lambert's blog

They read the speech!

But Obama’s speech appeared to expand those who are targeted in drone strikes and other undisclosed “lethal actions” in apparent anticipation of an overhaul of the 2001 congressional resolution authorizing the use of force against al Qaida and allied groups that supported the 9/11 attacks on the United States.

Read below the fold...

Two use cases: A light house, and national defense. Read below the fold...

VT Digger (hat tip MR):

Act 48 [the single payer bill] required Shumlin’s Secretary of Administration Jeb Spaulding to submit a recommendation for the “amounts and necessary mechanisms to finance Green Mountain Care,” the publicly funded plan, by Jan. 15, 2013.

On Jan. 24, the so-called financing plan arrived on legislators’ desks. While it provided an amount to be raised of roughly $1.6 billion, the document did not include the “necessary mechanisms” to raise those dollars. Read below the fold...

To restate the obvious. Start with Obama's (hastily called) April 30 presser: "[OBAMA: ] We -- we will implement it." That's Obama giving the troops marching orders.

So, Obama committed to meeting ObamaCare deadlines and a successful rollout.* So here's the best way to think about what Obama says about ObamaCare, what the administration says, what exchange spokesholes say, what "career" progressives say, what Obots say, what Democrats say, what a lot of "grass roots" organizations say, and a lot of what the press runs with as the narrative-- Read below the fold...

Village Voice:

At night, you can see it clearly--the corner windows of the Cooper Union's seventh floor, flooded in red light. It's a signal from the students who have been occupying the president's office for two weeks. They're there because they've lost faith in university leadership that voted to start charging tuition after 111 years of free education. They're there because the board of trustees denied responsibility for a series of bad financial decisions made behind closed doors. They're there because they'd like to know what the hell is going on.

Very very smart, these art students. Solves the problem of bringing a hitherto private space into the public eye (as opposed to occupying public space by definition visible, a la Zucotti Park). Meanwhile, the Trustees are even more appalling than we thought they were: Read below the fold...

(See the Archdruid's series on "How It Could Happen," parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 ("it" being the break-up of America somewhat along the lines of the Jesusland Map). FT columnist Jurek Martin in DC:

The one thing that has brought out the best in America is its response to natural disasters, at home or overseas. It always seemed that partisan divides vanished when catastrophe struck, wherever it happened. And all eyes turned to the federal government for help when it did because that was something that Washington could be quite good at (hurricane Katrina in New Orleans conspicuously excepted). Read below the fold...

Took the bus to Blue Seal, having abandoned the idea of leaves, only to discover they were out! Too many people seeding their lawns in the moist, cool weather, unfortunately (damn lawns). Let that be a lesson to me: Call first! Read below the fold...

Read below the fold...

So, about sheet mulch: Read below the fold...

What, you think Obama -- and Wellpoint's Liz Fowler, who drafted ObamaCare for Max Baucus while his chief of staff -- would ever do anything to help the unions or collective bargaining? Kidding, right? The Hill: Read below the fold...

Jay Carney at a White House presser:

Q Do questions raised about HHS Secretary Sebelius and her efforts to raise funds through the private sector for Enroll Now fall into that category?

MR. CARNEY: We can go down the list of -- we could say what about the President’s birth certificate? Was that legitimate --

Q I’m not asking about that. I’m not asking about that. I’m just asking -- this is the last thing --

Read below the fold...

I really, really hate to quote the Washington Examiner, but unless the guy's actually into fabrication (like Breitbart, but I'm guessing), there are problems. (Oddly, or not, nobody on the "progressive" sites seems to be applying their undoubtedly superior critical thinking skills to ObamaCare's rollout at all.) Richard Pollock, Washington Examiner:

States and insurance companies are supposed to use an "Actuarial Value" calculator. The actuarial value measures benchmarks for the four state standardized plans.

An AV value of 60 means the state plan covers 60% of the costs and enrollees pay 40%. The four plans range from 60% to 90% coverage.

Employers are to use a "Minimum Value" calculator, which assesses whether an employee health plan meets minimal federal criteria.

CMS released "beta" versions of the calculators in November 2012 and a "final" calculator this February.

The most glaring problem, according to users, is that the calculators do not reflect real world conditions.

Paul Hencoski [is] a lead partner at KPMG, the audit and accounting firm [which] represents 19 states trying to set up health care exchanges.

