As it turns out, shaving a cat is much harder than I anticipated.
Not quite an OEP SEP for COVID19, but close on Healthcare.gov
Yesterday afternoon, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) held a conference call with navigators, assistors and brokers on how to deal with the mass of people who have a loss of employer sponsored insurance Special Enrollment Period (SEP). CMS is not running a no strings attached Open Enrollment Period (OEP), as many insurers and advocates had wanted for Healthcare.gov, but they are applying a lot of lube to the administrative pathway to speed the standard SEP process along. The critical information is about 30:45 in:
“I do want to point out that right now the Marketplace is not requiring consumers to upload supporting documentation to verify their eligibility to enroll in a Special Enrollment Period. So instead, consumers may attest to that information that they provide on the application while they are applying for a SEP.” (MY EMPHASIS)
This is very similar to the announcement from the Idaho state-based marketplace last week. Attestation is sufficient with no documents that need to be uploaded after an individual requests them from an office unlikely to be staffed.
We are getting a massive lesson in administrative burden and administrative friction in the delivery of public benefits. Public benefits can be readily and easily available. Public benefits can be legally available and “accessible” after jumping through a lot of hoops. If a public benefit is easy to access, then lots of people will use the public benefit. If a public benefit is difficult to access, not many people will use that benefit. And the people who get a hard to receive benefit tend to be systemically different than folks who are blocked from access by paperwork barriers.
This applies to food stamps.
This applies to voting.
This applies to Medicaid.
This applies to college financial aid.
And it applies to to ACA special enrollment periods as well.
Healthcare.gov’s Idaho’s removal of a documentation requirement and replacing it with an attestation dramatically reduces the administrative burden for people who have lost insurance. This is a good step to increase enrollment and provide some financial protection for folks who have gotten hit hard right now.
Not quite an OEP SEP for COVID19, but close on Healthcare.govPost + Comments (33)
COVID-19 Coronavirus Update – Tuesday / Wednesday, April 21-22
Social distancing in Siberia: "please keep the length of one small bear from each other" https://t.co/H52cerWj8V
— max seddon (@maxseddon) April 20, 2020
US nurses protest outside White House to demand protective gear for medical staff https://t.co/mk05jDIk6s pic.twitter.com/xPOhtvlbdt
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) April 21, 2020
Where we stand w/#COVCID19 today:
Country trends show Europe & USA levelling off.
Disturbing upwards: Russia, Brazil, Turkey.
Global numbers top 2.5 million cases w/>176,000 deaths.The #pandemic is moving southward: next week you will see Africa & LAmerica rising caseloads. pic.twitter.com/JKHjiDh5iW
— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) April 21, 2020
The coronavirus is far deadlier than official numbers show. A New York Times analysis of 11 countries found that at least 28,000 more people have died in the last month than is reflected in official Covid-19 death counts for those nations. https://t.co/2n8zkdx0Pa
— The New York Times (@nytimes) April 21, 2020
U.S. coronavirus deaths top 45,000, doubling in little over a week: Reuters tally https://t.co/zfWlyOARA6 pic.twitter.com/JY5AFXF6Se
— Reuters (@Reuters) April 22, 2020
the rate of infection is slowing, and testing hasn't ramped up appreciably, so this is not terrible news: distancing measures are working https://t.co/5COhtxYvjs
— Gerry Doyle (@mgerrydoyle) April 22, 2020
Health officials are watching Iowa closely. Here’s why and some comps.
MN: 97 new cases today
IA: 482 news cases today (more than CA, FL and TX)Iowa’s expected peak is still 17 days away. That is the latest date of any of the 50 states. MN’s peak was a week ago.
— Seth Kaplan (@Seth_Kaplan) April 21, 2020
— Seth Kaplan (@Seth_Kaplan) April 21, 2020
I had a great conversation with @DrewQJoseph @statnews for this nice piece about #SARSCoV2 #HCoV19 #COVID19 #coronavirus immunity. Also featuring smart commentary from @stgoldst, @michaelmina_lab, @TheMenacheryLab, and @Jana_Broadhurst. https://t.co/kFp3wCx89y
— Dr. Angela Rasmussen (@angie_rasmussen) April 21, 2020
Autopsies reveal first confirmed U.S. coronavirus deaths occurred in Bay Area in February https://t.co/L9RR6FyWkg
— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) April 22, 2020
“There’s a possibility that the assault of the virus on our nation next winter will actually be even more difficult than the one we just went through,” CDC Director Robert Redfield said in an interview with The Washington Post's @bylenasun. https://t.co/ZNbRSuLXDP
— Robert Costa (@costareports) April 21, 2020
Coronavirus lingers for as long as three weeks in the bodies of patients with severe disease, Chinese researchers have reported. https://t.co/RfVEQb3IsL
— CNN International (@cnni) April 22, 2020
Big news on the Coronavirus testing front: FDA approves first at-home kit https://t.co/Z1FXXsI2vx
— Jayne Miller (@jemillerwbal) April 21, 2020
The newest test (Abbott) had greater than 15% miss rate on samples of actual virus. Those numbers were replicated.
