Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

A tremendous foreign policy asset… to all of our adversaries.

The world has changed, and neither one recognizes it.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

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

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

The “burn-it-down” people are good with that until they become part of the kindling.

They spent the last eight months firing professionals and replacing them with ideologues.

Reality always gets a vote in the end.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

The unpunished coup was a training exercise.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

No Kings: Americans standing in the way of bad history saying “Oh, Fuck No!”

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

“But what about the lurkers?”

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

You cannot love your country only when you win.

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

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Tuesday Afternoon Fill In the Blanks Open Thread

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So many things to write about, but no time today.

Beau’s podcast last night talked about research from Johns Hopkins about the impact of their awful abortion law from 2021 or 2022.  8% increase in infant mortality overall.  23% increase in deaths of children born with birth defects.  There aren’t words bad enough for people who put women and families through this.

Judge Cannon clearly has whisperers in her ear about just how far she can go without doing something to allow jack Smith to appeal to the 11th Circuit. Exhibit # 50-million of this going on this week.

And so much more.

Anyway, fill in the blanks and choose your topics!

Open thread.

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Profit pools in healthcare

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In the most recent release of Health Affairs Scholar, my co-author Salpy Kanimian and one of her mentors, Vivian Ho, examine the increase of costs of healthcare in the US by looking at where there are unusually high profit levels:

Figure S2 reveals that across all years except for 2022, profits for insurance companies were consistently lower than those for nonprofit and for-profit hospitals. Profit margins were particularly low for insurers between 2014 and 2016 after the insurance provisions of the Affordable Care Act took effect in 2014. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) imposed medical loss ratio requirements on insurers, requiring insurers to issue rebates to customers if their medical spending did not exceed 80% of premiums. This Medical Loss Ratio (MLR) requirement limited profit margins for insurers, while no such limit was placed on hospitals. The −0.31% net profit margin for nonprofit hospitals in 2022 follows an extraordinarily high net profit margin of 10.67% in 2021. The steep drop is partly attributable to rising labor costs from inflation and the drop in federal funding tied to the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency.
However, a recent analysis found that 85% of financial losses in 2022 for 10 large nonprofit hospital systems were attributable to investment losses,17 likely from the fall in the stock market which occurred that year. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) requires that hospitals include unrealized investment losses in net income, which is used to calculate net profit margins. For-profit hospitals enjoyed a net profit margin of 7.02% in 2022, which was substantially higher than for nonprofit hospitals and insurers. In the event that a for-profit hospital experiences a shortfall, it can sell more stock to raise cash, an option unavailable to nonprofit hospitals. Therefore, a for-profit system has less need to hold investment assets. While Medicare Cost Reports for all of 2023 are not yet available, hospital financial data from Kaufman Hall for a subset of US hospitals suggest that profits for nonprofit hospitals have rebounded in 2023 with the stock market recovery.

Unusually high profit margins either indicates a sector is doing something utterly amazing or that there is an anti-competitive moat that allows for a sector to collect higher rents. The evidence over the past decade has been that the hospital sector is often a series of localized duopolies and monopolies that can routinely increase their prices against fairly inelastic demand.

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Tuesday Morning Open Thread: ‘We Are Going to Win’

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This is good, encouraging, and I doubt many of you will have seen it yet. John Heilemann, at Puck, interviews Jen O’Malley Dillon:

The chair of the president’s reelection campaign, Jen O’Malley Dillon, is a legend in her business. Born in Boston and educated at Tufts—where she majored in political science, and, way more important, was the captain of the softball team—J.O.D. got her start in presidential politics on Al Gore’s 2000 campaign, where she quickly built her reputation as one of the great field organizers of her or any generation. From there, she ascended the ziggurat of Democratic operatives methodically, skillfully, without a slip: from Iowa field director and Iowa state director for John Edwards in 2004 and 2008, respectively; to battleground state director and deputy campaign manager for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, respectively; then chair of the D.N.C. Unity Reform Commission after the 2016 election, and campaign manager for Beto O’Rourke’s much-hyped but short-lived primary bid in 2020.

And then, in the spring of 2020, J.O.D. was handed an assignment that many considered impossible: general election campaign manager for a candidate considered by most Republicans, many Democrats, and much of the punditocracy to be too old, too frail, and/or too “sleepy” (per the forever amped-up incumbent, Donald Trump) to win the White House. And yet, she pulled it off, becoming the first female campaign manager in history to install a Democrat in the Oval Office.

