American politics 2016: Lawyers, Guns, and D-Money

Isn't that 9% thing a red herring? Workers pay 2.2% in the Sanders plan, the other 6.6% is a payroll tax paid by employers who would no longer have to provide insurance for workers.

Isn't only using the "premiums" number also grossly misleading? Those are high deductible plans, and they have copays and coinsurance too. I don't think you have deductibles and coinsurance under single-payer. But yeah I guess a non-smoking family of four earning $50,000 a year who NEVER EVER ACTUALLY USE ANY HEALTH CARE SERVICES and buy the cheapest plan on the market would be a little worse off.

Just being able to live in a country where everyone was able to get health care based on their need for health care and not have to worry about whether they could afford it should be cause for joyous nationwide celebration. Because everyone needs health care and no one can predict or control how much health care they will need or when they will need it. That, and the fact that a single payer system done properly would not cost society a cent more than the train wreck we have now.

that goolsbee post was written before the sanders plan actually came out

ezra klein on bernie single payer plan

krugman:

My column and Bernie Sanders’ plan crossed in the mail. But the Sanders plan in a way reinforces my point that calls for single-payer in America at this point are basically a distraction. Again, I say this as someone who favors single-payer — but it’s just not going to happen anytime soon.

Put it this way: for all the talk about being honest and upfront, even Sanders ended up delivering mostly smoke and mirrors — or as Ezra Klein says, puppies and rainbows. Despite imposing large middle-class taxes, his “gesture toward a future plan”, as Ezra puts it, relies on the assumption of huge cost savings. If you like, it involves a huge magic asterisk.

Now, it’s true that single-payer systems in other advanced countries are much cheaper than our health care system. And some of that could be replicated via lower administrative costs and the generally lower prices Medicare pays. But to get costs down to, say, Canadian levels, we’d need to do what they do: say no to patients, telling them that they can’t always have the treatment they want.

Saying no has two cost-saving effects: it saves money directly, and it also greatly enhances the government’s bargaining power, because it can say, for example, to drug producers that if they charge too much they won’t be in the formulary.

But it’s not something most Americans want to hear about; foreign single-payer systems are actually more like Medicaid than they are like Medicare.

And Sanders isn’t coming clean on that — he’s promising Medicaid-like costs while also promising no rationing. The reason, of course, is that being realistic either about the costs or about what the system would really be like would make it a political loser. But that’s the point: single-payer just isn’t a political possibility starting from here. It’s just a distraction from the real issues.

But to get costs down to, say, Canadian levels, we’d need to do what they do: say no to patients, telling them that they can’t always have the treatment they want.

It should be noted that foreign single-payer systems are just as good or better than the US 'system' at delivering the outcomes people want.

neither of those are anti-single payer

Can certainly see how some of those details need to be explained, but I'm a little surprised by Klein's level of alarm - insisting the plan is "unrealistic" in the subtitle, the thing about hospitals closing, and the raising of income taxes on the wealthy (which is like 3.4-4% increase if you're making less than ten million dollars a year).

The thing I would say I'm most alarmed about in HRC's plan is nothing specific I can see about how the uninsured in states with right wing governors will ever get to go the doctor. At all.

In terms of the economics, I don't see anything in Clinton's plan to reduce insurance premium costs. Is that where people who are somewhat well off are primarily feeling it? I only see mention of reducing deductible and co-pay costs.

3.4-4% increase if you're making less than ten million dollars a year

And over $250K, of course.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-struggling-with-immigration-rules-and-cruelties-of-deportation/2016/01/18/5c2d4258-bba7-11e5-b682-4bb4dd403c7d_story.html

White House defense of DHS Ice sending women & kids back to Central America, is not that convincing

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/01/06/ice_raids_on_central_american_families_are_not_what_obama_promised.html

You want smoke and mirrors, how about all these scare pieces about single payer that don't remind that single payer does not preclude you from going to a private doctor or dentist or whatever as need arrises, which is what my family in Australia and England do. Meanwhile, here in the states, I had to (ultimately successfully) waste hours and hours telling five different people that the $300 balance my good insurance stuck me with for taking my daughter in to a clinic for a mere strep swap was bullshit and possibly dishonest.

How much weight do studies like these put on the anticipated savings from single-payer that derive, not from reducing overhead and marketing and the administrative apparatus that's in place to try and deny coverage for strep swabs, but rather from the health benefits of the public having easier access to care at earlier junctures? My understanding has always been that this was one of the biggest fiscal (not to mention humanitarian) arguments for single-payer: if it doesn't cost you to go check out this cough or a weird feeling in your side, you're more likely to go check it out when it's comparably cheap and easy to address, rather than once it's developed into a major life-threatening condition requiring long-term high-tech treatment.

