Holy Crap, Republicans don't know anything about Health Care Insurance!!!

When it rains stupidity it pours stupidity.

Breaking News: America should be waking up to the idea that Republicans don't understand health care at all, or for that matter, how insurance works.

In a breathlessly stupid number of recent comments, we're supposed to put our faith in a Republican "the time is here, the time is now" remake of health care?  

It wasn't just the Rep. Jason Chaffetz's moment either (with a great response from former Mayor Gavin Newsom), add to it Rep. Roger Marshall, (R-Kan.) comments below, a first-term congressman who spent three decades as a physician and is a member of the GOP Doctors Caucus. He said:

“There is a group of people that just don’t want health care and aren’t going to take care of themselves. Just like homeless people... I think just morally, spiritually, socially just don’t want health care.”

“The Medicaid population, which is [on] a free credit card as a group, do probably the least preventive medicine and taking care of themselves and eating healthy and exercising. And I’m not judging; I’m just saying socially that’s where they are. So there’s a group of people that even with unlimited access to health care are only going to use the emergency room when their arm is chopped off or when their pneumonia is so bad they get brought [to] the ER." 

What, pregnancy has something to do with guys? It's still mind boggling to think that conservative men don't connect pregnancies to guys, and the resulting "prenatal care."

Democratic Rep. Mike Doyle (Pa.) was talking with Republican Rep. John Shimkus (Ill.) about Shimkus’s objections to the Affordable Care Act’s requirements for health-insurance plans. Doyle asked Shimkus,“What mandate in the Obamacare bill does he take issue with?”

Shimkus: “What about men having to purchase prenatal care?” 

At that point, one could hear the room start to stir.

Shimkus: “I’m just . . . is that not correct? And should they?”

Paul Ryan doesn't get Insurance? True!: After all these years, you'd think Ryan would at least know a little something about insurance, since he wants to hand all our health care needs over to them. But he doesn't. He wants the government/taxpayers to pay for the sick instead of insurers? He said the following like it was something bad. Scary, Ryan doesn't get it:

Ryan: "Young and healthy people are going to go into the market and pay for the older sicker people. So the young healthy person is going to be made to buy health care and they're going to be paying for the person who gets breast cancer in her 40's, or gets heart disease in his 50's...the people who are healthy, pay for the people who are sick. It's not working and that's why it's in a death spiral." 

That's how insurance works....what in gods name is this guy inhaling? No wonder this is all so screwed up:



No, the public should not pay for the sick so insurance companies can make hefty profits. Democrats...are you there?

University of New Hampshire's Stephen Pimpare, the author of "A People’s History of Poverty in America" and the forthcoming "Ghettos, Tramps, and Welfare Queens: Down and Out on the Silver Screen," summed up nicely exactly what ails the Republican Party and their envious resentful voters:

For people like Chaffetz or Paul Ryan, this stubborn insistence that people could have more money or more health care if only they wanted them more absolves the government of having to intervene and use its power on their behalf. In this way of thinking, reducing access to subsidized health insurance isn’t cruel; it’s responsible, a form of tough love in which people are forced to make good choices instead of bad ones. This is both patronizing and, of course, a gross misreading of the actual outcome of laws like these....The implication that we should be worried by the possibility of poor people buying the occasional steak, lottery ticket or, yes, even an iPhone...Set aside the fact that a better cut of meat may be more nutritious than a meal Chaffetz would approve of, or the fact that a smartphone may be your only access to email, job notices, benefit applications, school work and so on. Why do we begrudge people struggling to get by the occasional indulgence? Why do we so little value pleasure and joy? Why do we insist that if you are poor, you should also be miserable? Why do we require penitence?

Just because what Chaffetz is saying isn’t novel doesn’t mean it isn’t uninformed and dangerous. Chaffetz, Ryan and their compatriots offer us tough love without the love, made possible through their willful ignorance of (or utter disregard for) what life is actually like for so many Americans who do their very best against great odds and still, nonetheless, have little to show for it. Sometimes not even an iPhone.

TrumpCare Republicans know more than Medical Providers, Doctors, Hospital CEO's and Insurers!!!

Why didn't Democrats toss off tea party protesters as paid off lackey's of the Koch brothers who opposed the Affordable Care Act? 

Why didn't Democrats brush off complaints about climate change as the last gasps of industry special interests willing to say anything? 

Democrats never denounce anything or predict failure and disaster over pending Republican legislation. It actually gives everyone the impression Republicans have a legitimate argument to make.

TrumpCare Disaster: Now Republicans are slamming a huge swath of their voters; doctors!!! Doctors have been a big voting block for Republicans, but even they have had it with their parties attack on health care.

Republicans pushing the legislation are unfazed by the criticism, charging the groups are simply to seek to protect the benefits they received from the Affordable Care Act.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer on Wednesday pushed back, saying the legislation isn’t aimed at winning over special interests.

“We would love to have every group on board, but every single deal we heard about getting through [in ObamaCare] … over and over again, it was one deal after the other, to buy votes to get it through the Senate,” he said, in response to questions about criticism from the AMA and AARP.

