Her Nutcake Brings All The Boys To The Yard

Sometimes, I’m really rendered speechless.

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Open Thread

I’m not even going to bother linking McMegan’s latest piece about why she is chomping at the bit to fire teachers. To be honest, I didn’t even read it, as there is a solid chance it is rife with basic mistakes, faulty assumptions, and logical errors, all leading to an inaccurate conclusion. And when someone goes to great lengths to point them out, she’ll blame gastritis or her calculator and then state that her mistakes just prove her point anyway. That’s what she does. That’s who she is. It’s pointless pointing out the individual errors, because she can make them faster than you can correct them, yet still enjoys job security that quite a few teachers would love to have.

The question I have for you all, though, is do these people ever have a solution for improving education beyond “firing bad teachers” and bemoaning wasted education money? Have you ever heard anything?

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I Don’t Even Know What To Make Of This

Demonstrating that not only does he have a finger on the beating heart of fashion, but also public opinion, the Fonz links to this gibberish from some random crank on Reddit:

The KOCH brothers must be stopped. They gave $40K to Scott Walker, the MAX allowed by state law. That’s small potatoes compared to the $100+ million they give to other organizations. These organizations will terrify you. If the anti-union thing weren’t enough, here are bigger and better reasons to stop the evil Kochs. They are trying to:

1. decriminalize drugs

2. legalize gay marriage

3. repeal the Patriot Act

4. end the police state

5. cut defense spending.

Gillespie claims this will have a hand in “complicating dumb media narratives and blowing the minds of some of your leftard friends…”

You seriously can not spoof this guy. Is this what happens when you spend too much time on late night Fox shows?

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Under Assault

I’m just starting to get a real bunker mentality- Planned Parenthood is apparently the new Acorn. We’ll do a fundraiser for them sometime soon.

As to Sullivan’s “Of course cuts hurt people” bullshit, a couple thoughts:

1.) Who is this ED Kain and what did he do with the old one?

2.) No one writes with the fire of a convert.

3.) The fundamental thing you need to understand when talking to deficit hawks is that when they say something is painful or that cuts will hurt people, you need to recognize that what they really mean is that the cuts will be painful TO SOMEONE ELSE and hurt people THEY DON’T KNOW AND WILL NEVER MEET. That’s why it’s so easy to be a condescending asshole about the budget. That’s why it takes nothing to suggest raising the retirement age for Social Security. That’s why, after taking a month off from writing on the internet to recover from a cold, he can tell people who work back-breaking manual labor every day of their god damned lives for much less money than he or McMegan earn that they should “contribute” more to their health care costs.

I’ve added “the math demands it” to the rotating taglines.

BTW- For you insane people who keep asking, Tunch’s anal glands are fine. I’m in a hotel in an undisclosed location this weekend, and am going to spend the night streaming Chuck episodes so I can catch up. I should note that Sarah with black hair has me all sorts of hot and bothered.

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Priorities. Ur Doin’ It Wrong.

Sullivan passes on the information that the Atlantic fact-checks… poems.

When I think of what needs to be fact-checked at the Atlantic, poems are not at the top of my list. I’m betting you can guess where those fact-checking assets might be better used…

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20 Million Poor People are Coming To Take Your Medicaid

Conservatives are in a box. Having run on demonizing Democrats for reallocating 500 billion out of Medicare Advantage, they can’t attack Medicare. They just spent two years and hundreds of millions of dollars promising to keep spending more and more and more on Medicare, forever. Too, seniors vote, in the crucial states of Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. The VA is probably out, for obvious reasons. That leaves Medicaid.

Here’s a WSJ op-ed my sister sent me, ObamaCare and the Medicaid Mess, and it’s a good example of the tactics we can expect to see in the War On Medicaid.

First, to get a broad view of the fundamental error, here’s The Incidental Economist.

The reason that the PPACA puts 20 million more people in Medicaid is that it was cheaper than putting them in the exchanges to get private insurance. Let me say that again – it was cheaper.

Simple enough.

But let’s look at specifics. Here’s the claim:

Medicaid currently covers 53 million people at an overall cost of $373.9 billion (states are responsible for about half). But starting in 2014, ObamaCare rules will add about 20 million more, according to Richard Foster, the program’s chief actuary.

With “ states are responsible for about half ” Suderman omits the fact that the PPACA provides federal funding for Medicaid at a much higher rate than 50% through 2019. He just doesn’t mention that additional funding. It’s a huge omission.

Conservatives have wildly exaggerated the cost to states of of Medicaid expansion over and over, and the claims have been debunked over and over.

