Krugman is out with his first piece since he quit the Times, and it’s about DOGE. It’s free so you can read it all, but he runs through all the facts that Elon and Vivek don’t know / don’t care about, and he finishes with this:
Now, in the end none of this may matter. The real purpose of DOGE is, arguably, to give Elon Musk an opportunity to strut around, feeling important. And while it’s a clown show, these clowns — unlike some of the other people Trump may put in office — won’t be in a position to inflict major damage on national security, public health and more.
But it is a clown show, and everyone should treat it as such.
This, to me, is the important point. DOGE is not a department. It’s a glorified commission and the only way it will gain traction is if Congress starts listening to these two dipshits.
Krugman makes the point that the US government is essentially an insurance company with a big army. Any meaningful cuts will have to be to public insurance programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, or we need to cut the defense budget. Republicans will never do the latter, and they’ve been chomping at the bit forever to cut social programs, no matter the almost-certain political cost for doing so.
That’s why it’s dumb for Bernie and Ro Khanna to tweet about Musk having a point, even if their strategy is to agree on cutting defense spending then show a shocked face when it doesn’t happen. But even dumber is for Democrats to join the DOGE caucus in the House and Senate, which Jared Moskowitz has already done. A group supporting Social Security has already started putting up billboards in Moskowitz’ district. I hope that discourages any more of this nonsense.
Anyway, back to the whole DOGE thing, Josh Marshall thinks that Democrats need to be on board with more government efficiency, but DOGE ain’t it:
This post isn’t meant to flesh out all those policy questions [about efficiency]. I bring it up because there are a bunch of ways government more broadly could and really needs to work better. If you’re the party of government, you actually have the biggest interest in getting it to work well. Because in a lot of ways that’s your product.
But the point is that you can’t cede the efficiency and reform brand to people whose real aim in cutting people’s Medicaid and Social Security. Because that’s pretty much where we are at the end of 2024. You’ve got a couple guys who are mostly ignoramuses about what government does, what it’s supposed to do, who relies on it and more and they’re just coming in with what’s mostly the libertarian bullshit they heard from their pals in Silicon Valley. It’s not even like handing the keys over to the Heritage Foundation. Those guys have been thinking about how to do this for decades.
There’s no big takeaway here other than the fact that there are things government should be organized to do better, quicker and more efficiently. (My big thing is standing up transportation infrastructure. But there are other examples.) Every right-minded person should be at war with the DOGE clown show while keeping that fact in mind, front and center.
I think Musk has reached his public expiration date and he’s been showing his ass an awful lot lately. Walz was right to brand him as a dipshit. Cozying up to him is stupid for a lot of reasons, including the fact that people will tire of him pretty quickly.
hrprogressive
I appreciate the continued reminders that stuff like DOGE is “functionally useless, because Congress”.
My concern – and I am sure the concern of many other Americans who did their part in November
Is that these Fascist goons just start doing things and essentially daring Congress or a court or the citizens to stop them, and nobody does.
A Fascist Republican Congress would probably be more than happy to just look the other way on all this.
And the Impotent Democratic Party is just going to let them.
I hope I’m wrong.
Steve LaBonne
I don’t understand what Marshall is talking about. The things he’s complaining about happen mostly at the state and local level. And when a competently run Federal government is heavily involved in rebuilding infrastructure after a disaster, we get the near miracles we recently saw in Philly and Baltimore.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
K-Thug has still got it.
Matt McIrvin
I always think of Goldwater saying he had little interest in streamlining government or making it more efficient because he meant to reduce its size. He was really the same kind of clown but at least he was honest about what he intended and didn’t pretend he WAS increasing government efficiency.
Peke Daddy
How did Al Gore’s Reinventing Government work? Did outsourcing really result in efficiency?
Omnes Omnibus
Do you?
Steve LaBonne
@hrprogressive: Fascist goons who actually run government agencies can and will do a lot of damage. Fascist goons who are not actually part of the government can only yak. Krugman is correct about that.
NotMax
champing at the bit
/Superpedant
;)
Elizabelle
I love how K-Thug calls them Muskaswamy. I love that he provides clear examples, and writes engagingly.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Peke Daddy:
No. I saw this up close and personal over 23 years working Federal IT. I still won’t forgive Gore for that blatant campaign ploy. The Bushies then did it on steroids and didn’t stop until Dems retook the House and Nancy Smash wouldn’t fund any more efforts aimed at outsourcing.
It changed nothing except costs, they go *way* up when outsourcing. The great irony is that in our agency, when Hair Furor came into office, our first CIO looked at the contractor-to-Fed ratio (2:1) and the cost and freaked out.
He tried to do something even Obama wouldn’t do: cut the ratio to 1:1 because they saw the costs involved. I was downright (pleasantly) shocked at what I was hearing from a source like that.
Being a Trump appointee, he lasted a year and we had successive CIOs, who also only lasted a year, so any such initiatives went nowhere.
This latest crapola is simply another rebrand of neoliberal, Reaganomic crap. Outsourcing government services is the road to tyranny.
Just more neoliberal, Reaganomic crap. They lead off with “it saves money” when outsourcing services like this always costs the governmental entity more than if they simply staffed up internally. Every time you contract away the public good to a for-profit company democracy dies.
Outsourcing in general is like this. If you go into thinking “I don’t have to worry about this, vendor X will solve this problem for me” you’re almost certainly going to get screwed. You need to get every detail into the contract, and spend almost as many hours riding them to deliver on everything to your substantive satisfaction.
Outsourcing firms throw (relatively) cheap bodies at tasks, they deploy resources stupidly and haphazardly according to their profit motive, and they live in a world where running up the bill, not delivering a working system, is the end goal.
NotMax
DOGE = Simpson-Bowles reflected in a funhouse mirror.
Steve LaBonne
An example that especially chaps my ass is that conflict of interest ridden fraud Oz yapping about how “dysfunctional” traditional Medicare is when it actually has vastly lower administrative overhead than any private insurance company and costs 6% less per enrollee than “Advantage”.
Elizabelle
@Omnes Omnibus: hrprogressive is an emo asswipe. Sorry, but it’s true.
Appearing as a delicious pastry in my world. Because: Serving up greatest hits like:
Sometimes I wonder if it is an initiative to discredit actual progressives. This one is as aggravating as that Jonathan Hollandaise Bechemel, or whatever his/its name was during the High Wilmer Times.
NotMax
@Elizabelle
Is Krugman a B-J lurker?
;)
Glidwrith
I was struck the other day by an observation that the government isn’t set up to be efficient, it’s set up to prevent the abuse of power. When our side says “efficiency” that should mean serving people well. Look at the IRS, which after interference from the tax preparation industry all these years, now offers filing services. We should trumpet successes.
Scott
I view the Moskowitz’s joining of DOGE (which doesn’t really exist yet and won’t until there is funding and knowledgeable staff) as an opportunity to undermine it. Just by asking the question: is this efficiency or is this policy? The Grace Commission in the 80s failed on just that point.
Belafon
@Steve LaBonne: You’re fixated on the part of the paragraph that he wants you to not really be focused on, but, in a single word: Amtrak.
Elizabelle
@NotMax: I bet he (K-Thug!) checks in. The LA Times’ Michael Hiltzik attributed some idea to that nice Dick Mayhew a few years ago.
YY_Sima Qian
More own goals expected from the coming Trump Administration. & there really is no area that can be free from Great Power Competition, but at least here competition could be positive sum, rather than zero or negative sum.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
Re: Musk’s public expiration date:
You know how if you leave milk for too long, it doesn’t just spoil, but turns into something that looks like cottage cheese and will put you in the hospital if you consume any of it? That’s how far beyond his expiration date Elmo is.
Geo Wilcox
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Didn’t some of that outsourcing bring us a couple of traitors who sold our secrets to Russia?
Rusty
It takes a special kind of stupid to think that Musk and Ramaswamy are acting in good faith when they talk about efficiency, when they really just want to gut the social safety net for their own tax cuts. Moskowitz must be as dumb as a post.
NotMax
@Bruce K in ATH-GR
Curdled human not covered in the fabled alien cookbook.