Thing is, I can't fathom how anyone would calculate that savings... so is it factored in at all?

White House defense of DHS Ice sending women & kids back to Central America, is not that convincing

not really sure why the feds are doing such a politically counter-productive action that doesnt really benefit anyone. except like 'rule of law' stuff that's casually brushed aside in other matters.

My column and Bernie Sanders’ plan crossed in the mail. But the Sanders plan in a way reinforces my point that calls for single-payer in America at this point are basically a distraction. Again, I say this as someone who favors single-payer — but it’s just not going to happen anytime soon.

I like Krugman but he is SO SO SO SO wrong about this being a "distraction." We should never, ever shut up about single payer, no matter the immediate odds, and suggesting otherwise is craven.

I get it, Sanders is promoting policies that may not be politically feasible right now, but saying "everyone just be quiet about it" is a good way to make sure the left stays asleep and NEVER gets these things done.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2016/01/20/palin-blames-son-s-violence-on-obama.html?source=TDB&via=FB_Page

someone make this deeply stupid person go away

offered w/out comment

https://theintercept.com/2016/01/20/sarah-palin-is-making-sense-really/

yeah i think krug is being too harsh. it's funny cause he and stiglitz would really be the perfect endorsement for bernie; they're the furthest left you can go in credible mainstream economics, would give him a much needed sheen of electability. but they're both tight with Clintons so it's just not gonna happen

I like Krugman but he is SO SO SO SO wrong about this being a "distraction." We should never, ever shut up about single payer, no matter the immediate odds, and suggesting otherwise is craven.

the majority of bernie sanders' platform is stuff that has zero chance of happening even were he elected, so if you just consider him a symbol of 'the left' it's good that a lot of this stuff is getting tv time.

otoh if you consider him an actual-political-candidate his whole campaign is super disingenuous. if only people who were disappointed w/ the obama presidency could have the chance to experience president sanders dealing w/ a republican congress.

the chance to experience president sanders dealing w/ a republican congress.

the main reason we have Sanders as our only alternative to Clinton is in part due to Sanders' poor grasp (or disregard) of 'political reality'. the realists saw the minefield they would be entering and stayed on the sideline. the Don Quixote aspects of Sanders are pretty prominent. so, he is our only alternative to Clinton and he will not succeed in his quest. I'm still glad someone is talking about the issues from a left-progressive perspective, so that perspective is at least given some airing out. he fills the need for a rallying point the left can attach themselves to.

sarah-palin-is-making-sense

We, you, a diverse dynamic, needed support base that they would attack.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/01/right-wingers-turn-on-criminal-justice-reform.html

Tom Cotton and others trying to kill bipartisan criminal justice reform bill

Cotton isn’t alone. Other Senate Republicans, including Sens. Jim Risch of Idaho and David Perdue of Georgia, also registered their strong opposition during the lunch, even as Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) vigorously defended the bill, which he helped negotiate. Risch stressed this message, according to one Republican source: Shouldn’t the GOP be a party of law and order?

how much of today's Obama-Sanders WH meeting is going to be about Bern opposing the FDA pick?

Sen Warren reports on toothless enforcement vs corporate crime:

In virtually all the cases she cites — from Standard & Poor’s delivering inflated credit ratings to defraud investors during the financial crisis, to Novartis giving kickbacks to pharmacists to steer customers to their products, to an explosion at a Bayer CropScience pesticide plant that killed two employees — the Department of Justice declined to prosecute individual executives or the corporations themselves, resorting to settlements with minuscule fines that barely disrupt the corporations’ business models.

The report also gives new meaning to the term “1 percent.”

JPMorgan’s settlement for giving conflicted advice to its clients over wealth management products was less than 1 percent of annual operating profits.

GM paid under 1 percent of company revenue to settle claims on the faulty ignition switch that killed multiple vehicle passengers.

For-profit college EDMC ripped off students with false promises of well-paying jobs, and paid below 1 percent of its student loan revenue over the period of violations....

Despite multiple promises by President Obama’s Department of Justice to stiffen enforcement of corporate misconduct, including a 2015 memo creating new guidelines for prosecutions of individuals, almost all major instances lead to toothless settlements, Warren writes. “Accountability has been shockingly weak.”

https://theintercept.com/2016/01/29/elizabeth-warren-challenges-clinton-sanders-to-prosecute-corporate-crime-better-than-obama/

State rep and Cruz campaign functionary lies pointlessly about military service, resigns

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/rep-graham-hunt-resigns-over-military-service-exaggerations/

they always get caught. i don't understand it.

