Author Archives: KatheriPohlman

We’re Live Blogging Round Two of the Presidential Debates

by KatheriPohlman Posted on October 10, 2016

Mother Jones

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A few minutes ago Donald Trump appeared at an impromptu press event with three women who claim to have been abused by Bill Clinton and a fourth who was treated badly by Hillary. That sets a tone, doesn’t it?

10:37 – And that’s a wrap.

10:36 – Trump likes his children too. Trump: “She doesn’t quit, she doesn’t give up. She’s a fighter.”

10:34 – Is there anything you respect in your opponent? Trump doesn’t want to answer. Clinton says she respects Trump’s children.

10:33 – Still no questions about climate change.

10:32 – Clinton, dryly: “That was very interesting.” I have a comprehensive energy policy etc.

10:30 – How about energy? Trump: Hillary Clinton wants to put all the miners out of business. “There’s such a thing as clean coal.” Now we’re on to the steelworkers for some reason. Now back to coal. Coal, coal, coal.

10:27 – Trump: I would appoint judges like Scalia. Judges who respect the Second Amendment. Now Trump is claiming that he’s not taking money from big donors and corporations. He thinks Clinton is rich enough that she ought to be donating lots of money to her own campaign.

10:24 – How would you choose Supreme Court justices? Clinton: I’d like to appoint people with real-life experience. Overturn Citizens United. Uphold civil rights. Stick with Roe v. Wade and marriage equality.

10:22 – Trump is just all over the place now. I can’t keep up. Benghazi, 3 am, tweeting, sex tapes, etc. etc.

10:20 – Trump on Clinton: “She has tremendous hate in her heart.”

10:16 – Question to Trump: “Do you believe that you can be a devoted president to all of the people of the United States?” Weird question.

10:15 – Clinton says she’s in favor of arming the Kurds. Trump complains again that Clinton is getting too much time to speak.

10:13 – Clinton: “Donald says he knows a lot more than the generals. He doesn’t.” Big smirk from Trump.

10:12 – Clinton opposed to using American ground forces in Syria.

10:10 – Is Trump in favor of intervening in Syria? Or staying out? I can’t tell. Now Trump is ranting about not keeping our military plans secret.

10:08 – I literally don’t even know what Trump is saying about Syria. I guess Radisson doesn’t either. “Let me ask the question again.” Trump then says that he disagrees with Mike Pence about Russia.

10:03 – Raddison finally manages to shut Trump down and move on to another subject even though Trump insists that he should be able to respond yet again. Good for her.

10:02 – So far a grand total of two ordinary citizens have asked questions. This isn’t much of a town hall.

10:00 – Why didn’t Clinton change the tax code? Clinton: “Because I was a senator under a Republican president.” Trump interrupts to insist that she could have done it anyway if she really wanted to.

9:58 – Trump now basically admitting he used his $916 million operating loss to avoid paying taxes. “Of course I did.” Now ranting about how everyone does it and Clinton never tried to fix it because her rich donor pals like the tax code the way it is.

9:57 – Clinton hammering on Trump for paying no taxes for past 20 years. Obviously she’s trying to bait Trump.

9:56 – Clinton: “Everything he just said is false. I’m sorry I have to keep saying that.”

9:54 – What will you do ensure that the rich pay their fair share in taxes? Trump mentions the carried interest loophole, and that’s it. The rest of his answer is a long free association that has nothing to do with the rich.

9:52 – Trump is sniffing again. Maybe he really does do this every time he speaks?

9:51 – Trump is talking about Russia, and without a pause starts talking about how great his balance sheet is.

9:48 – How aggressive would Trump be in the debate? We have our answer. He’s just attacking without stop and now griping about not getting enough time. Bush league.

9:42 – Question about Trump’s Muslim ban. Is it still his policy? Trump: Muslim ban “somehow” morphed into “extreme vetting.” Raddison: How did it morph? Trump just repeats it: It’s. Called. Extreme. Vetting.

9:40 – Clinton: “Trump is playing into the hands of the terrorists.”

9:38 – What are you going to do about Islamaphobia? Trump: We have to say “radical Islamic terrorism” as often as possible.

9:36 – Trump is all over the map on how he’ll replace Obamacare. Mostly he’s doubling down on the notion that allowing insurance companies to compete across state lines will fix everything. Clinton is biting her lip to keep from laughing.

9:33 – Trump: Obamacare is a total disaster. Will collapse on its own in 2017. I guess there’s no real need to repeal it, then.

