Ric has a new box.
I tried a new lunch place today, a local coffee roaster. I had what amounts to avocado toast with a salad and poached egg on top. Very good.
No politics here.
This post is in: Cat Blogging, Nature & Respite, Not Politics, Open Threads
Ric has a new box.
I tried a new lunch place today, a local coffee roaster. I had what amounts to avocado toast with a salad and poached egg on top. Very good.
No politics here.
This post is in: Dolt 45, Blatant Liars and the Lies They Tell
Donald Trump again repeated a lie at his Wisconsin rally. It’s a lie that has been around a very, very long time, the form even longer. Paint your opposition as being capable of an atrocity that no decent person would tolerate. That makes it easier to ostracize them, jail them, go to war against them.
This particular lie was used to promote World War I, the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s, and two wars against Saddam Hussein.
Babies and young children, as the most vulnerable of humans with lives ahead of them, are fodder for lies that play on deep emotions. To say someone kills babies is one of the most explosive accusations it is possible to make.
Trump takes his story from a mangling of a doctor’s statement about the heartbreak of delivering a baby that cannot live because it lacks major organs – lungs, parts of the brain or heart. That story has been told in major newspapers by mothers who have experienced a pregnancy with a severely deformed fetus. A nurse who has dealt with such tragedies describes them in this Twitter thread.
Yes, this lie has been around a very long time. It is related to the blood libel, the accusation that Jews drink the blood of children.
The New York Times says “President Trump revived an inaccurate refrain” in referring to Trump’s lie. But it’s worse than that. And it ties in with the antisemitism that Trump encourages, except this time it’s against every human who can imagine the feelings involved in a pregnancy that will result only in a dead baby, through natural causes.
Thanks to the commenters on an earlier Balloon Juice thread for pointing out how many times this attack has been used before.
Cross-posted to Nuclear Diner.
This post is in: 2020 Elections, Post-racial America, Vagina Outrage, Ever Get The Feeling You've Been Cheated?
The women of @TheView are practically begging @JoeBiden to make a more direct apology to Anita Hill. And it appears he continues to be unwilling to do so
— Mike Memoli (@mikememoli) April 26, 2019
Silver lining argument: It’s a good thing we’ve advanced enough that — for Democratic politicians, at least — it’s a problem when someone’s been ‘merely’ disrespectful / dismissive of women, without being actual rapists or pathological horndogs. Kinda like it was a problem for a certain long-term politician who praised then-candidate Barack Obama as “clean and articulate” back in 2007. Obama forgave Biden then; will voters (especially women voters, and voters of color) be as understanding today?
Jane Mayer, who was there for the hearings, at the New Yorker:
… Predictably, Biden was asked if he should have given Hill a fuller and more personal apology. Biden again stopped short of blaming himself, saying, “I did everything in my power to do what I thought was within the rules.” He then added, “I don’t think I treated her badly.”
Biden failed to acknowledge that, as the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1991, he set many of “the rules” that damaged Hill and determined the over-all fairness of the process. As Jill Abramson and I reported in our 1994 book about the Thomas confirmation fight, “Strange Justice,” several of Biden’s Democratic colleagues in the Senate later acknowledged that, in his eagerness to be impeccably fair to all sides, Biden got outmaneuvered by the Republicans. That left Hill and, ultimately, the truth undefended. As Howard Metzenbaum, a crusty Democrat from Ohio, later admitted, “Joe bent over too far backwards to accommodate the Republicans, who were going to get Thomas on the Court come hell or high water.” An adviser to Ted Kennedy, the Massachusetts liberal whose own womanizing eroded his credibility, was more critical still, saying, “Biden agreed to the terms of the people who were out to disembowel Hill.”
Election 2020 Open Thread: Biden’s Women ProblemPost + Comments (104)
by Betty Cracker| 176 Comments
This post is in: Food, Open Threads, Television
Okay, I’m dying to discuss the latest episode of Game of Thrones, but I realize not everyone is watching it in real time and many folks aren’t watching it at all. For those of y’all with Netflix, may I suggest an alternative that got me through the stomach-churning wait for the latest Thrones?
