COVID-19 & Healthcare

John McCain misleads voters on ‘ObamaCare’

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Senator John McCain is running TV ads on the theme that the Affordable Care Act aka “ObamaCare” is in dire straits, and like all Tea-Publicans, he wants to repeal the law. McCain has called premium increases on Affordable Care Act exchanges “astronomically high.” But are these growing premiums actually high?

The Washington Post reports, Skyrocketing Obamacare premiums still lower than employer-sponsored insurance:

ObamacareA new analysis from the Urban Institute found that the average unsubsidized premiums in the Affordable Care Act exchanges, commonly known as Obamacare, are actually 10 percent lower than the full premiums in the average employer plan nationally in 2016.

Nationally, the average employer-sponsored premium was $516 a month, while the unsubsidized marketplace premium was $464. To make an apples-to-apples comparison, the researchers adjusted marketplace premiums to account for the age of enrollees and the different value of the health coverage provided by the marketplace plans.

The exchanges offer health coverage to people who aren’t insured through their jobs, with subsidies based on income. About 11 million people are insured through the marketplaces, compared with about 155 million Americans who receive insurance coverage through employer-provided plans.

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Census Report: a ‘trifecta’ of good economic news

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If you listen to Tea-Publicans tell the tale, America is a smoldering hellscape of economic ruin and despair on the verge of a zombie apocalypse. This may be true in isolated pockets of the country, mostly in red states controlled by Tea-Publican politicians. Maybe their citizens will finally wake up and realize therein lies their problem before election day.

For the rest of the country, things are looking up. As I posted about yesterday, Consumer Confidence Up in August to Highest Level in a Year:

economy“Consumer confidence improved in August to its highest level in nearly a year, after a marginal decline in July,” said Lynn Franco, director of Economic Indicators at The Conference Board. “Consumers’ assessment of both current business and labor market conditions was considerably more favorable than last month. Short-term expectations regarding business and employment conditions, as well as personal income prospects, also improved, suggesting the possibility of a moderate pick-up in growth in the coming months.”

And Americans are feeling the best about the U.S. economy that they have since before the 2008 economic collapse, a CNN/ORC poll released Friday has found. Poll: Economic outlook best in 9 years:

In a reflection of rising optimism, 53% of Americans say economic conditions in the US are good, up from the 45% who felt that way in June. It’s the highest number since September 2007, before the 2008 economic collapse.

The poll also showed that President Barack Obama continues to have majority approval ratings, at 51%. His approval rating has been at or above 50% since February, the longest stretch of his presidency since his first year in office.

The Census Bureau released more good economic news today. Middle class incomes had their fastest growth on record last year:

The incomes of typical Americans rose in 2015 by 5.2 percent, the first significant boost to middle-class pay since the end of the Great Recession and the fastest increase ever recorded by the federal government, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday.

In addition, the poverty rate fell by 1.2 percentage points, the steepest decline since 1968. There were 43.1 million Americans in poverty on the year, 3.5 million fewer than in 2014.

The share of Americans who lack health insurance continued a years-long decline, falling 1.3 percentage points, to 9.1 percent.

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Tea-Publicans sabotage ‘ObamaCare’ then complain that it isn’t working

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As insurers exit “ObamaCare” marketplaces across the country, critics of the Affordable Care Act have redoubled  their claims that the health law isn’t working.

Not surprisingly, many of these critics are Tea-Publican politicians in red states who actively took steps over the last several years to sabotage the 2010 law and fuel the current turmoil in their insurance markets. The states with the biggest Obamacare struggles spent years undermining the law:

ObamacareAmong other things, they blocked expansion of Medicaid coverage for the poor, erected barriers to enrollment and refused to move health plans into the Obamacare marketplaces, a key step to bringing in healthier consumers.

Those decisions left the marketplaces in many red states with poorer, sicker customers than they otherwise might have had.

Now, consumers are paying the price, as insurers seek major rate hikes or stop selling plans altogether.

This is not a failure of “ObamaCare” — it is a failure of red state Tea-Publican politicians who actively sabotaged the health care law rather than experiment with state-run insurance marketplaces to make health insurance more efficient and affordable, as the law provided.

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The media needs to demand that Donald Trump release his test results for Alzheimer’s disease

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On Sunday, the Washington Post‘s latest exposé on Donald Trump’s foundation was How Donald Trump retooled his charity to spend other people’s money: “Trump had found a way to give away somebody else’s money and claim the credit for himself.”

Did anyone in the media report on this latest scandal? No, of course not.

clinton-trumpHillary Clinton stumbled after feeling overheated and suffering from a recent bout of pneumonia at the 9/11 Remembrance in New York, and the media went into a “shark week” feeding frenzy providing an echo chamber for right-wing conspiracy theories based upon fake medical records circulating on conservative Internet websites, and Fox News’ Sean Hannity, a Trump campaign adviser, having recently played footage of Clinton vigorously shaking her head to avoid answering a question from her press corps that he said was “seizure-esque.” This prompted one of the reporters who witnessed the incident to publish a response knocking down Hannity’s false claim. Clinton cancels trip to California after ‘overheating’ spell, pneumonia diagnosis.

The elite elitist Beltway media villagers who travel with the campaigns were upset that they were not immediately informed of Clinton’s illness because they should always be consulted first before the doctor — after all, they are Gods dontcha know, and they will determine who will be president of the United States with their narrative reporting. Hillary Clinton has not been quick to share health information, and Clinton aide says, ‘We could have done better,’ amid criticism over health disclosures.

It apparently never occurs to these elitist pricks that their over-the-top “shark week” feeding frenzy coverage on Sunday is why the candidates are not inclined to share every intimate detail of their life with them.

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When our less-than-less-than-do-nothing Congress returns in September …

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US CapitolOur less-than-less-than-do-nothing Congress decided to start its August recess early, failing to address legislative priorities, as they hightailed it out of town on July 14 for a seven-week recess.

Congress will return the day after Labor Day. “D.C. Work Week” days are only scheduled in the House until September 30. The Senate is scheduled to work the first week of October as well. (Schedules are subject to change).

September 30 is an important date that has not received much media attention. It is the end of the Fiscal Year. The House has passed five spending measures and the Senate has passed just three, leaving Congress with unfinished appropriations bills that need to be addressed following the August recess.

There is not enough time for this dysfunctional Congress to actually complete its essential job function on time.

None of the individual appropriations bills have been sent to the President, and it is likely that a stop-gap continuing resolution (CR) spending bill will be needed to fund the federal government past the end of the fiscal year on September 30.

With our less-than-less-than-do-nothing Congressional members wanting to get back to their districts to campaign some more for reelection in October — as if they deserve to be reelected — it is unlikely that the  Republican House Freedom Caucus has enough support to shut down the federal government in an election year stunt, but you never know.

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