“If you want to line up how many special interests that got paid off last time versus now, they’ll probably win, hands down. This isn’t about how many special interests in Washington we can get paid off, it’s about making sure that patients get the best deal that lowers prices.”

Many industry and patient groups are charging Republicans with the opposite: making care more expensive and harder to pay for, in addition to potentially taking away coverage from millions of Americans.

This didn't go over well. Modern Health Care:

The CEOs are impatient, especially after Trump's recent statement—which amused and alarmed many of them—that “nobody knew healthcare could be so complicated.”

Republicans aren't interested in getting input from every front line health care provider. That can't be good:

Of CEOs responding to the survey, 77.9% oppose repealing the ACA, even with the promise of a replacement plan and a transition period. And 79.2% favor keeping the law's expansion of Medicaid coverage to low-income adults, which would be eliminated or phased out in most Republican proposals. 

The Power Panel is mostly made up of leaders of large hospitals and health systems, including some that operate their own health plans. But the participants also include CEOs of insurers, suppliers and technology companies, as well as associations representing sectors across the industry.

That's not all:

1. Nearly two-thirds (65.4%) want to preserve generous premium subsidies so no one pays more than a set percentage of income for health insurance. That contrasts with the House GOP plan to base premium tax credits on age rather than income. 

2. About the same percentage prefers to keep the ACA's minimum essential benefits, which would be erased under Republican plans.

3. Just 2.6% want to kill the law's requirement that nearly everyone buy coverage, a prime target of the repeal effort.

GOP to end law protecting Public Schools, nationally Fund Private School System.

Lost in the flurry of devastating policies just hitting the fan is the actual dismantling of public education.

There is now a bill in the House to eliminate the countries educational framework for public schools known as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965. This may be the first time your hearing about this law, so here's what it has been quietly protecting for the last 51 years. This will soon be gone...:

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESSA) of 1965 is the nation's educational law and provides equal opportunity in education. 

1. It is a comprehensive program that covers programs for struggling learners, AP classes, ESL classes, classes for minorities such as Native Americans, Rural Education, Education for the Homeless, School Safety (Gun-Free schools), Monitoring and Compliance and Federal Accountability Programs.

2. Abolishes the Nutritional Act of 2012 (No Hungry Kids Act) which provides nutritional standards in school breakfast and lunch. For our most vulnerable, this may be the ONLY nutritious food they have in a day.

3. The bill has no wording whatsoever protecting special needs kids, no mention of IDEA and FAPE.

4. Protects Children with Disabilities - ensures access to the general education curriculum-ensures access to accommodations on assessments-ensures concepts of Universal Design for Learning - includes provisions that require local education agencies to provide evidence-based interventions in schools with consistently underperforming subgroups - requires states in Title I plans to address how they will improve conditions for learning including reducing incidents of bullying and harassment in schools, overuse of discipline practices and reduce the use of aversion behavioral interventions (such as restraints and seclusion).

What will be replacing it?

The Choices in Education Act of 2017, introduced by Republican wacko Rep. Steven King. It gets rid of the ESSA and creates federal block grants that'll be used Republican states to pay for what would be a federally funded nationwide private school system, short changing public schools. Not exactly small government/constitutionally required and well beyond the incentives used before this:

The bill establishes an education voucher program, through which each state shall distribute block grant funds  

(1) distribute a portion of funds to parents who elect to enroll their child in a private school or to home-school their child, and(2) do so in a manner that ensures that such payments will be used for appropriate educational expenses.

To be eligible to receive a block grant, a state must:

(1) comply with education voucher program requirements, and(2) make it lawful for parents of an eligible child to elect to enroll their child in any public or private elementary or secondary school in the state or to home-school their child.

At fake news purveyor Breitbart, home schoolers are as mad as hell over the possibility taxpayers may want them to be accountable:

Homeschooling families throughout the nation are voicing opposition ...“would be a slippery slope toward more federal involvement and control in homeschooling,”  asserts William Estrada, director of federal relations for the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA).

Why faze out public schools via state taxes and replace them with grant funding of private religious and home schooling? Rep. Steven King admits steering government funding to private school systems will stop the liberal attack on education and religion, giving back to parents the control they never lost regarding their child's schools. Oh, and that establishment of religion thing...?:

"We’re watching as a nationwide curriculum is being established, and that nationwide curriculum eventually drags the parochial schools into that curriculum. I’m watching as our Judeo-Christian values are being undermined, and I’m watching as western civilization is being deconstructed systemically throughout our public school system and especially in our universities – which we don’t touch with this, by the way. The object is to put parents back in control of their children’s education and curriculum and put it in a position where the public schools compete with the parochial schools.

Let the states regulate those things at that level, not the federal government. States that are unwilling to pass a voucher program have to give up their federal money. So isn’t that a much bigger goal for us – to put the public schools into competition with parochial schools than it is to preserve the status quo of homeschool?"