The federal government will bear virtually the entire cost of expanding Medicaid under the new health-care law, according to a comprehensive new study by the Kaiser Family Foundation that directly rebuts the loud protests of governors warning about its impact on their strapped state budgets. Governors of many of those states have predicted fiscal calamity for their budgets, and some have cited the Medicaid expansion in the suits they have filed against the new law, saying it violates their states’ rights. But the Kaiser study released Wednesday predicts that the increase in state spending will be relatively small when weighed against the broad expansion of health coverage for their residents and the huge influx of federal dollars to cover most of the cost. Even the small increase in Medicaid costs may be canceled out by the savings states will enjoy from no longer having to subsidize the uncompensated care of uninsured people who will be on Medicaid, study co-author John Holahan said.

And on to Healthy Indiana, and the obligatory plug for Mitch Daniels that is in every conservative editorial:

In 2007, for example, Gov. Mitch Daniels created the Healthy Indiana Plan, which funded 95% of the cost of consumer-directed health savings accounts for low-income residents. Healthy Indiana now covers about 43,000 low-income people not otherwise eligible for Medicaid under federal rules. The program is also popular among state employees. It’s funded by cigarette taxes and Medicaid dollars thanks to a federal waiver. Mr. Daniels has asked the Obama administration for permission to use Healthy Indiana as a way to expand the state’s Medicaid program.

Healthy Indiana is a flop. Here’s the part Suderman left out:

The state began enrolling adults in the plan in January 2008. As of June 2008, over 53,000 adults had applied.

It’s now February of 2011. How many are covered under Healthy Indiana? 43,000. 830,000 people in Indiana are uninsured. Healthy Indiana, more than three years after it was launched, covers 43,000 of that 830,000.

Let’s look at how it was funded and whether it saves money.

Here’s Suderman again:

It’s funded by cigarette taxes and Medicaid dollars thanks to a federal waiver.

Here’s what actually happened:

Following requests for federal assistance from states seeking to expand publicly-funded health coverage for the uninsured, the Bush Administration announced its “Affordable Choices” initiative in January 2007. Affordable Choices provides no new federal funds to states. It simply permits states to divert federal funds now being used to support hospitals that care for the uninsured and use those funds instead to help uninsured people purchase “basic private coverage” — that is, coverage provided through private health plans rather than Medicaid.

How much did Mitch Daniels divert out of the fund Indiana uses to reimburse hospitals for uncompensated care to Healthy Indiana?

And in order to pay for the 44,000 Indianans in the Healthy Indiana Plan, the state took $50 million from funds that it uses to help reimburse hospitals for uncompensated care. In other words, 40 percent of the state’s uncompensated care funds were spent on only 5 percent of Indiana’s uninsured population.

Does the private program save money over Medicaid? Nope.

First, many beneficiaries have to pay a lot more out of pocket than they would if they had traditional Medicaid coverage. Nonpayment has been the No. 1 reason for terminating beneficiaries from Healthy Indiana since the program began in 2008, with up to 35 percent of beneficiaries in certain income levels failing to make their first payment.

Second, providers serving Healthy Indiana beneficiaries have indeed been paid more than they would have if the beneficiaries had been covered under Medicaid. However, Healthy Indiana covers only about 44,000 Indiana residents, while more than 830,000 Indianans are uninsured.

Meanwhile, for those actually in the program, the state paid $75 more per month in 2009 for the healthiest group of Healthy Indiana enrollees than it did for comparable adult Medicaid beneficiaries, even though Healthy Indiana beneficiaries are ineligible for many expensive services, such as maternity care, that Medicaid beneficiaries receive.

Mitch Daniels is going in the wrong direction. He’s spending more to cover less. Why does he want to expand this program, again?

Because private is better than public, and state “innovations” are better than federal rules. They just are, so shut up. Mitch Daniels will happily pay more for less because….private is better than public, and anything is better than giving the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act a chance to work, if you’re a partisan Republican.

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Expanding Her Horizons, Expanding Her Parameters

Apparently McMegan was jealous with all the press Sarah Palin was getting for repeatedly demonstrating her stupidity, and decided to demonstrate that not only does her calculator not work, but her pocket Constitution is broken and lied to her about the first amendment.

I blame gastritis.

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The Very Weird Concept of Fiscal Conservatism Under Wingnut Rule

You gotta just love the new (same as the old) Republican majority in the House. The very first thing they do is kinda/sorta introduce new rules:

After calling for bills to go through a regular committee process, the bill that would repeal the health care law will not go through a single committee. Despite promising a more open amendment process for bills, amendments for the health care repeal will be all but shut down. After calling for a strict committee attendance list to be posted online, Republicans backpedaled and ditched that from the rules. They promised constitutional citations for every bill but have yet to add that language to early bills.

Some rules are more equal than others, though:

The new Republican majority in the House is learning already that governing is harder than campaigning.

They vow to repeal President Obama’s health reform. But they say they want to reduce the deficit, too, so one of their rules requires that any new legislation be paid for fully.