:)
YY_Sima Qian
Experts across the Atlantic are already calculating how to cut the US out of international trade flow, if the Trump Administration insists on trying to re-industrialize the US on the back of tariffs, & confirm to the ROW that it is useless to try to negotiate w/ Trump:
Omnes Omnibus
@NotMax: Just adapt from the recipe for dry aged baby.
Kay
I actually think Republicans in Congress will try to privatize/gut both Social Security and Medicare. Musk’s role is just to sell it as cool and innovative.
catclub
Did it work at your company?
Did it work anywhere?
Did it enlarge some bureaucrat’s budget?
Did it siphon money to a GOP donor’s company?
I think my questions are better.
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
“I dunno, Xyplam This is stringy, not tender.”
New Deal democrat
@hrprogressive:
@NotMax:
One thing Trump has a feral instinct for is reacting to the approval/disapproval of his base. Remember how he instantly stopped referring to the successful Operation Warp Speed when his crowds booed?
Since about half of seniors, and (sigh) well over half of near-seniors voted for Trump, it’s a pretty sure bet those people will react very badly to proposed SS or Medicare cuts. Not to mention that he apparently had about 75% from the rank and file military, who wouldn’t exactly take kindly to cuts in VA benefits.
So, yeah, clown car catfood commission.
JPL
Guy who earns 40 million dollars a day, thinks that Grandma should accept cuts to her 1500 dollar social security check. BTW guy belongs to the pro-life crowd.
catclub
@Kay: The most important part of that try is getting Democrats to sign on. And as Nancy Pelosi said when asked when she would sign on to it:
“Never, how does that work for you?”
Omnes Omnibus
@NotMax: I didn’t say it would be good.
Kay
They probably can’t get either out of the House with their narrow majority but I think the GOP has made it abundantly clear they hope to abolish both public programs – I hope Democrats know just calling them “clowns” isn’t a plan.
When GWB was reelected in 2004 Harry Reid immediately set up a protect Social Security war room, and of course Pelosi famously went to battle. The GO P isn’t ACTUALLY populist now – everyone understands that right? They hope to dismantle all public programs, as usual.
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
Phrase one never wants to hear from a waiter.
:)
eemom
@Elizabelle:
I also love how he seems to relish his liberation from the Fascist Times.
Chief Oshkosh
@Steve LaBonne: Completely agree. I read Josh’s piece twice because I couldn’t understand the logic. There are several instances of localities misinterpreting or misusing federal regulations that can lead to plenty of inefficiencies, but there are plenty of examples of the same regulations being followed by other entities who seem to have no trouble do that. So, who’s at fault here?…
stinger
Just wanted to see that again.
TBone
@Steve LaBonne: aaarrrggh fuck that guy so much!
catclub
One of those two was a Democrat. and because of that Obama took them much more seriously than they deserved.
No democrats this time. No Obama either.
Kay
@catclub:
But that was the end of a whole comprehensive campaign Democrats ran in specific opposition to GWB’s privatize tour. Democrats turned public opinion against privatization by 20 points. This is Musk turning public opinion against Social Security.
They’re going to have to actually do something as a party. Reid and Pelosi engineered that – she didn’t just come up with a zinger at the end.
TBone
Reposting for all who celebrate. Everything is for sale.
Swing wide the gates:
https://www.jefftiedrich.com/p/thank-god-someone-is-finally-helping
Elizabelle
@eemom: Oh yeah. Shade shall be thrown.
Baud
Dems should create the Krugman Intergovernmental Taskforce on Taxing Yachts.
Belafon
@YY_Sima Qian: “Why should the rich have to pay more in taxes if another country will do the job instead?”
TBone
@NotMax: prescient!
Belafon
@catclub: If outsourcing worked, companies would never be more than one thing. You would never have a software company with more than just programmers.
Ohio Mom
@Kay: And Medicaid, that is also in their sights.
Villago Delenda Est
These two parasite assclowns’ idea of “efficiency” is to fire the people who actually provide the value that customers are looking for and keep the “savings” to themselves.
Elizabelle
@Baud: LOL. Why not? Start with Bezos.
Ohio Mom
@eemom: Oh yes, everyone who was saying they were sad to see Krugman leave the times should have been shouting Bon Voyage! Because he’s off on the pundit trip of a lifetime.
West of the Rockies
Don’t know if this will mean much to most folks here, but Bidwell Mansion in Chico was destroyed by a fire last night.
rikyrah
Stupid muthaphuckas.
They need to light Moskowitz’s AZZ UP on those phonelines
Villago Delenda Est
The only problem with it is that it’s misspelled. It’s Musckasmarmy.
Baud
In fairness to Moskovitz, it’s not terrible to have an eye on the inside. The J6 committee was much more productive because Republicans boycotted it.
gene108
@YY_Sima Qian:
I fully expect the U.S.A. to fritter away whatever credibility and soft power diplomacy advantage it has via expertise in a wide range of subjects by 2050. Republicans have no appreciation and often hostility towards the scientific expertise in this country*, while Democrats efforts can be sporadic in terms of support.
*I think people in this country do not appreciate the fact people doing work in this country win at least a share of one Nobel Prize each year. That’s a lot of cutting edge work done and recognized, by experts, here in this country. It’s not inevitable for this to keep happening.
TBone
I dunno what to make of Moskowitz, et al., but I do believe in the tactic of infiltration because it’s worked against us so often.
The Audacity of Krope
@Baud: Right. And if DOGE can’t do anything without a final Congressional vote, it will be good to have D Congressfolk at least publicly advocating for our priorities.
TBone
@Baud: that’s what I just thought, and said at #55 too.
Splitting Image
@Ohio Mom:
Medicaid is the most precarious of the three, I think. They are more likely to get pushback if they go after the two programs that affect old people.
Medicaid is for the poors, and they will try very hard to take it out.
That said, there is no guarantee anymore that Trumpers will support a program that benefits them, so there may not be enough outrage left to stop them.
glory b
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: As I recall, the attempt to outsource IRS functions just showed that the IRS did it better.
Musk is now threatening Republican members of Congress with unleashing his billions on primary challenges if they oppose any DOGE initiatives, essentially ceding their budgetary function to DOGE.
He is also threatening all Republican senators with primaries if they vote no on any of Trump’s cabinet selections, which may be why Ernst is softening on her stance against Hegseth.
So, maybe his sell by date isn’t here yet, he’s acting as Trump’s pit bull against Republican legislators.
frosty
@Omnes Omnibus: Thanks, that’s been my take on this commenter too.
TBone
@West of the Rockies: crap. A historical State Park site. Trivia:
Some of the interior scenes from The Thin Man were shot inside the mansion.
Annie Kennedy Bidwell:
She is known for her contributions to social causes, such as women’s suffrage, the temperance movement, donating parks for travelers to camp and sleep in and education. Annie Bidwell was a friend and correspondent of Susan B. Anthony, Frances Willard, and John Muir.
NotMax
@Villago Delenda Est
Toy R Us syndrome.
Belafon
@Splitting Image: The largest users of Medicaid are the old.
gene108
@New Deal democrat:
Every proposal I have heard about to cut Social Security and Medicare involves grandfathering in people past a certain age, like anyone over 60 or 55 or whatever the arbitrary cutoff is will get full benefits.
The younger generations will get fucked.
When I was in high school 35–ish years ago, I was told Social Security wouldn’t be solvent when I retire, god knows what lack of faith in the system has been instilled in younger generations.
Baud
@gene108:
Agree. Coddling bigots is going to cost us big time.
Sure Lurkalot
@catclub:
They are, much better.
Inefficiencies exist in every system and it’s good to address minimizing waste (while recognizing that effort too will be inefficient). But fraud, abuse and corruption are man made constructs and clowns like Muskaswamy have no interest in addressing those, in fact, their success depends on them.
TBone
Trying to ignore the dogpile here because I hope he’s wrong too but my mama taught me to STFU if I didn’t have something nice to say. Being realistic and critical is not a crime. That’s my nice thing to say.
Steve LaBonne
@Belafon: People who don’t have a parent in a nursing home mostly don’t know that.
Steve LaBonne
@gene108: You must not have heard about making “Advantage” the default for new enrollees. That will destroy traditional Medicare pretty quickly.
Bill Arnold
@Rusty:
Moskowitz is not dumb as a post, so perhaps there is another explanation.
