Submitted by lambert on Wed, 06/05/2013 - 7:50pm
Kaiser:
This fall is the moment of truth for Oregon’s Health CO-OP and 23 other consumer-owned and run plans created by the Affordable Care Act to increase competition and give consumers a greater say in their coverage. Funded by $1.9 billion in low-interest federal loans, the co-ops were tucked into the law to mollify liberals who had unsuccessfully sought a so-called “public option,” or government-run insurance plan.
But will customers buy insurance from upstart nonprofits? And will the co-op plans be competitive with those offered by industry giants like UnitedHealthcare and Aetna which have the clout to exact big discounts from hospitals and doctor groups? Read below the fold...
Submitted by lambert on Wed, 06/05/2013 - 12:22am
Kaiser's Michelle Andrews takes questions. I'm just going to quote the Q&A in its entirety:
Q. I expect the annual premium for my company's group plan to be about $24,000, or 50 percent of my family's income. Will my family be eligible for subsidized coverage on the state insurance exchanges in 2014, provided we meet the poverty-level requirements?
Read below the fold...
Submitted by lambert on Tue, 06/04/2013 - 11:20pm
I don't know what else to call what Sibelius is doing:
JACKIE JUDD: HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius defended herself today against criticism from congressional Republicans about calls she made to outside organizations in support of a group promoting implementation of the health care law.
JACKIE JUDD: According to the secretary, she had made a total of five calls made on behalf of Enroll America, including to three companies that HHS does regulate. What was the nature of the calls?
MARY AGNES CAREY: Two of those phone calls – and these were made to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and to the tax preparer H&R Block were to ask for funding to help Enroll America. The other three calls were made to Johnson & Johnson[*], Ascension Health, which is a Catholic health care system, and the insurer Kaiser Permanente (Kaiser Health News is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente). But the secretary said those calls were simply to discuss the efforts of Enroll America....
Of course they were!
and she did not solicit money from those three groups.
Of course she didn't! She has people for that! Read below the fold...
Submitted by libbyliberal on Tue, 06/04/2013 - 11:19pm
Pfc. Manning’s trial by court martial began on June 3rd at Fort Meade in Maryland. It is expected to last 3 months. (Naomi Spencer in “Bradley Manning’s court martial begins”)
Pfc. Manning is 25 years old. Read below the fold...
Submitted by lambert on Tue, 06/04/2013 - 4:53pm
Huffpo:
Some of President Barack Obama's political appointees, including the secretary for Health and Human Services, are using secret government email accounts they say are necessary to prevent their inboxes from being overwhelmed with unwanted messages, according to a review by The Associated Press. ...
The secret email accounts complicate an agency's legal responsibilities to find and turn over emails in response to congressional or internal investigations, civil lawsuits or public records requests because employees assigned to compile such responses would necessarily need to know about the accounts to search them. Secret accounts also drive perceptions that government officials are trying to hide actions or decisions. ...
The Health and Human Services Department initially turned over to the AP the email addresses for roughly 240 appointees – except none of the email accounts for Sebelius, even one for her already published on its website. After the AP objected, it turned over three of Sebelius' email addresses, including a secret one. It asked the AP not to publish the address, which it said she used to conduct day-to-day business at the department. Most of the 240 political appointees at HHS appeared to be using only public government accounts. ....
The AP decided to publish the secret address for Sebelius – KGS2(at)hhs.gov – over the government's objections because the secretary is a high-ranking civil servant who oversees not only major agencies like the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services but also the implementation of Obama's signature health care law. Her public email address is Kathleen.Sebelius(at)hhs.gov.
Kudos to AP for this reporting (and please don't sue me for fair use, mkay?) Now, it would be irresponsible not to speculate, so let's lay down a few dots to connect: Read below the fold...
Submitted by hipparchia on Tue, 06/04/2013 - 7:53am
Take a page from the Republican play book: have your candidates for office sign a pledge and then hold them to it.
The pledge? Bring back pork barrel spending. Bring home the Federal dollars to your district or state. Tax the rich to pay for it.
It's not really a true jobs guarantee program, and it would be a far far better thing if they spend the money on stuff we really need, but even bridges to nowhere provide jobs, plus they're less morally objectionable than, say, drone manufacturing. Read below the fold...
Submitted by lambert on Mon, 06/03/2013 - 2:09pm
Here is the mystery plant once more, but larger:
Can anybody identify it now? I'd hate to think it's a weed, and it's not acting invasively. They are growing in an area that I planted a wildflower mix in last year, and some of them self-seeded themselves quite nicely and are coming back this year. However, the pattern of these plants is... Well, it's a splatter pattern, as if a squash burst. So I don't know!
In other garden news: Read below the fold...
Submitted by Rainbow Girl on Mon, 06/03/2013 - 10:23am
Submitted by transcriber on Sun, 06/02/2013 - 4:25pm
Submitted by lambert on Sun, 06/02/2013 - 2:36pm
For some reason, I've been getting a small but steady stream of new accounts with really interesting Turing Tests. So I approve them, and then... No posts or comments or introductions. So, three possibilties: Read below the fold...
Submitted by danps on Sun, 06/02/2013 - 8:27am
Submitted by transcriber on Sat, 06/01/2013 - 6:00pm
Submitted by ubetchaiam on Sat, 06/01/2013 - 2:55pm
It used to be that a citizen consumer could deduct loan/credit interest charged(besides the home mortgage interest). Read below the fold...
Submitted by danps on Sat, 06/01/2013 - 9:41am
So what games have you dug so far this year? Nothing has really blown me away yet. Quick review of Bioshock Infinite below the fold. Read below the fold...
Submitted by danps on Sat, 06/01/2013 - 7:09am
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