This is the same test that is being widely deployed across the country and being touted as the major solution to allow for reopening. https://t.co/8ggTEyV4hr
— Ryan Marino, MD (@RyanMarino) April 22, 2020
We use this test in our centers and have been concerned from day one about sensitivity. We've tested in parallel with our central lab's Roche machine so far. Again another preprint and who knows the validity of the study, although the Cleveland clinic is reputable.
— Christian Molstrom (@cmolstrom) April 22, 2020
COVID-19 Coronavirus Update – Tuesday / Wednesday, April 21-22Post + Comments (43)
Weaponizing Bullshit, Chattering Classes Edition
A couple of weeks ago (a gazillion years in COVID time, I know), former intellectual Niall Ferguson published a piece in the Sunday Times, asserting that the Chinese government had allowed travel from Hubei province for international destinations after banning such trips to destinations within China, adding,
As far as I can tell from the available records, however, regular direct flights from Wuhan continued to run to London, Paris, Rome, New York and San Francisco throughout January and in some cases into February.
I’m not going to bother linking to the column itself–Murdoch clicks, and it’s behind a paywall; I’ll connect this instead to the blog post from which I got the quote and information above, written by Daniel A. Bell, dean of the School of Political Science and Public Administration at Shandong University, and a professor at Tsinghua U. (sometimes called China’s MIT, though I suspect the nicknaming may go the other direction soon). As in, not a dummy, based in China, and with some expert ability to navigate knowledge in that setting. (H/t James Fallows for the link to the post, btw.)
Bell was, he wrote, “surprised by the allegation,” especially given the speed with which Ferguson’s assertion was picked up in the US and Canada by ready-to-otherize-China folks. So he asked Ferguson if he was sure. Ferguson replied:
“I can assure you I wouldn’t write a sentence like that if I had not researched it rather thoroughly.” To support his claim, he sent me several pieces of evidence.
The evidence was, I’m sure you’ll be shocked to learn, bullshit–links to articles that did not support the incendiary claim in Ferguson’s article.
Ferguson also sent Bell flight records that the former historian of 19th century British banking believed confirmed that 31 flights had in fact left Wuhan for Europe after the domestic travel ban kicked in on January 23.
Did those records actually show that? Here’s Bell:
I checked all the flights listed on the spreadsheet Professor Ferguson sent me. It turns out that none of the flights that supposedly left from Wuhan after 11:26 am on Jan. 23rd actually left from Wuhan. The flights listed as red on Ferguson’s spreadsheet were cancelled. The six listed as black left from Guangzhou and in normal times would do a stopover in Wuhan on the way to SFO but the stopover was cancelled. The app shows the actual flight paths of those flights as direct from Guangzhou, bypassing Wuhan.
Bell goes on, with all the receipts that show that Ferguson, most kindly, simply did not understand the records he was using.
Bell sent his results to Ferguson, by the way. With this result:
Ferguson continues to support his allegation even after I pointed out that the evidence he provided does not support it. That’s worrisome. Conspiracy theorizing of this sort deflects attention from what actually went wrong. And it fuels the demonization of the Chinese political system at the same time we need collaboration between China and the rest of the world to deal with an urgent global pandemic.
In this latest effusion, the consequences of those career choices are on display: what is either a lazy mistake or the willingness to trade in too-good-to-check conspiracy theories (leavened with a measure of anti-Chinese bigotry, perhaps) produced a column based on an elementary error in reading a slightly technical source, combined with a willful misreading of a couple of news stories.
This is what passes for the cream of conservative intellectual life these days.
TL:DR Niall Ferguson–and the prominence given to him by credulous editors–is one of the reasons we can’t have nice things. There are others who are more consequential, more harmful in their reckless disregard of evidence, and the obligation not to spew bullshit.
Mistakes are one thing–I’ve made plenty and will make more. It’s the contempt for the idea of even trying to get it right, to allow reality to confound your desired narrative that makes the contemporary radical right such an existential threat.
Fuck it. I’m tired. Whacking those who are wrong on the internet is an endless task–by design: the whole enterprise of illiberal authoritarianism turns on wearing out the opposition, as much as overtly crushing it. But still–this is the kind of chickenshit up with which no civilized society should have to put.
Open thread.
Francisco de Goya, The Sleep of Reason Brings Forth Monsters, 1799.
Weaponizing Bullshit, Chattering Classes EditionPost + Comments (84)
Pandemic Open Thread: Trump Just Likes Killing People
The governor of Alabama is smarter than the ‘governor’ of Georgia:
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey told the state that it's not safe to reopen — not without more testing and better numbers — and she kept her stay-at-home order in place. It's like Seinfeld's bizarro world. I don't know what to think anymore. https://t.co/UKBNIGgsmn
— Josh Moon (@Josh_Moon) April 21, 2020
Oval Office Occupant is… not:
If Trump weren't already terrible, removing Bill Barr as AG would be reason enough to vote for the Democratic nominee. https://t.co/uKWvxbzqKM
— Andy (@trtx84) April 21, 2020
This is it. This is all that it is. Get sick, die, what do I care as long as I win. He says it out loud. And he is right. Nobody cares. America is past caring that literally the worst person in it is its president. https://t.co/xrM3nu5VQy
— Slava Malamud (@SlavaMalamud) April 20, 2020
He can’t be a king, but at least he can have people killed for his whims!
