Dennis Prager discusses a few news worthy stories that would warn the us of a cultural change toward totalitarianism… a cultural Marxist ideology. The previous hour of this day had this story as well: — as well as playing this audio.
You see, “fake news” is often merely a bias working its way out in “what” gets reported. IN this case, we know nothing about cultural “red-flags” but know a lot about a nonexistent Russian collusion.
The most urgent matter that Attorney General Sessions will face is that of deciding the fate of FBI director James Comey. Comey was appointed in 2013 for a statutory term of ten years. In principle, however, he can be removed by the president at any time. President Bill Clinton removed FBI director William Sessions about halfway through his term on charges that Sessions had misused official resources. Although President Clinton discharged Sessions for cause, the statute creating the FBI director does not limit the grounds for termination, and we believe that the president’s constitutional authority of removal would allow him to fire Comey for any reason. Rather than firing the FBI director, however, it is more likely that the president would first request his resignation. We think that Director Comey should leave office for the good of the FBI and the nation.
(NATIONAL REVIEW – November 2016).
I posted the following Tweet on my FB…. and I got this:
Now. Knowing the person who made the comment and how he thinks, he was somehow — surely — connecting a belief in Vince Foster being a conspiracy (cover up) to my comparison. He would be wrong. Whatever you think of Vince Fosters death, it has no bearing on the media attention and narrative from then and now.
I simply responded:
These reporters, columnists, talking-heads all sound like Jerry Falwell (CNN MELTSDOWN):
What a joke the media has become. Forget the professional Democrat politician… the regular Nancy and Joe Bloe dislike Comey a lot… because of this:
The Clinton campaign blasted the FBI director, James Comey, for “jaw-dropping” double standards on Monday after claims that he had sought to withhold evidence of Russian support for Donald Trump for fear of influencing next week’s US election.
In a sharp escalation of their unprecedented war of words with federal law enforcement authorities, Clinton’s key aides contrasted this apparent caution with Comey’s controversial decision to release new details of its investigation into Clinton’s private email server to lawmakers on Friday.
“It is impossible to view this as anything less than a blatant double standard,” her campaign manager, Robby Mook, told reporters, claiming the decision “defied all logic”, especially as other intelligence agencies had favoured disclosure of suspected Russian involvement….
B-U-T N-O-W he is their martyr. Oh what a difference a day makes. RUSH LIMBAUGH thinks Trump is trolling the media… something I don’t think this is Presidential, if true. But this is the state of politics as I type. Comey. unlike the Left, is a man!
Former FBI Director James Comey on Wednesday sent a letter to agents and friends following President Trump firing him the previous day.
“I have long believed that a President can fire an FBI director for any reason, or for no reason at all,” he wrote, according to CNN. “I’m not going to spend time on the decision or the way it was executed.”
He continued: “I hope you won’t either. It is done, and I will be fine, although I will miss you and the mission deeply.”….
(THE HILL)
POST-SCRIPT: I find it comical that the Left says Trump just blurts out senescence when he speaks about topics, people, or his job. BUT THEN have a video of him saying he respects Comey for what he did with opening up the email case against her. Either Trump doesn’t know what he says or makes vapid statements… or the opposite.
I will first post a serious challenge/worry that the MSM (mainstream media) will be using as “special cases.” BUT FIRST, why is this not a good way to write law? That is, write law using special cases. Being that I am “conservative” and lean towards this bias, I will use some examples from these similar thinking people. The first zeroes in on a separate issue, but in regards to writing laws, it is the same:
…Proponents of gay marriage fail utterly to comprehend the idea that laws are made with society, not the individual, in mind. That is why they also fail to grasp the idea that law is predicated upon averages, not outliers. Interestingly, both libertarians and progressives suffer from this lack of understanding…
…But more often they try to undermine the link between marriage and childrearing by pointing to outliers—marriages in which couples choose not to have children or cannot have them because at least one partner happens to be infertile. But this argument only reveals the weakness of the progressive understanding of the law. Put simply, rules that are justified by the average case cannot be undermined by the exceptional case, otherwise known as the outlier. Thus the old maxim, “Hard cases make bad law.”…
Mike S. Adams, Letters To A Young Progressive (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2013), 81, 82.
The following two media files are the same analogy of car insurance explained by Dennis Prager, but two different times:
PREEXISTING CONDITIONS
With the above in mind, here is my first response via Facebook to a thoughtful post:
This is a thoughtful and understandable challenge by a single mother who is on a fixed income… she asks a question about her child with a malady and what the change in “pre-existing” is according to the current bill (remember, it will go through the senate, then most probably “conference,” reconciliation [by this time the CBO will have gone through the bill then — which will be tweaked from the one we are speaking to currently], and then be re-voted on)…
…here is her concern:
✦ My child’s digestive and respiratory issues caused by her being born prematurely and her grief depression caused by her farther dying when she was 5 are all considered pre-existing. As a single mother on a fixed income, her health care is an issue I do get very excited about!
With the AHCA, and the future fixes, premiums will fall dramatically. If you are caught without insurance for 63-days, you will pay about 30% more, but again, the overall payment will be much lower. Due to Obama-Care imploding (the latest example out of the many is Iowa having zero insurance coverage options, in other words, if you are a single mother on a fixed income in many states, you have zero options.
