TV Host Kimmel proves GOP elites Hypocrites, put TV Reality Show Trump in White House: What does he know?

Jimmy Kimmel is an American success story who came from humble beginnings. Kimmel stuck with entertainment, even after getting fired from a number of radio stations before working his way into television. Through hard work, is now hosting his own highly successful late night comedy show on a major network.

And yet, he's a Hollywood elitist, just a comedian, who couldn't possibly understand health care.

Tell me if career politician Paul Ryan even comes close to understanding how health care insurance really works. I recorded video with the original tweet that points out the obvious:



So Kimmel unqualified and is overstepping his free speech rights by criticizing truthfully the lie that Ryan and the Graham-Cassidy bill represent. Amazing. Yea but Republican free market-like posers would use taxpayer dollars to pay for the sick so insurers wouldn't have to, no hypocrisy there.

Plus Republicans criticize poor Americans who use our social safety nets because they didn't work hard enough, then turn around and bash hard work and success when its against those who criticize them. Sweet.

Jimmy Kimmel is such a good messenger on health care, that I'm posting a few of his late night rants against the Graham-Cassidy bill:






One more thing: This whole no debate/pass something now thing seemed oddly fast. All in with Chris Hayes I think hit on the reason why; billionaire campaign funding demands:

GOP Elite take Control, they Won, they will decide for us?

It easy for Republicans to think they are the default real American party, since they won elections thanks to gerrymandering and voter suppression, dominate 92 percent of talk radio, watch conservative TV and news outlets, and have a network of conservative think tanks that by itself, has been a major job creator for social rejects and politicians.

They are the conservative elite, the know-it-all's! And despite huge deficits, job losses and a Great Recession thanks to trickle down economics, they believe in a world that can't exist unless they have an evil liberal counterpart that victimizes them at every turn.

What does Kimmel...or any of us really know? Founder John Adams would be horrified today: 

Adams maintained that an elite of wealth, birth, and beauty retained overwhelming power ... Adams’s principal fear was of aristocratic tyranny - specifically, the tendency of the elite few to undermine both popular representation and effective government.

Welcome to the Trump age. 

I have two examples that coincidentally came up today. From the "elitist" National Review, elitist Theodore Kupfer, who trashed common man Jimmy Kimmel as a clueless Hollywood elitist. What does he know about the world, or for that matter, health care. Well, when Paul Ryan whines about how the majority of insured healthy Americans have to pay for treating the sick, we can assume he doesn't know how actual insurance works. Just saying.

Here's the condescending highlights of Kupfer's article, where he suggests doing the same thing Republicans are always whining about, being censored. Here's everyman Kimmel's statement:

Jimmy Kimmel, Policy-Wonk Wannabe: Comedians have become public intellectuals in the popular imagination, so maybe some charity is in order. What to do about the health-care system is a complicated question. 

Kimmel has elected to probe the empirical matter of whether this bill does quite enough to erect a safety net for people with pre-existing conditions ... The collective decision to elevate Kimmel to status as a leading bioethicist and policy wonk reduces a tricky debate to a single talking point ... But policy expertise is hard-won and not likely to dawn suddenly during crises. It’s also not something that resides in people who make jokes for a living. 

Does Kimmel want a career change? Or does Hollywood simply want to feel better about its propensity to wax earnest about complicated public-policy questions? Such sanctimony degrades comedy. 

Amazingly, conservatives don't find the following funny, but racist jokes...that's another story? 

Who really laughs at The Daily Show, Full Frontal, or Last Week Tonight? But more importantly, swapping two unrelated discursive forms corrodes public discourse. Policy isn’t funny, and comedy isn’t policy ... It’s irresponsible to pontificate on subjects one knows little about, but that didn’t stop him from calling Cassidy a liar.

Once we substitute even sincere feelings for policy expertise, the results are unlikely to please anyone. Jimmy Kimmel can be funny, and he loves his son. Well and good. But Jimmy Kimmel knows policy? To paraphrase another comedian, comedians are not public intellectuals.

