Tag Archives: privacy-policy

Americans Are Surprisingly Clear-Eyed About American Health Care

by 41laowo Posted on November 25, 2013

Mother Jones

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Austin Frakt draws my attention to a new Gallup poll with this tweet: “Consistent with my hypothesis that people think their care is good/efficient, others is bad/wasteful.” Here’s the poll:

I’d draw a different conclusion. For starters, keep in mind that public sentiment on this question hasn’t changed much over the past decade. There are some ups and downs in recent years about the quality of national health care coverage, possibly based on the ups and downs of Obamacare, but it mostly looks like noise to me.

More importantly, though, I don’t interpret this as a belief that coverage for other people is either bad or wasteful. I interpret it as a surprisingly accurate assessment of U.S. health care. About two-thirds of Americans have either Medicare or company-provided health care (or something similar), and they correctly tell Gallup that their own personal coverage is pretty good. And it is! At the same time, most people also think that overall health care coverage in America is pretty mediocre, and that’s true too. How can you call national coverage good or excellent when 50 million people are uninsured and have crappy access to medical care?

If Gallup had called me, this is precisely the response I would have given them. My own personal coverage is quite good. Thanks, MoJo! However, I’d also say that overall coverage in the U.S. is terrible. Obamacare will, perhaps, upgrade that to merely unsatisfactory, but that’s about it.

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Americans Are Surprisingly Clear-Eyed About American Health Care

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Do Governors Make the Best Presidents?

by Adriene56E Posted on November 22, 2013

Mother Jones

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Apparently the latest hot topic of conversation among our nation’s governors is the indisputable merit of electing a governor as our next president. I don’t have a lot to say about this. Instead, I offer only the brief table of postwar presidents below. If anyone can find any reason to prefer one column over the other, I’m all ears.

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Do Governors Make the Best Presidents?

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Obamacare Has a Friend in the Health Care Industry

by s4o840t Posted on November 22, 2013

Mother Jones

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In the LA Times today, Noam Levey writes that Obamacare has an ace in the hole: the insurance industry. Sure, they have their gripes:

But since 2010, they have invested billions of dollars to overhaul their businesses, design new insurance plans and physician practices and develop better ways to monitor quality and control costs.

Few industry leaders want to go back to a system that most had concluded was failing, as costs skyrocketed and the ranks of the uninsured swelled. Nor do they see much that is promising from the law’s Republican critics. The GOP has focused on repealing Obamacare, but has devoted less energy to developing a replacement.

…. For many of these organizations, the prospect of new customers and a more rational system outweighs their sometimes intense irritation with the Obama administration. Insurance executives, in particular, have gnashed their teeth at the president’s attacks on their industry….Despite the frustrations, most insurers remain committed to moving to a new market that would achieve the central promise of the Affordable Care Act: that all consumers can buy health plans even if they have preexisting medical conditions.

This is really a crucial point. Like it or not, the entire health care industry has spent the past three years gearing up for the rollout of Obamacare. At this point, they’re committed—and doubly so since the Republican Party very clearly has no real alternative for them. This means that all the doom-mongering on Fox News is basically just chum for the rubes: Obamacare isn’t going anywhere, and everyone knows it. The health care industry will do everything it can to make it work, and one way or another, it’s going to work. Even the Medicaid expansion is almost certain to be taken up eventually by nearly every state as passions cool down a bit and hospitals start complaining about the lost income.

The tea party may not quite know yet that it’s lost the war, and Republican politicians have every reason to egg them on in this delusion, but the war is well and truly lost. It’s all mopping up now.

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Obamacare Has a Friend in the Health Care Industry

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Republicans Refuse to Cover the Poor, Then Complain that Obamacare Isn’t Covering the Poor

by HiramWhittell Posted on November 21, 2013

Mother Jones

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The New York Times has gotten hold of the “House Republican Playbook” on Obamacare, and I have to admit that it brought back warm memories. It’s just like the launch kits I used to produce for our sales force whenever we came out with a new product, and I have to say that it looks very professional. For Eric Cantor’s sake, I hope his sales force pays more attention to it than my sales force used to pay to mine.

In any case, it’s all pretty predictable stuff: Obamacare is an abomination; people are losing their insurance; small companies are being ruined; etc. etc. But I have to say that this is my favorite talking point:

Needless to say, this is primarily because Republicans governors have refused to implement Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, even though it’s 100 percent paid for at first and 90 percent paid for forever. These governors literally prefer to have their state’s residents pay taxes and get nothing in return rather than give so much as an extra dime to poor people who need health care. It’s truly hard to fathom what kind of human being is callous enough to do this, but apparently there are a bunch of them in the Republican Party.

