Well, it’s raining where I live, anyway. Here’s a pair* of lovely pelicans photographed by faithful reader cope on Sanibel:
I love pelicans. Open thread!
*More like 2.5 — the ass end of a third is visible!
This post is in: Birdwatching, Open Threads
Well, it’s raining where I live, anyway. Here’s a pair* of lovely pelicans photographed by faithful reader cope on Sanibel:
I love pelicans. Open thread!
*More like 2.5 — the ass end of a third is visible!
by Betty Cracker| 332 Comments
This post is in: Politics, Republican Stupidity, Trump Crime Cartel, Assholes, General Stupidity
Looks like the Saudis got more than a curtsy for flattering Trump during his recent visit:
During my recent trip to the Middle East I stated that there can no longer be funding of Radical Ideology. Leaders pointed to Qatar – look!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 6, 2017
So good to see the Saudi Arabia visit with the King and 50 countries already paying off. They said they would take a hard line on funding…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 6, 2017
…extremism, and all reference was pointing to Qatar. Perhaps this will be the beginning of the end to the horror of terrorism!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 6, 2017
I’m not particularly knowledgeable about national security and Middle Eastern politics, but even I can see what’s happening here: The Saudis and their allies are playing Trump like a goddamned fiddle.
The (Obama appointed) US Ambassador to Qatar is reduced to subtweeting the so-called president:
Seems a good time to RT this one. https://t.co/AJ1BA29UnU
— Dana Shell Smith (@AmbDana) June 5, 2017
This is so important, I'm sharing it again. Great partnership, real progress to counter terrorist financing. #Qatar https://t.co/yjnEg2IJlF
— Dana Shell Smith (@AmbDana) October 26, 2016
What a fucking nightmare every day is with this clown in the White House. Stupidity and belligerence is such a toxic combination.
Bet he paid full price at the souk too…Post + Comments (332)
by Alain Chamot (1971-2020)| 82 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads, Previous Site Maintenance
Folks,
Just a brief tech update and open thread for non-healthcare conversation.
I’m pleased to report that the permanent test site is up and running. That’s allowing for much-needed fiddling and experimentation that doesn’t affect the live site. There are lots of tweaks and enhancements on the horizon, many things that will make your commenting and reading/watching experience better. I’m hoping I hope some small architectural changes will improve your experience, especially during the mid-late morning when the site seems……to…. c….r…a…w…l.
More about that soon, plus there will be a public-accessible Issues tracker that you can use to submit suggestions, complaints, etc. about the site. I’m always happy to get emails, but going forward, all issues will be entered there so things can be tracked. If nothing else, it gives us a permanent place for people to post ideas, suggestions, and gripes, and they will not get lost. So even if nothing gets done today, that report is still there, and might get looked at with a new perspective at a later time.
Later today, I hope to launch an improvement to the Site Search function. It has come to my attention that the current search isn’t doing what needs to be done as it doesn’t search comments. And yes, I know you can go to Google to search balloon-juice: XXX and it will search the site and comments for “XXX”. But really, the site’s search should also search comments, and we shouldn’t have to go off-site!
That all said, open thread.
ETA: As MissBianca Miss Bianca’s experience has shown, changing your nym (or commenting for the first time) puts your comment into moderation. We’re adding a little helper section to the comment form with some tips and this topic is explained to ensure that folks understand why some things happen.
To explain – the first comment you make with a nym and email address on a device is held in moderation; she skipped the space so the system thought MissBianca was a new commenter and so her first comment was put into Moderation. When she added the space, she was recognized as someone who had made comments previously and so that comment was not held in moderation.
Once that first comment is approved by a Front Pager, subsequent comments from that device, using that same nym and email address, are automatically published.
Should a comment disappear into the aether, please send me an email with the Post name (or a link to it!) and your nym and the rough time so I can investigate. When this happens, it almost always means that your comment was insta-Trashed as opposed to being held in Moderation or being marked as Spam.
Insta-Trash for comments from frequent commenters is an issue I want to solve, so please do let me know. Occasionally there are readers who have always had comments disappear and thus have never successfully commented. If that happens to you, please email me – something about your nym or the email address you’re using is triggering our detection mechanism and I’d like to solve that and add your voice to our conversation.
ETA again: Updated a slew of plugins that suddenly announced their upgradeable status.
This post is in: Anderson On Health Insurance
Modern Healthcare reports on a letter from late last week asking for a new regulation that allows for third party payment of premiums:
A group of 184 lawmakers want HHS to rescind an Obama-era policy that discouraged insurance companies from accepting payments from hospitals or other entities to buy insurance on the exchange for their patients…
“This practice essentially allows insurers to steer patients to the government or to other plans to avoid providing coverage.”
