget about the good he has done.

Again, it’s sad. Watching the video, he looks ok head on, if you can look past the hair plugs and the bulky crowns and the sucking sounds as he talks from his dentures. But his skin is thin, his cheeks are hollowed, and he looks old and tired, something that is obvious in non-staged photographs.

We all get old. I don’t know why so many of us can’t age more gracefully. He should be enjoying a well deserved retirement, spending time with his wife, his remaining kids, and his grandkids, doing the lecture circuit. But for some reason, and to his credit, he feels that he has to do this. But his good intentions and patrician feelings of obligation are not going to cut it.

The world has changed, and Joe Biden has not. He could have ridden off into the sunset, a hero for his past accomplishments and his popularity during the Obama years. But he is going to throw it all away, and it is going to be depressing to watch.

I just find it profoundly sad. It’s time for the kids to take over, Joe. You did your work. Let it go.

* And now he is guaranteed to win, what with me predicting his defeat.

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Objectives and regulators’ choices

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State insurance regulators are currently thinking about the 2020 individual market. Initial rate filings are due soon and regulators have to check to make sure that networks are adequate, policies are compliant, and premiums are justifiable. For some regulators, that is all that they will check. Other states will have regulators that can be more active in their decision making*.

Active regulators can shape the market.

The question then is what are they choosing to optimize?

In 2014, Kelly Krinn, Pinar Karaca-Mandic and Lynn Blewett looked at premium levels as a function of how active state regulators were as exemplified by whether or not the state had a clearinghouse model or an active buyer model and whether or not the state had its own exchange.**

They found in 2014 that state based marketplaces with a clearinghouse model (less active regulators) had lower premium levels than states with an active buyer model.

Lowest-cost silver plans Second-lowest-cost silver plans Lowest-cost gold plans
Lowest-cost bronze plans
Model Mean ($) p value Mean ($) p value Mean ($) p value Mean ($) pvalue
SBM-A 179.49 0.008 225.37 0.006 245.27 <0.001 266.91 0.007
SBM-C 157.53 Ref 196.92 Ref 205.3 Ref 233.96 Ref
SPM 182.51 0.004 229.87 0.003 242.72 0.001 272.92 0.003
FFMS 185.14 0.003 224.02 0.019 234.91 0.014 268.97 0.012
FFM 189.94 <0.001 233.16 <0.001 241.63 <0.001 277.35 <0.001

This study was valuing the experience of the non-subsidized individuals’ experience. For them, levels matter a lot. Healthier individuals within this cohort are heavily weighing premium for their buy/no buy decision. For the question of how does the plan management characteristics impact upper middle class experience of value on exchange, the answer is that clearinghouses are probably better value than active buyer models.

However the single individual in the middle class or the family of four making six figures is not the only interested purchasing stakeholder group. The subsidized population earning between 100% to 400% Federal Poverty Level is a significant portion of the ACA individual market. For them, they care more about the spread than the level as the federal government has taken on premium level risk. Using the same data above, I’ve looked at the spreads instead:

Here state based marketplaces with an active buyer model seem to be optimizing for the premium experience of the subsidized buyer.  Bronze and the cheapest Silver plans are much less expensive than the benchmark plan in these states compared to everywhere else.  Gold plans are only less expensive relative to benchmark compared to everywhere else.

Regulators face choices.  In the ACA market, the first choice is whether or not to be an active regulator.  Conditional on the choice to be an active regulator, the second choice is what experience should be prioritized?  Should the exchange seek to prioritize on-exchange and subsidized buyers or should they seek to prioritize lower premium levels but tighter spreads that benefit non-subsidized buyers?  Should the exchange and regulators seek simplicity or complexity that may allow for multiple objectives to be addressed?

Any of those choices are valid choices that solve a real problem.  There are very few choices that will solve every problem.  Regulators who are active need to decide what their objective is and the trade-offs inherent in achieving that objective.

 

 

 

* Disclosure: I’ve talked to some state regulators regarding pricing tensions and choices in the ACA markets.

** doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2014.0627

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Biden Makes It Official

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Here’s the announcement video:

Here’s the opening tweet, which gives equal pride of place to both the candidate and a certain former president missed acutely by sane people worldwide:

Snazzy campaign logo!

