Three Strikes and You're Out — The Senate "Health Care" Bill

In baseball you have three strikes and you're out.

That's what should be applied to the Senate "health care" bill. I put quotes around it because it really isn't about care or about people's health. It's just a way to give a huge tax break to the rich. And it leaves people with pre-existing conditions with insurance premiums that few will be able to afford.

And now there is an additional amendment to the bill by Ted Cruz. From Huffpost story here's how two insurance organizations are reacting to it:

Two organizations representing the U.S. health insurance industry just called a new provision of the Senate Republicans’ health care proposal “simply unworkable in any form” and warned that it would cause major hardship, especially for middle-class people with serious medical problems.

The organizations, America’s Health Insurance Plans and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, speak for the businesses that would be responsible for making the new system work ― or at least attempting to do so.

That may help explain why, with a vote on the bill planned for next week, they are letting loose with what, by Washington lobbying standards, sounds like a primal scream.

In a publicly posted letter to Senate leaders, the two groups focused their attention on an amendment that would undermine the Affordable Care Act’s protections for people with pre-existing conditions.

The amendment, crafted by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), would allow insurers to resume sales of policies that leave out key benefits, such as prescription drugs or mental health. More important, it would allow insurers to discriminate among customers based on medical status, charging higher premiums or denying policies altogether to people with existing medical problems ― from the severe, like cancer, to the relatively mild, like allergies.

Another problem with the bill is what it will do to Medicaid. There is now a full court press by the White House to get Republican governors, who object to the bill, to support it. It looks like the effort isn't paying off very well. From the Post:

“I’ve still got to come back to my concerns with regard to the Medicaid population,” said Gov. Brian Sandoval (R-Nev.) on his way to a private session with Vice President Pence here at the summer meeting of the National Governors Association. Pence had earlier delivered a detailed speech to the entire group defending the bill.

Sandoval’s views, along with those of three other governors whose states expanded Medicaid under the ACA — John Kasich of Ohio, Doug Ducey of Arizona and Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas — could prove decisive in determining whether the Senate passes legislation next week. Republican senators from those states are closely watching how their governors respond to the newly revamped legislation as they decide whether to support it.

Kasich, who did not attend, issued a statement calling the revised Senate plan “still unacceptable” because of its Medicaid cuts and possible impact on the private ACA insurance market.

Republicans are not going to be deterred by this. The bottom line is it's a tax cut bill for the rich not a health care bill. So they will continue to try and get this horrible bill passed.

But as far as I'm concerned this is strike three so you're out!

The Trumps and Russia

Its' hard to wrap my head around this one.

Here are a few quick thoughts on it. 

If the Democrats had done this, the Republicans would be introducing articles of impeachment. Or at the very least screaming at the top of their lungs about it.

But since it's there guy, the Republicans don't care. Showing once again party before country each and every time with them. How low they have come. I have no respect for them at all.

As for the Trumps, well it's hard to figure out if anything illegal really happened. We'll have to wait and see what comes out the investigation.

My problem is that the story changes all the time. It changes and new information is forth coming only when the press is about to print a story pointing out that previous statements are not correct. Kushner has had to go for a second time and change the information on his top secret application.

If nothing happened, everything should be out in the open. They should have just said this is what happened. This is who we talked to. This is when we talked to them. But the story, explanation and rationally changes just about every day.

And that what makes me think there is more to this than they are saying. Since after all what they're saying changes every single day. Hell sometimes every hour it changes.

Shots in the Park

How very sad. On a baseball diamond no less. Practicing for a game that brings Democrats and Republicans together if only for a few hours. There are many many questions to be asked on how this happened and why it happened.

I'll have further thoughts on this later. My friend Art had a great blog post on it.

He part he said:

This should be so obvious that it doesn’t need to be said, but, times being what they are, it clearly does: Today’s shooting of a US Representative is inexcusable. There can be no defence of the attack itself, nor of the person who perpetrated it. End of story. Except, of course, it isn’t.

The USA’s politics are often described as “polarised”, and they are, but that word is far, FAR too kind: US politics have become utterly toxic. The political divide in the USA is now deep, angry, and seemingly unbridgeable, with both sides unable to agree on anything whatsoever.

This was the comment I left on it:

I'm going to disagree with you slightly on this. I think the divisions are bad but not as bad as people think. All we seem to see now are the extremes.

Because the only thing the media seems to cover are the people who scream the loudest. It then becomes self fulling. Where are voices of moderation? They don't make good copy. They don't make a good news story.

Thus the reason Alex Jones is being interviewed by Megyn Kelly. How about an interview with the woman who helped found the Tea Party but believes in global warming and the Paris Accords. Nope. That's not a seller for sure.

