Because we can never get enough thread. Pet and kid pics, and what games you’re playing and books you’re reading and what new kitchen appliance that costs more than a mortgage payment you have are all great subjects of discussion.
Soonergrunt wrote at Balloon Juice from 2011-16.
Twitter: @soonergrunt
We’re not at the end of the beginning, but perhaps the beginning of the end
Something huge happened today. The kind of thing that changes the nature of the economy, and Americans’ relationship with their government, and with the corporations that seem to rule so much of our world.
Today is the day that a significant part of the Affordable Care Act took effect. Today is the day that companies that sell and provide health insurance have to start spending 80% to 85% of their income from insurance premiums actually delivering the services for which they charge their customers. Overhead like office space and supplies, marketing expenses, salaries, and yes, profits have to come out of the remaining 15-20%. The rule is called the the medical loss ratio, and in an important decision recently by the Department of Health and Human Services, the insurance companies cannot count the sales commissions that they give out to the people who sell you your insurance plan against the medical loss ratio.
The MLR can ONLY be allowed expenses, which must be actual costs of coverable medical expenses. This is huge. This means no more nonsense like refusing your mother’s cancer treatment because she forgot about that prescription skin cream she had for acne when she was fifteen when she was filling out the application. Hell, the insurance companies are going to be scrambling to pay for coverable things because any part of that 80-85% they don’t spend on allowables will have to be refunded to the policy holders.
Simply put, this is the end of the beginning of the long track to single payer health care.
So, can private health insurance companies manage to make a profit when they actually have to spend premium receipts taking care of their customers’ health needs as promised? Not a chance-and they know it. Indeed, we are already seeing the parent companies who own these insurance operations fleeing into other types of investments. They know what we should all know – we are now on an inescapable path to a single-payer system for most Americans and thank goodness for it.
Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice — Martin Luther King
We’re not at the end of the beginning, but perhaps the beginning of the endPost + Comments (70)
Your tax dollars at work
Today is World AIDS Day. Globally, more than 33 million people have HIV, and this day serves as an opportunity for people worldwide to unit in the fight against HIV. In doing so, VA medical centers across the country offer Veterans free confidential HIV tests. The Department of Veterans Affairs leads the country in HIV/AIDS screening, testing, treatment, research and prevention. An extensive list of documents can be found on this site intended for patient and provider alike.
The VA healthcare system is something that all Americans can be proud of. A government agency that consistently performs its mission on or under budget, that mission being to provide quality health care to a huge patient population in a geographical area that covers all fifty states and various possessions. The VA not only provides health care to our nation’s Veterans, but also serves as one of, if not the largest repository of medical research databanks in the world. The VA has partnered with medical schools across the country since the mid-1940s to provide research support and training to medical and nursing students all over the United States. If you’ve ever seen a doctor, that doctor probably got some of his or her training in a VA hospital. Some of the best care around is available, and nobody is turned away because they can’t pay for it. If a Veteran can pay something, he or she will. Our patient base is approximately 25 million strong, and we add ten thousand new beneficiaries a month. We are the ultimate expression of socialized medicine. The government provides healthcare to American citizens who have performed a public service.
We keep costs down by negotiating with pharmaceutical companies, something Medicare was unable to do under the part E prescription drug benefit package created by the republicans a few years back, and also by being the most advanced healthcare system in the world. A Veteran who has gotten his care at the VA medical center in Falls Church, VA can go to the Community Based Outpatient Clinic in Ada, OK and the doctor there will have access to all of that Veteran’s medical records, transmitted over a secure network, and available right there in the treatment room to include current medications and dosage rates. We will soon be able to do that with the medical records of military Service members who have departed their services and entered the VA system.
Part of the reason that I’m telling you all this is to toot our horn. I openly admit it. I work here, and I love working here, and I don’t want to see my job liquidated because the republicans want to keep tax cuts for the richest Americans more than they want to care for Veterans. But I’m also telling you this because I am a beneficiary of the Veterans Health Administration. I don’t want my benefits, especially the high quality healthcare I get from you, the American taxpayer, cut. I pay for part of my care because I can afford to, but every day I see patients in our Alzheimer’s clinic, our methadone program, our physical therapy center, the art therapy program, the counseling and readjustment program, the CICU, SICU, and MICU, outpatient psych, inpatient psych, and all over this facility who are a hell of a lot sicker and a hell of a lot poorer than I am and would be lost without the VA.
Mitt Romney, Michele Bachmann, Paul Ryan, and other prominent republicans have called for replacing the Veterans Health Administration with vouchers:
Republicans have made it their goal to eliminate all government programs and replace them with privately owned and operated corporate entities. The V.H.A. is an integrated health care system that, as Krugman points out, “is the most efficient health care system” followed by single-payer systems like Medicare, and both outperform any private system in controlling costs while providing high-quality health care. Social Security, Medicare, and the V.H.A. belie Republican claims that private sector systems are superior to any government programs and instead of strengthening those systems, they intend on destroying them like a criminal destroys incriminating evidence showing their guilt. However, there are millions of Americans who know Social Security, Medicare, and the V.H.A. perform well or else there would not be opposition to privatizing those government programs.
The fact of the matter is that the civilian healthcare system can handle some of the case types that VA has, but cannot, as Paul Krugman notes, do that anywhere near as efficiently as the VA currently does. There’s also a lot of things that we handle that nobody else has any real experience with. Traumatic Brain Injury, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, multiple limb traumatic amputation, and a host of other conditions, including ongoing programs dealing with Agent Orange, asbestos, and other environmental toxins have patient populations that are either unique to or concentrated in the Veteran community.
