AHCA, Trump, Comey, Taxes, Twitter -GAH!

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by Ugh

This is an open thread for all the nuttiness this week. New and Improved AHCA – now with more pre-existing conditions, bankruptcies and moral monstrosities.

Trump is trumpernating.

Comey is testifying.

Taxes are taxing – my call is no tax reform this year. Interesting note, if the budget window is 10 years, they can only do a two year temporary corporate rate cut under reconciliation because scoring says it increases the deficit outside that window. New to me! I just thought they could do a temp cut for 10 years and hope it sticks down the road, but no. Of course, they can open up the budget window to 10, 20, 30 or even 1,000 years (or 1,000 generations, like the Jedi). So who knows what sh1t the GOP will pull if they can ever get their sh1t together.

Also, I set up an account at the twitter and it is probably not a good thing but why not.  I will put the handle below the fold if anyone is interested (it sort of links back to here, hope that is okay with the other front pagers and I have not mentioned that I post here in the bio or a tweet).  

Oh, I forgot, potential rollback of LGBT protections via EO tomorrow. Feh.

Only 1300+ days of this to go!

My twitter handle: @UghObWi but be warned, very little enlightenment there…

181 thoughts on “AHCA, Trump, Comey, Taxes, Twitter -GAH!”

  4. The thousand year budget window will be challenging for the CBO to score. That may even matter.
    Speaking of budgets, I have read maybe five articles about Pelosi and Schumer tricksying Trump on the budget, getting all kinds of Dem goodies in there. What I haven’t read is if this means that the Trump Budget will be passed mostly with Democratic votes, and what stuff is in there that the Democratic base would not like at all.

  6. The “Trump budget” will have likely be something that shares a name with the recent proposal. But nothing more. Including having no substantive input from Trump (although, on second thought, it may share that with the one pager).
    Not that this will keep Trump from proclaiming it a win. Possibly within hours of denouncing it, of course.

  7. bob – looks like the budget will be a bipartisan bill in both houses, but that the house freedom to die caucus will vote no.

  9. I am struggling, unsuccessfully, with the idea of laughing with Jeff Sessions. Just as an alternative, you understand.
    But laughing at him? That would seem to require only a somewhat sardonic sense of humor.

  10. twitter’s no good for me. i talk too much, 140 characters wont get it.
    is it just me, or is trump asymptotically approaching background noise?
    a guy can dream

  11. is trump asymptotically approaching background noise?
    If so, expect ever more outrageous tweets (and behavior) in order to restore/demand attention. The one thing the man cannot stand is being ignored or otherwise considered unimportant.

  12. Any bets on when, if ever, Chuck Schumer will openly declare that his political goal is to make He, Trump a one-term president?
    Any bets on whether the American electorate contains enough stupid people to re-elect the Trump Family in 2020?
    Any bets on whether the one thing will affect the other?
    –TP

  14. bob – looks like the budget will be a bipartisan bill in both houses, but that the house freedom to die caucus will vote no.
    Since 2008 and TARP I am very sensitive to the Democratic Congress or Dem majorities being the decisive votes for essentially Republican legislation (or moderate, or neoliberal) with covering sweeteners.
    “But the budget cut x,y,and z! And only Democrats can be blamed.”
    “Do you want to defund Planned Parenthood you monster? We got great stuff in that budget”
    As in a parliamentary system, although it doesn’t always work that way, I would rather the ruling party have complete responsibility, and Democrats never ever be the majority of votes for a bill Trump signs. It is called being the opposition. Let the heavens fucking fall, it is on Repubs.
    And I just don’t trust the millionaires in Congress

  15. I’ve spent years fighting for my right to be who I am, for my wife to be who she is, and for the two of us to be treated as human beings and not second-class citizens.
    If Trump, Pence, or any other piece of shit thinks a simple executive order is going to make me sit down and shut up, they’re in for one rude goddamn awakening (and I’m not apologizing for the language).

  16. VERIFIED: We will force you to carry your pregnancy to term so you can watch your child suffer a hideous death without healthcare. Pro Life!

  17. Any bets on whether the American electorate contains enough stupid people to re-elect the Trump Family in 2020?
    easily.

  19. It’s worth reconsidering only because of a New York Times report from Tuesday that says Donald Trump’s Northern Virginia Trump National Golf Club features a plaque between the 14th and 15th holes honoring a Civil War battle at that precise spot. The inscription, signed by Trump, reads:
    “Many great American soldiers, both of the North and South, died at this spot. The casualties were so great that the water would turn red and thus became known as ‘The River of Blood.’ It is my great honor to have preserved this important section of the Potomac River!”
    Nice sentiment, small problem: there apparently was no such battle.
    The Times checked with various historians in the area who had trouble tying the site of Trump’s course to any such event.
    “No. Uh-uh. No way. Nothing like that ever happened there,” Richard Gillespie, the executive director of the Mosby Heritage Area Association, told the Times.
    Gillespie went on to say the closest thing to what Trump was describing was a battle 11 miles up the river in 1861. “The River of Blood?” he said. “Nope, not there.”
    Trump, who is a leading Republican candidate for President, questioned how historians could dispute the battle. “How would they know,” he told the Times. “Were they there?”

    http://www.golfdigest.com/story/details-details-donald-trump-has-plaque-at-his-golf-course-commemorating-civil-war-battle-that-never-happened

  20. I’m afraid to look so I’ll ask, anyone with insight into the conservosphere internet know what they’re saying about the AHCA repeal vote? Happy? Sad? Worried? Don’t care?

  22. I guess it was the battle where all the confederate soldiers were black volunteers and all the union soldiers were somehow involved in slave holding or trading. Thus it had to be written out of history by the Demo(c)rat Party (the only true racists ever in human history).