This is an attempt to get a higher level of payment for the same services that are delivered to Medicare and Medicaid patients. We looked at this last summer:
A provider could see twenty or more unique prices for a given service depending on what program their patient is in and what carrier covered them. Using Medicare Fee for Service (traditional Medicare) as a benchmark of 100%, Medicaid could pay 70% of Medicare, and the most expensive Exchange plans could pay 220% of Medicare. This is….a massive arbitrage opportunity. The rule on Exchange is that a person is not eligible for subsidies if they are eligible for Medicaid. However, no one is forced to use Medicaid as their primary coverage if they are able to get covered elsewhere.
So how does this work?
A provider group that performs very high cost procedures identifies a segment of their patient population that is either uninsured or on Medicaid. They tell these patients to apply for insurance assistance help from a foundation that the provider group providers 99% of the funds. That “independent” foundation awards premium assistance and their case workers help people sign up for brand name insurance…that coincidentally pays the provider group 220% of the Medicare rate instead of the 70% Medicare rate that they would have gotten for Medicaid patients. The provider group sees a massive revenue boost for the same services that would have been rendered anyways….
Adrianna MacIntyre raised a good point last year in that the Exchange plans provide financial protections that are not in traditional Medicare. There is a limit to out of pocket costs in an Exchange plan but not in Medicare.
the cost of Medicare coverage for ESRD enrollees. The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that these individuals face annual out-of-pocket costs of $6,918 in 2010, on average (that’s $7,622 in today’s dollars). People forget that traditional Medicare doesn’t have an out-of-pocket maximum like the $6,550 cap for private insurance under the Affordable Care Act. Medicare Advantage plans have a cap, but ESRD patients generally aren’t eligible for MA plans, unless they were already enrolled prior to developing their disease. Medigap plans are another way to shield against catastrophic costs—but in many states, Medigap plans can refuse to enroll ESRD beneficiaries.
Moving these folks into private plans that help pad dialysis companies’ bottom lines might not be the ideal policy solution. But leaving some of Medicare’s most vulnerable patients exposed to these kinds of out-of-pocket burdens doesn’t seem ideal, either.
From an insurance side, I don’t like concentrating risk on a single high reimbursing plan. That creates a very strong self-protection incentive to narrow networks and race to the bottom on pragmatic access to care. The cap on exposure though is a very attractive consumer pull factor towards jumping from a societal low cost plan to a societal high cost plan.
This post is in: Movies, Open Threads, Popular Culture, Vagina Outrage, Daydream Believers
Pretty FUQN' cool
Wonder Woman: How Real-Life Athletes United to Populate the Film's Badass Amazon Nation https://t.co/eOFN45WF5n— Nelly B (@psddluva4evah) June 2, 2017
Because I can (heya, LAMH!), and because these stories meet my EMOT criteria for “not liable to make readers put down their coffee and go right back to bed.” Some days, it’s harder than others.
Jessica Bennet, in the NYTimes, “If Wonder Woman Can Do It, She Can Too”:
“She’s so strong,” the little girl seated next to me at a Brooklyn screening of “Wonder Woman” kept repeating to her mother, occasionally shielding her eyes. It was the first fight scene of the movie, and I was trying not to sob…
But 20 minutes into “Wonder Woman,” the director Patty Jenkins’s take on the iconic DC Comics story, the tears came uncontrollably — as the Amazonian women twirled and glided, fierce and muscular and graceful at once, engaged in battle moves that looked as if they were choreographed for women’s bodies (which, it turned out, they were). I mean, the outfits were a little absurd. Their gladiator sandals seemed to have wedges. And yet, much like Jill Lepore, the author of “The Secret History of Wonder Woman,” put it in The New Yorker: “I am not proud that I found comfort in watching a woman in a golden tiara and thigh-high boots clobber hordes of terrible men. But I did.”
In fact, I was proud. So were legions of women I know who took daughters, nieces, nephews, mentees or simply went in droves, some of them to women-only screenings — and walked out of theaters with a strange feeling of ferociousness. One friend immediately purchased 40 tickets for a group of girls she mentors, along with all their friends. A group of women writers has raised more than $7,000 in a GoFundMe campaign to send New York City girls to see the film.
“I was kind of taken aback at how something as minor as a movie has been affecting me,” said Ruth Wilner, 45, who saw the film with her husband in Sacramento. “I wish I could go back in time and watch it with 8-year-old me.”…
'Wonder Woman' Shatters Records With $200+ Million Worldwide Opening https://t.co/ovnJm8qhjh
— Forbes (@Forbes) June 3, 2017
myths that have fallen this week
✔️people won't see an action movie w a female lead
✔️only male superheroes workhttps://t.co/qlWiIjODls— Oliver Willis (@owillis) June 4, 2017
Spoilers (kinda) but also worth reading: “Wonder Woman‘s Most Fantastic Scene Nearly Didn’t Get Made at All”.