The states would then be able to cut even more public school funding with impossible benchmarks while sending more money to private schools.

Like one Westchester Pennsylvania blogger wrote:

Does the bill refer to any standards for schools to meet? No.

Does the bill require the child to be making some recognizable progress? No, just be “aged 5 to 17, inclusive.” So a student age 5-17, even if repeating one grade 3 times, qualifies, but a high school senior aged 18, for whatever reason such as earlier serious illness, doesn’t.

Don’t federal and states standards cover some of these things? Maybe, but none are referenced in the bill. In a year when you can see regulations falling like dominoes, you can bet that once the door is opened by HR 610, no one will dare turn off the money.

Check out this recent article from The Nation:  Education for Sale? School choice and the future of American education.

Trump tries to discredit soon to be released CBO TrumpCare estimates!

The CBO's reality check on the Republicans first ever free market approach to a national health care plan in the world is about to be released. The CBO's past reports over their plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act has become a festering sore no doctor can cure.

Just days away from a new estimate based on Paul Ryan's recently released free market reform plan, the CBO predicted in January 2017....NY Times:

18 million people could lose their insurance within a year and individual insurance premiums would shoot upward if Congress repealed major provisions of the Affordable Care Act while leaving other parts in place, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said on Tuesday.

If nothing followed the gutting of President Obama’s signature domestic achievement, the budget office said, 32 million people could lose their health insurance by 2026, and premiums in the individual insurance market could double.

“Eliminating the mandate penalties and the subsidies while retaining the market reforms would destabilize the nongroup market, and the effect would worsen over time,” the budget office said.

The office said the estimated increase of 32 million people without coverage by 2026 resulted from three changes: About 23 million fewer people would have coverage in the individual insurance market. Roughly 19 million fewer people would have Medicaid coverage. And there would be an increase in the number of people with employment-based insurance that would partially offset those losses.

Trumpian preemption: Sean Spicer deceptively twisted reality again, this time about past CBO predictions that he said were way off. 

That's just not true when you look at their updated 2012 estimate, and not just the original 2010 estimate. On the cost and taxes, the ACA saved even more money than the CBO estimated:

  

Check out the second to last column for CBO estimate and Realized 2014 count!

...and who cares about accurate numbers, when "good policy" is all that matters?

Spicer: “If you’re looking at the CBO for accuracy, you’re looking in the wrong place.".

Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La.: “Unelected bureaucrats.”

Jeffrey Anderson, a Hudson Institute scholar, for the Weekly Standard: “The CBO’s score will most likely be wildly off, [and] most Americans don’t much care what the CBO thinks. Those who debate and pass legislation should focus on whether it would be good policy ... not on the grounds of the CBO’s generally dubious scoring.”

The CBO predictions didn't account for the stunningly over the top criticism and outright lies about the new health care law that ended up discouraging hundreds of millions of people from trying it out. Most of the reported individual horror stories were debunked when ACA victims learned the truth about signing up and what they would actually save: 

Spicer based his criticism of the CBO on the fact that the office estimate in 2010 that 24 million people would acquire health insurance. Only 9 million people are covered in the exchanges now, however.

Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, said he would give more weight to a CBO analysis of a tax cut than he would to one of how many people would be insured under a bill, because the latter delves into predicting consumer behavior. Ironically, conservatives have long complained that the CBO did not take human behavior into account when scoring tax bills, and in 2015 passed a rule requiring the CBO to use what’s known as “dynamic scoring” on tax legislation.

Walker's Manufacturing Tax Cut = 4,000 lost manufacturing jobs, but who cares, wages up.

It won't matter to "Stand with Walker" Borgites, but their unintimidated leader's job's recored still stinks, and probably still won't be enough to throw this bum out of office. WPR:

The job loss figure comes from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics' Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, which economists regard as the most accurate job metric.

1. Wisconsin lost more than 4,000 manufacturing jobs in the 12 months leading up to last September, marking the worst such period for the state since the end of the Great Recession.

2. The drop came at a time when Wisconsin was spending nearly $300 million a year to cut manufacturers’ income and corporate taxes in an effort to grow the state’s manufacturing economy.

3. A total of 27 states lost manufacturing jobs over the same span, and so did the national economy.

4. The same employment report showed Wisconsin added 25,562 private sector jobs from September 2015 to September 2016, which ranked 32nd in the nation in overall private sector job growth.

"It mostly shows the limited power of politicians and efforts by state government to change economic forces," said Don Grimes, a labor economist at the University of Michigan. Grimes said that’s largely because manufacturers have improved their productivity to the point that they can make more goods with fewer people.

But now this is all good news for Walker. Completely ignoring his failed manufacturer tax cut, Walker said he cares more about raising wages in the industry, not how many jobs?

Gov. Scott Walker said fewer manufacturing jobs might not be such a bad thing for Wisconsin, as long as wages are increasing. 

"It's not just how many jobs — it's are those jobs paying at a significant level. If we see wages go up in manufacturing, to me, that's my ultimate goal. Overall, it’s just a different type of manufacturing – you’re going to see more and more automation. You can have successful manufacturing companies that don’t necessarily match all those (previous) numbers."