  24. Ugh,
    Once it’s passed everyone will understand what a great thing it is….my small sample is ambivalent. They believe the Democrats and the media forced the bill to be rushed but that it is better than it was and the Senate could do it right.

  25. Apparently the AHCA bill has to be passed so that people (like, Congressmen) can find out what’s in it.
    Didn’t I hear something like that being one of the greatest “tyranny/abuse of power” EVARS?
    Well, at least there has been months and months of public hearings and debate and amendment and OMB budget scoring on the AHCA bill, so if we didn’t want to know “what is in it”, it’s our own damn lazy ass fault.

  27. There is almost no “fact” in Drums list about the impacts. You know those things everyone cares so much about. It reduces premiums, it is unlikely to exclude anyone for a preexisting condition, it covers more people and is likely to be improved in the Senate.

  28. There is almost no “fact” in Drums list about the impacts. I like the ‘almost’. That’s almost funny.
    You know those things everyone cares so much about. Facts? Like a CBO score?
    It reduces premiums, by reducing coverage.
    it is unlikely to exclude anyone for a preexisting condition,
     ‘unlikely’! Ha. Another funny.
    it covers more people No, it will not.
    and is likely to be improved in the Senate. where it will go to die.

  29. They believe the Democrats and the media forced the bill to be rushed
    How did they do that? Amazing!!!

  30. it’s great because it’s a GOP bill. that’s all you’re going to learn from any “conservative”.

  31. I, for one, approve of how the minority Democrats in the House and Senate have managed to hold a gun to the head of the Republicans, and FORCED them to rush though the AHCA.
    Just pull the f’ing trigger, m’kay? At least it’ll put a stop to the high-pitched whining.

  32. ” where it will go to die”
    So all this thrashing about calling people murderers is simply a waste of time.
    Ok, next subject.

  34. They believe the Democrats and the media forced the bill to be rushed
    What bobby said at 9:12 — exactly, word for word, what I was going to write.

  35. How did they do that?
    it’s a little-known secret that the Dems have the incredible power to absorb the blame for whatever anyone else does.

  36. it’s a little-known secret that the Dems have the incredible power to absorb the blame for whatever anyone else does.:
    little known corollary to cleek’s law.

  37. Ah, but do they absorb it? Or are them merely the default targets (and it could partly or largely bounce off)?
    The answer is going to matter, if the AHCA makes it into law.

  38. Truth matters, if only because it translates into money. Or maybe the other way around. Either way, Marty seems to believe that Republicans are out to save him money. The Truth will eventually be revealed by his bank account.
    –TP

  40. If AHCA passes, I’m counting on Marty to give us his accurate first-person account of dealing with the Death Panel.
    Don’t think it’ll fall into the “tl;dr” pile, though.

  42. Chait on Count’s Digby link:

    They are rushing through a chamber of Congress a bill reorganizing one-fifth of the economy, without even cursory attempts to gauge its impact. Its budgetary impact is as yet unknown. The same is true of its social impact, though the broad strokes are clear enough: Millions of Americans will lose access to medical care, and tens of thousands of them will die, and Congress is understandably eager to hasten these results without knowing them more precisely. Their haste and secrecy are a way of distancing the House Republicans from the immorality of their actions.

    GOP’s new motto is apparently : “Ok, next subject.”

  43. No the GOP new motto is, anything we do will be described as killing people to protect some crappy Dem legacy dysfunctional POS. But something has to be done, so we’ll do it.
    Because we do precisely know that the ACA sucks, is coming apart at the seams and has to be replaced with something.
    And its laughable that after months of complaining that it is taking so long now they are going too fast.
    And, unlike the ACA, there is nothing secret or hidden about the legislation.

  44. But something has to be done, so we’ll do it.
    ah, good ol “something must be done; this is something; we must do it!”
    you are lead by idiots.

  45. The ACA is coming apart at the seams (as opposed to the places where it just needs improvements) precisely because of the efforts to pass something like the AHCA. That’s causing uncertainty about, among other things, just what the reimbursement rules will be next year — and insurers are understandably wary of signing what is essentially a blank check.

  46. Well, the House has just voted to remove the exemption for themselves and their staffs from the AHCA. With bi-partisan support. Perhaps embarrassment can, after all, sometimes have a widespread impact.

  47. Not sure why you’re trying to explain reality to Marty. He’s a true believer. They’ll be throwing him out of his hospital bed and he’ll still blame Obama.

  48. You mean the reimbursements that, in the law, expired two years ago? Or the extensions of them to try to keep at least one crappy set of plans in every state? Because even with them costs are growing fast enough no insurers can break even selling decent insurance in the exchanges?

  49. cleek,
    Maybe Marty is being led by idiots. But let’s not discount the possibility that he’s being led by charlatans who know how to swindle idiots.
    –TP

  50. It’s funny that it was exactly the logic used to pass the last health care bill by your idiots. This us something, lets print it and pass while we can. At least most conservatives I know want our idiots to try to make it better in the Senate.