Here’s the problem: The health care reform includes new taxes and a tough cut in Medicare spending. It actually reduces the deficit, according to the Congressional Budget Office. So if you kill health reform, the rules require that you find offsetting spending cuts or tax increases to plug that gap.

So Republicans have decided to exempt health reform from the rule. That deficit they talked so much about during the campaign? Never mind.

We haven’t seen this kind of hypocrisy in Washington since … a few weeks ago, when Republicans insisted on extending tax cuts to the wealthy and didn’t pay for that either.

And about those massive costs associated with the repeal of health care reform? I know it is all fashionable for the Republicans to call the CBO a bunch of liars (and for the glibertarians to come riding, once again, to their defense), but the CBO is not backing down:

The estimate for H.R. 2 will differ in one significant way from the estimate for the enacted health care legislation. The original estimate covered the period from 2010 through 2019, the period used for Congressional budget enforcement procedures when the legislation was being considered; new estimates will span the period from 2012 to 2021.

Today’s letter describes—in broad terms and on a preliminary basis—CBO’s assessment of the effects that repealing PPACA and the relevant provisions of the Reconciliation Act would have on federal budget deficits, the federal government’s budgetary commitment to health care, the number of people with health insurance, and health insurance premiums in the private market. (Repealing the provisions of that legislation would also have a variety of other effects on the health care and health insurance systems that this letter, like previous CBO cost estimates, does not address.)

Impact on the Federal Budget in the First Decade

As a result of changes in direct spending and revenues, CBO expects that enacting H.R. 2 would probably increase federal budget deficits over the 2012–2019 period by a total of roughly $145 billion (on the basis of the original estimate), plus or minus the effects of technical and economic changes that CBO and JCT will include in the forthcoming estimate. Adding two more years (through 2021) brings the projected increase in deficits to something in the vicinity of $230 billion, plus or minus the effects of technical and economic changes.

I’m sure all the Republicans need to do to dispute this new report is borrow a calculator from the Atlantic’s Business and Economics Editor.

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Gastritis Broke My Calculator

It’s too early for DougJ to start drinking, even though he is Irish and on vacation, so I will note that McMegan has thrown up a “correction” of sorts:

Yup, Brad DeLong is right: I probably made a math error eight years ago, and didn’t see it when it was initially pointed out to me by commenter Doug J. How large the error is depends on whether you take nominal or real GDP, compare it to nominal or real spending on the Iraq war, and so forth, but I’d say at a minimum I was off by a factor of at least three, though not “an order of magnitude”, since it seems clear to me that nominal-to-nominal, not real-to-real, is the correct comparison.

I can’t explain the math error, since it was, as I believe I mentioned, eight years ago. I can probably explain why I didn’t see it, which is that I was laid flat with gastritis and working on about 3 hours sleep and 300 calories a day of rice and mashed potatoes. As anyone who has had gastritis can attest, this does leave you a little fuzzy. Or perhaps I was just being stupid.

I struggle daily to live up to Brad’s well-known standards of accuracy, fairness, and integrity; I’m sorry that I clearly failed in this instance.

This is so quintessentially McMegan and representative of the way our elites function that it is actually a thing of beauty. Researchers in the future will want to examine this when looking back on the decline of the empire. Point by point:

1. “I probably made a math error…” – Actually, you quite clearly made a math error.

2. “and didn’t see it when it was initially pointed out to me by commenter Doug J”- Or the other half dozen times in the thread he attempted to explain it and re-explain it.

3. “How large the error is depends on whether you…”- Back to making excuses already.

4. “I can’t explain the math error, since it was, as I believe I mentioned, eight years ago.”- Actually, what drove DougJ to drink was that you couldn’t see the math error as recently as a few hours ago, despite repeatedly having it pointed out to you in excruciating detail.

5. “I can probably explain why I didn’t see it, which is that I was laid flat with gastritis…”- Gastritis broke MAH CALCULATOR!

6. “and working on about 3 hours sleep and 300 calories a day of rice and mashed potatoes.”- Really, you all should feel terrible for picking on me when I feel like this. Jerks! Pity party pity party!

7. “Or perhaps I was just being stupid.”- Perhaps.

8. “I struggle daily to live up to Brad’s well-known standards of accuracy, fairness, and integrity..”- And let’s finish this “correction” with a snide insult directed at the people who had the temerity to point out I was wrong.

And there you have it- McMegan, in all her glory. The only thing missing is the customary “I’m sorry if you were offended by that” that is so popular these days.

Why couldn’t she just write- “Pretty clearly I was wrong about what the cost of the Gulf War was going to be and made some calculation errors based on my inaccurate projections. I don’t know what I was thinking back then, but right now I’m feeling a little under the weather and not thinking clearly. Thanks to those of you who pointed this out and were right.”