Walker said Wednesday some jobs that have left Wisconsin may be coming back in smaller numbers, but they offer workers higher wages. Walker said higher-paying jobs will require more skilled workers in the state.

Free Market Health Care Disaster now the Republican Rage...

Republicans automatically assume nothing will never need increased funding. Increasing taxes for that funding, no matter what, is not going to happen.

So getting rid of programs running on empty or coming up short is the answer. It's an odd reaction to life saving invaluable safety net "entitlements." It's what makes us a civilized society.

Virginia Republican Rep. Dave Brat in the interview below doesn't remember life before the ACA. People were dying due to their lack of affordable health care or preexisting conditions. Just as bad, small businesses were crushed out of existence by health care costs, and entrepreneurs were discouraged from going out on their own for lack of health care coverage.

Brat wants to go back, and dabble in the Milton Friedman experiment. Sure it could devastate the lives of hundreds of millions of Americans, but taxpayers are already paying for Brat's own health care, what's it to him?

Brat: "...the current system is collapsing on its own logic. So when you have a bad promise, and the other side has designed a system, and the cars in the ditch, and socialism didn't work, then the onus of the argument is all of a sudden on our free market guy."

Yup, because the free market doesn't work for health care.



Brat: "You have heart procedures here that are $150 grand, then in India are $15 grand.

Brat might be shocked to learn....

The health care system in India is universal. That being said, there is great discrepancy in the quality and coverage of medical treatment in India. Healthcare between states and rural and urban areas can be vastly different.

Brat also brags about Milton Friedman's free market solution, similar to what we're hearing from every other Republican loser, especially Paul Ryan. What these guys aren't telling you about Friedman's plan might help Americans buy health care. The negative income tax, a government check sent to income poor Americans so they can live a decent life, maybe even buy insurance. Big piece of the Friedman puzzle:

Easy Paul Ryan Health Care Plan Fact Checking...He Lies!!!

Fact checking Paul Ryan could become a full time job for me.

1. Here's a few easy fact checks that anyone with a passing knowledge of health care would know. Paul Ryan says...:

“It repeals Obamacare's taxes. That's a trillion dollars in tax relief for families that will help them with the cost of health care.

Wow, wrong! Imagine tax relief for these families needing help paying the cost of health care: 

It "primarily affects high earners making over $200,000 as an individual or $250,000 as a family), large businesses making over $250,000 and those with 50 or more full-time equivalents, and the health care industry. There's a Medicare Tax on investment income; 3.8% over $200k/$250k.

Is that you, barely making ends meet? Please.

2. ObamaCare is paid for through the above taxes. When it spends, it does not create deficits. In fact it will cut the US debt in the future...kiss that goodbye. So is the following really a bragging point?: 

It repeals Obamacare spending: Medicaid expansion and the Obamacare subsidies.

3. Health care before the ACA was bankrupting our country because the uninsured seeking medical care made our monthly premiums every year skyrocket and hospitals lost billions. Now under the guise of "freedom and liberty" and the free market, we're going back to those days. Yes, the uninsured will make everybody's health care costs skyrocket: 

It repeals the Obamacare mandates on individuals and businesses.

4. Finally, Ryan's miracle "refundable tax credit," or just another way of saying the "Obama tax subsidy." They are exactly the same, no kidding. Ryan would have think he's just performed a miracle. It would be funny if it wasn't so intentionally deceptive...and a crown jewel at that:

Ryan described one aspect of the proposal, providing tax benefits to those who purchase insurance individually versus those who receive it through their job:

"It equalizes the tax treatment of health care. Tax credits for health insurance is something that we as health care conservative reformers have been working on for years. This has been the crown jewel of conservative health care reform, to equalize the tax treatment of health care so we can have a vibrant individual market to have a free market in health care."

Besides the immoral bankrupt nature of profiting off sick people who need care, which is inexcusable all by itself, this horrific dangerous killer plan will fail. And when it does, let's put Ryan's own words on his health care headstone:

“This is monumental, exciting, conservative reform that fixes these problems. This is what we've been dreaming about doing, and we know it's going to make a positive difference in people's lives in this country."

The TrumpCare patchwork of tax credits nightmare.

The interactive map below offers up an unstable and frightening look at health care insurance through the eyes of the Republican Party, what is now known as TrumpCare.

Younger and older Americans get clobbered, in some states and in some counties, especially when adjusted for income. The thing is, all of us at one time or another could find ourselves falling into one of these costly categories, disrupting our lives and wiping out our life savings. And the credits below are opposed by a growing list of Republicans who want a completely free market system with no public support at all.

It would be the only free market system in the world, in one of the biggest countries in the world. It would be system based on the false premise that health care is a consumer product. Big mistake:

Chaffetz on TrumpCare choices: "...so maybe rather than getting that new iPhone...invest in health care."

The public face and the private two-face is a wonder to behold.