  51. Many people who obtain health insurance through their employers—about half of the country—could be at risk of losing protections that limit out-of-pocket costs for catastrophic illnesses, due to a little-noticed provision of the House Republican health-care bill, health-policy experts say.
    The provision, part of a last-minute amendment, lets states obtain waivers from certain Affordable Care Act insurance regulations. Insurers in states that obtain the waivers could be freed from a regulation mandating that they cover 10 particular types of health services, among them maternity care, prescription drugs, mental health treatment and hospitalization.
    That could also affect plans offered by large employers, health analysts said.
    …
    Under the House bill, large employers could choose the benefit requirements from any state—including those that are allowed to lower their benchmarks under a waiver, health analysts said. By choosing a waiver state, employers looking to lower their costs could impose lifetime limits and eliminate the out-of-pocket cost cap from their plans under the GOP legislation.

    so, as long as i’m a man who never requires any drugs, i’m all set.
    buncha idiots. you should be ashamed of your party, Marty – not flailing around trying to defend every fncking thing they come up with.
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/little-noted-provision-of-gop-health-bill-could-alter-employer-plans-1493890203

  52. At least most conservatives I know want our idiots to try to make it better in the Senate.
    Well, now they get the chance.
    But it does rather beg the question of why the conservatives in the House weren’t willing (able?) to make it better.

  53. So the charlatans won in the House. But those oh-so-moderate GOP Senators will “improve” the swindle somehow. Except Josh Marshall is right:

    the Iron Law of Republican Politics. That is, the ‘GOP moderates’ will always cave.

    As long as they can disguise tax cuts for the rich as cheaper insurance for the Martys of the world, the swindlers always have the edge.
    –TP

  54. Yeah, cleek, those are all assumptions about what might happen. Yet just yesterday the NYTimes had an article on how all those negative impacts are being exaggerated by the Democrats. Half, really? No not really.
    When you admit that Obama care is failing and the individual insurances and cost containment aspects have failed, then we can compare the new to the old. Until then it’s just the minority writing histrionic headlines.

  55. When you admit that Obama care is failing
    it isn’t.
    it’s being suffocated by your party of idiots.

  56. wj, us that really a question? The House is the most fractured political body I’ve seen in my lifetime. The extremes on both sides have enough votes to block anything, the moderates on both sides are excoriated from both sides and are ensured a primary challenge while even in the Senate 65 of the 100 Senators have been there less than ten years and we have people complaining about needing term limits so we can throw more of the bums out.
    When the majority of the majority get elected on a repeal and replace platform then something will get passed. But there are no surprises in the difficulty of making a really good solution.

  57. those are all assumptions about what might happen.
    what this country really needs is a big load of “Let’s roll the dice with a 20% of the economy and the health of everyone!!”
    idiots.
    delete your party

  58. I expect the state government in Alabama shall shortly be sending out letters to all major employers offering to be “that state” where the insurance coverage death spiral hits ground zero:
    SEND US MONEY AND WE WILL GUARANTEE YOUR STOCKHOLDERS LOWER HEALTH CARE COSTS!
    GENEROUS DISCOUNTS TO EARLY ENROLLEES!
    YOU CAN’T MISS OUT. SIGN UP TODAY!

  59. “Let’s roll the dice with a 20% of the economy and the health of everyone!!”
    Those kind of odds? Russian Roulette.
    I guess Russian Roulette is a kind of health-care plan.
    Just make sure you use the first bullets on GOPers. Why should they miss out on the fun?

  60. They believe the Democrats and the media forced the bill to be rushed but that it is better than it was and the Senate could do it right.
    What does “do it right” look like?
    Because even with them costs are growing fast enough no insurers can break even selling decent insurance in the exchanges?
    The horrible truth we are all dancing around is that costs are growing fast enough that nobody can make money selling decent health insurance.
    Full stop.
    The (R) bill isn’t going to change that. They’re just going to shift costs to patients, mostly to those who can least afford it, and call it freedom.
    Until then it’s just the minority writing histrionic headlines.
    Minority?

  61. When Obama (and Dems in Congress) funded PPACA by the 3.8% tax on investment income for earners over $400k, he painted a big red target on the entire bill. He could have spread that tax out, as was done with SS and Medicare and Medicaid, but he was committed to no tax increases on earners under $250k, which is what 99% of Americans? ACA was doomed from day one, as soon as Repubs got control. I bet he knew this.
    SS and Medicare and Medicaid are in somewhat better share, because they cover everybody, and because the taxes are spread out.
    Yes, you can tax the hell out of the rich, but only if you tax the hell out of everybody, and then give back to the middle and upper middle in programs. You especially have to tax the hell out of the upper middle, so that they don’t aspire to and support the rich.
    In the good years, it wasn’t just the 90% top rate, but the progressive graduations which were steep and hard, so that most people did not aspire to increase their income bu very much.
    Anyway, yeah the Senate will pass something horrible, and Trump will sign something. People will die. The wrong people will die.

  62. In the good years, it wasn’t just the 90% top rate, but the progressive graduations which were steep and hard, so that most people did not aspire to increase their income bu very much.
    Which, of course, was bad. We all know all the best stuff happens when people with a lot of money try to get more of it. Otherwise, no one will do anything, nothing will happen, people won’t have jobs, there won’t be cool stuff to buy, and life will suck.

  63. They’re just going to shift costs to patients, mostly to those who can least afford it, and call it freedom.
    The people who can least afford it don’t have any money to pay with.
    So the rich will get more $ and the poor will get more illness and early death.

  64. Today’s vote could actually turn out to be a boon to the Democrats. Most likely, it (or at least big parts of it; the ones required to get the Freedom Caucus on board) will die in the Senate; if anything comes back, the House won’t be able to pass it.
    Meanwhile, they have a ready-made club to smash Republican incumbents with in 2018. Especially when the CBO scoring comes out for what was just passed. Pelosi can’t say so publicly, of course. But I would be surprised if, behind closed doors, the whole House Democratic leadership isn’t celebrating what just ahppened.

  65. When Obama (and Dems in Congress) funded PPACA by the 3.8% tax on investment income for earners over $400k, signed the ACA he painted a big red target on the entire bill.

