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You are here: Home / Archives for Past Elections / Election 2017

Election 2017

Another Day in the Third Year After the End of the American Century

by Adam L Silverman|  March 29, 20193:12 pm| 224 Comments

This post is in: America, Domestic Politics, Election 2017, 2020 Elections, Foreign Affairs, Immigration, Open Threads, Politics, Popular Culture, Post-racial America, All Too Normal, Get Angry, Our Failed Political Establishment

I’m sure Stephen Miller’s and Kirstjen Nielsen’s parents are so proud…

Sitting in a nearly empty immigration court on Tuesday, the judge called the next case. In walks a 4-year-old Honduran girl, her hair in a dozen braids each with a black bow. She refused to sit in the chair.

She preferred to sit next to me in the back.
1/x

— ???? ???????? (@Jose_Pagliery) March 28, 2019

The first time she responded to the judge was when she asked her age. The girl raised her right hand and four little fingers, then looked at me and smiled.

"Wow," I whispered to her. "Tienes cuatro años?"

She nodded, and all the bows swung in the air.

"Si!"

3/x

— ???? ???????? (@Jose_Pagliery) March 28, 2019

The child care center worker held her hand, and they walked out.

I have no idea where her mom is. She has no idea where her mom is.

I couldn't stop thinking about little Merolin for the rest of the day.

5/5.

— ???? ???????? (@Jose_Pagliery) March 28, 2019

Open thread!

Another Day in the Third Year After the End of the American CenturyPost + Comments (224)

Schrodinger’s Coverage

by David Anderson|  November 26, 20187:17 am| 5 Comments

This post is in: Anderson On Health Insurance, Election 2017, Election 2018, Fuck Yeah!

Here is a koan for Balloon Juice:

If you do not know you are insured, are you insured?

Maine is in the process of expanding Medicaid.  The new Governor-Elect, Janet Mills (D), has promised to expand Medicaid on her first day in office.  She wants to make the coverage retroactive to July 2, 2018.

A Maine judge has ordered the current Maine governor to expand Medicaid with claims payment retroactive to July 2, 2018.

In most states, Medicaid has an individualized retroactive eligibility processes.  Someone who is uninsured will interact with the medical system.  The medical service provider will ask several standardized questions to determine if the uninsured patient is highly likely to be eligible for Medicaid.  If they determine that the patient is likely to be eligible, they can file a claim and an eligibility determination.  If the beneficiary is deemed eligible, some state Medicaid programs will pay both the index claim that initiated the eligibility determination process and claims in the three previous months if the benefeciary would have been eligible for Medicaid if they had applied.

The trigger event is a claim which means the trigger is an encounter with the healthcare system.  Most people who are eligible for Medicaid but not enrolled don’t interact with the healthcare system in any given month because most people don’t interact with the healthcare system in any given month.

Retrospective eligibility is a safety net for both the patient who will not be faced with crippling medical bills and healthcare providers who will get reasonably timely payment that is most likely more than the net present value of the minimal cash stream that uninsured and Medicaid eligible patients can and will pay.

Retrospective eligibility is highly likely to occur for either pregnancy or major medical events that require hospitalization.  More common and lower cost events like a primary care physician visit are less likely to generate a claim and retrospective eligibility determination because that appointment will either not be made by the beneficiary or the appointment will be denied by the provider once they are sure that they won’t get paid.

Maine is going to be doing something very different.  It will be declaring that all claims on or after July 2 will be eligible for retroactive payments if the beneficiary would have been Medicaid eligible (either for legacy or expansion).

Now this is where I have a question.

Will we see changes in provider and beneficiary behavior in anticipation of a Medicaid Expansion?  Did they increase the number of determination assessments that they submitted that would fail for legacy Medicaid but pass for Medicaid Expansion in July, August and September?  Are providers pre-emptively opening up appointment blocks for people who are uninsured but Medicaid Expansion eligible?  Are people who are Medicaid Expansion eligible making appointments in anticipation of retroactive eligibility?

How do people behave when they are covered if they are not sure that they are covered?

 

I don’t know but I think that this is one hell of a question.

 

 

Schrodinger’s CoveragePost + Comments (5)

Good news in Maine

by David Anderson|  June 5, 20188:22 am| 24 Comments

This post is in: Anderson On Health Insurance, Election 2017

The Maine Medicaid Expansion will be moving forward. Here is the relevant part of the court order:

IV. Conclusion
The Court Orders the Commissioner to submit a state plan amendment to the United
States Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
ensuring MaineCare eligibility for people under 65 years of age who qualify for medical
assistance pursuant to 42 United States Code, Section 1396a(a)(10)(A)(i)(VIII) by June 11, 2018.

A State Plan Amendment is the most straightforward way for a state to expand Medicaid. It tells HHS/CMS that a state is modifying the standard Medicaid provisions that the state accepts and it will want the appropriate matching money. There will be some lag between an SPA and the first enrollment but people should be getting on Expanded Medicaid sometime this year.

Good job Maine!

Good news in MainePost + Comments (24)

Yes Virginia, there is a Voter-claus

by David Anderson|  December 19, 20173:59 pm| 65 Comments

This post is in: Because of wow., Don't Mourn, Organize, Election 2017

Election official announces results. One vote lead for Simonds. There are no contested ballots. Judges will have to certify tomorrow https://t.co/wPA8U8k1yp pic.twitter.com/BUJZIf8k0W

— Brendan Ponton (@brendanponton) December 19, 2017

And with that, it looks like the Virginia House of Delegates is now a 50-50 split as the Democrats will have picked up a net of 16 seats during the November election.