I love this series so far, primarily because it focuses on the people and their stories, which are fascinating. It’s really good!
If you are all caught up on Thrones, maybe you can access a hidden spoilers thread by clicking on the photo below of Arya Stark in her street food days:
Don’t know that it’ll work across all platforms, but maybe? Anyhoo, open thread!
ETA: READ AT YOUR OWN RISK IF YOU WANT TO AVOID “GAME OF THRONES” SPOILERS! Not just the hidden thread; I can’t control what people say on the main thread either.
by David Anderson| 29 Comments
This post is in: Anderson On Health Insurance
I just want to repost how some (mostly southern) states could accidentally get quasi-single payer on the individual market with near universal coverage of the 100-400% Federal Poverty Level cohorts.
Alabama could have an individual market single payer plan next year.
It would be mostly unintentional and massively expensive to the Federal government but most people could be covered at a high actuarial value.
Here is how an accidental single payer system in Alabama could be created.
Right now, Alabama is due to have only a single insurer on the Exchanges in 2017. They would be the de facto single payer for the exchanges.
Subsidies are based on the cost of the price of the second least expensive Silver plan. The individual premium responsibility is defined as a percentage of the family income for a given income level as defined by the Federal Poverty Level. A person who earns under 400% FPL is only on the hook for the calculated family contribution amount for the 2nd Silver. The gap between the premium of the 2nd Silver and the personal contribution is the Advanced Premium Tax Credit (APTC).
If there is a large gap between the premium of the least expensive Silver plan and the second least expensive Silver plan, the buyer benefits. They get the full APTC and then they just have to make up the difference between the lower priced #1 Silver and APTC with money out of their pocket.
Philadelphia had this happen in 2014. Andrew Sprung looked into this:
Last year, low-income buyers in Southeast Pennsylvania got a windfall….
The windfall stemmed from the fact that the cheapest Silver plan in the region, Independence Blue Cross’s Keystone HMO Silver Proactive, was much cheaper than the benchmark second-cheapest plan (also a Blue Cross HMO), to which the subsidies are keyed. The difference was large enough to all but zero out the premium for a lot of low-income buyers.
Last year, almost all of Health Federation’s clients who were eligible to shop in the marketplace bought the cheapest Silver – which, thanks to CSR, had a deductible of $0 and wonderfully low copays – but also cost most of them nothing or next to nothing in premiums.
So how would accidental Single Payer with very low premiums work in Alabama?
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama would offer a simple HMO or EPO as the #1 Silver. It would be priced at an actuarial fair level where BCBS of Alabama could be profitable but not obscenely so. They would also offer another Silver, maybe set up as a PPO national network with all of the bells and whistles. This would be priced 50% higher than the first Silver. Gold and Platinum plans would be based on the basic HMO/EPO model with slightly richer benefits so a basic Gold would be less expensive than the bells and whistles #2 Silver.
The bells and whistles PPO would be the subsidy setting benchmark so bells and whistles would be fully subsidized. However the #1 Silver would benefit from the massive gap between the #1 and #2 Silver so for quite a few low income families their monthly premiums would be zero. For individuals who make under 200% FPL, the combination of a rich APTC and Cost Sharing Reduction (CSR) subsidies would allow them to buy platinum(ish) coverage for a few dollars per month with low deductibles. Individuals and families making between 201% and 400% FPL could be buying subsidized Gold coverage for less than their expected personal contribution.
Individuals who make 250% FPL could buy basic Bronze plans for almost nothing out of pocket. These individuals are probably in the group where Bronze is a reasonable gamble.
Hacking the exchange system like this would lead to significant enrollment growth in the 175% FPL and above cohort because the plans will have gotten significantly less expensive so the value proposition becomes a whole lot better. It would be an enrollment expansion and a one time profit center for BCBS of Alabama as other insurers would see the hack and see if they could get back into Alabama in 2018 or 2019. The Feds would spend more money on premium subsidies as enrollment skyrockets but this Administration and a probable future Clinton administration would be fine with that. This could be a triple win.