  66. cleek at 3:50: we disagree. shrugs. This is probably “because Obama is a dem or black” argument.
    SS, Medicare, Medicaid, threatened battered and bruised but still standing. Lesser Bush passed Medicare Part D in a Repub Congress.
    If Obama/Pelosi had funded it with a couple points on payroll, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. But Ryan can point to $1 trillion dollars over ten years right back in rich fucks pockets, and since it was so clear, the rich have been spending millions to get billions.
    Oh well, praise the Party, I don’t have to worry about Obama and Pelosi having health care.

  67. If you like the ACA, you’re not going to like the AHCA. If you don’t like the ACA, you’re not going to like the AHCA either.
    Are libertarians going to git some company as the people who are disappointed with just about everything that happens in Washington?
    Politicians of all stripes love to pass laws that hide the true cost of everything so they can take the credit, but not the responsibility.

  68. wj at 343: No idea. I didn’t think they would get it outa the House, and I would be shocked either way with the Senate. But I agree with Josh Marshall about the Iron Law of Republicans.
    Moderate Republicans always cave.

  69. Oh well, praise the Party
    like it or not, the US is a two party system. you’re smart enough to figure out the rest.

  70. The GOP also needs the Obamacare repeal as a cover for their farther reaching tax cuts (eh..fundamental overhaul of the Byzantine tax code). It is their standard claim that Obamacare is a huge drain on the tax revenue (not just unfairly punishing the job creators), so its repeal allows to give all that money back to the citizens it was stolen from (i.e. the ones who have the most to begin with). Plus Obamacare suffocated the economy, so its repeal will create a boom* not seen since at least the time of St.Ronnie, again allowing to lower taxes (thus boosting** the economy even more creating more revenue*** than before the cuts).
    *it will go BOOM!
    **it will bust
    ***for those whose taxes got cut

  71. bob: If Obama/Pelosi had funded it with a couple points on payroll, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
    Are you serious? If you are, you are giving “white working class” voters too much credit and the charlatans too little.
    But what do I know? Maybe it was Obama who gave the voters too much credit for an ability to handle cost/benefit analysis.
    –TP

  72. Periodically, politicians have to revamp the tax code so they can start selling special interest carve-outs all over again.

  73. is likely to be improved in the Senate.
    i’d say it’s likely to be either scrapped and rewritten in the senate, or simply smothered in its crib.
    the House (R)’s still get to say “we repealed Obamacare”, so they win.

  74. i’d say it’s likely to be either scrapped and rewritten in the senate, or simply smothered in its crib.
    They’ll do whatever they think they can get away with.

  75. The bill to fund the government thru September, previously passed by the House, has now been passed by the Senate.
    So, will Trump sign it? After all, the Democrats (and others) have noted how he got rolled on numerous points. And he HATES to have anyone suggest that he lost at anything.

  76. wj,
    Trump has already demonstrated, pretty much across the board, that he can be opened up like a cheap suitcase. He will do what Ryan and McConnell tell him to do.
    Funding sources for Obamacare (ACA) can be found here. There area a lot more moving parts than just soaking the rich.

  77. The moving parts are a lot of the nuts and bolts that the ‘effing conservatives and their GOP lackeys were too ‘effing lazy to read…..2,000 PAGES!!!! DID YOU HEAR THAT MARGE!!!!!!!!!! 2,000 PAGES, WHY IT’S AS IF THEY ARE REQUIRING ME TO READ PROUST!!! IN THE ORIGINAL FRENCH!!!! I’M JUST A DOWN HOME HE-MAN AW SHUCKS COUNTRY BOY (WHITE) CONGRESSMAN!!!! PASS THE SMELLING SALTS!!!! I FEEL FAINT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  78. Intelligent, or conscientious, Congressmen hire staffers to do grunt work. Like actually reading bills, and preparing a Cliff Notes version for the Congressman. But I suppose that, if you disrespect knowledge and competency, it could be challenging to find competent people who are willing to work for you.

  79. Was the ACA passed in secret? I dunno’. I mean rambling around the halls of Congress lugging 2,000 pages in a wheelbarrows would most likely caused quite a stir. Surely, questions were asked.
    So let’s look at the history. What does history tell us? it tells us that Marty is repeating what is essentially a lie.
    I sincerely hope Marty realizes his error and disavows repeating this slur in the future.
    I’d recommend a re-education camp for him at Swathmore, but I hear they use a very arcane and convoluted form of English that I wouldn’t force on my worst enemy.

  80. awww bobbyp! Are you a Swat grad? I’m not, but dear friends and relations are grads of that school, and others thereabouts.
    What a world (or a country, even) if we could all have that re-education. Or even have the education to land us there. We strivers should strive for the high school education that would allow Swarthmore to consider us, but the valorization of ignorance and lies is not a hopeful sign.
    Lots of problems with universities and privilege too, of course – not denying it- and it’s a whole different subject. But the “privilege” of appreciating truth is something I used to take for granted. Now I don’t.

  81. So, yes, I got diverted. bobbyp was calling out Marty for, basically, endorsing a lie.
    We’re all supposed to be nice, and accepting here. I get it, finally. Hope everyone has noticed my extreme blandness recently after my punishment period.
    It’s apparently fine to endorse lies, and those who do so are called out, but not excluded from the “civil discourse” that occurs here. It’s fine that people endorse the takeover of our country by a foreign supported right-wing strongman. Bland acceptance, okayism. We welcome and greet the “Communist” racist misogynist with open arms, because we’re perplexed by his incomprehensible musings.
    I’m suggesting that my brand of rage, on behalf of enlightenment democracy, isn’t really all that malevolent, even when directed at people
    here. My resentment is showing?
    Okay, back to meditating on the Pope’s revolution of tenderness.