When we hear a Republican say something "in-artfully" bad, imagine what they're saying behind closed doors. 

Enter Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a guy who gets his health care paid for by taxpayers, and makes $174,000 a year. He won't have to make any difficult decisions about either buying health insurance or...an iPhone:

Chaffetz: "Americans have choices. And they've got to make a choice, and so maybe rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love, and they want to spend hundreds of dollars on, maybe they should invest in their own health care? They've got to make those decisions themselves."

Yes, he actually said that in public. Imagine what his fellow Republicans are saying behind closed doors. Of course Chaffetz doesn't realize that people don't buy iPhone's every month, because an iPhone is basically equal to just one monthly premium.

He didn't stop with that morsel either....

CNN Host: "More access (to health care), but possibly less coverage? That might be the byproduct?" 

Chaffetz: "Well, y-yes, yes, I think that's fair..."

Exposed. That's fair? They know people will get less insurance coverage. So enjoy paying monthly premiums that will go up year after year.

Always remember the GOP talking point about ObamaCare, "when the cost and deductibles go up," because their free market insurance plan will be much much worse.

Oh yea, there was this twitter response...

Democrats are not there yet. This safe and easy to predict outcome is still not something the Democrats feel comfortable weaponizing. It's a stunning missed opportunity.

TrumpCare not free market enough...Republicans back "buy or die" plan with no refundable tax credits.

Republicans are now basing policy on a completely false premise; health care is a free market product.

And they've double down. Republicans are now revolting against Paul Ryan's draconian plan, pushing instead to kill any government refundable tax credit to help people pay for health care in their new "free market" experiment.

Conservatives criticize. Bloomberg: “An analysis written for an influential Republican Study Committee, a group of about 170 House conservatives, derides a key component; tax credits to individuals who wouldn’t otherwise have access to health insurance. The report called the refundable tax credits ‘a Republican welfare entitlement.’ ‘Writing checks to individuals to purchase insurance is, in principle, Obamacare,’ says the memo…”

The Atlantic on “The Conservative Uprising Against the Republican Healthcare Bill”: “‘It’s Obamacare in a different format,’ Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio … If the full Freedom Caucus voted as a bloc, they could sink the bill on their own … FreedomWorks labeled the plan’s requirement that people pay a 30 percent premium to insurers if they stop their coverage for more than two months ‘the Republican individual mandate.’ The Koch Brothers-backed Americans for Prosperity urged the leadership to ‘go back to the drawing board’ a day before it released their bill.”

Over at Breitbart News, the lodestar of the Trump administration, readers variously dubbed it “Ryancare,” “Obamacare 2.0,” “Soroscare” or, for the wonks, “unEarned Income Tax Credit II.”

You see, Ryan wasn't cruel enough apparently when he included this:

Hundreds of billions of dollars taxes cuts for the wealthy (is helped) by raiding Medicaid, a health care program that benefits the poor but is also a lifeline to many elderly people ... by raising the cost of health coverage for those over the age of 55 and those with pre-existing conditions.

There's a reason no civilized country in the world would try doing this, right? Health care isn't a consumer product; you don't choose to buy or not buy treatment for a heart attack, cancer, broken arm...etc.

Even though this whole debate is just over the individual market, it effects all insurance premiums.

Let's review what increases looked like before the evils of "ObamaCare" kicked in:

Let's take a look at just how bad the ACA was insuring Americans, before and after "ObamaCare:"

In fact, I remember the following...

In August 2008, about six months before debate began in Washington on what would become the Affordable Care Act, 82 percent of Americans were so dissatisfied with the U.S. health care system they wanted it overhauled.

The main reason so many of us were uninsured in 2010 was that health insurance had simply become a budget-buster for many American families. The cost of employer-sponsored family coverage reached $13,375 in 2009, an increase of 131 percent in ten years, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

And almost 18 percent of our GDP is consumed by health care expenses, compared to 11.7 percent in France and 11.3 percent in Germany.

Under Bush, the average family premiums (including both what employers and employees pay) went up $4,677 in his last six years in office, from 2002 to 2008, an increase of 58 percent. Bush’s first six years that increase was 72 percent.

ACA repeal eliminates Dental Coverage for Kids up to 10 years old, and Adults with Exchange Policies.

Since my teenage years, I've never been able to figure out why dental care isn't considered "health care." What separates the mouth from every other part of the body for treatment? It's crazy. Instead of repeal or calling the ACA socialism, we should be talking about a universal system that include dental. But no....

Repealing the ACA, ObamaCare, will kill dental coverage for kids up to 10. No one ever talks about that:

Moving dental health into primary care: Medicaid coverage of adult dental services varies by state, although the Affordable Care Act increased access to dental insurance in part by expanding Medicaid. For children, the ACA mandated that health plans cover oral health risk assessments for kids up to 10 years old for free.

The two insurance policies I had on the ACA exchange included routine dental care. 

Oral health and medical health are inseparable. The U.S. healthcare system treats them otherwise.