And then, just to add a cherry of chutzpah on top of this ice cream sundae of spitefulness, they crow about how Obamacare isn’t covering as many people as Obama hoped it would. You really have to marvel.

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Republicans Refuse to Cover the Poor, Then Complain that Obamacare Isn’t Covering the Poor

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The Filibuster Is Dead (Partly)

by q1jurse Posted on November 21, 2013

Mother Jones

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CNN reports that by a vote of 52-48 in the Senate, the filibuster of judicial and executive branch nominees has been eliminated. The nuclear option has been detonated.

UPDATE: I was in the middle of writing a post about this when the vote was taken. Here’s what I was writing:

A few minutes before the vote, Dana Bash was on CNN talking about the Democratic effort to eliminate the filibuster for judicial nominees. “It’s going to make things a lot more tense in the Senate, if you can believe that,” she said. “I imagine it will provoke a lot of anger on the Republican side,” said another anchor. This was followed by some back-and-forth about just how angry Republicans would get and how they’d take advantage of this during next year’s midterms.

This is typical, and telling. Republican anger is always taken as a given, and always treated as genuine. But for some reason Democrats don’t get the same consideration. This despite the fact that Democrats stepped away from this brink several times already earlier this year, and the only reason they’re going forward now is because Republicans have finally pissed them off beyond endurance. Even the moderates have reached the end of their ropes. If things are tenser now in the Senate, Republican need only look in the mirror to find the cause. They’re no longer even pretending that they’ll allow President Obama to perform the normal functions of his office—functions that every other president in history has performed without any serious obstacles.

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The Filibuster Is Dead (Partly)

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Here’s How Walmart Could Pay Workers a Decent Wage Without Raising Prices

by SuzanneBl Posted on November 20, 2013

Mother Jones

Walmart has gotten a lot of bad press this week over news of an Ohio store holding a food drive for its own workers, who were unable to buy Thanksgiving groceries on the retail giant’s paltry wages. The store managers deserve credit for their thoughtfulness, but wouldn’t it be better if Walmart simply paid its workers enough to feed themselves? A new report from Demos, a liberal think tank, suggests that doing so wouldn’t be as hard as you might think.

According to the report, “A Higher Wage Is Possible,” Walmart spends $7.6 billion a year buying back stock. Those purchases drive up the company’s share price, further enriching the Walton family, which controls more than half of Walmart stock (and for that matter, more wealth than 42 percent of Americans combined.) If Walmart instead spent that money on wages, it could give each of its 1.3 million US employees a $5.83 per hour raise—enough to ensure that all of them are paid a wage equivalent to $25,000 a year for full-time work.

Walmart and its defenders like to argue that raising wages would require it to raise prices, which would in turn hurt its low-income shoppers. But Demos disagrees: “Curtailing share buybacks would not harm the company’s retail competitiveness or raise prices for consumers,” the report says. “In fact…higher pay could be expected to improve employee productivity and morale while reducing Walmart’s expenses related to employee turnover.”

A spokesperson for Walmart did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Here’s How Walmart Could Pay Workers a Decent Wage Without Raising Prices

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In States Where the Website Works, Obamacare Works Too

by Stacey Kawano Posted on November 19, 2013

Mother Jones

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From the LA Times:

A number of states that use their own systems, including California, are on track to hit enrollment targets for 2014 because of a sharp increase in November, according to state officials.

“What we are seeing is incredible momentum,” said Peter Lee, director of Covered California, the nation’s largest state insurance marketplace, which accounted for a third of all enrollments nationally in October. California — which enrolled about 31,000 people in health plans last month — nearly doubled that in the first two weeks of this month.

Several other states, including Connecticut and Kentucky, are outpacing their enrollment estimates, even as states that depend on the federal website lag far behind. In Minnesota, enrollment in the second half of October ran at triple the rate of the first half, officials said. Washington state is also on track to easily exceed its October enrollment figure, officials said.

It really is all about the website. In places where it’s working, people are signing up and are pretty happy with what they’re getting. Rate shock is an issue for a few of them, but not for a lot. The bottom line is the Republican Party’s worst nightmare: Once Obamacare has been up and running for a while, it’s going to be pretty popular.

Just get the damn website working.