  82. Are you a Swat grad?
    Nope. State of Washington land grant university. (thank you creeping 1860’s socialism!!)…you know, land that was stolen from Native Americans and then ‘given’ to the states to subsidize low cost higher education for (white) people-no white privilege here!…but I digress.
    I was taking a tongue in cheek swipe at this The Onion video is simply gut busting funny.
    Political combat can be difficult. There are many shades of disagreement. IMHO calling an assertion that has been repeatedly shot down as NOT TRUE a “lie” is fairly mild.
    But I should be clear, I am not calling anybody a liar. I am claiming that a particular factual claim is a lie. Simply stating that it is not true is obviously not enough when the lie is repeated constantly.
    The ACA was not passed in secret. There is no doubt about this. The historical record is clear.

  83. But I should be clear, I am not calling anybody a liar.
    Of course not. No one is to blame.
    The historical record is clear.
    Well, the historical record is in the hands of those who champion truth.

  84. The contents of the ACA were a pretty well kept secret. You can read and quote history rewrites all you want. Pelosi and Obama commented on how people would like the bill once they got to see what’s in it. They of course didnt, until the Den hate .machine kicked in to scare the shit out of people so any change assigned everyone but the rich to death.
    We have had many successful policies built on states deciding what was best for their people. The assumption that states are going to choose to hurt their citizens, which is built in to every criticism, is ludicrous. If your state waives rules you are very much in a position to correct that. Here in MA I am not the least concerned about that possibility.

  86. The contents of the ACA were never a secret.
    The ACA was popular until the rightwing hate machine told lies about it. Then the R base who benefited from it liked it without realizing what it was that they liked (In Kentucky polling of Republican voters showed that they did not like the ACA but did like Kentucky care. This is the sort of behavior that gives R base voters a reputation for being stupid.)
    One of the positives that has come out of the recent debate over the ACA is that many people learned about it, Repubican lies were debunked, and it became more popular.
    Now the R’s have made changes in it designed to benefit the insurance companies and to drive sick people off their insurance. Marty thinks that states will not decide to hurt their own citizens. perhaps not,but it sure reflects on the moral values of the Republicans i Congress that they voted to give states that option.
    I think that Marty’s understanding of the harmful nature of the options now given to states is implicit in his confidence that Democratic Mass won’t choose to go with the Republican options.

  87. Marty thinks that states will not decide to hurt their own citizens
    Which belief is supported by all those red states which accepted Medicaid expansion. Of course, then there are the ones which refused it, even though it cost them nothing. Hmmm….

  88. Pelosi and Obama commented on how people would like the bill once they got to see what’s in it.
    and now you’re saying that’s AOK?
    so you were full of shit then, or now. which?

  89. Apparently Senate Republican leadership has said informally that there will be no Senate vote on the House bill. My suspicion is that they’ve chatted with the Senate Parliamentarian, gotten an opinion that a substantial number of things in the bill do not fit under the reconciliation rules, are unwilling to ignore her, and this is not the hill for which McConnell is willing to kill the filibuster.
    My guess is that they’ll start a new process, with lots of hearings, and the AMA, hospital associations, insurance industry and select states will get to make their case — fix, don’t replace — and the whole thing will quietly die. Meanwhile, McConnell will move on to regressive tax reform, a subject much more to his liking.

  90. The assumption that states are going to choose to hurt their citizens, which is built in to every criticism, is ludicrous.
    dream on little dreamer
    Here in MA I am not the least concerned about that possibility.
    gotta love a guy that bitches about blue state policies and takes comfort in the security they provide to him.

  91. I didn’t like it either time. I was just pointing out that complaining about it now was full of crap.
    That complaining about how long it was taking and then complaining that they rushed it through was full of crap.
    That no matter what it says it will be the worst thing in the world because it challenges the legacy of Obama. Even though it has passed the Housr, I am less than impressed with its current form.
    But it is a pos replacing a pos. So now it’s in the hands of the Senate. They may kill it, but that wouldn’t be a good thing.

  93. it’s a pos under which you, with various existing conditions, would be subject to surcharges amounting to thousands or tens of thousands of dollars. which is intended to replace a pos under which you are not.
    wtf man. youre like one of the freaking miners voting for trump because hes gonna bring back coal.
    my idiots dont throw me to the f’ing wolves. thats why they get my vote.
    your thought process utterly escapes me.
    to each his own. thank your lucky stars youre in ma, if thats where you are.
    best of luck.

  95. I am in MA, but my residence is FL so I actually get my insurance under their plan. If they figure out how to insure more people, bend the cost curve, and plug some of the holes and I have to pay more I will live with it. If I due prematurely for lack of health insurance I guess I’ll feel dumb.

  96. I really wanted the public option for everyone who couldn’t get insurance. Either from being poor or needing a bridge based on preexisting conditions.
    That ship sailed when we got the ACA.

  98. I don’t know if that’s left or right. Somehow we figured we had to screw up every insurance law, regulation, standard practice to extend insurance to only 20 of the 50 M uninsured and while negatively impacting every middle class working person by ensuring their insurance will be not as good and more expensive even if its through their employer. I assume my objection to that useless and negative overreach is pretty conservative.

  99. I really wanted the public option for everyone who couldn’t get insurance.
    The public option should be for everybody. Hence the term, “public”.
    while negatively impacting every middle class working person by ensuring their insurance will be not as good and more expensive even if its through their employer.
    This is gibberish. Most “middle class” folks have employer based coverage. Before ACA even these plans were subject to extreme cost pressure due to the underlying cause of out of control annual health care cost increases (look it up). The poor and those not in group plans, medicare, or medicaid, were getting screwed.
    What was to GOP offer to this problem? Absolutelyfuckingnothing but more tax cuts for the rich.
    The balm of gilead.

