Coming February 6, 2024 . . .
MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
Pre-order at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop
Coming February 6, 2024 . . . MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE by Michael Wolraich Pre-order at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop |
Probably only Donald Trump can whip the party's warring factions in line, but so far he's sent vague and conflicting messages.
By Burgess Everet, Josh Dawsey, Rachel Bade & Jennifer Haberkorn
@ Politico.com, 02/14/17 07:16 PM EST
Republicans have reached a gut check moment: After spending more than six years vowing to fix the flagging patient that is Obamacare, it’s the GOP’s own repeal effort that’s on life support.....
Comments
by artappraiser on Wed, 02/15/2017 - 12:20am
by artappraiser on Wed, 02/15/2017 - 12:24am
Just for the record, I called this months ago. Well it feels like months anyway. It was probably early January.
by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 02/15/2017 - 10:36am
You are a mensch. Now let's dream for the stars - see if you can call for zero emissions gravity-powered cars, an end to warfare, a cure for all illness - I'll give you a couple months more to figure it out...
by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 02/15/2017 - 10:44am
Doubts are on "complete repeal".
Republicans are like the Monty Python race of the twits. Inept ideological incompetents/idiots all trying to save their own re-election and necks and running in different directions. One thing they all do well is breaking things.
They will not be able to resist 'reconciliation' repealing the 3.8% tax on investments on the wealthiest Americans that pays for much of the subsidies.. That is one thing they can all agree on.
They will eat away at the funding, create confusion in the markets - with Price at HHS hating even Medicare not to mention Obamacare (his HHS is the enforcer of the law).
Insurers, like Humana today, will gradually leave or boost prices a lot, and funding and big parts of Obamacare will slowly fade away region by region.
Dependent mainly on much money the GOP adds to upcoming huge deficits to keep 'the best parts" on life support thru the next election.
The results will be described by GOP as inevitable 'as it was a disaster anyway', they 'restored choice'.
Voters won't buy this in enough numbers to avoid what I hope is retribution in 2018 at the ballot box.
by NCD on Wed, 02/15/2017 - 11:39am
No matter what they do it's going to be a disaster. It was on a path to a train wreck for more than a year. Romneycare DOES need some serious fixing, I know, I use it, I am not insured by an employer. And was stuck in the mess as a user of co-op Health Republic when it went belly-up. Romneycare was on a path to start deconstructing after about a year more as prices skyrocket and more and more insurers decide not to participate because they cannot predict anything. What caused the acceleration of the spiral downward that was bound to happen: when the GOP Congress under Obama removed the three-year "risk-corridor" fund for insurers whose game plan went bad. Romneycare requires having the government hold private insurers backs for a period of time while they test out what works to at least break even if not profit. Without that guarantee, it's very risky for them to participate. They will just deal with business from large employers and stay away from anything else until they have a better bead on wassup. And that in itself will cause prices to go up as there will be more uninsured running up unpaid hospital bills, etc.
Another point: I notice some red state GOP finally realizing it's real dumb of them to change the way Medicaid is paid to the states. Almost hilarious.
by artappraiser on Wed, 02/15/2017 - 1:48pm
The takeaway from what I said should be this: the disaster is going to happen no matter what they do, even if they do nothing, and that's going to happen on their watch. If they do nothing by April, then early next year during open enrollment when people go to the exchanges to renew, there will be hardly any insurers there and the rates being offered by the insurers that are left will be much higher. The insurers need answers about what's going on by April
by artappraiser on Wed, 02/15/2017 - 2:07pm
Accurate forecasting cannot add to it.
by NCD on Wed, 02/15/2017 - 2:53pm
by artappraiser on Thu, 02/16/2017 - 7:07am
Today in Obamacare: Trump’s big new Obamacare regulation, explained
by artappraiser on Thu, 02/16/2017 - 7:41am
by artappraiser on Thu, 02/16/2017 - 7:11am
Can anyone help me grapple with the analysis about the employer mandate conundrum that is addressed in this Boston Globe op-ed by Jeff Jacoby about the Bernie Sanders CNN town hall, excerpt below. Let me be clear about first, though, about how I want to limit any conversation. I know the long-term answer is single payer (I myself would actually prefer national health.) Let's not get into that, though, because that's absolutely not going to happen short term. I'm interested in thinking about what the smart short term way to go on this should be. Everyone else can certainly talk about whatever they like related, of course, but I am not interested in participating if you want to talk about what is pie-in-the-sky for the near future.
What hit me that I can't really get my brain around: hey, wait a minute, do we really need an incentive for these small businesses to grow bigger for the health of the economy and jobs? Maybe it's better to have many more under 50 employee businesses competing? When I didn't work for myself, nearly every job I ever had was an "under 50" type of employer (one was part of a multi-national but their New York office where I worked was probably under 50 as well and was probably registered as an individual business.) I definitely preferred those jobs, always shuddered at the thought of working at a big bureaucracy, i.e., Dilbert land. Especially anything with a Personnel Dept., fuggeaboutit.
On the other hand, those are often the jobs where you don't have to work as hard for better salary and benefits than when the boss is always worried about making it and competing the guy across the street and town. This incentive thing is a tough one to even think about what the ramifications really are. For: quality of life. Not GDP. One thing I am pretty sure about: millenials as a whole don't seem to cotton to the idea of working for a big corp. Even if it's for the infamous Google campus, they don't want to stay for long.
by artappraiser on Fri, 02/17/2017 - 3:48am
by artappraiser on Fri, 02/17/2017 - 4:59am