The most important thing people need to start remembering is words have consequences. If we demean and ridicule people all the time, at some point, someone will decide that that person is really not human and then just about anything can be done to them. After all they aren't one of us. So politicians need to stop calling people names. That's across the board. Just because you disagree with someone doesn't mean they are evil (there are of course exceptions to this rule). It doesn't mean they don't love their country.

It does mean that you can call people out if you think their health care bill will leave millions without insurance. But deal with the facts about what's going to happen. Challenge them about their priorities.

My mother had something she said to my brother and myself when we were growing up and this applies here: We don't call our brother stupid (slight pause here) even if he is. You can apply this to any situation and any name or insult you like.

But I think most of all we all need to take a chill pill. We have instant communication but we haven't mastered instant critical thinking. Everyone is quick to be outraged and respond to the latest "outrage" maybe we need to take a moment or two and think through what are response should be.

Maybe that's a way to calm down. Maybe that's a way to be just a little nicer to people. Maybe that's a way to start to make things better.  

Having a Pre-existing Condition — Who Doesn't Have One

I was thinking about this the other day. The problem of pre-existing condition and how they are treated under the Republican "health care"plan (I put it in quotes because what type of a plan end result is that millions of people won't have insurance).

The more I thought about it the more I thought doesn't just about everyone have a pre-existing condition. I have two. I had skin cancer a few years back. I won't be declared cancer free for another couple of years. I also have high cholesterol. So I've got two pre-existing condition.

Under the Republican "plan" my insurance company could come along and say it wouldn't cover either of those. Or make me pay a higher premium. I'm in the right bracket for a higher premium no matter what because I'm 58. And older people under this "plan" will be charged more just because they are older. You could be in the best shape and health possible but that would make no difference.

Republicans have bent over backwards to say this is not what will happen. But if it does there will be high risk pools which will help people pay for the high premiums. Expect there won't be nearly enough money in the pools to help out enough people that will be in the pools.

What a sad state of affairs we have come to in this country where millions will lose insurance so a few can gain millions in dollars. But that's the Republican Party for you.

Native American March on the White House

I stepped out of my office and Friday and saw this march by Native Americans. They were protesting with going ahead with the Dakota Access pipeline.

From the Post:

Work on the $3.8 billion pipeline, which is owned by Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners, was halted in December by the Obama administration. The Army Corps of Engineers announced that it would look at alternate routes for the pipeline and that it would undertake an environmental-impact statement.

But in January, President Trump signed an executive order giving the pipeline project the go-ahead. The Army Corps granted an easement for the oil company to drill under a reservoir on the Missouri River that is adjacent to the Standing Rock Sioux reservation and construction resumed in early February. The company has said it would be just a number of weeks before up to 550,000 barrels of oil a day can begin flowing through the pipeline.

Eryn Wise spent four months at Standing Rock last year, becoming one of the leaders of the International Indigenous Youth Council, a group formed at the protest site to give voice to the many young Indians who had traveled to join the movement.

“I think that most people came to Standing Rock for the same reason I did,” said Wise, 26, a member of the Jicarilla Apache and Laguna Pueblo tribes of New Mexico. “We’ve never been a part of a movement that represented us in such a powerful and important way. An indigenous-led resistance.”

It was good to see democracy in action and in the age of Trump there will be many more marches.

The Republican Health Care Plan — Don’t Get Sick

That’s about all you can say about this disaster of a plan. Where to start?

Oh yes the tax credit thing.

Because middle and low and poor people have the money to shell out for insurance and then wait for a year to get that money back.

But if they just prioritize things everything should work out fine. As that great representative Jason Chaffetz said just don’t buy a new iPhone every year and you can have health care. People will have to take some responsibility and make some tough choices. Like people in these income brackets aren’t make tough choices now. And if you didn’t get a new iPhone that would pay for your health care for around a month. Not sure what you do the other eleven months out of the year.

Here's what he had to say:

Well we're getting rid of the individual mandate. We're getting rid of those things that people said they don't want. And you know what? Americans have choices. And they've got to make a choice. And so, maybe rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love and they want to go spend hundreds of dollars on that, maybe they should invest it in their own health care. They've got to make those decisions for themselves.

There's a wonderful article in the Post by Christopher Ingraham about what Chaffetz said and the calculations on just how much insurance an iPhone will get you. Here's a little from it:

Let's start with the most generous comparison, and posit that someone wants to buy the most expensive iPhone — a brand new 7 without a contract and with the luxurious “Plus” version's 5.5" screen — which has a sticker price of $769. With tax, that comes to around $800.