TBone
@Steve LaBonne: it was a huge contributing factor in my mom’s suffering abuse and prolonged, painful death. UGH. SIL wouldn’t spend Mom’s money on care for Mom and Medicaid doesn’t like it if you have any money/assets in your name. SIL (not even the legal executrix or guardian but my bro put her in charge anyhow) used that to her own advantage (more money to inherit). It was a slow motion murder.
Steve LaBonne
@TBone: My god, that’s awful. I’m so sorry. Personally I DO NOT want to live long enough to end up in a nursing home.
NotMax
@TBone
Where’s commenter Ken?
There’s undoubtedly an xkcd covering that.
TBone
@Steve LaBonne: thank you. I’ve had to forgive but I can never forget.
Kay
Krugman had a role in protecting Medicare in 2005. Bush went out and said that Black people were getting ripped off by the program because they don’t live as long as white people. Incredibly cynical lie, but media are bad with numbers, loved it and it spread. Krugman beat it back.
Forgive me but I’m deeply uncomfortable with this “pointing and laughing” approach after just watching the majority of the public be bamboozled into thinking a good economy was bad. We need a fucking PLAN. Because Krugman and his readers (and I am one) think Musk is a clown does NOT mean most people do. Most people fucking worship rich people. Hell, Musk had fanboys (always boys) on this site until he went full fash. WILL it happen? I don’t know. CAN it happen? Hell yes.
Peale
@Kay: Yep. Thankfully, when given responsibility over their own money like the yahoos have claimed that they want, I’m sure we won’t be hearing tales about middle class bums who lost their entire retirement savings + their social security when some Nigerian prince e-mailed them with an investment opportunity tailored just for them.
I don’t expect poor people to save because, well, they are poor and giving them access to their social security money to direct into investment accounts should be a non-starter. The US middle class, though? Hahaha. That social security money is going write out the door and into snowmobiles, family vacations, and golf club memberships they can’t afford.
Splitting Image
@Steve LaBonne:
Yeah, my point was more about how the GOP can sell the cuts rather than what the program actually does. Sorry for any confusion there.
gene108
@Steve LaBonne:
Most people have very little interaction to no interaction with government social safety net programs until they turn 65 and sign up for Medicare or turn 62 and wonder when to start collecting Social Security.
Liberals tend to look at problems in an abstract “what if…” way, like “what if someone lost employer healthcare and has pre-existing conditions” and how to solve it. Most of the voting public does not think like this. They are not abstract thinkers. If they or the people they know are not using a social safety net program, I think many feel there’s no need for it.
karen gail
@West of the Rockies: Crap! I loved the look of that place; when I was young it was my ideal of dream home.
Hey, a teen girl dreams with no idea of what it would take to keep a place like that going.
JPL
If they try to privatize Medicare, it might be time to mention that the insurance companies don’t need more control over your health and money.
frosty
@TBone: In the middle of his post, Tierdrich talks about Trump getting rid of all environmental regs and permitting for Musk. Right. That’s all at the state and local level. Maryland isn’t going to have any of it and sacrifice the Bay Program. Maybe the federal funding dries up, but that’s it.
As an aside, working on the NPDES Stormwater permitting program for local governments was my career, and a whole lot of other people in my company and others, and state and local government. Get rid of permitting and people are out of jobs … but I guess that’s not something billionaires care about, is it?
cmorenc
@Kay:
The sharper minds (such as they are) within the GOP recognize that the next two years are most likely a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to realize their nearly 90-year old dream of rolling back the entire array of federal regulation and social welfare programs (including SS, Medicare & Medicaid) back to essentially where they were before FDR came into office in 1932. If they let this moment pass, it won’t come again for many decades, if ever.
They are also driven by the realization that if they succeed within this short window, even if the public zeitgeist shifts sharply back in favor of reinstating them, it will be far more difficult to rebuild them, especially with the current SCOTUS lineup incrementally reinstalling de facto substantive due process along the lines of Lochner (via limiting the scope of the commerce clause etc) running interference against such efforts. For example, SCOTUS narrowly upheld the ACA in 2012, but if it gets repealed over the next two years, and the majority in SCOTUS remains in RW hands, they may not if a new version gets passed by Congress and signed by the then-President.
Hoodie
Likely the ass that he’s showing is that he’s mentally ill. You’re already the richest human on Earth and, by that token, the richest human in the known universe. It’s not like you’re proposing to disrupt the US government to offer returns to some theoretical venture investors who will make you even richer. In fact, it’s very likely that destroying the US government would make you demonstrably less wealthy, as you’re risking the political/economic base that supports your wealth based on crackpot theories that you know or should know are very likely wrong. I guess his recent experiences with Twitter and the Cybertruck are harbingers of this, i.e., take a successful technology and fuck it up just because you can. Seems like the only logic remaining is just the sheer power to fuck up everyone else’s life with a great likelihood of no particular return to you other than psychopathic pleasure in being able to do that.
I recall watching a series on NPD by a fairly well known psychiatric expert and one thing he noted was that to understand narcissists (including psychopaths), you have to understand the pleasure they derive from hurting other people. Reading about Musk’s family, I can see how he could have developed NPD; in that sense, he’s more than a bit like Trump. If you look back on Musk’s past endeavors, there is a strain of cruelty that may signal that a lot of the things he did were at least in part for the pleasure of seeing how uncomfortable he could make people. It’s probably not a coincidence that his discussions of government reform pointedly included a reference to “temporary discomfort.” He might have sprouted a little woody in his black jeans when he said that.
TBone
@NotMax: good question!
NotMax
@Peale
Self-driving retirement s a terrible concept.
;)
suzanne
This is the right take.
Government should, often, move a lot faster than it does. I will freely admit that many of my governmental interactions feel like a trip to the DMV.
But, like, these sketchy fucks are not to be trusted. Shady bastards.
p.a.
Rethugs really do want to run gvt like a business, just not really the supposedly “efficient”, “budget-friendly” bullshit. No matter the form, in the US, from multinational corp down to mom-and-pop, it’s all top-down. The owners decide, everyone else is a conveyor belt for those decisions. (USSR as a mirror of corporate structure.). Don’t like it? Screw. Some mitigation with unions, but look at the % of business actually unionized. None of the German-style worker councils (if that’s even still a thing) to even give the appearance of democratized decision making.
They want gvt to be businesslike for its undemocratic aspects. Logrolling? Compromise? Minority rights? BwaaaaHaaaaHaaaaa.
kindness
Musk will soon step on Trump’s toes one too many times. Sure, Donald needed Elon’s $250M to help him pull out a win on this election, but that won’t mean much to Trump going forward. All Trump cares about is all the headlines. The DOGE ‘commission’ will eclipse Trump enough that it get’s shunted aside.
Kristine
@Ohio Mom:
Which, iirc, pays for most of the nursing home care in this country?
I know “mom/dad/gramma/grampy showing up on MAGA kid’s doorstep after the Medicaid payments dry up” has been mentioned here before.
Steve LaBonne
@JPL: Explaining that has worked so well that more than half of Medicare enrollees are already in an “Advantage” plan. Privatization is already well underway.
Kay
@Peale:
Absolutely. People were super excited when they could withdraw penalty free during covid. They couldn’t wait to take it out and spend it. I simply am trying to avoid a hellish landscape where hundreds of millions of elderly are completely impoverished. At this point its like sandbagging – the thing has already jumped the banks.
TBone
@gene108: I was put in charge of Guardianship cases as an assistant when one of our attorneys was hijacked by a judge while she was in court on a completely unrelated matter. He liked the cut of her jib and assigned her as Guardian for several elderly, incapacitated persons. Because she didn’t want to do the pro bono work assigned, it fell to me. What a learning experience!
TBone
@JPL: 🎯
NotMax
@suzanne
But- but- think of the impact on red tape manufacture. //
(At least here what is now the DMV compared to what it was is stygian night versus noontime day.)
gene108
@Steve LaBonne:
My mom has a Medicare Advantage plan and she is happy with it. She also signed up for parts A & B.
Traditional Medicare is confusing as fuck to figure out what parts you need to cover what health issues you have, which does not include divining any future unknown health issues. It’s also not free. Everything outside of Part A costs money every month.