J.O.D. spent the first three years of Biden’s term serving as White House deputy chief of staff. But in January, she decamped from Washington for Wilmington to take over running the reelect alongside Biden’s longtime chief strategist, Mike Donilon. Since then, she hasn’t done a single extended, recorded, on-the-record interview—until now. Famously hard-nosed, clear-headed, and nonsense-free, her tendency to avoid the press owes much to her allergy to bullshit and reflexive aversion to superficial spin. And yet, in a nearly hourlong conversation for my podcast (condensed here for space and edited for clarity), the confidence she expressed about Biden again defeating Trump in 2024 was unwavering and absolute…

John Heilemann: The debate is less than a week away. If you go back and screen the 2020 Biden-Trump debates, they’re unwatchable—the endless crosstalk, the interruptions. That’s the kind of stuff the new debate rules are supposed to stop. How confident are you that those rules will work?

Jen O’Malley Dillon: I’m confident that Joe Biden is going to stand on that stage, and he is going to show what he showed in 2020—that he is in this for all the right reasons. He’s focused on delivering for the American people, and him standing next to Donald Trump is the best way to show that. Do I think rules are going to protect the American people from whatever Donald Trump might say? Of course not. But I do think having this [debate] really be serious is what the American people want. So, this is a great opportunity, earlier in this cycle than ever before, for the two of them to stand together and for [President Biden] to talk about what he’s done and what he’s fighting for—and not having an audience, not having distractions, not having to worry about Covid, I think all those things are better for the American people…

Let’s talk about the state of the race. This week, a new Fox News national poll put Biden at 50 and Trump at 48. The latest Morning Consult national tracking poll has Biden at 44 and Trump at 43. Those are both, obviously, well within the margin of error; they are statistical ties. But Trump’s peak in the polling averages was in January, when he had a four-point lead. And according to 538, Biden has taken a narrow lead for the first time this year.

Now, national polls are one thing and the numbers in the battleground states are different. But in those states, on the battlefields where you’re fighting, are you guys also seeing an uptick?

Yes. But look, fundamentally, everyone in this country has to understand that this is a very close election and it’s going to be close. And I get [that Democrats] wish it weren’t the case, [but] the race in 2020, the 2016 race, the 2012 race—[all were] close. We are a polarized nation in many ways. [But], significantly, from when Trump was convicted by a jury of his peers on 34 [felony] counts, we have seen movement in our direction and away from Trump. There’s also still lots of folks in this country that, yes, know this election’s happening, and yes, they know that it’s coming up, but they’re just not that engaged in it now. And those people are starting to tune in a little bit more.

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Dank Grey Dawn Open Thread: Debate Prep

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Debate Prep - STOCKPILE

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Open Thread: We Have a Boebert Problem

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A while back Mistermix had a dire warning about Boebert – I scoffed at his assessment. How could this carpetbagger that voters in general can not stand, win CO4. I mean she had to move from her district to super safe Red CO4 because she was in danger of losing to a DEMOCRAT of all things. She is toxic.

Now, as we look to the primaries tomorrow, I’m super worried we will be stuck with Boebert for the long term. Not because she’s popular, but because the CO GOP is in disarray. I doubt, besides polluting the airwaves and local theatres, she’ll have any effect on governance. She’s too stupid and lazy to do much more than promote Lauren Boenbert. But OMG, she’s a complete embarrassment for our state.

Because of the stupidity and dysfunction of the CO GOP, there are SIX candidates running in the GOP CO4 primary. And the general assumption is, that whoever wins the GOP primary will run away with the vote in the general in NOV

And with so many candidates running, it won’t take but a few votes for Boebert to win the primary. And why? Not because she has a lot of support – it’s because she has 5 opponents, who couldn’t find a way to set aside their egos and find one Republican to run against her. Our favorite debate moderator explains:

And now I’m annoyed, but District 4 gets what it deserves…probably no matter who they elect. Buck was no prize, no friend to Colorado, women, LGBTQ+, or the environment… and neither will whatever moron they elect this time. I’m just sorry to say, we may well be stuck with Boebert for the foreseeable future. As a proud Coloradoan, I apologize.

 

Governor Polis is interviewed by fellow (former) Coloradoan Tim Miller:

Primary is tomorrow. I am not expecting good news.

This is an open thread

 

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