  100. i have, and have always had, insurance through my employer. my coverage has consistently been reduced year over year, and my share of premiums has consistently increased year over year.
    my share of premiums from last year to this has nearly doubled, as have many of my co-pays. my out of pocket max has more than doubled.
    in one year.
    this trend has been so both before and during the ACA.
    the cause is not obamacare. the cause is the extraordinary increase in cost of health care.
    you cant make money selling health insurance that covers a useful range of poducts and procedures, without excluding folks with expensive illnesses or at least making them pay through the nose. or, exposing them to financial distress or ruin.
    so we should quit f’ing around with this BS and do what every other country like us does.
    until we igure that out, peopl are going to suffer.
    over and out.

  102. regarding the public option, it was also obama’s preference.
    see, common ground!
    but it wasn’t on offer. politically unachievable.
    so, what we got was what we could get.
    we are a mulish and stupid nation. we get what we ask for, nothing more or less.

  104. This is not complicated.
    – We want people with pre-existing conditions to get health insurance at below market price.
    – Someone has to pay for that
    – That someone is either the government, funded by taxation, or healthier people, by paying higher premiums.
    Marty seems to want it to be paid for by unicorns. Which Republicans but not Democrats can persuade to stump up the cash.
    The rational alternative would be to follow every other wealthy nation and abandon the whole concept of individuals paying the market price for health insurance. I’m not holding my breath.

  108. I’m a muleskinner.
    http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2017/05/abundance-of-malice-by-bloggersrus.html
    After the conference, Martha McSally, the cuck republican quoted in the article (yeah, right, cucko, the democrats made them hurry and get it done), rushed over to the white house to witness the signing of the religious freedom EO, held Mike Pence’s hand and on her deeply chaffed knees at about eye level with Donald’s dollar-sign belt buckle and with the furrowed brow of the deeply, convictionally righteous Dagny Taggart declared: “By our fucking Savior on Earth, Jesus Mother Fucking Christ, let’s pigfuck more of our fellow fucking Americans, and get this motherfucking thing done!”
    Have you noticed how republican filth never count bullet wounds as a non-covered pre-existing condition cover under unhealthy insurance schemes.
    You know why?
    Because they figure they will need that coverage before America gets done with them.

  109. “I shouldn’t say this to our great gentleman and my friend from Australia, because you have better health care than we do.”
    says Trump, about Australia’s universal health care system, while talking up TrumpCare.
    the man is a fncking moron.

  111. The American Christian Right, who up to now have had to host their mutual blowjobs with republican politicians at cheap motels on the edge of town, hands the offering plate to trump, who fingerfucks beauty queens with one hand and removes their IUDs with the other.

  113. https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/05/05/state-kentucky-leading-charge-dismantle-obamacare/22071329/
    That’s a biased article, written from the conservative perspective, but it’s very revealing about that perspective. Although Kentucky care is popular with Kentucky residents, said residents were stupid enough to elect a Republican governor who is now hell bent on screwing them over. Why? Apparently he thinks that Medicaid is a subsidy for bums who should be made to get off their lazy asses and work. He sees the acceptance by Kentucky of funding fro Medicaid as a burden. He actually is out of touch with reality enough to think that people can be “weaned” on to private insurance,as if people were just deciding not to have private insurance because they were somehow morally or intellectually defective and have to be carrot and sticked into doing the right think. The possibility that maybe they can’t afford it does not seem to occur to him.

  114. Off topic here, but does anyone else find it odd that this article from 538 doesn’t mention that that Trump lost the popular vote and that France doesn’t have something like the electoral college?

  115. a lot of people seem to forget that trump lost the popular vote.
    about 10 million more people voted against DJT than voted for him.

  116. Well, maybe not ten million:
    “The Democrat outpaced President-elect Donald Trump by almost 2.9 million votes, with 65,844,954 (48.2%) to his 62,979,879 (46.1%), according to revised and certified final election results from all 50 states and the District of Columbia.”
    It was only the third largest delta for an electoral college loser.

  118. Voted for Clinton and voted against Trump are not the same. There were other not-Trump candidates.

  120. I think it is interesting that more people voted against Clinton than voted for her, also. People forget that.
    We should have a runoff.

  121. but that doesn’t stop the revolting lead-idiot from talking about his HISTORIC Electoral College Victory! the 46th-largest EC Victory of the 58 US Presidential elections!
    such a great win.

  122. Got the insurance summary of my son’s recent medical care, these amounts are before the “Provider Discount” so what someone uninsured would owe:
    9 days in hospital (2 diff visits): $120,400
    Surgeons: $6,470
    Radiology: $1,472
    Pain Management: $2,145
    Anesthesia + other: $8,348
    Total: $138,835 (and not sure this is the complete detail of all charges)
    For comparison, the “allowed amount” for the 9 days of hospitalization was $38,346.
    Make of it what you will.

  123. Pro Bono has it exactly right:

    – We want people with pre-existing conditions to get health insurance at below market price.
    – Someone has to pay for that
    – That someone is either the government, funded by taxation, or healthier people, by paying higher premiums.

    Arithmetic cannot be fooled, not even by a demented ideology.
    People, OTOH, can be fooled. Not wanting to be fooled myself, I’d like to ask Marty: can you help me find your earliest comment in favor of the public option in the ObWi archive?
    –TP

  126. Read the Bill
    We will ensure that bills are debated and discussed in the public square by publishing the text online for at least three days before coming up for a vote in the House of Representatives. No more hiding legislative language from the minority party, opponents, and the public. Legislation should be understood by all interested parties before it is voted on.