"There's been some question around the results they've been getting. And whether they represent the true actuarial value of what was being offered, Hencoski told The Washington Examiner.

Julie Peper, a senior consulting actuary at Wakely Associates in Denver, CO whose firm is advising Oregon, Vermont and Massachusetts agrees. "There are some things that are different in the AV calculator than what will be in practice," she said.

Mark Jamilkowski, director of KPMG's actuarial services practice told The Washington Examiner the situation is so acute "There are some states we know of that are interested in launching their own calculator."* KPMG would not identify the states.

Insurance brokers who assist employers say the MV calculator contains flaws too. Susan Rider, an account executive with the Indianapolis brokerage firm of Gregory & Appel told The Washington Examiner, "they don't ask the right questions. There are a lot of things missing from it that I as a broker look for in a plan."

Rich Stover, a partner with New Jersey-based Bucks Consulting, an actuarial firm, says the MV calculator is so rigid it cannot accept special features in large employer plans.

CMS declined to be interviewed for the story. Never a good sign. Read below the fold...

(I should start by saying that this is a report from Jackson-Hewitt, and it couldn't have been more clear to me from my H&R Block experience this year that the tax preparers want a piece of the action from ObamaCare's stream of rents. I mean, here's the screaming headline on their corporate site: "April 15 is Now the Most Important Day in Healthcare.") That said, this report seems to make some good points. From the executive summary:

• More than one in four uninsured Americans eligible for the new premium assistance tax credits under the ACA does not have a checking account. Among the uninsured, non-elderly population with household incomes in the tax credit eligible range, 27 percent are effectively “unbanked.”

• Many insurance companies plan to require customers to pay premiums automatically through a checking account. While such restrictions may help insurers reduce administrative costs, unbanked customers will not be able to pay their required share of insurance premiums. Though contrary to the spirit and intent of the ACA, such restrictions are permissible under current federal guidance absent a policy clarification

• These restrictions will undermine efforts to expand health coverage under the ACA. Requiring enrollees to pay their premiums using a checking account would effectively deny coverage to the more than eight million unbanked Americans who are otherwise eligible for the new tax credits under the ACA. Unless addressed, such restrictions may hollow out the ACA’s expansion of coverage.

• The impact will be especially large among African Americans and Hispanic Americans, who are over 40 percent more likely to be unbanked relative to white residents in the same income category. This is particularly concerning given the existing disparities in access to health coverage and health status for minority groups. Further, as many as five million veterans and other Americans who receive federal benefits on prepaid debit cards may not be able use those same cards to pay their premiums for federally- subsidized insurance.

• The impact on the unbanked will be disproportionately large in states where the federal government operates a health insurance marketplace. Federal marketplaces will operate in 11 of the 12 states with the highest proportion of unbanked among those eligible for tax credits.

Hilariously, the administration is especially targeting Hispanics in the rollout. Jackson-Hewitt does have a solution: Read below the fold...

Sarah Kliff makes a good argument:

When Medicare launched, nobody had any clue whether it would work
Back in 1966, as Medicare was just about to launch, nobody knew whether the new program would provide benefits to millions or fail completely. Sound familiar?

Johnson signed Medicare into law July 30, 1965. Benefits would become available July 1, 1966. That gave the Johnson administration less than a year to reach 19 million seniors. Medicare was, as the New York Times put it in April 1966, bracing “for M-Day.”

The federal government launched “Project Medicare Alert,” a program that hired 5,000 workers to enroll seniors in Medicare. The “$2 million crash effort,” as described by The Post, was meant to “inform isolated elderly Americans of the availability of Medicare benefits.” Workers, hired for a 20-week stint, were paid $1.25 per hour.

On the whole, however, the enrollment effort worked. Of the 19 million seniors eligible for Medicare, 93 percent enrolled by the summer of 1966. Social Security Administration Commissioner Robert Ball “enlisted the U. S. Forest Service to send Forest Rangers out into the woods in search of elderly hermits whom he might be able to enroll.” And, much to Wonkblog’s liking, he held news conferences with charts that showed Medicare’s enrollment levels.

However, I think the analogy is a little superficial. Read below the fold...

It randomly rotated into place, and I thought, Wait a minute, I don't remember that one.... Read below the fold...