Conversely, a year of individual insurance coverage on the open market will run you about $393 per month, or $4,617 per year, per eHealth. For the purpose of this comparison we'll assume you're a healthy individual who doesn't have to worry about deductibles (which run over $4,000 for these plans), and that that $4,617 is all you have to pay.

Even in this expensive-iPhone no-deductible scenario, the typical annual cost of an individual market plan costs is about six times as costly as Chaffetz's “new iPhone.”

 It then goes on to say:

So let's say we get sick. We break a leg. We have to get lab work done. Our health isn't great, so we need a lot of medical care and max out on our deductible each year. Under the standard individual plan referenced above, that works out to about $18,000 in premiums and out-of-pocket expenses over two years. Or, for that span, the price of 23 iPhones.

 Yes all you have to do is give up your iPhone and you'll have enough money to afford health insurance.

Let’s look at some actual numbers. I would get a $3,500 tax credit.  Now lets look at actual costs. The plan I had the premium was $470 a month or $5,640 a year. That would leave $2,140 I would have to come up with to cover my insurance for the rest of the year. This assumes I could still get this plan (and it was one of the most basic plans possible). It had a high deductible. There were plans with lower deductibles which of course cost more money. I could afford to absorb a cost like this. But for many people this is not something they can afford without the current subsidies provided by Obama care.

Some other fun facts:

1. Insurers would be able to charge older customers up to five times what they charge younger customers instead of the current three times. In other words don’t get old.
2. Credits could not be used to buy health plans that cover abortion. Nice to see the far right wing agenda at work here.
3. 30 percent surcharge on premiums that insurers would be able to impose on consumers who purchase a new plan after letting their previous coverage lapse — a strategy to encourage people to remain insured. I really like this one. A great way to penalize people who can’t afford any sort of a plan because of the miserly tax credits from the Republicans. They end up having a gap in coverage and get to pay even more for insurance.

The bottom line if you are well off or rich you have it made with this plan. You get all sorts of breaks. If you're not so well off well the plan is set up to break you. Or in other words just don't get sick.

This is so Spot On

The Russians are Coming the Russians are Coming

Oh wait I guess they’ve already arrived.

It would be really funny if it wasn’t so serious. Michael Flynn suddenly remembers that he sorta maybe did indeed talk about sanctions with the Russian ambassador. And then kinda sorta mislead the VP on what was going on. The reason Flynn was asked to resign wasn’t because of what he did but because Trump had lost trust in him.

Not that there was any promises to the Russian on sanctions. Oh not all. The Obama administration announces sanctions against the Russians. The Russians say the will retaliate. Then they decided not to. What happened between those two events Flynn talked to the Russian ambassador. Just a coincidence? Yeah right.

And it seems there have been all sorts of contacts between the Russians and the Trump organization throughout the campaign.

It seems pretty obvious that nothing would have happened unless this had come out in the press:

Yet the situation didn’t come to a head until the public disclosure last week of what Flynn says was his faulty recollection of the call — and specifically, the fact that it included talk about sanctions, which Flynn and Vice President Pence had both denied.

Which leads to the question: Was the White House concerned that Flynn had apparently lied to them — or at least done something he shouldn’t have and failed to disclose it? Would it ever have taken corrective action if the situation hadn’t been made public?

At least some Republicans in the Senate say they will look into exactly what is going on here. Then again there’s Rand Paul who says why bother to investigate people in your own party. The House is even worse where the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz is essentially a Trump shill. Chaffetz didn’t see an investigation he didn’t like when it was Democrats or Hillary Clinton in particular. But when it comes to Trump well little or no interest.

This from a column by Jennifer Rubin in the Post:

In response to this farcical dereliction of duty, ranking Democrat Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (Md.) said in a written statement, “Chairman Chaffetz appears to be taking his marching orders directly from President Trump’s tweet yesterday — instead of investigating General Flynn’s lies and his troubling ties with Russia, he chose to target those who brought them to light.” Cummings added: “Congress should be doing independent oversight of the Executive Branch and protecting whistleblowers, not running interference while the White House conceals their abuses and misleads the American people for weeks. Chairman Chaffetz said he didn’t want to go on ‘fishing expeditions’, but that’s exactly what he’s doing here.”

She goes on to say:

In contrast with Senate Republicans, who seem to have perked up and see legitimate grounds for at least investigating Trump’s Russia ties, Chaffetz remains a Trump enabler, blocking essential investigation of raging scandals. So long as the Senate plunges ahead, however, the real damage here is to Chaffetz, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and the GOP majority. If the GOP won’t do basic oversight on the biggest scandal to hit the White House in decades, why not put the Democrats in charge?

I have rarely agreed with Rubin (because she is way too conservative for me) but in this case I agree.

It is important to find out just how deep the Russians hooks are in Trump. What exactly Flynn promised to the Russians? And most important did Flynn act all by himself or at the behest of someone.