I'm shocked, shocked that Trump killed people. https://t.co/Rk3nMfZzby
— Jeff Fecke (@jkfecke) April 21, 2020
Politico’s @owermohle and I first wrote a month ago about how Trump’s hunch on hydroxychloroquine was pulling health officials away from other, more promising drugs and raising concerns given lack of data. https://t.co/xxQzOqN6z8
— Dan Diamond (@ddiamond) April 21, 2020
And his party… is fine with that.
It’s not an exaggeration when I say that Republicans’ #1 priority is killing poor people. They literally say it out loud regularly. https://t.co/9f0wNNYaow
— Evan Robertson (@evanrobertsonDC) April 21, 2020
Pandemic Open Thread: Trump Just Likes Killing PeoplePost + Comments (63)
Tuesday Afternoon Open Thread
So, this was bullshit:
AP: A malaria drug widely touted by Trump for treating the coronavirus showed no benefit in a large analysis of its use in U.S. veterans hospitals. There were more deaths among those given hydroxychloroquine versus standard care, researchers reported. https://t.co/4pFQjSXrIs
— Geoff Bennett (@GeoffRBennett) April 21, 2020
Shocker, I know.
If I were DNC Chief Meme Maven, I’d run a contest to produce more content like this: people pretending to be pub-crawlers acting out Trump’s incoherent and stupid ravings from the “press briefings.”
This is perfection ?????? pic.twitter.com/6HIArUvPZG
— Hear Me Roar (@Stop_Trump20) April 20, 2020
It’s brilliant. Open thread.
Repub Venality Open Thread: Brian ‘Coronavirus’ Kemp, Burning Through Georgia
Brian Kemp is giving a press conference wherein he is outlining how Georgia is going to reopen its economy (despite the fact that we are testing a TINY speck of the population) and there is a loud ambulance siren in the background, which is just a little too on the nose
— Hannah Riley (@hannahcrileyy) April 20, 2020
Just call Covid19 “General Sherman” because it’s about to burn through Georgia again.
— RevDJEsq (@RevDJEsq) April 20, 2020
Governor Kemp announces gyms, barbers, nail salons and more will be allowed to reopen on Friday pic.twitter.com/zowGvQ2Fyb
— Justin Gray (@JustinGrayWSB) April 20, 2020
Houses of worship will he allowed to open to in person services
— Justin Gray (@JustinGrayWSB) April 20, 2020
IOW, lobbyists for gyms, salons, bowling alleys (?), & restaurants convinced Kemp to compound public heath risks & permit employers to force employees to expose themselves to coronavirus or be fired, so workers lose unemployment benefits & lower employers’ payments to the fund https://t.co/CF6QhKPxrT
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) April 20, 2020
I suspect there’s not much pressure on governors to “open the economy” coming from workers who’d potentially be exposed to coronavirus, but that there’s tremendous pressure from industries that want to expose their employees to coronavirus if it helps stave off bankruptcy.
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) April 20, 2020
I originally assumed that Kemp, having stolen his seat with the considerable assistance of the RNC, was just determined to smash’n’grab whatever he could reach before he has to flee for sanctuary to Mar-A-Largo and the full-time Trump-sycophant sinecure for which he’s been so publicly auditioning. But Georgia local & revered jackal Raven linked to a Decaturish letter from public policy advocate George Chidi, which supports Dana Houle’s tweets:
… Kemp is looking forward to the fiscal discussion in 2021 and 2022, when all of this really starts to hit. He got elected by out-yahooing the field. His base has been trained to view government spending as a crime, and he knows that he becomes politically vulnerable to an attack if he raises taxes. He is not capable of delivering a nuanced message around necessity, because his base doesn’t know how to hear it.
The state is staring at one million unemployment applications. It probably cannot pay those over six months. The unemployment fund has a reserve of about $2.6 billion. Last week it paid out about $42 million — which is about three times as much as it usually does. That figure will double in two weeks, give or take. Maybe more.
At that rate, the fund is empty in about 28 weeks. Probably less. Even if things improve later, that fund will run dry in a year, because unemployment isn’t going to return to 5 percent for a long time…
If there’s no state order calling for businesses to be closed, the people who are unemployed can no longer claim that their unemployment is involuntary, even if it would be utter idiocy for them to return to work. A hairdresser or a massage therapist cannot maintain social distance. But they can certainly file for relief … unless the law says they can work.
“Gyms, fitness centers, bowling alleys, body art studios, barbers, cosmetologists, hair designers, nail care artists, estheticians, their respective schools & massage therapists.”
Not banks. Not software firms. Not factories. Not schools.
It is no coincidence that the businesses on this list are staffed by relatively poor people. Because that’s who he wants off the unemployment rolls. And if they die … well, they’re mostly black people, or Asian, and poor, and an acceptable political loss for a Republican governor…
Repub Venality Open Thread: Brian ‘Coronavirus’ Kemp, Burning Through GeorgiaPost + Comments (298)