9:29 – Trump is now interrupting constantly. Anderson Cooper tells him to shut up. He won’t. Then he gripes that Cooper hasn’t asked about Clinton’s emails even though they just spent the last five minutes on the topic. “Great, three against one,” Trump whines. I guess “the media hates me” is going to be a big theme tonight.

9:25 – Clinton: “It’s a good thing you’re not in charge of the law in this country.” Trump: “Because you’d be in jail.” Cheering.

9:21 – Trump: Blumenthal started the birther rumors. Michelle Obama hates you. Hillary won a rigged primary against Bernie Sanders. If he wins, he is going to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate her. Etc. Iguess this is how Trump is going to play things.

9:20 – Clinton quotes Michelle Obama: “When they go low, you go high.” Even bigger applause. Lotsa Trump haters out there too.

9:19 – There was applause for that? Yikes. Lotsa Bill haters still out there.

9:17 – Trump goes after Bill Clinton. He abused women, and “Hillary Clinton attacked those same women, attacked them viciously.”

9:13 – Clinton not going easy on Trump. The Pussygate tape does show who Trump is. He’s unfit to be president. And it’s not just women. Etc.

9:11 – Anderson Cooper insists that Trump tell us whether he’s ever kissed or groped women without their consent. He says he hasn’t. “No one has greater respect for women than me.”

9:09 – Trump starts out with a very low-key tone. Will it last?

9:08 – Will Hillary Clinton say that we should “move very strongly” on something or other? She should!

9:07 – Has this been an edifying campaign? Hmmm. I’m gonna say no.

9:05 – No handshake! They’re ready to rumble!

9:01 – Dana Bash says Trump’s goal is to keep the Republican Party from abandoning him completely.

8:56 – John King says the town hall format is unpredictable! Sure it is. I think we have a pretty good idea of what’s coming.

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We’re Live Blogging Round Two of the Presidential Debates

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"An Attack on of all of Humanity": President Obama Delivers Statement After Paris Erupts in Violence

by KatheriPohlman Posted on November 13, 2015

Mother Jones

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President Barack Obama delivered remarks on the deadly series of shootings and bombings that erupted in Paris on Friday evening.

“This is an attack on all of humanity and the universal values that we share,” Obama said.

He indicated he has not yet reached out to French President Francois Hollande, as the French capital remains under attack.

For continuing coverage of the deadly shootings, head to our live blog here.

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"An Attack on of all of Humanity": President Obama Delivers Statement After Paris Erupts in Violence

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Rand Paul Didn’t Kill the Patriot Act

by KatheriPohlman Posted on June 1, 2015

Mother Jones

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I was down with a stomach bug this weekend, so I didn’t follow events in the Senate as closely as I usually would have. But Rand Paul sure seems to be getting a lot more credit than he deserves for how things went down. As near as I can tell:

Mitch McConnell just flat screwed up. He figured he could panic everyone into extending the Patriot Act by waiting until Sunday to reconvene the Senate, and he figured wrong.
Rand Paul did indeed delay things by refusing unanimous consent to take up a compromise bill.
But events went the way they did because a majority of the Senate opposed McConnell and wanted a compromise bill, not because of anything Rand Paul did.
The upshot of Paul’s actions is that the compromise bill has to wait until Tuesday for a vote, which means the Patriot Act will be expired for a couple of days. This is not really a big deal in anything other than symbolic terms. The compromise bill is going to be passed one way or another, and that would have been the case regardless of anything Paul did.

Am I missing something big here? I don’t begrudge Paul getting some good press for what he did. Politics is theater, and Paul has worked hard to make this a front-page issue. Still, there just wasn’t a majority in favor of extending the Patriot Act, and that’s what made the difference.

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Rand Paul Didn’t Kill the Patriot Act

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America’s Largest Health Care Company Tells Supreme Court That Anti-Obamacare Argument Is "Absurd"

by KatheriPohlman Posted on February 10, 2015

Mother Jones

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If getting rid of Obamacare is such a good idea, why isn’t corporate America getting behind King v. Burwell, the Supreme Court case designed to demolish the Affordable Care Act? More than 52 different parties have weighed in with briefs in advance of oral arguments on March 4. Of those, 21 have been filed on behalf of the plaintiffs, who claim millions of Obamacare consumers are receiving illegal health insurance subsidies. The groups filing these briefs include libertarian think tanks, pro-life organizations, Christian legal shops, and some conservative Republican legislators. But not a single business group—not the US Chamber of Commerce, not any of the health industry companies and trade groups that opposed the law when it was being drafted—has presented a brief endorsing this lawsuit.