    Page 33 of the GOP’s “Pledge To America”

  127. We want people with pre-existing conditions to get health insurance at below market price.
    So why is “market price” so much higher in the US than anywhere else in the world?
    Not market price for insurance. Which, after all, has to reflect the cost of the medical care being insured for. But the cost of medical care itself?

  129. Marty,
    Thank you. That “Medicare Part E” discussion was an interesting blast from the past. (Haven’t read through the 2nd link yet.) I still have to say: if you favor a “public option” and I favor a public option, it may still happen once the Republicans get their asses kicked out of power.
    wj,
    A nation of people with unhealthy habits (obesity, smoking, gun ownership, etc.) will likely require more units of medical service per capita than a similar nation with healthier habits. Even if the price per unit is the same in both places, the less-healthy nation will spend more of its income on “health care” — assuming they each cover the same fraction of their population.
    A nation which pays more per unit of medical service will spend more of its income on “health care” than an otherwise identical nation where prices are lower. If US anesthesiologists, frex, make 3 times what French ones do, you can expect that to contribute to higher costs in the US.
    Combine the two effects — more units of service bought, at a higher price per unit — and you have a higher fraction of GDP going to “health care” instead of “entertainment” or “financial services” or any other not-health-care category of spending.
    Add to that some amount of vigorish for insurance companies, and you’re well on the way to explaining the mechanics of higher “health care spending” in the macro view. The ideology behind it all is harder to explain in any rational way.
    –TP

  132. And yet, Americans, as a class of human being, held to be exceptional by objective observers …. ourselves …. do their damndest to bend the medical cost curve downward by denying and preventing their fellow human beings safety, health, and medical care.
    I think we have a character problem in this civilization.

  140. Take a look at this graph:
    http://www.commonwealthfund.org/~/media/images/publications/issue-brief/2015/oct/squires_oecd_exhibit_01.png?h=720&w=960&la=en
    It’s from the Count’s 1st link in his 4:55 comment. It shows health care spending as a percentage of GDP from 1980 to 2013 for a bunch of countries.
    Note that in 1980 the US was at the upper end of the range, but not an outlier: it was at 9% or so; the other countries were in the 5-9% range. Since then, the other countries have all drifted up in a somewhat tightening band; in 2013 they were all in the 8-11% range. Meanwhile the US galloped ahead to 17% or so.
    I would purely love to hear both liberal and conservative hypotheses as to why the divergence and why 1980 might have got it going bigly.
    –TP

  141. Kathy Mcmorris Rogers is full of shit:
    http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/237449-top-house-republican-responds-to-pro-obamacare-facebook-comments
    https://mic.com/articles/113894/this-congresswomen-think-obamacare-is-ruining-america-facebook-comments-say-otherwise#.DnNk9gC52
    She has coverage under the FEHP, I mean, who knows, she probably voted for her and her kid to be on Obamacare when they made themselves martyrs against Obamacare, named as such by them because it invoked a well-known nigger’s name. They also quit their cushy jobs in Washington D.C. and went to work with Burger King’s coal mining division, which then laid them off because her son’s health expenses broke the American rule of fucking Americans in favor of low wage/no health insurance Texans and third world labor.
    The point is, before Medicare, I was on the FEHB and if I was a rationalist fucking republican, the first thing I’d do is get her subsidized kid off my plan because it was raising my insurance rates.
    She can shop for insurance up my ass, where the private market tries to crawl every day.
    http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/mcmorris-rodgers-should-ask-hometown-folks-about-obamacare/
    http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/healthcare/242140-just-wrong-congress-quietly-takes-obamacare-waiver

  144. Not everyone thinks it won’t work.
    she refers to 2 million people with pre-existing conditions.
    2 million?
    there are, apparently, almost 30M people with diabetes. that’s just one disease.
    her kid has downs syndrome. under the house bill, states can decide to let insurers charge whatever additional amount they like for pre-existing conditions. including downs syndrome.
    devolve these decisions to the states and some folks will be ok, while others will simply die from preventable causes.
    folks in MA will probably be sort of OK. other places less so.

  145. other places less so.
    The cruelty brigade controls gerrymandered Virginia. Maybe if we can convince people to vote D in gubernatorial election this year, we’ll get the gerrymandering fixed by 2020. No luck for people who might be affected by whatever transpires in the meantime though, even assuming victory this year, which I’m cautiously hopeful about, given that the majority of Virginians are Democrats. I’m pretty sure, though, that the Russians and Republicans are onto the fact that VA is important, so I’m worried about hacking and interference.
    Hate to be paranoid, but as the Count’s link and other sources suggest, we’re not safe.

  151. The proper solution is obviously to have Mexico pay for US healthcare. Following the logic of some prominent GOPers, THE WALL is actually an important part of fighting the health crisis since it is all those illegals that carry lots of icky diseases into the US (leprosy etc.). And if THE WALL is huuuuuge enough, it will also keep the ZIKA mosquitos out. That could be a flaw though since ZIKA babies are natural GOP voters (in two decades only, therefore less relevant now).

  155. What I find particularly irritating/distressing is the frequency with which comments like this turn up. That is, people saying things which are so utterly ridiculous that it seems like they have to be intended as over-the-top parody. Except the speaker turns out to be entirely serious. Nutty as a fruitcake, of course, but serious.

  157. Just to be completely clear, by the previous comment I meant the lawmaker quoted, and not cleek.

  158. Ugh, they scored something with that name. Does that not count, even though the content (which creates the score) has drastically changed? Who knew?