Getting to accidental single payer (reprised)Post + Comments (29)
by Alain Chamot (1971-2020)| 26 Comments
This post is in: On The Road, Open Threads, Readership Capture
Good Morning All,
On The Road and In Your Backyard is a weekday feature spotlighting reader submissions. From the exotic to the familiar, please share your part of the world, whether you’re traveling or just in your locality. Share some photos and a narrative, let us see through your pictures and words. We’re so lucky each and every day to see and appreciate the world around us!
Submissions from commenters are welcome at tools.balloon-juice.com
My FIL is doing well and is well into recovery. So fingers are still crossed because the river is not yet forded, but the most dangerous stuff appears to be behind us. Thanks to all for well wishes, etc., you’re a great bunch of jackals, and I’m proud to be one of you.
Have a wonderful day, and enjoy the pictures!
This post is in: 2020 Elections, Domestic Politics, Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat, All we want is life beyond the thunderdome, Fuck Yeah!
Full restoration of the VRA is now in the hands of Congress. A massive turnout in 2020 to change 5 Senate seats would open a path to restore voting rights protection.
— Rev. Dr. Barber (@RevDrBarber) April 26, 2019
Karen Tumulty, at the Washington Post — “Here’s what’s next for Cecile Richards”:
… In the eyes of the antiabortion movement, Richards was the elegantly dressed, politically savvy personification of evil. But during her years as Planned Parenthood’s leader, its membership nearly quadrupled, from 2.5 million supporters to more than 11 million. After she stepped down about a year ago, there was much speculation — and hope, among her admirers — that she would run for office.
But instead, Richards — who spent her years after graduating from Brown University working to unionize low-paid hotel and hospital workers — is returning to her political roots as an organizer. On Monday, she will launch a new organization called Supermajority that seeks not only to change that mind-set but also to provide resources and training for female activists across the spectrum of backgrounds and life experiences.
Her partners in the endeavor include Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza; Ai-jen Poo, who was awarded a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant in 2014 for her efforts to organize domestic workers; and Libby Chamberlain and Cortney Tunis, who lead Pantsuit Nation, the organization that grew out of the private Facebook group Chamberlain started for Hillary Clinton supporters during the 2016 presidential election, and which now counts more than 3.8 million members.
“In many ways, women have been doing all this work — whether it’s running their PTA, or organizing around reproductive health care — but we haven’t been doing it together,” Richards said. “What are we going to do to make this moment not something that is just a fleeting flash point of activism, but actually creating a permanent organizing ability for women?”…
“The issues we share as women are deep, and they are wide, and they’re very similar across the country. But we have to be in rooms with women that we don’t know,” she said. “I know that there are many more of us, even though we don’t come from the same backgrounds. I don’t know what the model for that is. It’s not something that we have done.”
Women now have the force of a majority in politics. Richards wants them to start acting like one.
Supplementary:
Listen, I love the competitive & exciting 2020 primary, and:
*Multiple* presidential candidates have each raised enough money in a single day to fund @runforsomething operations for the cycle. For $6m, we could elect literally thousands of local & state legislative candidates!
— Amanda Litman (@amandalitman) April 26, 2019
So after you’ve given $5 or $50 or $500 to your favorite presidential wanna-be(s), please donate what you can to @runforsomething. Thousands of candidates aren't waiting for someone to save the world. You shouldn't wait, either: https://t.co/Wwnck6vwXj
— Amanda Litman (@amandalitman) April 26, 2019
And a note from our own BettyCracker:
If any of y’all are looking for an organization that is addressing the critical need for information and assistance with obtaining voter ID, I highly recommend VoteRiders.org. There are more than 20 million eligible voters who lack the proper ID, thanks to Republican initiatives to make it harder to vote, and many more who aren’t sure whether they’ve got the right ID or not. VoteRiders provides free information and assistance with obtaining ID, and they’re looking for volunteers.
Monday Morning Open Thread: We (Must) PersistPost + Comments (180)