Tag Archives: legislative

Health Care Systems Are Expensive. Deal With It.

by AdrianaGivens Posted on May 24, 2017

Mother Jones

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How much would a single-payer universal health care system cost in the United States? You don’t need to do anything very complicated to get a ballpark figure. Here’s the arithmetic:

Total spending on health care in the US is $3.2 trillion
Of that, $1.5 trillion is already funded by federal and state programs. That leaves additional required spending of $1.7 trillion.
A universal system will still require some copays and other out-of pocket expenses. Figure $200 billion or so. That leaves $1.5 trillion

So that’s it. A universal health care system in the US would require about $1.5 trillion in additional government spending. If you want to make heroic assumptions about how much a single-payer would save, go ahead. But nobody serious is going to buy it. If we’re lucky, a good single-payer system would slow the growth of health care costs over the long term, but it’s vanishingly unlikely to actually cut current costs.

There was a lot of surprise today about an estimate that a single-payer plan for California would have a net additional cost of about $200 billion. But California has 12 percent of the nation’s population, and 12 percent of $1.5 trillion is $180 billion. So that estimate is right in the ballpark of what you should expect. Short of some kind of legislative miracle, there’s really no way around this. Health care is expensive.

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Health Care Systems Are Expensive. Deal With It.

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Trump Accidentally Makes Support of Civil Asset Forfeiture Administration Policy

by AraceliHeinig Posted on February 7, 2017

Mother Jones

The latest from our president:

Actually, Trump was obviously joking about destroying the nameless senator’s career. The real scandal is what the conversation was about:

SHERIFF: A state senator in Texas was talking about introducing legislation to require conviction before we can receive that forfeiture money.

TRUMP: Can you believe that?

The target here was probably Konni Burton:

Before the 85th Texas Legislative Session formally opened on Tuesday, state lawmakers had already filed a handful of bills that would curb or strike down the law enforcement practice known as civil forfeiture, which allows law enforcement officials to seize assets from those suspected, not charged or convicted, of involvement in criminal activity.

Konni Burton, R-Colleyville, has her name on the most comprehensive of the lot. Senate Bill 380 was pre-filed on Dec. 20 and would reform asset forfeiture laws to prohibit the state of Texas from taking an individual’s property without a criminal conviction, in most cases.

….Burton’s bill aims to make sure the possessors of that property, or cash in many cases, are actually criminals and the property related to actual crime before the cops have the right to seize it….Predictably, opposition to such bills comes mainly from law enforcement agencies that seize cash and stand to gain from the sale of seized property.

This demonstrates the problem with Trump’s shoot-from-the-hip style.1 My guess is that he has no idea what civil asset forfeiture is and has no real opinion about it. If, say, Trump had been in a meeting with a few senators, and Bob Goodlatte had remarked that “police can seize your money even if you weren’t convicted of a crime,” Trump probably would have reflexively answered, “Can you believe that?” Instead, a sheriff said it was a bad thing related to Mexicans, so Trump automatically agreed with him. That means it’s now official Trump administration policy.

Sad. But then again, Jeff Sessions is a huge fan of civil asset forfeiture and all the corrupt incentives it creates, so he probably would have gotten Trump on board one way or another. It’s yet another big win for the working class.

1One of the problems, anyway.

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Trump Accidentally Makes Support of Civil Asset Forfeiture Administration Policy

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Mitch McConnell Is Now Telling States To Ignore Obama’s Climate Rules

by YMKNildadcbtfzo Posted on March 4, 2015

Mother Jones

It’s no secret that Republicans leaders hate President Barack Obama’s flagship climate initiative, which aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. So far, the main opposition has been at the state level. The new rules require every state to submit a plan for cleaning up its power sector, and a host of bills have cropped up—primarily in coal-dependent Southern states—to screw with those plans. These bills tend to be backed by GOP state lawmakers, the coal industry, and the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council.

The thrust of much of this legislation is to effectively stonewall the Environmental Protection Agency and hope that the rules get killed by the Supreme Court. It’s a long shot, given the Court’s long history of siding with the EPA. And the longer states delay in coming up with their own plan, the more likely they’ll be to have one forced on them by the feds.

But in a column for Kentucky’s Lexington Herald-Leader yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) threw his weight behind this obstructionist strategy:

This proposed regulation would have a negligible effect on global climate but a profoundly negative impact on countless American families already struggling…

Don’t be complicit in the administration’s attack on the middle class. Think twice before submitting a state plan—which could lock you in to federal enforcement and expose you to lawsuits—when the administration is standing on shaky legal ground and when, without your support, it won’t be able to demonstrate the capacity to carry out such political extremism.

Refusing to go along at this time with such an extreme proposed regulation would give the courts time to figure out if it is even legal, and it would give Congress more time to fight back. We’re devising strategies now to do just that.

There’s plenty to take issue with in McConnell’s analysis. For starters, the EPA rules are unlikely to cause any problems with blackouts or sky-high electric bills, as the senator implies. But I’m sure it’ll make good ammunition for state lawmakers and fossil fuel interests as battles over this thing play out this year.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2015/03/03/3725288_states-should-reject-obama-mandate.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2015/03/03/3725288_states-should-reject-obama-mandate.html#storylink=cpy

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Mitch McConnell Is Now Telling States To Ignore Obama’s Climate Rules

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