The Ban That’s not a Ban — Well Maybe It Is

I think the Melissa McCarthy skit on Saturday Night Live best summed up how silly this ban is. The skit touched on other topics as well but the ban was one of the main themes. It was nothing short of hysterical.



A travel ban from the gang that couldn’t shoot straight. It applies to green card holders. Oh no it doesn’t. Well maybe it actually does. No need to inform Congress about this. OK if it had to be done over maybe Congress would be consulted. But all the confusion has nothing to do with how badly this executive order was rolled out. No all the confusion was because of the protesters at the airport and the law suits that were filed.

The irony is that the refugees from these countries (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen) have been vetted every which way possible. To say that we don’t know anything about is well a lie. That’s something the Trump administration is getting very good at telling lies. The notion that banning people from these countries will make people here in the US safer is silly. In part because not one person from these countries has committed a terrorist act in this country. It is also ironic that Trump doesn’t do any business in these countries. Now people from countries that have actually committed a terrorist act here in the US, well they still get to come in. Funny how Trump does business in all of those countries.

Obviously such a badly crafted executive order (one that wasn’t even bothered to be sent out to the appropriate legal people) was going to be challenged in court. So there were stays and usual reaction from Trump. The “so called” judge. No he’s not so called at all. He is a judge. And he’s doing his job that’s defined in the Constitution. The Constitution something Trump obviously has never read or has any idea what’s contained in it. Trump of course added that any terrorist act that occurred while this was being argued would be the judge’s fault. Actually it would be Trump’s fault for not taking the time to come up with a decent executive order.

Yesterday was the turn of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to hear the case:

Three federal appellate judges on Tuesday lobbed critical inquiries at those challenging and defending President Trump’s controversial immigration order — whose immediate future now rests with the court.

The three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit aggressively questioned a Justice Department lawyer about what he considered the limits on the president’s power and what evidence Trump relied upon in temporarily barring refugees and citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.

But the panel similarly interrogated Washington state’s solicitor general, who is challenging the president’s directive, over what evidence he had to demonstrate religious discrimination and whether a lower-court judge’s freeze on the ban was too broad.

Looks like no matter what happens this will be going to the Supreme Court.

Total Chaos that is Total Political Chaos

Hard to believe Trump has only been president for like ten days.

As a quick aside it’s taken me a long to time to get back to blogging about politics. I got really turned off by the tenor of politics and this was even before Trump. And really mad at the Republicans. My regard for them continues to drop. I didn’t think it could get any lower but it continues to sink even lower. Especially regarding Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan. There was  a great post on Facebook saying scientist marvel how the two of them can stand upright without spines. But as long as they have power they don’t really care what Trump does. They will be as bendable and pliable as possible so long as their “agenda” has a chance to pass. Ryan’s position on the immigration ban is exhibit one. More on that in another post

So I’m going to start out slowly with the political posts. Don’t want to OD on it.

I’m going to start with the inauguration. The one with the largest audience ever. This and the I really won the popular vote just show what an amazingly self-centered egotistical narcissist person Trump really is. From the photographs it was obvious Obama’s first in inauguration had more people. No matter what alternative facts they presented (alternative facts or as I call them and everyone else calls them lies).

But there’s an easier explanation for the reason Trump didn’t have a larger crowd than Obama. That’s the demographics of the region. Put simply the ceremony is in Washington, DC where 94 percent of the people voted for Clinton. So you’re not going to get a large turnout of DC residents going to the ceremony. The same can be said of Maryland. Heavily democratic. The northern Virginia suburbs the same way.

Thus Democrats have a built in advantage for an audience to begin with. Throw in the minor thing of the first African American to sworn in as president and the crowd was going to be huge.

So Trump was upset about not have the largest number of spectators ever. So to stroke his ego he came up with the lie that the reason he lost the popular vote was because 3-5 million people voted illegally and of course they all voted for Clinton.

This is fantasy land on so many levels. First there has never been found to be any major voting fraud ever. Every study ever done comes to the same conclusion. Now there are problems with voter roles. People not being properly removed from them. But again never in any of these studies did it show fraud.

Because of Trump’s incredibly fragile ego because he cannot imagine never not being the most popular or winning everything, he calls into question the entire electoral process. What’s even more amazing about it is he WON the election.

One of the first moves to tyranny is to make people believe the election process is rigged. That it doesn’t accurately reflect the will of the people. And since a large part of his supporters will believe this BS (and because Republicans only tepidly call into question Trump’s conclusions), they will start to doubt the legitimacy of elections. As in the case when a Democrat wins an election.

How sad and frightening that Trump’s massive insecurities are putting this country at risk.