lambert's blog

This post is about a study commissioned by Families USA, who helped destroy single payer not once but twice; see this massive takedown from Hipparchia. So when Jeffrey Young (HuffPo) treats these jokers as credible, that shows he and HuffPo have a problem. So one assumes they're working an angle, though gawd knows what, but also that if they say something's wrong with ObamaCare, which they helped to pass, then matters are even worse than they say. On the question of who gets theirs this time:

Families USA, a liberal [BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!!!!] health care reform advocacy organization, attempts to answer that vital question in a report released Thursday. In short, young people, working families and whites will get the bulk of the subsidies from [ObamaCare].

So, on the question of who gets thrown under the bus:

And while African-Americans and Hispanics are much more likely to be uninsured than Caucasians, whites will make up the majority of tax credit beneficiaries.

Because they have no place to go. And nobody could have predicted that the Republicans would opt out of expanding a Federal program:

Another important consideration is that the health care reform law intended to provide Medicaid coverage to anyone earning up to 133 percent of poverty, which is $15,282 for a single person this year. The Supreme Court threw that plan into disarray when it ruled last year that states may opt out of the Medicaid expansion. So far, Republican governors in 20 states won't broaden Medicaid, which will send some poor people into the exchanges and leave others uninsured.

Because poor people in Red States also have no place to go. (Recall also that ObamaCare will not even be marketed to the "vulnerable and the disengaged," who I would bet are primarily black and poor.) Read below the fold...

The Hill:

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) reprimanded the Obama administration Wednesday for using billions of dollars from ObamaCare's preventive health fund for other purposes.

There's a good deal of pearl-clutching on the right about this, but Harkin is a Democrat, and by no means the worst of 'em. I would also note that even under the best interpretation, everybody admits that Obama is taking money from programs meant for direct delivery of health care, and using it for other purposes. That is a very bad sign for how the administration will handle future spending when ObamaCare is fully implemented. Under the worst interpretation, Obama's decided that compensating for the artificially created complexity and confusion of ObamaCare (Sibelius calls this "education") by throwing pork to web site developers, trainers, pollsters, public relations firms, and marketing specialists -- in other words, to members of one of his key constituencies, the technocracy or "creative class" -- is more important than programs that have the proven ability to save lives.

It keeps getting better! Read below the fold...

NPR:

[Many] fraudsters seem to be preying on the public's confusion over the massive changes taking place in the nation's health care system.

Seniors are often targets — they're more likely to be home to answer the phone, and they tend to have retirement savings that scammers hope to tap. But they aren't the only victims: The federal government received nearly 83,000 complaints of these types of scams last year — up 12 percent from the year before.

Read below the fold...

If Obama and the Democrats had passed single payer Medicare for All in 2009, every American would have had guaranteed coverage for two years by now; it took LBJ only a year to get all 65+ citizens covered in 1965, and that was in the days before computers. Back then, the Democrats controlled the House and the Senate, and could passed the bill.

But wait, you cry. The filibuster! Read below the fold...

Via Joe Weisenthal, here's the long term unemployment hearing room:

Read below the fold...

Boston bombing suspect cites U.S. wars as motivation, officials say Read below the fold...

Actually, not a sinking ship, but a "train wreck." I mean, ObamaCare was a legislative triumph for Senator Max Baucus, so you'd think he'd wish to stick around to bask in the applause after ObamaCare's triumphant roll-out.* Here, in its entirety, is The Obama's statement on Baucus's resignation:

I want to thank Max Baucus for his nearly 35 years of service to the people of Montana. Max has made small businesses a top priority, often taking “Work Days” to visit local businesses across Montana and spend a day working alongside his constituents to gain perspective and help bolster the local economy. As Finance Committee Chairman and a senior member of both the Agriculture and the Environment and Public Works Committees, Max has been a leader on a broad range of issues that touch the lives of Americans across the country. Michelle and I commend Senator Baucus on his career, and wish him and his family well in the future.

Notice anything missing? Read below the fold...

FT:

Boeing in the dark over 787 battery fires
Boeing on Monday admitted it may never be established why batteries failed [that is, caught fire]* on two of its high-tech Dreamliner aircraft, as work began to fix the safety problem that grounded the company’s wide-body passenger jet. ...

Read below the fold...

Maria Maisto of New Faculty Majority:

Doug Wright was a highly respected and dearly loved adjunct professor who taught humanities courses for many years at several colleges in Utah. As a so-called part-time faculty member who had the same responsibilities to students as any full-time faculty member, he was given only temporary assignments, sub-professional pay, and was not eligible for health insurance. When he was diagnosed with cancer in May 2009, he spent his life savings on treatment.