The U.S. surgeon general published a report in 2000 describing the lack of access to dental care as a “silent epidemic” ... called for “an effective health infrastructure that integrates oral health effectively into overall health.” Poor oral health has been linked to heart disease and diabetes.

Scott Walker ought to like this: Getting the unemployed off drugs is justification for drug testing, then dental coverage should also be mandatory:

About 30% of low-income adults report that the condition of their mouth and teeth affects their ability to interview for a job, research by the American Dental Association's Health Policy Institute has found, and 42% report difficulties biting and chewing. Untreated dental problems can be deadly ... 12-year-old Deamonte Driver died from the complications of a toothache after bacteria from the abscess spread to his brain ... could have been treated or prevented.

Americans declare Trump officially Insane after Obama wire tap claim!!!

My conservative friend in Milwaukee is probably eating this stuff up. As much as he hates listening to Trump's voice, he still worships daily before the idol Trump. Here's a sample of his conversation with me:

"I'm laughing at the higher intellect we're in the White House you're not it had nothing to do with Russia ... John you can be labor the point to your blue in the face the Democratic party will not be in power for another 20 years they keep this shit up .... how many Democrats met with that same and ambassador?"

See. So meeting a Russian ambassador as a politician is the same as a candidate running for president meeting secretly with the ambassador of a hostile foreign government already attempting to manipulate our election?

And any new proclamation from Trump will be memorized and repeated by my friend a thousand times over...

It's like getting a daily tweet storm from the Onion every morning.....but today, wow:

Trump's Russian connection a Red Herring?

Meetings just a coincidence? 

Republicans will cut Health Insurance Deduction for Employers to pay for Reform, leading to skimpy benefits or no coverage at all.

Republicans do have a plan to pay for health care reform, but it starts by weakening the old mainstay; it poison pills employer provided health insurance by cutting their deduction. A similar but bigger reduction was a part of Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign. Modern Health:

Employer and business groups are shifting their lobbying efforts to fighting GOP proposals to chip away at the tax break on employer-provided health insurance to pay for the replacement healthcare law. Capping the tax break, they say, would cause employers to offer skimpier benefits, and some would stop offering coverage altogether. That would erode the employer-sponsored health insurance market.

If employers drop health benefits, the employer-sponsored market that provides coverage to 178 million Americans could lose its stability, opponents of the cap say. Today, employer-provided insurance receives the single largest federal tax break, estimated at more than $250 billion in 2016, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The dumbest reasons for cutting the employer tax deduction was the same reason the GOP loves high deductible plans:

As it stands, the unlimited subsidy gives consumers less reason to care about the cost of healthcare.

Because Americans don't already know how expensive health care is? At least now we'll all get bigger pay checks?  

House Speaker Paul Ryan argued the unlimited tax break holds down workers' wages and unfairly benefits the wealthy ... (it) limits the tax break to the 90th percentile of current group health insurance premiums. Benefits above that threshold would be taxed. Employers aren't about to trade the Cadillac tax for a cap on the tax break. 

Republican don't care, now oppose refundable Tax Credits, say it creates another entitlement.

Going to a free market health care system with no minimum coverage requirements and lots of exclusionary small print you’d need a lawyer to understand, sounds crazy, especially when every other country in the world not only thought it was a bad idea, but it was also immoral.

Now many Republicans oppose helping Americans pay their premiums with a tax credit, a deduction or subsidy because that would be an entitlement with the GOP’s stamp of approval.

Paul has introduced his own version of a replacement, in calling for a total repeal of the ACA. They argue that refundable tax credits are just another entitlement program. That means more federal spending. “Renaming and keeping parts of Obamacare, new entitlements and extending Medicaid expansion are not the #FullRepeal we promised. Conservatives aren't voting for that (the credit). So I think we should just brush that off the table.”

Adam Brandon, the president of FreedomWorks, a tea party-aligned group, said the House Freedom Caucus would rather lose than vote for a brand new entitlement that in their heart of hearts is not the answer.

Rep. Mark Walker (R-N.C.), head of the 172-member Republican Study Committee, said Monday his opposition stems from the draft bill's use of refundable tax credits.

Which would make health insurance once again…unaffordable.

Republicans will counter that you will still be able to buy a plan you can afford, you know, with nothing really covered...but you'll still have to make a monthly premium payment. Basically a junk policy.

Paul also wants a bill calling for a full repeal, and a separate bill for reform, which would leave the U.S. without anything until reform is passed.  I'm guessing that will never happen. Not good, right? 

Right-wing 7th Circuit Court Judges Struggle to Defend Voter Suppression.

I'm not even sure I read this right:

Judge Frank Easterbrook of the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals said those challenging Wisconsin’s voting laws were contending that Democrats can expand voting rules to help their party at the polls but Republicans can’t tighten them to their advantage. “That can’t be right,” he said during arguments in a pair of Wisconsin cases

Ah, there is a difference? One party is encouraging more voters to go to the polls, regardless of party, the other wants to..."tighten" the voter rules? And "that can't be right?"