Anecdotal Governing: Elitist Republican Bill Cassidy trashes Kimmel, saying "He's only heard from those on the left..." I keep getting the feeling this is how Republicans get their information, through anecdotal word of mouth, hearing it from "the right." No research. Watch Kimmel admit to doing his own extensive research...

Adequate and affordable, whatever that means: What does adequate and affordable really mean? Well according to Bill Cassidy, it means adequate and affordable...dummy.

We are in Control, not the people? Tucker Carlson made it very clear below that the people don't own the public square, the elite authorities do. We're not in charge of  "the public." The video and Issacson says it all:

John Jay College professor Michael Issacson, and avowed Antifa leader appeared on Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight” show Thursday night...

Agitated Dumb Ron Johnson Crumbles on Morning Joe; says Graham-Cassidy plan offers no guarantees for pre-existing conditions!!!

Awhile back, we were warned about Dumb Ron Johnson:

Behold, the big talker is back, this time offering no guarantees, rambling on and on about GOP constructed ObamaCare nightmares, all the while ignoring the disastrous unaffordable insurance system we had pre-ACA, when nearly 45 million Americans lacked coverage and were indiscriminately dropped for preexisting conditions or clerical errors.

On Morning Joe, Johnson made up this ridiculous lie:

A lie of course. Johnson did the old switcheroo on "preexisting conditions," an Affordable Care Act guaranteed, and instead equated that with getting insurance. I'd say he was smarter than that...but...

Targeting Liberal States: I've heard Republicans admit the Graham-Cassidy plan intentionally shifts Medicaid money away from liberal expansion states like California, Massachusetts and New York so conservative states that refused on ideological principles could get the cash. But Republican states didn't want to depend on the federal government.

Forget all that, now they're being portrayed as shortchanged victims who never got equitable funding for something they didn't want in the first place? My head is hurting!

Watch our rambling egotist bully his way past tough questions he'd be a fool to answer honestly. The Morning Joe crew was having none of it...:

New GOP Senate "last ditch" replacement for ACA injecting Chaos in 50 state capitols for the next 2 years!!!

Every Republican plan to replace the ACA seems to make our health care system even worse than before ObamaCare. You would have thought after finding out every Republican plan would end up dropping 23 million people from insurance coverage, they would stepped back from their promise and rethink their approach.

Heck, when the insurance industry thinks it'll be too costly and lose too many customers, you've got a problem: 

The health insurance industry came out forcefully on Wednesday against the Senate’s latest bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act, suggesting that its state-by-state block grants could create health care chaos in the short term and a Balkanized, uncertain insurance market. America’s Health Insurance Plans was even more pointed. The legislation could hurt patients by “further destabilizing the individual market” and could potentially allow “government-controlled single payer health care to grow.” Without controls, some states could simply eliminate private insurance, she warned.

The most incredible part of the Republican style of health care plan...?

Many within the industry are worried that the next two years will be chaotic, with little support for the current market while states scramble to come up with a new way for individuals to buy policies. “It’s just basically injecting chaos in 50 state capitals for the next two years,” said Sabrina Corlette, a research professor at Georgetown University.

The CBO doesn't have time to do a complete score, and debate before the bill is voted on will be just 2 minutes long...that's right, just 2 minutes maximum. What was that about "ramming" ObamaCare down our throats after about 8 months of give and take debates and amendments? They are the party of "principles" alright.

Many within the industry are worried that the next two years will be chaotic, with little support for the current market while states scramble to come up with a new way for individuals to buy policies.“It’s just basically injecting chaos in 50 state capitals for the next two years,” said Sabrina Corlette, a research professor at Georgetown University.

Read The Graham Cassidy plan for real Americans: I also just found out, oddly not listed below, that the bill eliminates the employer mandate...WOW:

The new Senate Republican bill could reduce funding, coverage and consumer protections even more sharply than the GOP's previous repeal bill, the Better Care Reconciliation Act.