Meet the Unusual Plaintiffs Behind the Supreme Court Case That Could Destroy Obamacare

These outfits are either backing the Obama administration’s attempt to defeat the suit or sitting out this case. Briefs in the case help explain why: Obamacare is working. There’s no better evidence of this than a brief filed on behalf of the government in King by the Hospital Corporation of America, better known as HCA, the largest health care provider in the country (once run by Obamacare foe Florida Gov. Rick Scott). HCA argues that the legal theory advanced by the plaintiffs is “absurd,” but, more importantly, it presents detailed data drawn from its own operations that demonstrate that the health care law is helping patients and the company itself.

One of Congress’ goals in passing the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was to cut down on the number of uninsured people using expensive emergency rooms for medical care that would be better delivered in an ordinary doctor’s office. HCA notes in its brief that its data from 15 states that use the federal Obamacare exchange show this is exactly what’s happening. The company says that in 2014, uninsured patients visited the ER in its facilities 10 times for every one admission to the hospital—a sign that most of those ER visits weren’t emergencies. People insured through the exchange are visiting the ER three times for every one admission. HCA estimates that “uninsured patients are 300% more likely than Exchange patients to rely on ER care.”

Moreover, the data shows that a person who has obtained insurance through the federal Obamacare exchange is nearly twice as likely to use outpatient care—an indication that they are taking better care of themselves and obtaining care in a much less expensive fashion than those without insurance. “Thus, at the same time that Exchange patients are relying less on the ER, they are receiving more outpatient care than the uninsured, including care (such as chemotherapy) that is typically unavailable in the ER,” HCA says in its brief. “That care is being provided in more appropriate and cost-effective settings.”

DV.load(“//www.documentcloud.org/documents/1658126-hca-amicus-aca.js”, width: 630, height: 500, sidebar: false, container: “#DV-viewer-1658126-hca-amicus-aca” ); HCA Amicus Brief Filed in Supreme Court (PDF)
HCA Amicus Brief Filed in Supreme Court (Text)

HCA’s data also note that women are benefiting immensely from the Obamacare exchanges. The company reports that 53 percent of its uninsured patients are female. But 65 percent of its patients receiving exchange insurance are women. And many of them are using this insurance coverage to obtain cancer treatment.

Seventy-seven percent of the oncology treatments HCA provided to its exchange-based patients went to women. The ACA has, according to HCA, made breast cancer treatment vastly more available to women. Its federal exchange patients are more than three times more likely than uninsured women to get an ultrasound for a breast lump or abnormal mammogram.

HCA has an obvious interest in this case, for the plaintiffs in King are threatening the company’s sizable bottom line, as well as the grand bargain promised by the Obama administration and the law’s drafters in the effort to get it passed. In its brief, HCA says that Obamacare has already cost it more than $600 million in revenues between 2010 and 2014—and that’s just in the 15 states that haven’t created their own exchanges and where HCA has at least one facility. The decreases were part of the deal forged by the drafters of the ACA. The plan was for hospitals to agree to cuts in federal reimbursement for treating the uninsured, but in exchange they would benefit from an influx of newly insured patients.

HCA says that it has only recently begun to see new revenue come in. (Of the roughly 134,000 patients with federal exchange-based insurance who visited an HCA facility last year, 62 percent had never been there before. This suggests that the new insurance program was definitely driving business to HCA’s hospitals and clinics.) If the Supreme Court kills off the Obamacare subsidies, HCA says it will have to absorb about $350 million in initial losses and far more in the future.

In effect, HCA is telling the court that Obamacare is good for both corporate America and individual Americans getting insured through it.

An HCA lawyer didn’t return a call for comment, but that argument—emphasized by HCA in its brief, which mentions the lack of business community support for the King plaintiffs—may be aimed squarely at Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. Lawyers for the King plaintiffs have publicly opined that the conservative justices on the court will relish this opportunity to kill the ACA. But these attorneys may be miscalculating when it comes to Roberts, who provided the fifth critical vote to save Obamacare the last time the ACA faced a major challenge in the Supreme Court.

Roberts is a conservative, but he’s also a former corporate lawyer. During his tenure, he has consistently sided with corporate America and the Chamber of Commerce in all sorts of cases. An ideologically driven case like King might provide good fare for the court’s conservatives—but Roberts may draw the line at ruling in these plaintiffs’ favor when they are threatening the profits of big business. At least, that’s what one of the nation’s biggest health care companies is now hoping for.

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America’s Largest Health Care Company Tells Supreme Court That Anti-Obamacare Argument Is "Absurd"

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