Talk about legislating from the bench. But if you thought that was bad, check out this outrageous mind bender:

A Statement by then-state Sen. Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin) that Republicans needed to pass the voter ID law because of how it would affect Milwaukee neighborhoods and college campuses….

Bruce Spiva, an attorney for the groups challenging the voting laws, called her statement "extraordinary" and an explicit sign Republicans meant to make it difficult to vote for minorities and other Democratic-leaning voters.

The appeals judges were skeptical. “You say explicit statements, but they’re not as explicit as you describe them,” Judges Michael Kanne said.

You've got to be trying real hard to make these absurd arguments. Imagine what the judges said that didn't make this article.

Walker's Transportation plan? "...looking ahead...are there ways...whether or not the project...looking at trends..." blah, blah, blah.

Well, it's out finally, Scott Walker's next two year plan to solve the transportation debacle:

"We want to make sure that we're using every dollar wisely. I think part of it’s going to be looking ahead and determining whether or not there are better ways we can do the projects in the future. I think it’s a combination of looking at whether or not the project can be done more effectively and efficiently, but also just looking at trends."

Whew, that was close. Thank god he listened to concerned constituents and every business leader in the state. I'm just happy to clear this one of my list of...oh wait, not again.

Two more years of nothing.

In a revealing WPR news series by Shawn Johnson, Wisconsin's road disaster is obvious to everyone but Walker and most of the Republican legislature.

The Illinois side of the interstate is six lanes of concrete, three lanes in each direction. It’s flat, well-lit and finished. As drivers cross the state border on their way to Wisconsin, they immediately merge to a four-lane highway. The pavement is rougher. Construction equipment sits dormant for winter. Chunks of concrete and rebar litter some ditches.

"It's funny, when you cross the Wisconsin border, there might as well be a sign saying here's where the modern highway infrastructure ends," said Dan Cunningham, vice president of the group Forward Janesville. "You get to Illinois and it's just three lanes of really smooth traffic heading down to Chicago. And then you get into Wisconsin and it's ca-chunk, ca-chunk, ca-chunk."

Truck driver Bob Schroeder, who lives in Manitoba, said he sees problems. "From here to the Dells it needs attention," said Schroeder. Schroeder hauls expensive RVs and said he worries about getting them home undamaged. Still, he said he’s not about to avoid this stretch of highway.

Under Walker’s proposed 2017-19 budget, one big project that has long been a priority of business groups would be cut: an expansion of Interstate 94 west of Milwaukee between the Marquette and Zoo interchanges. Other projects, like an expansion of I-94 south of Milwaukee, would be significantly delayed. Even the plan to make I-39/90 six lanes — which is underway — will take at least another five years to complete under the Wisconsin DOT’s timetable.

What could the state do to solve the quick deterioration of our roads?

The 1979 report that warned Congress of the damages of heavy trucks also included some recommendations along those lines. "While there are many uncontrollable causes of highway deterioration, such as weather," the report stated, "excessive truck weight is one cause that can be controlled. By strictly enforcing their weight laws, states could virtually eliminate damage caused by overweight trucks."

That hasn’t happened in Wisconsin. While the state’s highway inspectors are busy, and state-of-the-art scales help them work faster than ever before, the state has eschewed a zero-tolerance approach when it comes to overweight trucks.

The Wisconsin Department of Transportation proposed adding 24 new highway inspectors in the 2013 state budget, citing a DOT study that showed overweight trucks cause $41 million in pavement damage annually in Wisconsin. Republicans on the state Legislature's Joint Finance Committee rejected the plan.

So what did Republicans do about excessive truck weight ripping up our roads?

Republican Sen. Alberta Darling, the committee’s co-chair, said in 2013, "Someone could think that they are within the boundaries of the weight and then find out they're not and then get slapped with a terrible fine. We think sometimes there has to be more consideration and flexibility."

Soon after, the full Legislature passed a new law increasing the weight limit for agricultural equipment on Wisconsin roads by 15 percent to 92,000 pounds. The latest rewrite of that law passed the Legislature unanimously, and meanwhile, heavy agricultural equipment on local roads remains a challenging issue in some parts of Wisconsin where large livestock farms are more common.

There you go. And with the GOP's no tax pledge to Grover Norquist, forget about extra funding for transportation. Check out Johnson's latest story:

Parody “Paul Ryan: The Magazine” seeks funding on Kickstarter. What's not to like?

Check out this noble cause on Kickstarter. I came across this clicking on an old Firedoglake link. Shadowproof:

click to enlarge

Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan is both a media darling, who positions himself as a leader that can temper President Donald Trump’s extremism, and an embodiment of much of Ayn Rand’s most destructive ideology, who is eager to carry out the agenda of the Koch Brothers. He is a character ripe for satire.

Andrew Lipstein and James Folta developed an “unofficial” parody magazine called “Paul Ryan: The Magazine.” It is a single-issue project that will be in color and span more than 160 pages. It will hopefully be funded through Kickstarter, and it will satirize Ryan as well as magazines in general. As of Feb 10, the project crossed the $10,000 mark on Kickstarter ... which it must reach to receive any money raised ... they expect to produce about 1,000 copies of the magazine and distribute it in October.