Fox News wants to know why Wonder Woman, a character not from America, isn't as American as they'd like her to be. pic.twitter.com/BjNBNtFInv
— Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) June 2, 2017
Because, as President Trump himself has shown, if you want to succeed you have to get money from foreigners. https://t.co/iWmu0wfBaL
— Roy Edroso (@edroso) June 3, 2017
***********
Apart from fierce women and implacable resistance, what’s on the agenda for the day?
Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Wonderous WomenPost + Comments (213)
by Alain Chamot (1971-2020)| 16 Comments
This post is in: On The Road, Open Threads, Readership Capture
Good Morning All,
This weekday feature is for Balloon Juicers who are on the road, travelling, etc. and wish to share notes, links, pictures, stories, etc. from their escapades. As the US mainland begins the end of the Earth day as we measure it, many of us rise to read about our friends and their transient locales.
So, please, speak up and share some of your adventures, observations, and sights as you explore, no matter where you are. By concentrating travel updates here, it’s easier for all to keep up-to-date on the adventures of our fellow Commentariat. And it makes finding some travel tips or ideas from 6 months ago so much easier to find…
Have at ’em, and have a safe day of travels!
Should you have any pictures (tasteful, relevant, etc….) you can email them to [email protected] or just use this nifty link to start an email: Start an Email to send a Picture to Post on Balloon Juice
From Le Comte de Monte Cristo:
When – Spring 2016
Where- Clifty Falls State Park, Indiana
This is a fun little day hike, challenging in that you need to carefully pick your steps…
Now onto Italy…and beyond!
When: May 2016
Where: Porto Venere, ItalyThis is the nautical gateway to Cinque Terre. Really lovely quay.
When- November 2016
Where – Krajlendyk, BonaireIt is a scruffy island. Scenery is so-so, but the water is lovely and the diving is phenomenal. The people are super nice, food is great and beer is crispy cool and inexpensive.
Just gorgeous, so calm.
And to wrap things up for today, a gorgeous picture from Bill M.
Once again, I miss Colorado. I lived in Canon City, an hour east of Salida on US-50. I cannot tell you how much I wish I could hop in my car and drive that hour along the Arkansas. Should you ever have the chance, 50 from Pueblo, CO West to Grand Junction is a great drive.
3 days ago in Salida CO
Bald Eagle
Such an amazing, elegant bird. I had the pleasure of seeing two of them mate – overhead. They fly up high, clutch, and plummet together, then go up and do it again. It’s thrilling and frightening, and was amazing to see, once I realized that I was seeing mating behavior and not just birds being crazy.
Thank you – pictures from Salida and environs are always welcome!
Travel well everyone, whether near or far. There are lots of great pictures – and stories – coming.
This post is in: Dolt 45, Open Threads, Republican Stupidity, Clown Shoes, Ever Get The Feeling You've Been Cheated?
dumb·show
ˈdəmˌSHō/ noun: dumbshow; noun: dumb-show; noun: dumb show; plural noun: dumb shows
gestures used to convey a meaning or message without speech; mime.
“they demonstrated in dumbshow how the tea should be made”
a piece of dramatic mime.
plural noun: dumbshows; plural noun: dumb-shows
“there were gags, spoofs, and dumbshows”
President Trump just held a signing. He had nothing to sign https://t.co/O8fqgiCkCV
— Greg Jericho (@GrogsGamut) June 5, 2017
Trump isn’t signing a bill. He’s signing a list of “principles” on air traffic control. It’s a faux bill signing ceremony. Amazing.
— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) June 5, 2017
"The media obsesses over every period, dot." — Sarah Huckabee Sanders
— Matt Viser (@mviser) June 5, 2017
GOP strategists say Republicans plan to make 2018 a referendum on the media. @Alex_Roarty @lindsaywise reporting https://t.co/0JyHFhbC1z
— McClatchyDC (@McClatchyDC) June 5, 2017
We're four months in and already at this stage of desperation, huh https://t.co/efTI1LFchd
— Allahpundit (@allahpundit) June 5, 2017
2016: Vote GOP and we’ll bring back your coal mine!
2018: Vote GOP and get 20% off a Liberal Tears coffee mug!https://t.co/Q1S6WWS3PC
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) June 5, 2017
Late Night Open Thread: <em>Very</em> DumbshowPost + Comments (97)