The only big downside to Medicare Advantage is people not signing up for Parts & B, along with the Advantage plan. A & B along with a private plan should cover most any health problem. Advantage plans can also run at zero premiums, unlike traditional Medicare Parts B, D, E, F, G, etc. which have income based premiums.
Baud
I bet Soylent Green will help reduce grocery prices.
TBone
@Steve LaBonne: a friend just learned the hard way recently. The promised benefits abruptly ended (a food money card she was counting on each month stopped coming, and medical appointments she thought were covered were billed to her instead).
Baud
@gene108:
It’s popular. Won’t be easy to get rid of.
suzanne
@gene108:
You are right: young people are absolutely fucked. I shared this link yesterday:
WTFGhost
I would trust Republicans to bargain in good faith once they start acknowledging that the stolen state secrets charges were not in the least bit politically motivated.
If they won’t budge on the one item that clearly shows they have no concern for national security, why should we trust them on any thing, for any reason? It’s probably a good thing I’m not a congresscritter.
Bill Arnold
@Baud:
Also, Elon Musk’s and Vivek Ramaswamy’s minds are pickling in an echo chamber.
Somebody on the inside could carve holes in the walls of that echo chamber.
And maybe push back a bit against Mr. Musk’s mom:
Elon Musk’s Mom Maye Says She Likes To ‘Sit In On Meetings’ With Her Son And Ramaswamy, Says ‘Wealthy’ And ‘Billionaire’ Are Degrading Words (Adrian Volenik, December 8, 2024)
gene108
@frosty:
Your job is their definition of waste, fraud, and abuse.
Kay
@cmorenc:
100% agree. This is normal Republican policy with a MAGA/tech bro sheen. Even the tariffs are standard GOP. They want to abolish the progressive income tax and replace it with a regressive tax at point of purchase where poor and middle class people pay much more as a percentage of income. “Pointing and laughing” at tgat, while it makes us feel snuggly and warm, is probably not going to work.
NotMax
@Baud
Putting lipstick on long pig.
;)
tobie
Why do we assume that govt is woefully inefficient? That was Ronald Reagan’s shtyck and I rejected it then and again do now. Efficiency is the quarterly statement I get from Soc Sec listing my projected benefits based on retirement age. Efficiency is the fact that I submitted my application to renew my passport and received it in two weeks with a cell phone photo no less. I thank the Biden admin for hiring people with the aptitude to handle the complexities of governing masterfully.
Catnaz
I’m looking forward to TFG getting tired of him. And deporting him!
TBone
@frosty: thanks for your astute commentary!
The Audacity of Krope
It’ll be myself I’m pointing and laughing at for that one. I’m ok with it, I can be collateral damage. Having an even harder time feeding myself will be worth watching them destroy human civilization.
WTFGhost
@gene108: Some – not all – Medicare Advantage plans have poor end-of-life care, which is when care can become very expensive. Their plan is to have people jump to Medicare for hospice.
I like the idea of medicare advantage, but, we need to penalize the hell out of anyone who’d deny standard care, so much so that they fear the penalties more than another shooter. Otherwise, we’re letting some people profit off of human suffering, and then dumping them on the taxpayers for desperately needed relief.
TBone
@tobie: who is this “we” kemosabe? JK but I have always detested Raygun.
Steve LaBonne
@gene108: You have to sign up for A and B to be eligible for Advantage. Once you are on the latter (“Part C”) you have private insurance with all the joys of narrow networks and claim denials. People like it until they actually get sick. Then they’re stuck because they don’t have a guaranteed enrollment period for supplements and who over 65 doesn’t have pre-existing conditions? Which will result in very high premiums or being rejected by supplement providers altogether.
Steve LaBonne
@WTFGhost: There nothing to like. It is spending tax dollars to profit private insurance companies while providing less care at higher cost to Medicare. Typical Republican scam.
TBone
@Steve LaBonne: 1,000% agree. Privatization is never good in the long run.
RevRick
@Bill Arnold: Moskowitz represents a district with a lot of Jewish retirees. The last thing he’ll do is screw over Social Security or Medicare. But he does seem to have the game of trolling down pat. How many times did he make Rep. Jim Comer look ridiculous?
Yes, I know, low bar, but clips of him doing it got endless replay on various social media platforms.
He knows how to bait the idiots into showing their hands.
ArchTeryx
@Belafon: What’s wrong with Amtrak? They can’t keep a schedule to save their lives but that’s for almost a single sole reason: Trackage rights. They have to crawl along behind much slower freight trains everywhere but the NE Corridor, and everyone is always wanting to cut their budget rather than make it better. Worse, the number of freight trains using the rails just keeps growing ever larger. Which is a shame, because the NEC is not only profitable but has a huge passenger count. It’s much easier to get around the heavily populated areas of New England by train than by plane.
Give Amtrak absolute priority over the tracks they use, and enough budget to afford modern equipment, and watch how quickly they’d improve.
Kay
@WTFGhost:
The minute they completely control the market they start cutting because “free” isn’t free. They’re sucking 6-10% more out of the funding than traditional Medicare and that is unsustainable. The privatized plans exist on the back of the traditional plans. Once its fully privatized and there is no “public option” they’ll start cutting.
suzanne
@tobie:
In the course of my job, I encounter a lot of governmental inefficiency. It’s intentionally inefficient, though, and usually by conservative citizens and homeowners pressuring the City Council or underfunding the agency.
Example: in most states, if you do any architectural modification in a hospital, you need an inspection from the state Health department, to sign off that the facility meets the current healthcare design requirements. That’s separate from a normal building inspection. In Arizona, they dramatically — dramatically — undercharge for state Health plan review and inspection. To the point that there are only two people in the entire state who do that function. So they are overloaded and underpaid. As a result, for a while, a project would be completed, the hospital would have taken ownership of the whole project….. but they couldn’t use it for patients for 180 days, until they got approval from the State.
My clients just hated this. To the point that they were asking if they could pay ten times more to get better service. One of my clients offered the state that they would pay the entire salary of an additional reviewer/inspector. The state declined.
The only way to change that was to get the state legislature to approve increasing the cost of inspections. But they wanted to look like a cheap place to do business.
Citizen Alan
Medicaid is also for the middle class and even upper class elderly who had the good sense to have all their assets transferred out of their name before they reached the age of needing nursing home care.
Trollhattan
The conceit of One Weird Trick that can save Billyunns of gumint dollars has been around my lifetime. And doesn’t exist but whatevs. Everybody wants St Ronaldus II. Everybody also ignores the serial Reagan deficits and tax increases.
Baud
@suzanne:
Communist.
Steve LaBonne
@Kay: From the start it has been a Trojan horse for privatization and even before the election we were getting close to the point of no return. I expect to die eventually of something I can’t afford to get treated.
ArchTeryx
@Citizen Alan: They might try to divide and conquer on it, like they do on Social Security: Leave the nursing home part of Medicaid untouched, but completely kill the part that serves the poor.
it doesn’t work for SS because enough of the youngs know a scam when they see one and absolutely refuse to sign onto cutting or privatizing (but I repeat myself) SS. But when it’s poor people vs. old people, what then?
Trollhattan
I get sardonic pleasure that some Very Important People have to pretend to pay attention to Eric Trump for the next four years. Let them grind their damn teeth, I’ll be doing that for very different reasons.
Kay
@Steve LaBonne:
The ads directed at poor people where they offer a payment every month enrage me. The money is for health care. How the fuck did it happen that its going on debit cards for monthly household expenses? “Privatize, but we’ll regulate like…Germany!”
Germany doesn’t have a supreme court that legalized bribing government officials. They actually regu!ate.
Baud
@Trollhattan:
Oh, NYT. Never change.
frosty
Medicare Advantage absolutely did not work for me. I couldn’t get anyone in the PA plan or anyone with my MD PCP organization to tell me if my out-of-state doctors could be paid as out-of-network. They both kept sending me to corporate or to each other. We went with Medicare and Medigap.
The best part is that one of us needed Urgent Care or an ER on every one of our post-retirement road trips. No problem. Hand over the card, get treated, never see a bill, anywhere in the country. Yes, you pay a premium every month. Yes, vision, dental, and hearing aren’t covered. We were lucky we could afford that.