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In States Where the Website Works, Obamacare Works Too

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"Songs for Slim" Is an All-Star Benefit for the Replacements’ Ailing Guitarist. It’s Good, Too.

by AntonioRe Posted on November 18, 2013

Mother Jones

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Various Artists
Songs for Slim
New West

This dandy two-CD set is subtitled Rockin Here Tonight: A Benefit Compilation for Slim Dunlap, which says it all. Former Replacements guitarist Bob “Slim” Dunlap suffered a severe stroke in early 2012, prompting friends and admirers to launch a fund dedicated to his care. Songs for Slim is one part of their efforts. Most of the cuts are covers of little-known, ’90s-era Dunlap compositions, which are raucous, funny and tender, and well deserving of belated discovery.

The first disc compiles the 18 tracks originally featured on limited-edition 45s that were auctioned earlier this year. Among the highlights: the reunited Replacements’ “Busted Up”; John Doe’s stomping “Just for the Hell of It”; the swaggering “Ain’t Exactly Good,” from underrated, long-running Australian band You Am I; and Drive-By Trucker Patterson Hood’s poignant “Hate This Town.” (There’s also Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy and more.) The second disc offers previously unreleased performances, including a dreamy reading of “When I Fall Down” by Replacement Chris Mars, and for you old-timers, there’s “Love Lost,” by The West Saugerties Ale & Quail Club, with none other than Lovin’ Spoonful leader John Sebastian on harmonica.

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"Songs for Slim" Is an All-Star Benefit for the Replacements’ Ailing Guitarist. It’s Good, Too.

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Soundtrack for Your Séance: Cate Le Bon’s "Mug Museum"

by 2343b4u4u Posted on November 18, 2013

Mother Jones

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Cate Le Bon
Mug Museum
Wichita Recordings

Languid Welsh chanteuse Cate Le Bon (no relation to Duran Duran’s Simon) practices an eerie kind of pop magic, effortlessly mixing intimacy and unease with the entrancing grace of early, Nico-era Velvet Underground. From the spooky shuffle “Are You with Me Now” to a duet with Perfume Genius on the gorgeous ballad “I Think I Knew,” the low-tech garage-folk of this hypnotic successor to 2012’s habit-forming Cyrk often seems on the verge of collapse, but Le Bon’s elegant melancholy holds everything together, barely. Occasional bursts of energy—the careening “Sisters,” or the unholy shriek that caps “Duke”—only underscore her otherworldly charisma. Play Mug Museum at your next séance and see what happens.

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Soundtrack for Your Séance: Cate Le Bon’s "Mug Museum"

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The Chattering Classes Are Now in Full Chicken Little Mode

by Kiera5434lfzrmb Posted on November 15, 2013

Mother Jones

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We are in full feeding frenzy mode. Politico, by my count, has no fewer than 14 front page headlines today about the great Obamacare debacle. The Washington Post’s four top news articles and its four top op-eds are all about Obamacare, and the top op-eds are uniformly panicky.

Is panic just built into political observers, or what? Ruth Marcus thinks Obama’s entire presidency at risk. Ditto for Milbank. And if that’s not bad enough for you, Krauthammer suggests that yesterday’s events spell doom for the entire liberal project. It’s almost a relief to get down to the unsigned editorial, which is merely troubled, not in full-scale meltdown (or, in Krauthammer’s case, glee).

So what causes this? It’s pretty obviously ridiculous, and I suspect that even the folks writing this stuff would agree about that if they took a breath. But they write it anyway. Are they truly that panic-stricken? Do they simply need something exciting to write? Or what?

Well, this isn’t very exciting, but here’s what really happened yesterday. Obama made a short speech and then took questions. It wasn’t the high point of his presidency, but virtually no one outside the Beltway thought it was a disaster. It was just another forgettable presidential press conference. The Obamacare website is in deep trouble, but the evidence is pretty clear that it really is getting better, and will continue to get better. Lots of people are suffering from rate shock, but not as many people as Republicans and the press would have you believe. It’s early days, and signups will continue to improve as we get closer to the deadline. Insurers are upset with Obama’s new fix, but they’ll calm down. Their denunciations yesterday were pretty pro forma.

This is a bleak moment for Obama, but it’s not his Iraq or even his Katrina. Within a few months everything will settle down. Republicans have an obvious political motive for stoking panic, but the rest of us should be a little smarter about buying into it. OK?

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The Chattering Classes Are Now in Full Chicken Little Mode

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