I would've totally court martialed guys like that back when I was a general.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CaUwofjWEAA_J8N.png

so Obama visited a mosque.

Union picket line and Bernie phone bank are next. #FullBulworth

caucus trivia: first building in the usa built specifically to be a mosque is in iowa

Federal court strikes down NC congressional district maps

Three federal judges on Friday threw out the congressional voting maps the Republican-led General Assembly drew five years ago, ruling that two districts were gerrymandered along racial lines.

The ruling throws the March 15 primary into chaos, as the judges ordered state lawmakers to redraw the maps within two weeks and not to hold any elections for U.S. House until the maps are in place. A special session of the legislature would have to be called to approve new maps, and they might have to pass federal muster again.

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LU8vk8EH0yg/VTM4WZUS1QI/AAAAAAAAAio/pyx7ONxGpkc/s1600/casablanca34.gif

You would think, that with the possibility that a court would throw the districts out, someone would have a spare map drawn up just in case.

voting rights act is so last-century

It's like watching a lava lamp.

http://i.imgur.com/NP32c5o.gif

apalachia, never change

looks like a big tobaccky field fire to me

No seriously, the Appalachia district hardly changes.

harvey gantt otm

http://cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/krugman-on-bernie-sanders-electability

The super-delegates are just under 15 percent of the total number of delegates. If Clinton wins this group by a margin of 80% to 20% (she has more than 95% of the super-delegates who have already made a commitment), then Sanders would have to capture more than 55 percent of the elected delegates to get the nomination.

This means that Sanders could not get the nomination just by scraping by in the primaries; he would need a decisive victory. The question then is, if Clinton were to lose decisively in the primaries to a candidate who has all the weaknesses touted by the experts to whom Krugman referred us, how likely is it that she would have been able to win the general election if Sanders had not gotten in her way?

Despair, Sanders fans. Krugman has the business.

all I want out of November is chaos.

however it'd be great if Clinton won the nomination antidemocratically and there was a lil "revolution" to redress that.

http://rlv.zcache.com/jefferson_tree_of_liberty_poster-ra2241f73a53e489fb51ba68c72a6732f_wad_8byvr_324.jpg

In a harsh partisan snub, the Republican chairmen of the Senate and House budget committees — Senator Michael B. Enzi of Wyoming and Representative Tom Price of Georgia — have chosen not to invite Shaun Donovan, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, to testify about the administration’s plan, set to be released on Tuesday as part of the traditional budget week festivities.

“Rather than spend time on a proposal that, if anything like this administration’s previous budgets, will double down on the same failed policies that have led to the worst economic recovery in modern times, Congress should continue our work on building a budget that balances and that will foster a healthy economy,” Mr. Price said in a statement.

Mr. Obama’s budget proposal is of course not likely to please congressional Republicans, and it was never going to be adopted by the Republicans in the House and Senate. They have already expressed outrage at its proposed $10 a barrel tax on oil. But to refuse to hear from Mr. Donovan seems an extreme break with the usual conventions of Capitol Hill and it denies the Republicans a chance to try to pummel him and the budget at a televised hearing. They typically enjoy that.

Republicans often complain that they can’t get administration witnesses they want to testify. They might hear about the budget snub the next time they are pressing for an administration official to turn up.

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/02/08/congress-declines-to-hear-obamas-budget-proposal-in-person/

rude

continued schaudenfreude re: the completely decimated/bordering on non-existent California GOP:

Low on funds and lagging in the polls, GOP Assemblyman Rocky Chavez has dropped out of California’s U.S. Senate race and will run for re-election to the Legislature.

Chavez, R-Oceanside (San Diego County), announced his withdrawal at the beginning of a radio debate for Senate candidates Monday night in San Diego.

Although he was the leading Republican in the race to replace retiring Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, Chavez was only pulling 7 percent support in a January Field Poll and had just $369 in campaign cash on hand, according to the latest federal financial disclosure forums. He had $42,889 of campaign debt, according to the filing.

Chavez’s departure leaves two major Republicans in the field, former state party Chairmen Duf Sundheim and Tom Del Beccaro. Both are polling at 3 percent, according to the latest Field Poll.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/02/12/us/politics/alan-graysons-double-life-congressman-and-hedge-fund-manager.html?referer=https%3A%2F%2Ft.co%2FjFp15qqKE6&_r=1

so this is...interesting. alan grayson has been running a hedge fund while sitting in congress

lol Grayson

Hadn't thought much about Senate-race politicking over the corpse in the robe. I assume there's gonna be a non-prez-election thread cuz sports fans can't get enough.

http://www.npr.org/2016/02/15/466735802/scalia-s-death-and-the-2016-senate-races