Desperate times call for dastardly magazines.

Back in 2009, Aetna dropped insurance for 350,000 people to increase health care profits.

I happen to notice a reader from India checking out an old post that reminded me of what health insurance was like before the ACA. This is what health care will like in this country once we put insurers back in charge via Trump/Ryan.

Insurers? Yes. You might not hear Republicans mention insurance companies very often if at all, but you will hear "patient centered" and "doctor/patient decisions."

In reality, insurers will be calling all the shots; what network for care, what doctors, what hospitals, how much coverage you'll get, what the price will be, co-pays and deductibles...you know, real freedom and liberty like stuff.

And insurers must make a big profit or else...they'll dumb hundreds of thousands by raising rates to unaffordable levels, except for the healthy wealthy.

From December, 2009: Aetna cuts 600,000 lives for profit

They cut members before for profit.

HuffingtonPost: "In a third-quarter earnings conference call in late October, officials at Aetna announced that in an effort to improve on a less-than-anticipated profit margin in 2009, they would be raising prices on their consumers in 2010. The insurance giant predicted that the company would subsequently lose between 300,000 and 350,000 members next year from its national account as well as another 300,000 from smaller group accounts.

Aetna’s decision to downsize the number of clients in favor of higher premiums is, as one industry analyst told American Medical News, a "pretty candid" admission. It also reflects the major concerns offered by health care reform proponents and supporters of a public option for insurance coverage, who insist that the private health insurance industry is too consumed with the bottom line. A government-run plan would operate solely off its members’ premiums."

Aetna is following the insurance company playbook as articulated last year by Wellpoint CEO Angela Braly when she said, "We will not sacrifice profitability for membership." In other words, the insurance companies won’t sell health coverage to more people if it means they will make less money on each person.

Yup, my generation, the Baby Boomers are Destroying everything!!!

Apparently I wasn't the only one wondering what happened to the baby boom generation, or as the Who described it, My Generation. Boomers helped usher in the sexual revolution, ant-war protests, civil rights, women's liberation, peace-love-and-understanding...etc. 

Suddenly, this amazing generation turned bad, real bad, freeloader bad. And I've been watching this in horror, because I'm a boomer.

The Boston Globes Bruce Cannon Gibney must have been reading my mind. Check out his article "How the baby boomers destroyed everything." Nailed it. Here are some of the highlights:

The body politic rests on the slab because boomers put it there, because decades of boomerism produced the problems and disaffection of which 2016 was merely the latest expression.

Something changed, and that something was the boomers and the sociopathic agenda they emplaced. They were the first generation to be raised permissively, the first reared on television and subject to its developmental harms, and the only living group raised in an era of seemingly effortless prosperity. Can too much license, TV, and unearned wealth distort personalities? May I suggest looking south toward 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?

UNFORTUNATELY, BOOMERS show no appetite for maintaining the assets their parents accumulated. Public higher education, nearly free for boomers, has become dauntingly expensive. Infrastructure is neither built nor maintained, and not even “responsible” boomers take this seriously.

It was then-candidates John McCain and Hillary Clinton, those paragons of boomer probity, who proposed a gas-tax holiday in 2008, the year the Highway Trust Fund went bust. Federal research and development funding also suffered, with dispiriting consequences for the future. Smartphones may be fairly recent, but their core technologies were developed with government money long ago. Enjoy your iPhone now, because your iCopter and iKidney will be indefinitely delayed.

The consequences of boomer overconsumption, underinvestment, and appetite for risk reveal themselves every time a bridge or bank collapses, but can be summarized in America’s prolonged economic mediocrity. The new normal is 1.6 percent real growth, well below the 2.5 to 3.5 percent rates prevailing from the 1950s to the 1980s. For the young, the price will be incomes 30 percent to 50 percent lower than they could have been.

When problems grow large, boomers resort to deceit, and the huge degradation of truth suggests just how bad things have gotten. The dubious draft deferments of the 1960s became the off-balance-sheet obligations of the 1990s, ginned-up weapons of mass destruction of the 2000s, and today’s phantom terrorism in Bowling Green and Sweden. “Alternative facts” are just the most recent consequences of the boomers’ declaration of epistemic bankruptcy.

If Trump has given America one gift, it’s a free hand to condemn the generation of which he is the impeachable id. Henceforth, let us expect no more from people who achieved so little, who have such small interest in the future. Let us dispense with ideas that aging flower children have substantial claims on goodness, as boomers liberal and conservative alike engaged in warrantless wiretapping, extrajudicial assassinations, gratuitous assaults on the dignity of minorities, mass disenfranchisement, the erection of a vast and useless penal state, and policies of cavalier disregard. Let us turn boomers out from offices high, corner, and otherwise, and keenly assess boomers’ contributions to society against their demands for interminable subsidy, finding some reasonable settlement. And let us do it soon.