Soprano2
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I constantly tell people that contractors usually cost more than government employees. There are some things that should be contracted out, and sometimes if you need a lot of work done fast that’s a better way to do it, but it’ll cost more. People continue to believe that the private sector is cheaper, but the dirty little secret is that they have to make a profit, while government doesn’t – that’s why they cost more!
Trollhattan
@Baud:
Wasn’t “If eight was four” a Hendrix song?
Kay
@Citizen Alan:
Luckily most people with money are way too controlling to transfer anything until they’re well past the point where there’s a clawback/lookback.
Soprano2
Yep this, 1,000%. We spend a lot of time checking what our contractors do for the work we have to contract out (like pipe lining, we don’t want to do that in-house).
Kay
@frosty:
Good for you. You’re shoring up the public program and using it as it was intended. The boy scout rule – lets try not to trash the place on our way out.
TBone
@Citizen Alan: 🎯
Steve LaBonne
@Soprano2: That so many people can’t understand such a simple and obvious concept tells you everything you need to know about how we got where we are.
JPL
For some reason, it is really a chore to decorate this year. Purchased the tree over a week ago and finally managed to put some lights on it. Maybe I’ll manage a few bulbs, but maybe not.
glory b
@tobie: Thank you! As a former government employee, I’ll also note that, especially in DC, “government employee” equals black people.
i mentioned earlier that when Shrub privatized some IRS tax processing, it turned out that government employees did it much better.
While I have to floor, I’ll also defend my former agency, ATF. Republicans have spent decades limiting funding, then everyone complains that they don’t get things done.
As I mentioned, long after other agencies were computerized, ATF cataloged information on index cards.
frosty
@Soprano2: It’s not just profit, it’s overhead, which is far higher. Government pays its employees salary plus benefits. Private sector pays salary, benefits, profit (10% of directs in my line of work), then overhead, which includes marketing and proposals that government doesn’t have to do. Overhead is between 200% and 300% of directs.
TBone
@Steve LaBonne: my hubby just got “the text” from CVS. The Repatha injections his doctor prescribed today are “under review” by “his insurance.” His only insurance is regular, straight Medicare.
Goddamnit.
frosty
@Kay: Thanks! It’s also the Boy Scout motto: Be Prepared. Especially for distant medical emergencies.
WTFGhost
@Steve LaBonne: perhaps I should have said “I like the idea of the government and private industry working together to see when, and where, actual efficiency can be found, and the concept of letting an insurer use their established networks, etc., etc..”
You’re right – I can’t even say I like the *idea*, because the idea was never to find efficiency – it was always to make money for private industry. But I like the *SALES BROCHURE* for it. Done perfectly, it sounded (to me) like the French system.
different-church-lady
We… are… DOOMED.
RevRick
Paul Campos over at LGM constantly refers to Ariana Grande voters, comparable to people like me who know she is a pop singer, but could not identify one song of hers and would have trouble picking her up out of a group of Hispanic female singers. They are a significant swath of our electorate.
As evidenced by:
29% of voters who supported abortion rights, voted for Trump;
12% of voters who called Trump an extremist, voted for him;
They describe him as a smart businessman, optimistic, caring!
They have vague fond memories of the economy in his first three years in office, and discounted all the concerns about his fascist rhetoric as “just the usual political game.”
We can dismiss them as stupid, but they will turn on a dime against him if they see Congress trying to take a meat ax to social programs or if he enacts tariffs which bite their own budgets big time.
Steve LaBonne
@TBone: Medicare Part D (drugs) is private insurance. Republicans couldn’t prevent drug coverage altogether, but they were able to make sure it would be a privatized scam.
Splitting Image
@suzanne:
Cheap-ass is often the most inefficient way to do anything.
TBone
@Steve LaBonne: bingo
Baud
@RevRick:
I know her name in English is Big Ariana.
Gin & Tonic
@frosty:
Everyone has a horror story of one sort or another, but a few years back I was visiting the grandkids in MD, had a minor accident which I knew needed sutures, so went to a local “urgent care,” part of a chain. I had regular old Medicare plus medigap, presented the card and my ID, and the admitting clerk said “we don’t take out of state Medicare.” I tried to explain, while I was sitting there actively bleeding, with stains all over my shirt, that Medicare is a federal program. Like talking to a wall. So I said how about I pay out of pocket, you give me the invoice, and I’ll take care of this when I get home. No, can’t do self-pay for Medicare-eligible people, company policy. At this point I may have used some angry words. I think people in the waiting area might have been looking at me as I walked out, bleeding, cursing, and tearing up the admission form into little pieces.
Went to a different-branded urgent care, where my first question in the door was :do you take Medicare?” Got excellent care there, from a kind and caring immigrant. Couple of days later called the first company’s compliance officer and reamed them out. Sorry, “lack of training.” I called bullshit, it deteriorated from there.
Steve LaBonne
@WTFGhost: The private aspects of basic care in France are nonprofit and highly regulated. Same with other systems like Germany and Switzerland that have a large private component.
TBone
@Steve LaBonne: which is why I am so fucking angry right now. Privatized got us again!!! He’s on a program called SilverScripts and they don’t want to pay for the injections. “Denied” is gonna be the next text we get from CVS. I was too angry to sort this out in my comment above, thank you for doing so.
different-church-lady
@Gin & Tonic:
Actually, it probably was lack of training.
So the next line is, “How is it you’re not training your staff on this EXTREMELY VITAL point?”
TBone
@Gin & Tonic: JFC!!!
Fake Irishman
@RevRick:
This is true. The six percent swing from 2020 is not likely hard core trump supporters, we have to figure out how to appeal to them, and that likely doesn’t entail throwing any Democratic constituency under the bus.
Chris
@suzanne:
As I’ve said my whole adult life, running the government the way we have been since 1980 is the equivalent of having an army where half the generals are pacifists, having a for-profit corporation where half the Board of Directors are communists, or having a Yankees team where half the players are diehard Red Sox fans.
Stuffing an institution full of people who believe in the institution doesn’t guarantee that it’ll work.
But stuffing an institution full of people who believe, as a matter of faith, that the institution can’t work, and if it can, it shouldn’t, pretty much does guarantee that it won’t work.
Frankly, it’s a miracle that the government works as well as it does, and a testament to the quality of the civil servants who work there.
Baud
@different-church-lady:
Training costs money.
Trollhattan
Now we know, Greece managed to piss off Donny somehow.
OTOH Grecian coke dealers are thrilled.
Geminid
@Kay: Pointing and laughing is a passive strategy. This situation calls for an active, aggressive strategy, more slash and burn.
Republicans really leave themselves open when they try try to mess with Social Security, and with the Veteran Administration whose functions they also want to privatize. I’m not so worried about defense here, because I don’t believe Republicans can get through either house of Congress.
But they are exposing themselves politically, I think, and presenting good possibilities for counterattacks..
anitamargarita
Just saw that clip of Blumenthal praising Musk for being a defender of free speech, ugh.
Steve LaBonne
@Geminid: Now we just have to figure out how we get the people who get their “news” from Joe fucking Rogan to hear anything about it.
Ohio Mom
@Kristine: Yes, after grandma goes broke paying for the nursing home, the nursing home will then apply to have Medicaid start paying the bill. One of my hopes is that the nursing home industry kicks up a fuss. I know AARP is gearing up.
Medicaid also pays for poor people’s health coverage. In Ohio, almost everyone on Medicaid must enroll in one of several pre-approved managed care plans. I imagine other states do this too. We can hope the managed care plans also kick up a fuss.
Finally, sorry to repeat myself, but Medicaid also pays for all the services and supports that disabled people need to live a decent life including group home staff* and other homemaker/ personal care staff; day programs; job coaching; transportation; social work case managers to coordinate everything.
And of course, medical care.
* Medicaid does not pay rent, you have to use your social Security benefit for that.
I know the national disabilities organizations will be on this as well but their only leverage is guilt.
Finally, onevway Republicans may try to cut Medicaid without making it look like they are cutting it is to turn it into a block grant to the states. I don’t have the wherewithal to go into that now. David Anderson wrote on this ages ago, maybe his post can be resurrected if block granting is put on the table.