So let’s hear it for all the door knockers, phone bankers and post card writers.

Open thread

Yes Virginia, there is a Voter-clausPost + Comments (65)

Monday Evening Open Thread: Comic Interlude

by Anne Laurie|  December 18, 20177:33 pm| 191 Comments

This post is in: Election 2017, Foreign Affairs, Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat, Russiagate, Assholes

my nightmare https://t.co/NuiGEMgMEo

— Zeddy ( me [ person ] ) (@ZeddRebel) December 18, 2017

I suspect Dr. Stein has always fantasized being Lillian Hellman (as played by Jane Fonda) in front of an unsympathetic HUAC committee, and now she’s got her big chance.

The top congressional committee investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election has set its sights on the Green Party and its nominee, Jill Stein, according to a former campaign employee.

Dennis Trainor Jr., who worked for the Stein campaign from January to August of 2015, says Stein contacted him on Friday saying the Senate Intelligence Committee had requested that the campaign comply with a document search.

Trainor, who served as the campaign’s communications director and acting manager during that time, told BuzzFeed News that he was informed of the committee’s request because during his time on the campaign, his personal cell phone was “a primary point of contact” for those looking to reach Stein or the campaign. That included producers from RT News, the Russian state-funded media company, who booked Stein for several appearances, Trainor said…

Trainor, who has done on-and-off work for Stein since formally leaving the campaign in 2015, said he is inclined to cooperate with the committee’s request but wants to first seek legal counsel. He said he believes Stein plans to comply as well and post the documents on her own website “in an effort to show complete transparency and kind of wage her own war against […] what I imagine she thinks is an overblown investigation into collusion.”

Stein did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr, the committee’s chairman, declined to comment.

Stein has not previously been a major focus during the Russia investigations on Capitol Hill, but her name has surfaced occasionally. The Senate Judiciary mentioned her in a letter to Donald Trump Jr. in July, requesting copies of “all communications to, from, or copied” to the president’s son that related to Stein and a long list of other, more prominent figures in the investigations…

The Senate Intelligence Committee has to ask, because Stein spent her 2016 campaign putting the “idiot” in the time-tested Soviet term “useful idiot”. I very sincerely misdoubt she has anything useful to offer, on this or any other topic, but I expect her interview to be second only in {face-palm} worthy moments to that of Carter Page.

Senate Russia investigation is asking @DrJillStein for documents as part of their probe. I so look forward to learning more about her involvement.
(Was that understated enough?)

— Neera Tanden?? (@neeratanden) December 18, 2017

Monday Evening Open Thread: Comic InterludePost + Comments (191)

Late Night Repub Venality Open Thread: Roy Moore Goes Back to Full-Time Grifting

by Anne Laurie|  December 18, 20171:31 am| 28 Comments

This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., Election 2017, Grifters Gonna Grift, Open Threads, Republican Venality

JUST IN: Roy Moore asks for donations to "election integrity fund" after refusing to concede Senate race https://t.co/C2Ftw2B28d pic.twitter.com/C6bFdnpDPs

— The Hill (@thehill) December 15, 2017

I’d wondered whether Roy Moore was endangering his established Christianist-bubble “calling” by keeping the media’s attention focused on his failed campaign, but then I’m not a professional grifter. Looks like he’s gonna keep looking for the missing birth certificate — I mean, the 20,000 “fraudulent” Doug Jones voters…

Roy Moore’s campaign announced Friday that it is seeking donations for an “election integrity fund” following the former judge’s unsuccessful bid for an Alabama Senate seat….

The campaign is seeking to meet a deadline to report cases of voter fraud before Alabama’s secretary of State certifies the vote. The election will be certified between Dec. 26 and Jan. 3.

In a letter sent out to supporters, the campaign said its budget “ran through” on Tuesday, the night of the Alabama special election, and asked supporters to help raise another $75,000 to collect reports of “voter fraud and other irregularities at polling locations throughout the state.”

“My campaign team is busy collecting numerous reported cases of voter fraud and irregularities for the Secretary of State’s office,” the statement said…

Rally on, “Judge” Moore… the more you posture, the worse your claims look to the loosely political non-Deplorable voting population. Give us Democrats a chance to make you and your chaos-muppet buddy Steve Bannon the face of the GOP for 2018!

Late Night Repub Venality Open Thread: Roy Moore Goes Back to Full-Time GriftingPost + Comments (28)

Where are dem votes

by David Anderson|  December 13, 20176:17 pm| 54 Comments

This post is in: Anderson On Health Insurance, Election 2017, Election 2018

Collins says she needs CSRs/reinsurance to vote for tax bill. Meadows says most of the HFC would vote against spending bill including CSRs. https://t.co/5shnWesEFK

— Caitlin Owens (@caitlinnowens) December 13, 2017

I am not a mathematician. However, on most days I can count to at least eleven with my shoes on. ‘

Where are the votes and why do Democrats have an incentive to provide any votes?

The House Freedom Caucus is sufficiently large to deny any continuing resolution (CR)a Republican only majority. If they vote against a CR because of Cost Sharing Reduction subsidy appropriations (CSR), then the continuing resolution needs Democratic votes in the House to pass. Any CR needs at least 8 Democratic votes in the Senate (probably more as several Republican Senators voted against the short term CR).

If Democrats supply votes to pass a CR with CSR funding, they increase the probability that the tax bill passes while making the subsidized insurance buyers worse off.

Why would they do that?

Where are the dem votes for a deal that advances any of their interests?

Where are dem votesPost + Comments (54)

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