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Thursday Morning Open Thread: #SheThePeople

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Sounds like this was quite the EVENT!

Patrick Svitek, for the Texas Tribune:

… Appearing at Texas Southern University, a historically black college, eight candidates made their pitches at a forum hosted by She the People, a national network of women of color. The three-hour event was one of the biggest gatherings of the Democratic primary candidates yet, let alone in Texas.

Taking questions from moderators and the audience, the candidates covered a range of issues that have already animated the primary — health care, criminal justice and voting rights — while sharpening their cases for how those issues impact women of color. The massive 2020 field is historically diverse, and most participants faced the same question at the end of their time onstage: Why should women of color choose you?…

For some candidates — particularly those who are neither women nor people of color — the forum at times appeared to be a humbling experience. The other hopeful from Texas, Beto O’Rourke, paused before answering why women of color should back him, acknowledging that their support is “not something that I’m owed, not something that I expect” but “something that I fully hope to earn by the work that I do on the campaign trail.” He cited a number of prominent black women in politics that he has learned from — including Houston U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a fellow Democrat who has a bill to study reparations that O’Rourke and several other candidates support…

Regardless, the day was a boon for Texas Democrats who increasingly view the state as a battleground. As he left the forum, state party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa said the event — with its number of candidates and early timing in the primary — was unlike anything he has seen in his 35 years in Texas Democratic politics.

“One of the things that came out of this event today is a recognition — [one] that people who have been involved in politics have known about for a long time — that women of color deliver [a] large number of votes for the Democratic candidates in every election cycle,” Hinojosa said. “That number’s increasing significantly over the years. In the last election cycle, they delivered big time for Democratic candidates. They’re more energized, engaged and angry today than they’ve ever been before.”

Not surprisingly, one candidate started with an extra edge…

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Late Night GOP Stupidity Open Thread: Economic Easing (Out the Side Door)

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Prospective Federal Reserve Board member Stephen Moore may be forced, nay compelled, to sacrifice his own career dreams for the sake of his deep loyalty to The Party. (Mostly because it looks like he can’t count on enough votes from his fellow Republicans to sail through his confirmation.) Per The Hill:

Stephen Moore, President Trump’s controversial pick for the Federal Reserve Board, said Wednesday that he is “totally committed” to seeing the process through, but would bow out if he became a political liability to Republicans.

In a Thursday interview with The Wall Street Journal, the conservative economist and commentator said he would stick with the vetting process for a formal nomination unless it could damage the GOP’s standing in the 2020 election.

“I’m totally committed to it as long as the White House is totally committed to it,” Moore told the Journal, ceding that he would drop out, “if something I said or something I’ve done becomes a political problem.”…

Trump floated Moore, an adviser to his 2016 presidential campaign, for a spot on the Fed board last month, but has not yet formally nominated him…

While Moore has been a figure in Washington conservative circles for decades, several Republican senators expressed concerns about his close ties to Trump, who has repeatedly and harshly criticized the Fed for almost a year.

Moore has also been fiercely critical of the Fed and reportedly won Trump’s blessing for an appointment with an opinion piece blasting the independent central bank.

Moore has also come under scrutiny for old columns he authored opposing the presence of women in sports or sportscasting, which he said Wednesday that he regretted…

Stephen Moore has built a long career in and around conservative politics by repeatedly advocating for the government to cut taxes. He is not great at it, but it is a quirk of that job that he doesn’t really have to be great at it, or even good at it. He just needs to do exactly what’s expected of him, always. Moore’s first foray into actual politics didn’t end well—he co-founded the Club For Growth in 1999 with the aim of electing Republicans who would pledge to cut taxes, but mismanaged the organization such that it was forced to pay a $350,000 fine to the Federal Election Commission in 2004. He was forced out that same year, and has spent most of his time doing his Libertarian Teddy Ruxpin duties in various sinecures ever since.

Donald Trump wants to appoint Moore to the Federal Reserve Board because he’s seen Moore on TV—he’s on TV a lot, generally being “wrong all the time, about pretty basic things,” in the words of the Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell—and because Moore has spent the entirety of Trump’s administration flattering Trump in impossibly goofy ways…

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