That’s what I would have written. Although, in fairness, I have had a lot of practice being wrong.

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This set down

Now, look. I know that not all of you are accountants or economists or mathematicians or engineers. But let’s suppose I said to you that in 2003 the United States GDP was around 11 trillion and that is was expected to grow at an average rate of 4% or less over the next 20 years. You could get out a spreadsheet and come up with a reasonable upper bound of $327 trillion for the total GDP over those 20 years, right? Many of you could probably even do the rough estimate in your head that on average over those 20 years, it couldn’t be more than $20 trillion a year so that the total would be $400 trillion or less.

Suppose someone said to you that:

The (Iraq) war will certainly cost more than the $60b and change that the President is asking for. But it is not going to run us several trillion dollars (though even if it did, that would work out to less than 0.1% of GDP over the next 20 years.)

You’d register that “several trillion” means something like 3-4 trillion or more and say “nope, you mean 1% not 0.1%”, right? And if you yourself had made the 0.1% estimate and someone told you, nope, you’re wrong, it’s 1% and then explained to you in painstaking detail why several trillion is about 1%, not 0.1%, of $327 trillion, you would understand, right?

Because you know how to follow a link and operate a fucking calculator right?

Don’t be afraid to say that no, you couldn’t do any of this, that you can’t follow what it means to divide 4 by 400 and you have no fucking idea why 3-4 trillion is 1%, not 0.1%, of 400 trillion. Because if you can’t perform these simple calculations, then you too can be the Business and Economics Editor of the Atlantic, you too can earn close to 200K a year, and appear on shows like NPR’s Marketplace.

I realize this is my second post on this not-very-important topic. I’ve talked about this enough and I’ll shut up now.

Because the Atlantic comments thing is slow to load and so on, I am attaching a pdf this time. The thread I am describing can be found here.

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I almost lost my mind

I can’t figure out how to link to comments properly on the Atlantic, but if you scroll through to the second batch of comments on this post, you will see that I have completely lost my mind. I am going out for a drink. I shouldn’t blog while I am grading, I know.

I have reposted the comments below. They were too big for a screen shot.

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No More Sexy Time For Poor Ireland — or Ross Douthat Discovers His Inner De Valera

This is just a  (sort of) quick hit before returning to the Brooksalypse I’ve promised here more than once, but I thought today’s Douthat ejaculation deserved just a bit of slicing and dicing in its own right.

For those of you with the good sense to save your neurons and avoid baby Bobo’s deep thoughts, here’s a shorter:

“I don’t know anything about Ireland that John Wayne didn’t teach me, but this poor island sold it’s good Catholic  soul for a mess of pottage served in MacMansions.  Once Ireland got the pill and Irish women stopped being permanently pregnant, the country went sex-and-cash crazy, but then all that nasty fun had to come to a halt.

Why, precisely?  Well, apparently the beast-with-two backs is kind of to blame for bankster thievery, not to mention that pride (wealth) goeth before a fall.  Oh, and Europe is a bad idea too. Plus, modernity sucks.”

Not kidding. That’s really about it.  Before I go to town on Douthat just a little bit, can I ask what on earth the Times was/is thinking when it hired this guy?

I mean really – this is Brooks without the sophistication, and I say that, sadly, with a straight face. (I’ll admit, a competition between these two on most subjects, but especially economics, resembles a wine tasting featuring Ripple vs. Mad Dog).

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Business is Good

For my own sanity, I’ve laid off the McCardle reading for a while, but I just wanted to see what kind of nonsense is going on over there. Currently on the front page from the last week:

1.) a Mental Health Break (don’t get your hopes up, it is a video, and not her resignation).

2.) a “both sides are bad” post about the Rand Paul curbjaw incident.

3.) a personal blog spat in which she explains that it is ok that her rhetoric today is diametrically opposed to her rhetoric in 2003 because she apologized or something in 2008.

4.) Another mental health break.

5.) Megan fainting over a blog post by Jon Chait.

6.) Two posts about gentrification and her new house, including her famous bus anecdote.

7.) Navel-gazing about the Supreme Court.

8.) Megan fainting over a mistake a tv host made.

9.) Another mental health break.

The Atlantic is really getting their money’s worth. And I might suggest more mental health breaks. One every three posts doesn’t seem to be working.

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McMoron

When the government says “Hey- health insurers, we’re not going to let you lie to the public,” our lady of the free market blows a gasket. And gets a whole bunch of shit wrong in the process.

Seriously- how out of whack does your thought process have to be that you consider government regulators frowning on deceiving their customers as “thuggery?”

(via)

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How Wrong is She?

McMegan is so wrong, that she’s even wrong when she links to her husband.

This is getting to be like a game of the dozens.

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