Submitted by danps on Sat, 05/04/2013 - 8:37am
Submitted by Hugh on Fri, 05/03/2013 - 5:15pm
Short Form: In seasonally adjusted terms, 165,000 jobs and unemployment dropping to 7.5% are OK, but not great results. At that job creation rate and taking population growth into account, it would take about 2 years to reduce by one million those currently unemployed. The BLS estimates current unemployment at 11.815 million. I calculate it at 20.542 million. So perhaps I should not say OK but rather next to nothing is being done to address the jobs situation. Read below the fold...
Submitted by libbyliberal on Fri, 05/03/2013 - 3:35am
"After the Boston Bombings: A Police Chief for Peace" by Ruth Conniff
As the fog of our perpetual "war on terror" descended again after the Boston Marathon bombings, veteran police chief David Couper reflected on the dangers of loose explosives, why we should resist militarizing the police, and how cops who serve as "social workers in blue" can do more to keep us safe than SWAT teams and "police officers who look and act more like robots than peacekeepers."
snip Read below the fold...
Submitted by lambert on Thu, 05/02/2013 - 7:25pm
Ha. Obama's big public relations push screws the states that took ObamaCare most seriously, and have done the most work:
[T]he decision [for the shorter forms] could pose problems for states that are already far along in developing their exchange IT systems, according to the executive director of one state-run exchange.
Kevin Counihan, CEO of the Connecticut Health Insurance Exchange, said the change announced Tuesday came after his exchange has already completed coding required for system integration based on the original, 21-page application. The state exchange's IT system may not recognize data from the new form.
Wowsers. Who could have predicted that a late-stage change on all the inputs to the fucking system would cause ripple effects on dependent subsystems? But read on for CMS's response: Read below the fold...
Submitted by lambert on Thu, 05/02/2013 - 7:20pm
Jeebus, can't Obama even take care of business in his home state?
Only six insurance carriers have told Illinois that they want to sell health coverage through the state's new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).
The carriers hope to sell 165 policies -- or "qualified health plans" (QHPs) -- through the exchange, but the numbers are far lower than expected.
If many exchanges attract fewer health plans than organizers expect, that could mean less competition and higher premium prices for exchange users.
Illinois officials had been estimating that 16 different carriers would offer 260 health plans through their state's exchange. The officials based that estimate on a survey the Illinois Department of Insurance conducted last fall.
Why would anybody ever assume health insurance companies want to compete? Read below the fold...
Submitted by lambert on Thu, 05/02/2013 - 6:22pm
Submitted by lambert on Thu, 05/02/2013 - 6:03pm
That's fucking pathetic. Bloomberg, in a story about how insurance companies are just inexplicably* refusing to compete with each other on the exchanges:
There are a number of reasons for caution, company executives say. These include a lack of clarity about the kind of prices they can charge and the number of plans they can sell on each exchange, the expectation that the program is only expected to reach about 7 million people nationwide in its first year and uncertainty over whether all of the exchanges will be ready in time.
This is the first time I've seen that stat, and I do try to pay attention. Read below the fold...
Submitted by letsgetitdone on Thu, 05/02/2013 - 5:26pm
Submitted by jawbone on Thu, 05/02/2013 - 4:12pm
Submitted by lambert on Thu, 05/02/2013 - 12:37pm
(Or, more precisely, given that ObamaCare now includes a massive PR component, perceived successful backend implementation). First, let's look at what Scott Gottleib of Forbes thinks is wrong with the form. Good description, wrong analysis:
The length of the old application was largely driven by the need to ensure that consumers were actually eligible for the government subsidies that Obamacare offers as a way to offset the cost of buying health insurance.
Stop right there. It's the eligibility determination that's the fundamental architectural flaw. It cannot be fixed. Americans have to be thrown into different buckets in a complex and confusing system of eligibility determination, and inevitable get thrown in the wrong buckets, or there aren't even the right buckets for them. Adding to the mix is that buckets differ by state, both legally and in terms of insurance markets, and so what should be a simple, national system of Medicare for All instead creates second-class citizens all over the place, both within and between states. Obama chose to go that route. Under a single payer system, where health care is a right, the eligibility paperwork is very simple. There is one form, and it's already been filled out: Your birth certificate. That's the real policy discussion that's being hidden under the discussion about the length of the form.
Back to the complexity: Read below the fold...
Submitted by lambert on Thu, 05/02/2013 - 12:11pm
Submitted by libbyliberal on Wed, 05/01/2013 - 7:17pm
“Braying for war against Syria” by Bill Van Auken:
Van Auken accuses the Washington political establishment of seriously escalating a campaign of propaganda about the alleged use of chemical weapons. This has been prompted, contends Van Auken, from Syrian government forces having military successes in recent weeks. Read below the fold...
Submitted by lambert on Wed, 05/01/2013 - 12:54pm
Noisy assholes in the other unit partying. Grr! On the bright side, I would greatly prefer to have Seborrheic keratosis rather than melanoma, and that is how matters worked out. Read below the fold...
Submitted by libbyliberal on Tue, 04/30/2013 - 8:58pm
EXCERPTS:
"6 U.S. Cities That Criminalize Homelessness" by Kevin Mathews:
... Rather than finding ways to provide assistance to some of the country’s least fortunate citizens, lawmakers have developed strict regulations to criminalize homeless people’s activities, as if they were sleeping on the sidewalk and panhandling out of malice rather than necessity.
Read below the fold...
Submitted by lambert on Tue, 04/30/2013 - 3:12pm
Wowsers. How about I write those kind words down on a piece of paper, take it to the clinic, and try to pay for some health care with it? Jonathon Cohn, TNR:
The whole enterprise is going to be a work in progress. And that'll be ok—because it will still do a lot of good and make life better for most people, particularly with the passage of time.
Comforting words from the political class; there speaks a made man who doesn't personally have to worry about health care, but who's very keen to lecture others on why they should wait for it! Read below the fold...
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