Trollhattan
@anitamargarita: Speaking freely is quite different from “free speech.” Evidently that’s lost on some.
suzanne
@Splitting Image:
Agreed.
“You get what you pay for” has always been true.
Steve LaBonne
@Ohio Mom: AARP better fucking be planning to spend my dues money on a massive campaign of kicking and screaming.
WTFGhost
@Steve LaBonne: That is more or less what I expected, and I wasn’t caring who called it “socialism”. Health insurance *should* be a dull business, and run for society, not capital, in my humble opinion.
Steve LaBonne
@WTFGhost: Absolutely. And there are many different ways to do that all of which are much better than our corrupt mess.
Baud
This guy is a riot.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I’m still staggered that Gilfoyle and Newsom were married. Makes me question his judgement
TF79
My impression of the “waste, fraud, and abuse” crowd is that a pretty good chunk of them are effectively innumerate. The latest local freakout is over things like $3 million dollars spent on programs to support the homeless or migrant populations, with lots of “why don’t we use that money to support our homeless veterans instead?” comments – of course, the defense budget is $849,800 million dollars, and nary a peep about re-allocating some rounding error of that towards the homeless veterans they purport to be so concerned about.
Steve LaBonne
@TF79: Cue Carlin “think how stupid the average person is” clip.
TBone
Piracy is the Theme of the Day on TCM.
Captain Blood is now “Carving a Crimson Career!”
cain
They absolutely need to be onboard with govt efficiency. Here in Oregon, I know they could do a lot better job of that. Mostly, who they hire matters a lot and there isn’t enough systems in place to make sure that they are doing a good job. I’ve learned a lot watching how the educational system works here in Oregon and there is a reason why Oregon is in the bottom third when it comes to schools.
Harrison Wesley
@TBone: l don’t think I want to watch any movies about private equity.
Captain C
@Villago Delenda Est: And then file suit to force advertisers and customers to pay them to hang out with Nazis, in the case of Xitter.
Almost Retired
@frosty: We did the same thing for Mrs. Almost Retired, who is fully retired and became Medicare eligible last month.
We basically came to the conclusion that we’d rather have our medical services denied by an indifferent government bureaucrat than a profit-motivated private sector adjuster. It’s traditional Medicare and Medigap for us (when I’m eligible).
The Advantage plans offered a lot of shiny objects, but problematic coverage network issues, especially – as you note — while traveling. Plus Advantage plans are evil.
Martin
Even though DOGE isn’t an agency, be aware of how these kinds of things work. One reason why all kinds of organizations have consultantitis is that they give you deniabilty, and that often is their whole point. You want to cut a unit, you don’t want to be accused of bias or hamstringing the organization, you just hire a consultant to recommend it and now it’s a 3rd party independent recommendation that you are following. Clean hands.
The clean hands are the point. I don’t know if it works in the case of Congress, but I bet a lot of people in Congress believes it works in the case of Congress.
Steve LaBonne
@TBone: Your comment immediately brought to mind Reacher Gilt in Going Postal.
Another Scott
@Elizabelle: I remember those days, also too. Krugman is right.
But I think he doesn’t go far enough.
Government is different from our daily lives, but there are some analogies. Among them is – if you want higher efficiency, then you have to invest in equipment, processes, and people to make it happen. You don’t get greater efficiency in a big complicated system by cutting people – that slowly kills the system (which is their real aim (after they extract all the value they can from it)).
E.g. You want lower heating and AC bills? You have to spend money on insulation, better windows, and buy a more efficient HVAC system. You want more oil and gas out of the ground from your wells? You have to spend money on horizontal drilling hardware and fracking pumps and chemicals. You want more and higher quality steel from your plant? You have to invest in new furnaces and higher quality starting materials. You want better outcomes in the medical system? You have to invest in training more doctors, improve their work facilities and testing facilities, and get them to where the people are. You want to reduce fraud and abuse? You need to invest in investigators and business processes that make it easier to find that fraud and abuse.
Etc.
It costs money, but pays off down the road.
These “waste, fraud, and abuse” people want to cut taxes and reduce what government does. They’re not interested in efficiency, because efficiency costs money in the short term.
I don’t think they’re fooling anyone sensible with this DOGE stuff.
Grr…
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Martin
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I think Newsom’s judgement is deserving of scrutiny. He’s going to be in full 2028 nominee campaign mode from here on out.
TBone
@Harrison Wesley: hahahahaha! Thanks, I needed that lol today.
TBone
@Captain C: good eye
laura
@Dorothy A. Winsor: She wasn’t always how she is now. She was a bright student according to a former teacher. She was a qualified attorney and she was conventionally pretty. Then she moved to New York City to become a legal analyst (shakes fist in Dan Abrams’ general direction). Then Fox tapped her to join the gang on the crotch couch. While there’s all manner of reasons to question Govenor Newsom’s decision making process, the woman he married was not the fame whore she became.
waspuppet
The thing is, and I thought Bernie at least knew this, is that you can do the second but without doing the “Elmo has a point” part. FFS.
TBone
@Steve LaBonne: I haven’t
seenread that yetbut will now look to rent. Coincidentally, I was going to rent “Goin’ South” today because Jack Nicholson always makes me feel better. “Going Postal” is a better fit hahahaha!ETA read the Cliff’s Notes.
Steve LaBonne
@Almost Retired: My wife and I have had expensive surgical procedures and Medicare has never denied anything. As long as the provider codes your treatment properly you are pretty much good for whatever the standard of care is that’s associated with the codes. Ohio amazingly is one of the states that forbid balance billing, so providers can’t send me a bill for whatever they think they should be getting above what Medicare pays. Of course we’re fortunate to be able to afford the most comprehensive supplements. Medicare “Advantage” is knowingly designed to appeal to (and screw) seniors who have trouble affording supplements. This is a real problem with traditional Medicare.
TBone
@Martin: nailed it.
Steve LaBonne
@TBone: I have seen it and it’s pretty much the only time I have really enjoyed a screen adaptation of a favorite book. It’s really good.
Ohio Mom
@TBone: That must be his Part D insurer. That’s insurance you purchase on your own to cover prescription drugs, though the plans are regulated by Medicare.
The tricky part of Part D is that not every plan covers every drug. During the fall enrollment period, you can change plans to better reflect your ongoing orescriptions. Medicare has a very user-friendly site to help you chose the Part D plan that is best for you.
The catch is when you are prescribed a new drug mid-year. Will it be covered, who knows? Too bad you didn’t have a crystal ball back during the enrollment period to tell you how your health would change.
Oh well, there’s always next fall.
Steve LaBonne
@Another Scott:
But as Adlai Stevenson said, we need a majority. :(
TBone
@Steve LaBonne: thanks I didn’t know it was also a movie in my quick search. So I will rent it!
Kay
@Martin:
Yup. Also assuming the electorate won’t fall for for a full of shit billionaire is just bonkers. Yes, they will. In fact, they just did.
Musk is campaigning on the platform he bought and the government he bought to end public programs. That demands an actual response from the opposition, not Sub stack essays or witty takedowns that make us feel smug and smart. Hit him, hard, or he’s going to win.
TBone
@Ohio Mom: hubby was not given a choice when he received Social Security eligibility through the Court in Philadelphia at age 53. He was assigned to SilverScripts automatically here in PA – everything just came in the mail with his lump sum retroactive disability benefits check. Easy peasy. We thought.
Thank you for that cogent explanation though!
Steve LaBonne
@TBone: By all means also read the book! And the rest of Discworld if you haven’t. Brilliant stuff.
Splitting Image
@Another Scott:
Government is also different from a household in that its concerns last decades or centuries rather than months or years. If you want to make your house more efficient, you bite the bullet on the furnace, insulation, and so on, but after you’ve done the big things they are usually done for however long you are staying in that house.
Governments operate on much longer timescales and thus always have things that need to be fixed or improved. Consequently there is always money being spent on improvement. Consequently there is always “waste, fraud, and abuse”. You can’t fix Social Security by installing a high-efficiency furnace and putting the issue behind you for the next twenty years.
Ohio Mom
@Gin & Tonic: I had a similar but different experience with urgent care being useless — they took my Medicare, and billed for the service of telling me the cut was too deep for them to stitch up, I needed to go to the emergency room.
