COVID-19 & Healthcare

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Back in September 2011, I posted this piece, Please, just stop the ridiculous point/counterpoint opinions in the Star:

In recent weeks the Arizona Daily Star has taken to publishing a
point/counterpoint series of opinions on Monday from McClatchy News.
These opinions are invariably written by think tanks or politicians with
an agenda and a partisan axe to grind. There is very little factual
content and even less credible analysis. This is supposed to inform
readers how exactly?

* * *

Please, just stop the ridiculous point/counterpoint opinions. They are as useless and uninformative as the old 60 Minutes
point/counterpoint segment back in the 1970s with James Kilpatrick and
Shana Alexander spewing partisan invectives at one another. The media
villagers find this entertaining, but it is not informative.

Almost two years later, the lazy editors of the Arizona Daily Star are still running the ridiculous point/counterpoint opinions from McClatchy on Monday. The editors are doing a great disservice to readers when they publish propagandistic misinformation and disinformation from partisan think tanks masquearading as "opinion" on its editorial page.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

There's nothing like having billionaire wingnut benefactors to pay you to write propagandistic pseudo-scientific crap. Almost everything that comes out of right-wing think tanks starts with the predetermined conclusion they wish to make, and then they work backwards to fabricate a pseudo-scientific framework to give the study the veneer of credibility. The scientific method, however, requires systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses. You don't start with a conclusion.

The latest bullshit study from a Libertarian "think tank" (sic) comes from the Cato Institute, recycling a previous bullshit study from 1995 claiming that "welfare is better than work." Josh Barro at Business Insider, no socialist liberal, destroys this propagandistic pseudo-scientific crap. There's A New Study That Says Welfare Pays Better Than Work — Here's Why It's Total Nonsense:

The Cato Institute is out with an update to their 1995 study which purports to show that, in most states, welfare pays better than work.

They add up benefits available through eight programs to a low-income
woman with two children, and find total benefit values well in excess
of full-time minimum wage work, or even, in some states, middle-skill
work.

The study is called "The Welfare-Versus-Work Tradeoff," and it's
meant to show why people don't get off welfare. And it's B.S., for three
reasons.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

If young people do not sign up for health insurance it is not because they feel that they don't need health insurance (aka the "young invincibles"), but rather because (1) insurance premiums are too expensive, and (2) they are unaware of the provisions of the Affordable Care Act. This according to a new study by the nonpartisan Commonwealth Fund.

Commonwealth Fund Health Insurance Tracking Survey data from 2011 and
2013 show increasing awareness among young adults of the 2010
requirement that health plans cover children under age 26. Of the
estimated 15 million young adults enrolled in a parent’s plan in the
prior 12 months, 7.8 million would not likely have been eligible to
enroll prior to the law. Still, only 27 percent of 19-to-29-year-olds
are aware of the marketplaces. Meanwhile, most uninsured young adults
living below poverty will not have access to subsidized public or
private insurance in states opting out of the Medicaid expansion. Issue Brief (.pdf).

Reuters reported last week, Low prices seen luring young adults to Obamacare: study:

What uninsured young adults do when state
exchanges created under "Obamacare" open on October 1 will be one of the
most important factors in determining the success of the president's
signature domestic policy achievement. If too few young people, who tend
to be relatively healthy, sign up for coverage, then premiums might not
cover the medical costs of sicker people who do enroll.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Arizona Republic today gave Glenn Hamer, president and CEO of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, an opportunity to smear the Affordable Care Act aka "ObamaCare" based upon the United Parcel Service "Obama-Scare" story making the rounds in the conservative media entertainment complex this week. Employers try to get ahead of health law. While the reporting does include relevant caveats and opposing viewpoints, the organization of the article is confusing to readers and arguably misleading.

If you want clarity on the United Parcel Service "Obama-Scare" story in the conservative media entertainment complex, you need to read Jonathan Cohn at The New Republic. Why UPS Spouses Shouldn't Be (Too) Mad at Obamacare:

The latest Obamacare story getting everybody’s attention is about the United Parcel Service. On Wednesday, Kaiser Health News and USA Today reported
that UPS was making a change in its employee health plan—and that, as a
result, 15,000 spouses of UPS employees would lose access to company
insurance. One reason for the change, according to the company, is that
UPS faces higher insurance costs from Obamacare. Eliminating coverage
for these spouses is one way the company can reduce its employee benefit
costs.

The headlines certainly don’t look good. And, sure enough, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell
on Thursday cited the decision as more proof that Obamacare is a
fiasco. But like so many Obamacare stories, this one is more complicated
than it seems at first blush. Spousal coverage was becoming less common
even before the Affordable Care Act became law. At most, Obamacare is
hastening a trend that was already underway—quite possibly for some good
reasons. 

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Remember back when FreedomWorks and Americans For Prosperity had old white people carrying signs saying "Keep your government hands off my Medicare"? These teabaggers were so hopelessly ignorant that many genuinely believed that Medicare is not a government-mandated health care program.

Apparently none of them were ever intellectually curious enough to look at their paychecks for all of those years and wonder "Who is this FICA guy, and why is he taking my money?" [The Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) tax is for Social Security tax withholding (6.2% up to the annual maximum), and Medicare tax withholding (1.45%)].

As Timothy Noah pointed out at the time, "Medicare, you may have heard, is a government program, and the only way
to take the government's hands off it would be to abolish it—but the
joke is starting to wear thin." "Medicare isn't government" meme. – Slate Magazine:

The big lie that Medicare isn't, nor ever should be, financed and regulated by the government, is a nice illustration of Slate founder Michael Kinsley's hypothesis, articulated in his 1995 book Big Babies,
that infantile denial lies at the heart of much contemporary political
disaffection.

The American people, Kinsley wrote, "make flagrantly
incompatible demands—cut my taxes, preserve my benefits, balance the
budget—then explode in self-righteous outrage when the politicians fail
to deliver." Although Kinsley conceded that big babyism had been enabled
by both conservative and liberal politics, he wrote: "It is
conservatives, more than liberals, who stoke the fires of resentment and
encourage vast swaths of the electorate to indulge in fantasies of
victimization by others." This is perhaps 1,000 times more true today than it was 14 years ago.

This infantile denial on Medicare is being repeated with the Affordable Care Act aka "ObamaCare."