The VHA is but one facet of the Federal Government that needs your support. If you get a chance, I hope that you’ll ask political candidates their positions on the VHA, the National Parks Service, and other programs of the government, and get a straight answer out of them. People should be dogging Mitt Romney at every stop, and asking him why he wants to destroy the VHA, and would he feel differently about it if he or any of his sons had ever served. We should be asking Newt Gingrich if the patriotic fervor that led him to fuck a lobbyist on his desk while married to someone else and managing the Clinton impeachment would impel him to protect the VHA and other critical government operations.
The VHA is just one government agency that has a positive impact far outsized to it’s size and budget and that performs its mission very efficiently. I know that the Postal Service is as well, and I have a very soft spot in my heart for the National Parks Service. What federal agency has had a positive impact on your life, and how is it threatened by the current crop of robber-baron-messenger-wannabes?
Occupy OKC
ccupy OKC people at Kerr Park, OKC are reporting that eviction is imminent. I drove past the Bricktown police station earlier, and SWAT/SRT vehicles are staged forward there. Bricktown station is about a three minute drive from Kerr park.
I don’t know what to make of this because we hadn’t had any difficulties getting permits issued and renewed until yesterday.
I just got off the phone with a couple of the campers. The day shift captain from the Bricktown station addressed the GA a couple of days ago and told them that with the construction and demolition work going on across the street—this is true, one hi rise being renovated, one next to that being demolished—that those sites had reached a point where they had to have the whole area cleared. Then yesterday, the OCPD told them that they could stay in the lower park and clear out of the upper park and they’ed be OK. This morning, a Sergeant from Bricktown station told them they had to leave the park and that they would not be allowed to move to another park.
They set up a meeting with the Police Chief for 8:30 AM tomorrow morning, but they’ve noted that the Police, who normally have had two cars parked in the alley south of the park haven’t had a presence all day.
They’ve had good relations with the OCPD from the beginning, but it appears that a decision was made on high to remove them. Some campers have left, but through the day more and more people have been showing up as word got out, and a caravan from Norman had just got there at 9:30, raising their number to over 40.
The last thing they heard was that they would be evicted at 11:00 tonight. Since they heard that, they managed to arrange the meeting with the Chief for the morning, but apparently it’s about to happen—I just got a text that police are lining up on the south side of the park.
The livestream feed, http://www.occupyokc.com/index.php/media-and-resources/livestream is offline. They’ve been trying to conserve battery power all day, but they’ve said they would bring it up as soon as it appears something will happen.
Occupy OKC live stream at http://www.livestream.com/occupyspanol Update: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/occupy-okc
This was reported on News9 OKC, the lead story for the 10PM broadcast.
Football Open Thread, by request
Manning Update
According to his lawyer’s blog, PFC Bradley Manning’s case will finally get an Article 32 hearing. It is scheduled to start on the 16th of December and run for five days at Fort Meade, MD.
The Article 32 hearing for PFC Bradley Manning will begin on December 16, 2011 at Fort Meade, Maryland. The hearing is expected to last approximately five days. With the exception of those limited times where classified information is being discussed, the hearing will be open to the public.
Additionally, Mr. Coombs gives a pretty good description of what an Article 32 hearing is:
The primary purpose of the Article 32 hearing is to evaluate the relative strengths and weaknesses of the government’s case as well as to provide the defense with an opportunity to obtain pretrial discovery. The defense is entitled to call witnesses during the hearing and to also cross examine the government’s witnesses. Each witness who testifies is placed under oath; their testimony can therefore be used during the trial for impeachment purposes or as prior testimony should the witness become unavailable.
This will not happen in front of a judge, and unlike a civilian Grand Jury, which the Article 32 process replaces, the prosecutor, called the Trial Counsel in military parlance, will not run the hearing. It will be presided over by an Investigating Officer. The IO will be a commissioned officer who is not JAG corps, but will have a legal advisor. The IO will prepare a report to the Convening Authority, the general officer under whose authority this case proceeds. The report will advise the CA as to which proffered charges should proceed to Court Martial, which ones should be dropped, and what level of Court Martial should be convened. The advisory capacity of the IO cannot be overstated. It is at the Convening Authority’s sole discretion as to whether or not to charge a Soldier under UCMJ. The CA can choose to not charge vice his IO’s report, but this is rare. Conversely, the CA can choose to charge even when the IO recommends against it. This happens frequently in sexual assault/rape charges and drug charges.
I am not a lawyer. I do know lawyers who are members of the military bar, however, and they tolerate my questions and try to answer in such a way that I can understand them. There are other sources of information about the process and events out there, and I encourage you all to go out and seek out knowledgeable sources.
NOTE–edited to change the title of the Article 32 IO from “Investing Officer” to “Investigating Officer”. Hat tip to commenter sherparick.
Front Pager behaving badly
Well, I fucked up. No two ways about it. I could try to explain what I was doing, what I was thinking, what I believed to be the case, but none of that sounds like anything other than petty blame shifting when I write it out in the face of what I actually did.
I check the mod filters every couple of hours or so, and I found something that looked like behavior that is typically frowned upon on the internet. I then posted in that information, including some identifying information in a comment in that thread, and deleted the posts from the moderation queue. I did not in this case, nor have I ever, in this forum or any other ever censor someone for the content of their comment. I have never advocated such action either.
Publishing personally identifiable information is wrong, regardless of the motivation. No matter what I thought I was doing, I didn’t have any right to do what I did, and certainly not on John’s blog. My response was way over the line and absolutely inappropriate. I can only offer a heartfelt apology to the commenter involved, to John, and to the entire community.