A close friend, Paul Babin, made a film about his struggle. The film, The Place Beneath, was an appeal to the country to make health care accessible to all people who need it. 

In an epilogue to the film, Babin describes a party that Doug and his friends held in early November 2009. The film had found a home on the internet, and as he celebrated six months of a hard-fought fight, Doug was to learn that Vice President Joe Biden [always a bad sign] had seen the film and had been moved to write to him expressing his thanks.

Meanwhile, how have top university administrators been doing?

Chief executives of colleges and university systems saw healthy increases in base pay. Leaders of systems earned $370,470, on average, an increase of 15.5 percent. Presidents of single institutions received median base salaries of $274,300, an increase of 7.2 percent.

Under The Sachs Conjecture, that's happening because these chief executives are part of a "morally pathological" elite. Read on for a telling example: Read below the fold...

Pulling this out from Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's beside hearing (I'm typing this in, since what's online is just scans dumped into a PDF file dumped into Scribd:

THE COURT: ... As a first step in this hearing, I am going to tell you about your Contitutional rights.

You have the right under the Constitution of the United States to remain silent. Any statement made by your may be used agaist you in court, and you have the right not to have your own words used against you.

You may consult with an attorney prior to any questioning, and you may have the attorney present during questioning.

Counsel will be appointed without charge if you cannot afford counsel.

If you choose to make a statement or to answer questions without the assistance of counsel, you may stop answering at any time.

This right means you do not have to answer any questions put to you by law enforcement agents or by the Assistant United States Attorney, Mr. Weinreb.

I want to make it clear. You are not prohibited from making statements, but that if you do, they can be used against you. YOu are not required to make any statement at this initial appearance, and any statement you do make may be used against you.

Finally, if I ask you any question here in this heraing or any future hearing which you think might incrminate you, you have the right not to answer.

Do you understand everything I have said about your right to remain silent?

THE DEFENDANT: (Defendant nods affirmatively.)

"Majesty" not in the sense of "Kings! What a good idea," but majesty in the sense that the people are sovereign, and our Constitutional system of government is or at least should be one thing that makes and keeps them so. Call me Pollyanna, I guess. Read below the fold...

The Sachs Conjecture: The elite moral environment is pathological.*

Single payer advocates have framed the case against our current mal-system** of health care for profit in terms of saving money and lives. They point to the vast overhead of administrative waste, CEO salaries, duplication of effort, and so forth, under single payer, would go toward care. And, noting that an insurance system based on profit has every incentive to deny care, they point to better health outcomes in every country to have instituted single payer systems.

But the case for single payer didn't take, despite the many polls that show strong public support for a Medicare for All-like system. So, what if single payer advocates diagnosed the problem incorrectly? And what if a correct diagnosis would also accounts for their failure? It would be irresponsible not to speculate: Read below the fold...

Me to the bank teller this morning.

Bank teller to me: "You're not the only one!" Read below the fold...

The power cord was right where I left it, and in a busy university union, too! So, right now I feel the world is (mostly) filled with good people. Read below the fold...

So stressed and stupid I seem to have forgotten my power cord over at the University so I can't work on the Mac and have to work on this icky Windows laptop instead, where the keys feel too fat for my fingers. Read below the fold...

A reader writes:

You could add this story to your Obamacare clusterfuck series. My insurance runs out in a week. I've been on COBRA for 18 months. In the last three months, my child has been hospitalized three times for mental health issues. The diagnosis is fluid but at the bottom of it there is a form of bipolar disorder with some psychosis. The doctors don't label kids at that age because so many things overlap and resolve and it's just too difficult to say where all of this is going but the prognosis is good. But they will need at least 6 more months of out patient treatment. The cost of a partial program is about $900/day. For intensive outpatient programs (3 days a week for 2 hours a day) it's about $500/day.

When the insurance runs out, I'll be expected to pay this. I've been searching online and over the phone for individual policies that cover mental health. Guess what? There are very, very few of them. That's because unless you live in Ohio, insurance companies do not have to offer mental health coverage to individual policy holders.

Yes, there is CHIP. I filled out an application for my state and their dad is waiting for confirmation in his state. But we don't know the status of that yet.

There is charity care. They will weigh my assets against any costs that theyt incurs. In other words, there goes the college fund. Medicaid is also an option but in that case, they will get a gigantic "DISABLED" label that will follow them around as long as they needs treatment. It will look great on the transcripts.

This is how we treat our kids.

It is. But it's not how we treat our insurance companies, is it?

There are at least two reasons children's mental health is yet another ObamaCare ClusterFuck: Weak, slow implementation, and screwed up eligibility. (That is, children's mental health has the same two problems every other ObamaCare program has.) Read below the fold...