Which is where I went directly the next time I needed stitches. Not ever going back to urgent care for anything,sticking with my suburban ER.
Glory b
@waspuppet: Youll never go wrong underestimating Bernie’s political intelligence.
TBone
@Steve LaBonne: thank you. My 80 y.o. aunt just gifted me two novels for my birthday – Huckleberry Finn (I already have it but it’s still a welcome) and the new novel ‘James’ by Percival Everett, telling the story though Jim’s eyes. So the Going Postal book is third in line (haven’t reread Huck Finn in years).
It’s on the list!
Ohio Mom
@Steve LaBonne: Right after they send you a letter asking you for a donation for their advocacy/lobbying work.
Chris
@TBone:
I really should read Huck Finn some day.
Disney Plus has suggested the movie to me a couple times, does it actually follow the book?
Geminid
@Steve LaBonne: I really don’t think Rogan’s people matter that much. There are other groups I’d go after before them.
In any event, Republicans aren’t gonna lay their cards on the table until January, when they actually file bills in the House and Senate, snd start committee work. That’s when they will expose themselves politically in a meaningful way.
So I’m not antsy for a big counterattack right now. Let them stick their necks out first, and finally put their money where their mouth is.
Anyway, most people will be thinking about matters other than politics for the next 20 days, and many are glad for that. I think January will the critical month for influencing public opinion on these issues.
TBone
@Ohio Mom: our rural health system sends money beg donation solicitations! They just built a huge, new wing too, all private patient rooms.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Geo Wilcox:
Yes. Snowden.
At least 2 years after the leaks, there was still *no* discussion about the security risks involved in outsourcing and privatization.
Outsourcing the U.S. government’s data collection to a private contractor is one reason Snowden was able to get his hands on so much data and outsourcing the vetting of employees to a different private contractor is another.
There is no meaningful chain of responsibility anymore. The government blames its contractors when things go wrong and companies supplying the government with data blame the government.
This negatively affects the willingness of every organization involved – government or corporation – to overreach in their own data collection and their ability to protect data that they need to keep secret.
I could post Tony J-esque screeds on outsourcing/privatization.
A. Aboto
@Splitting Image: The R Congress will do their usual kabuki on gutting social security, medicare & medicaid. If the R congress again fails, the R scotus will do the deed this time.
TBone
@Chris: depends on which version, Mickey Rooney in 1939 or the 1993 remake. Of course I recommend 1939 because I haven’t bothered with the 1993 remake.
suzanne
@TBone:
Just FYI, this is now required in every state. It’s not bougie. It’s based in a ton of evidence about hospital-acquired infections. Shared patient rooms are terrible and you should avoid them if at all possible.
TBone
Errybody ready for the Christmas financial cliff negotiation?
TBone
@suzanne: Yes, I am all for that (it was completed just before Covid hit). I’m just anti money beg because they’re not suffering.
Steve LaBonne
@TBone: “James” is definitely on my list. I have seen reviews and it sounds great.
rikyrah
@TBone:
That’s so sad and disgusting.
Steve LaBonne
@Glory b: He’s our Corbyn. Useless but somehow has rabid fans.
Martin
It’s not that simple. I’ve implemented a LOT of government efficiency in my career – figuring out how to keep services going after the 2008 budget collapses, etc.
It’s mostly a question of identifying the places where workers are adding value for citizens and places where they aren’t. The theme after 2008 was that technology allowed for the majority of our clerical work to be eliminated (clerical workers don’t have decision-making authority) in favor of more professional staff (who do have decision-making authority). We laid off about a third of the least senior clerical staff across the organization as well as some of the professional staff over a year to immediately balance the budget and started reclassifying almost all of the remaining ones into professional positions with increased responsibilities. Things like mail delivery were scaled back, internal electronic forms were increased, various kinds of data collection (like tax forms! – think of how many people are doing data entry on hand-written 1040s) were moved online, some accountability was shifted from pre-action to post-action, or the reverse if we felt it would be more efficient and not worsen accountability. Think approvals and things like that. There was no one size fits all, and we did find places where more staff lowered costs because they prevented problems somewhere else where things were expensive. Breaking apart the budgetary silos was important. It’s very common for one administrator to cut a service to balance their budget which increases costs in someone else’s budget by 2x or even 10x. These kinds of holistic budget analyses are hard, but necessary, and often lead to restructuring – moving these disconnected budget tasks into a single entity.
Overall, it was successful. Things that we couldn’t live without were deemed to be ‘oh, this is fine’ within a month. A lot of things were deemed ‘hey, this is better, why didn’t we do this before’. Some thing got worse and we either reverted, or we tried out a 3rd approach which stuck.
We weren’t the size of the federal government by any means, but we were the size of some agencies. I’ll note, Musks approach absolutely doesn’t work, just as it didn’t work at Twitter. You can’t do this remotely (like from Congress) – you have to be embedded in the task, it’s extremely hands on. And you can’t be some consultant that helicopters in, because nobody outside of these agencies know how to do this stuff. You need to find people inside the organization that understand how everything works and are up to this task. A lot of the ideas to streamline came from the clerical staff. They understood how dumb their job was. Others came from people who could reimagine the task. They were harder, but usually fell in the category of ‘hey, this is better!’.
One big thing we did was just a change in attitude with some sticks to enforce it. Most orgs like this suffer from throughput problems. Think ‘inbox zero’. When your org starts to fall behind the work coming in, you start building systems to keep track of the stuff you didn’t do, systems to prioritize what to do, and so on. In a lot of cases simply putting enough staff there allowed them to stay on top of the work coming in and all of those extra systems could be torn down – and they cost more than the staff, and our customers were much happy because they got an immediate answer rather than be shoved in some queue and responded to a few weeks later. This is a bit of a restructuring exercise because it also means that approvals up the line need to be similarly reformed so bosses need to have the option to effectively drop everything to respond to an exception/special case, etc. to keep it from falling into a queue. This is where your usual ticket management tools get inserted, but it’s more of a cultural thing than a tool to turn the customer service crank (and works better if you solve it that way).
Ohio Mom
@TBone: You might try researching to see if you can’t change next year. Maybe start with your local Council on Aging for referrals to someone who knows something.
In Ohio, most people in Medicaid are required to sign up with a managed care plan — there are several to chose from.
If you don’t take charge and chose one yourself, they will abritrarily assign you to one (my personal theory is that the state promised the HMOs that in consideration for their kickbacks, they will make sure every plan has at least a minimum number of enrollees).
Maybe Hubby ended up in that Silver plan the same way.
The Audacity of Krope
@TF79: The latest local freakout is over things like $3 million dollars spent on programs to support the homeless or migrant populations, with lots of “why don’t we use that money to support our homeless veterans instead?”
Here’s the thing, though, they don’t actually care about homeless veterans or about workers working too hard to make ends meet or any of the groups they raise up as a rejection whenever some program is proposed to help anyone. Because we want to help all these people too and they point at some other deserving group who isn’t getting enough help as an excuse to not help them.
And so the circle goes.
different-church-lady
@Geo Wilcox: Excuse me, PATRIOTS UNFAIRLY EXILED TO RUSSIA, we’ll have you know.
Chris
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
The extent to which the security state has turned into a recruitment ground for America’s enemies is absolutely insane. We’ve already had a major contractor (Erik Prince) and a former DIA director (Michael Flynn) who spent a fair amount of time as mercenaries working for dubious allies (Turkey, the Gulf kingdoms) and straight-up enemies (Russia, China). We’ve got a former FBI director who ended up legal counsel to the biggest mob boss in Russia (Bill Sessions). We’ve got a military-industrial zillionaire (Elon Musk) who’s literally using his satellite network to help our enemies beat our allies in Ukraine.
Is anyone surprised when something happens like Comey helping the Russians put a sympathizer in the White House? We’ve had a national security community for decades where more and more people treat it not as a career, but a resume-builder for their real career doing consulting and contracting after they “retire.” Increasingly, those future bosses they’re looking to impress aren’t just Lockheed-Martin, Raytheon, and Halliburton anymore, but the Kremlin, the CCP, and the Saudi court. Does that have national security implications for us? Gee I wonder.