  159. Wj – The sad (pathetic?) thing is that is exactly the poor fourth grade game she was playing. So why would the press trust anything she says anymore? How does that help Ryan do his job?

  160. Maybe she previously got reamed out for making Spicer look bad by comparison? It could have been just a correction.

  162. Ryan’s press secretary, saying they scored the AHCA twice.
    tough crowd in that comment thread

  165. Total: $138,835 (and not sure this is the complete detail of all charges)… For comparison, the “allowed amount” for the 9 days of hospitalization was $38,346.
    This is roughly consistent with advice given to me by a friend who worked in a hospital business office for a few years. What he told me was, in the event I was ever uninsured and faced with a large hospital bill, to go to the business office and speak to the manager. Not to anyone lower than the manager, because they’re not authorized to cut deals. Offer 25% of the bill total in cash (or certified check, or whatever), in exchange for marking the bill “Paid in Full.” He said the manager will take it — or offer you a deal close to that — because 25% is the most that a debt collector will pay them.
    Insurers get the same deal because they’re good for the payment.

  169. I didn’t realize when I posted it that it won an Academy Award for best documentary in 1987. Sorry to derail the thread, but I enjoyed it immensely, and am glad that others here watched!

  170. Offer 25% of the bill total in cash (or certified check, or whatever), in exchange for marking the bill “Paid in Full.”
    if I follow it all correctly, which might not be so, the total charges minus the allowed amount is about $100k.
    25% of that is $25k.
    how many people can put their hands on $25k in cash?
    No insurance, Medicaid, Medicare, etc. accepted.
    concierge GP practices are doing well, too.
    we have the best medical care in the world if you have the do-re-mi.

  171. Even though patients have to pay for procedures up front, they can file insurance claims after the fact. Sometimes, when insurers pay predetermined amounts for a procedure, the claim payment can be more than the procedure cost.

  172. Traditioanl GOP health insurance, in a 2017 world: “Okay, I’m delivering 25,000 live chickens if you mark this bill’Paid in Full’. No? Okay, TEN live chickens, and that’s my last offer. OKAY, we have a deal.”

  173. Even though patients have to pay for procedures up front, they can file insurance claims after the fact
    pacemaker placement is a little over $10k. even something like a carpal tunnel release is $2750.
    half the people in the us half less than $1k in the bank. saving for a new set of tires would stretch their household budget. fronting $5k or $10k for a surgical procedure is about as realistic as a trip to mars.
    maybe they could crowd-source it.
    there are ways to address this, most or all of which involve public intervention. we won’t pursue them because we think relying on public means represents some kind of moral failure.
    for some stuff, anyway, other stuff less so.
    my opinion about this stuff is that no significant or permanent progress will be made until the folks who buy into the whole “evil nanny state” crap get to marinate in the world they prefer for a while and figure it out for themselves.
    it’s been not quite 40 years since Reagan’s nine scariest words showed up on the scene. stuff like social security, medicare, medicaid, tanf are still with us, the greedy creeps who won’t rest until they get every freaking dime haven’t managed to tear down every last legacy of the mid 20th C. environment. God knows they’ve tried, it’s just taking a while.
    when people start losing that stuff, or when all the folks who think they’re safe because they have insurance through work or yhink their jobs are, somehow, semi-secure start seeing all that chipped away, it will begin to dawn on them that they’ve been rogered.
    all the crap they were happy to see land on other people heads is going to land on theirs.
    my guess is that one in three or one in four will figure it out. hopefully that will be enough to tip it back.
    otherwise, we will become a second rate banana republic. with really good guns.
    good luck everyone!

  174. maybe they could crowd-source it.
    Possibly successfully in many cases. Except for the little difficulty that, in most cases, the folks who have the need have never even heard of “crowd-sourcing.” Let alone having any idea how to go about it.

  175. I know a lot of people who don’t have insurance and have never had insurance. mostly self-employed musicians.
    I probsbly get 2 or 3 requests a month to contribute to crowd funding efforts for medical expenses for these folks.
    stroke rehab, replacement of teeth lost to untreated diabetes, surgeries of all kinds. money for families when people die.
    it’s an approach. works OK if you have 100 friends who can each afford to kick in $50, and if you aren’t unlucky enough to be the third person they know to need help that week.

  176. stuff like… tanf are still with us
    Yeah, but TANF is a whole lot more restrictive than AFDC, the program that TANF replaced in 1997: block grants rather than entitlement, 60 months lifetime cap on benefits (with some exceptions), ability to shift money into state legislatures’ pet projects, etc. WRT the last one, the NCSL maintains a database that tracks things TANF dollars have been spent on and the statutory language that the feds found acceptable. Nationally, something less than a quarter of block grants plus state maintenance of effort dollars are spent on direct cash assistance.

  177. I don’t know if any of you are still interested in this story, the ongoing investigation the Observer and Carole Cadwalladr have been carrying out into the whole Brexit/Trump/Mercer situation, but they are continuing to burrow away, and finding out more and more important things. On the offchance, I attach a link to today’s 4-page (in a broadsheet!) piece, headlined The Great British Brexit Robbery: How a Secret Network of Computer Scientists Hijacked Our Democracy. I think (and hope) that there’s a chance that the investigative work they are doing will eventually pay off, in the US and here, as more proof comes to light which shows how big money and dark forces are fucking around with western democracies, if there’s a will to do anything about it that is.
    https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-great-british-brexit-robbery-hijacked-democracy

  178. I don’t know if any of you are still interested in this story
    I’m interested, and I really appreciate the links.

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