Here's how: 

1. Establishes fixed state block grants that cap federal subsidies for coverage. The BCRA would have continued Obamacare's guaranteed subsidies to qualifying individuals.

2. Ends all federal subsidies in 2026, compared with no subsidy cutoff under the BCRA.

3. Ends Medicaid expansion entirely in 2020. The BCRA would have phased out enhanced funding in 2024 and let states continue expansion using standard federal match funds.

4. States could give insurers unlimited ability to consider pre-existing conditions to set premiums. The BCRA didn't allow that.

5. Eliminates the federal insurance exchange, which states could keep under the BCRA.

6. Offers $25 billion for two-year state reinsurance program. The BCRA offered $182 billion over a decade.

7. No dedicated funding for substance abuse treatment. The BCRA granted $44 billion to states for addiction and recovery care. 

8. Doesn't require states to use federal block grant money to help lower-income people buy coverage, unlike the BCRA requirement that subsidies go to lower-income groups.

9. Allows states to waive coverage for preventive services. The BCRA continued ACA's first-dollar coverage for preventive care.

10. Redistributes federal subsidies from Medicaid expansion to non-expansion states—with 20 states receiving about 35% to 60% less than under Obamacare—versus smaller redistributions between the states under the BCRA.

Sources: Kaiser Family Foundation; Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Republican Repeal and Replace schemes repeat of Failed Polices of the Past.

I've always thought of legislation as a show of values, especially the initial first draft, before saner heads prevail. And so it is again with another idea being floated by Sens. Bill Cassidy and Lindsey Graham. You know there's a problem right off the bat if "little dictator" Scott Walker signs off on the deal:

Imagine the governor holding each and every citizen hostage over their health care, that's what this means.

You’ll also notice in the Cassidy-Graham proposal below that if you are anything but a Republican living in a red state, you most certainly don’t count. You lost, winner take all, including your health insurance:

“We need to let states take care of themselves and give power back to patients,” Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) wrote in a recent op-ed for the Washington Post. “Let a blue state do a blue thing and a red state such as mine take a different, conservative approach.”

The proposal would eliminate the subsidies for private insurance and end the Medicaid expansion ... marketplaces would no longer exist ... The federal government would convert some (but not all) of that spending into a lump-sum payment to states. States could choose to spend this money on providing insurance — or they could use it to fund high-risk pools, or do other activities to pay the bills of patients with high medical needs. 

But this new Cassidy-Graham bill would not allow a state like California to keep the Affordable Care Act in place unless it wanted to kick in significantly more money. Here’s why:

1. The complex funding formula used to divvy up the big pot of money would tilt more funding toward sparsely populated states ... than those with denser, more urban populations.

2. It would also take the current Medicaid expansion spending from the 30 states that participate in the program and divvy it up among all 50 states. For a place like Texas, which has not expanded Medicaid, this would be a windfall ... but California would be dramatically disadvantaged.

3. Cassidy-Graham includes a requirement that insurance plans accept all applicants regardless of preexisting conditions. 

4. Ends the two policies: the mandate to purchase coverage and the tax subsidies to make coverage affordable ... little incentive for those who are relatively healthy to purchase plans. 

The key points; no mandate or incentives to be insured, and a requirement to accept preexisting conditions. As explained below, this is an old failed idea we may be doomed to repeat on a national level. This also proves historically that politicians in the House and Senate never had a clue about how average Americans got their health care coverage in the past, or for that matter, even now in the Marketplaces: 

States have experimented with this combination of policies before. In the 1990s, Washington state ended preexisting conditions without a mandate or subsidies. Seattle Times journalist Carol Ostrom recounted what happened next:

1. Without any leverage to bring healthy people onto insurance rolls, insurers, left with the priciest patients, began a financial death spiral.

2. Ultimately, companies pulled out of the individual market and almost no one in Washington could buy an individual policy for any price.