Martin
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Government hires the contractors so they can blame them. I’ve seen that up close and personal so many times. (See my clean hands comment).
The single biggest problem we had both in terms of costs and poor service was our reliance on 3rd party contractors vs in-house efforts. They were always terrible and horrifically expensive. And despite that leadership insisted on doing it that way because doing things internally required a much higher level of in-house expertise than they wanted to acquire, which is just laziness as far as I’m concerned. You’re a lot better off in the long term if you own your shit.
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
Now I’m concerned all the money we’ll save by abandoning Ukraine won’t be used to make things better at home.
different-church-lady
@Another Scott:
It makes raiding the system dry more efficient.
The Audacity of Krope
@different-church-lady: If all you need to be designated a Patriot is to break the law to draw attention to something people already should have known, this bit of knowledge should inform our side’s activism going forward.
What could go wrong?
different-church-lady
@Steve LaBonne:
I frequently do, and I’ve come to believe it’s closer to 90%.
different-church-lady
@The Audacity of Krope:
Is there anything left that hasn’t already?
TBone
@Ohio Mom: I suspect you are entirely correct. I will look around but, the plan he’s in now does cover all of his other, multiple meds so hubby will be recalcitrant about any change I recommend. He insists I prove any such theoretical challenges before he’ll take me seriously. Which I have successfully proven to him many times in the past, but he’s still a born skeptic and I don’t blame him, being one myself!
The Audacity of Krope
Concern yourself no longer. It won’t and was never intended to. Unless by “making things better at home,” you mean shoveling billions at well-connected investors.
rikyrah
@Kay:
I can’t stand her, but the Democrats need to hire Katie Porter, since she doesn’t have a job anymore. Just send her anywhere and everywhere with her white board. To break it down like a fraction, on what they are trying to do to Social Security and Medicare.
Her explanation on Social Security was succinct and made it plain.
Old Man Shadow
I fully expect that when I retire… IF I retire… in 20 years or so, my Social Security will be entirely in a Trump brand cryptocurrency worth negative dollars. The money I would have gotten might pay a few hours of expenses on Elon’s yacht instead.
And I expect my Medicare to be run by the Christian Scientists or some Louisiana based faith healer that sells prayer veils, healing oils, and colloidal silver.
The Audacity of Krope
It can always get worse. At least now we won’t have a losing Presidential candidate out there trying to overthrow the government.
different-church-lady
@The Audacity of Krope: Right! Having a winning presidential candidate trying to overthrow the government is so much better!
The Audacity of Krope
It’s more efficient on its face. Efficiency is what we’re looking for, right?
TBone
Holy moly! SilverScripts WILL cover hubby’s Repatha injections after all! You could knock me down with a feather right now. Zero co-pay!
Baud
@TBone:
Congratulations. Relief.
ETA: Thanks, Biden.
Steve LaBonne
@TBone: Most excellent!
TBone
@Baud:
@Steve LaBonne:
Thanks youse guys AND thanks Old Handsome Joe Biden!
Trollhattan
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
He’s more or less the same; she’s done three 180s by my count. And it was LONG ago.
A very old Charlie Rose interview with the couple when he was SF mayor is helpful for context.
artem1s
@New Deal democrat:
Doesn’t matter how TCF reacts, it only matters how the House Reps in those red districts react. They will test the wind, count the votes and do whatever is necessary to keep their own voters happy. The GOP House has successfully voted to end ACA multiple times IIRC. But they voted knowing it would never get past the Senate. IMO even the last minute thumbs down from McCain was a show by someone who agreed to tell TCF to take a flying f*ck for the rest of the Senate. He had NFLTG and wanted an opportunity to stick to DonOld one last time before he died. Figuring out which of the remaining GOP yellow bellies are ripe for picking to torpedo the latest “TCF/Edgelord/GOP bill to blow up the economy” is going to be Jeffers main job for the next two years. Given the slim GOP majority in the House and number of GOPers fleeing or having to resign I think we’ll see a deadlock before the first year is over.
Jeffer’s going to have plenty of opportunities to torture Moses Johnson when he comes pleading for bipartisan help when he can’t even whip up votes in his own party – that is if he can even hold on to the Speaker’s seat.
Sister Golden Bear
@Baud: Pick Me! gonna Pick Me!
Belafon
@Baud: Getting rid of the cap on when ss taxes are collected is one thing I can get behind.
p.a.
My company just dumped retirees (maybe active too, IDK) from Express Scripts, which I have had no issues with (my bp & cholesterol meds are generics, nothing new/experimental) to SilverScripts, as of 1/1. We’ll see how it shakes out.
Martin
@Kay: The public generally buy into the myth of Musk from what I can see. I have noted before that he does have a few good qualities that we could use more broadly, in terms of risk-taking, but none of those work in the role he’s been given and all of his bad qualities overwhelm the good ones.
Again, I think if you put up a better alternative, the myth around him would collapse. Mark Cuban is far from a stellar human, but he’s a lot better. He’s behind Civica, which is at least an idea with merit. (Civica was hired by CA to do generic drug production for the state).
Chris
@TBone:
Never heard of the first one. The nineties is the one I saw on D+
artem1s
@Steve LaBonne:
Advantage is only the default if you miss the enrollment window. They are banking on people not knowing the rules and not knowing you can’t unchoose Advantage once you’ve signed on. And if they end Medicaid those extras everyone gets (essentially food stamps and other wellness perks) are going away too. But I’m betting the premiums will still be the same (or higher).
Ramalama
@TBone: Speaking of food card, I listened to an episode of Malicious Life (hacker stuff mostly). This episode has them talking to two experts on how poor people in America (and other Americans, really) are getting victimized through this obvious and horrible loophole that nobody wants to fix (EMV chip snafu and default password that everyone knows). As a result, Romanian crooks, among others, are exploiting it to reap millions in cash. And poor people often go without food as a result.
Miss Bianca
@Steve LaBonne:
Or another family member. I am sure both my brothers voted for Trump. So, since one of them is in a nursing home having suffered a massive stroke in March of this year, and having heard my other brother’s wife say emphatically, “oh, no, we couldn’t have him here in the house,” I am just waiting for the right moment to say, “you do realize you stand to get what you voted for good and hard, right? Have fun taking care of G. when Medicaid gets slashed and the nursing homes all shut down!”
Miss Bianca
@Baud:
Don’t worry – they never will.
Another Scott
@Martin: Thanks.
Yes, organizations can and should be looking at ways to improve, and sometimes that leads to reduced headcount. Another of Dean Baker’s mantras is that decent productivity growth (== increased output per worker) makes a lot of things possible. Efficiency is good for (just about) everyone.
Automation and thoughtful processes should make work more pleasant and efficient. And in the process of making those improvements, enables reducing the headcount (or moving people to other places in the organization where they can better take advantage of their knowledge and skills). But the reduced headcount needs to come later in the decision tree, not as the first thing.
“We can reduce overhead costs by thoughtfully automating things, and then we won’t need as many clerical staff, and managers can spend more time managing rather than dozens of them spending hours putting their electronic signatures on routine route sheets…” is very different from “Our budget was cut 20% because of DOGE. Sorry, but every 5th person needs to clean out their desk and leave.”
:-(
Of course, both cases are likely to be active if the new team has anything to say about it…
Thanks again.
Best wishes,
Scott.
TBone
@Ramalama: aaaarrrggghhh. My friend is among the “food insecure,” another euphemism that drives me bonkers in its Orwellian splendor.
(Thank you for that info tho).
It can never not get worse, huh. They always find a way!
Kathleen
@Glory b: Thread is probably dead but I’m waiting for him to attribute “economic anxiety” as the motive for the United Health exec shooting.
TBone
@Chris: Wiki says of the 1939 Mickey Rooney vehicle: “Most critics found the film mediocre.” I found it to be mostly true to the original plot and I like Rooney in general so I liked it, but I’m an old softy with a crush on classic film.
TBone
@rikyrah: thank you, I feel hugged. Sorry I missed your comment earlier!
Miss Bianca
@Steve LaBonne:
Eh. I tried to read it and couldn’t get through it. YMMV, of course.
Ramalama
@TBone: I’ve experienced food insecurity as a kid and then briefly as a grown adult. It sucks Donkey Kong ballz.