This was and is untenable. One of the GOP’s goals is to allow cross state competition for insurance groups that will increase pool sizes and lower costs dramatically. This has been illegal. Also, tort reform would be the single most beneficial thing that could be done… This is hard because injury lawyers are the first or second largest donors to the Democrat Party, so until we get enough conservative and other Republican’s to take this part of the issue seriously, the Democrats will continue to stand in the way of effective ways to lower your cost and increase your coverage options.
ADDENDUM 1
Just to add to make what I said clear (wanting clarity to reign). If you have not had insurance for 63-days — and AFTER this point you get an illness, this is when “pre-existing” kicks in. You see, I run a warehouse, and while the owner (a close friend) could afford the rise in his premiums, and I had insurance through my wife, the responsible young man who made $12 bucks an hour had insurance through Blue Cross on his own, lost his insurance because of Obama-Care. When he could find a policy again, it was more expensive. Two years after this it was more than twice as expensive as he was paying before O-Care. And he made the least in the warehouse. Why was it so expensive? His plane included pregnancy tests, Pap smear, mammogram, etc.
This way, through this legislation, the premiums should drop (esp. through more free market options in the future), but the cost won’t be a burden to poorer responsible people who have health insurance.
I just wanted clarify the above, as, I feel for you. Your concern is real! The call at the end of this interview is similar to your case (via my YouTube upload):
ADDENDUM 2
Sorry, one last thing, and this is to help you get through the weeds of Main Stream Media and all the other sources you will come across — yes, even me. The best non-partisan summary is this:
➤ States may opt-out of requiring premiums to be the same for all people of the same age, so while individuals with pre-existing conditions must be offered health insurance there is no limit on the cost of that insurance. A new $8 billion fund would help lower premiums for these individuals.
So even with the “ding” against “pre-existing” cases, there is money set aside for people just like you… if your state chooses to participate. BTW, this is called Federalism light… it is more Constitutional than the previous plan. Something we should all be moving towards.
The above Kellyanne Conway Tweeting of a WASHINGTON POST OP-ED by Cathy McMorris Rodgers:
Hearing late-night host Jimmy Kimmel’s emotional monologue this week about his son’s condition and his family’s experience in the moments after his birth, I had a flashback to the day my son was born and we learned he had Down syndrome.
My husband and I had a lot of questions about Cole’s future. Whether he’d have health care shouldn’t have had to be one of them. When you’re facing years of doctor’s appointments, you want to know that having a preexisting condition, such as an extra 21st chromosome or a heart defect, won’t prevent you or your loved ones from accessing the care you need.
Protections for children such as Cole Rodgers and Billy Kimmel have long existed, as they should. And despite what people are saying, House Republicans aren’t seeking to strip these protections — or anyone’s protections — away.
[….]
To me, protecting people with preexisting conditions isn’t just good policy — it’s a personal mission.
All across the country, families like mine have real concerns about the future of health care, and they are why we’re focusing on results and working on these reforms. Obamacare is wrong for America. It has failed, and it’s only getting worse — making health care more expensive and less accessible. To stand by and do nothing would be irresponsible. The AHCA is a monumental step forward that trusts the American people — not the federal government — to make the best decisions for themselves and their families….
She does state elsewhere that for two years premiums will still rise, but that this is a “PART 1” of a three-part “fix,” and from all I have read, they will not rise nearly as fast as under O-Care.
OTHER NATIONS OFFER HEALTH-CARE…
…EXCEPT THE FASCIST GOP…
Here is another challenge, albeit not so thoughtful:
Just a quick note… Hitler’s Germany offered single-payer health care… speaking of “fascists.” Here is my FB response, I will add something a bit later:
Canada, the UK, Norway, etc., Are all moving toward free-market health-care as their single payer systems fail… I have read quite a few books on this over the years (a classic I recommend is “Code Blue: Reviving Canada’s Health Care System”) dealing with the issue, it is a bit more complicated than your “erudite” synopsis. For instance, to exemplify my point a bit, here is some commentary by the guy who is the founder of the Canadian model of health care, which the UK also used for their model:
“Back in the 1960s, (Claude) Castonguay chaired a Canadian government committee studying health reform and recommended that his home province of Quebec — then the largest and most affluent in the country — adopt government-administered health care, covering all citizens through tax levies.
The government followed his advice, leading to his modern-day moniker: “the father of Quebec medicare.” Even this title seems modest; Castonguay’s work triggered a domino effect across the country, until eventually his ideas were implemented from coast to coast.”
Four decades later, as the chairman of a government committee reviewing Quebec health care this year, Castonguay concluded that the system is in “crisis.”
“We thought we could resolve the system’s problems by rationing services or injecting massive amounts of new money into it,” says Castonguay. But now he prescribes a radical overhaul: “We are proposing to give a greater role to the private sector so that people can exercise freedom of choice.”
But that is why most insurance companies backed O-Care to begin with, as a way to weed out competition. Private practices could not compete, other option (that allowed for groups of private citizens to form their own catastrophic care groups became illegal), etc… So greed plays a part, but not the way you think. Here are a couple of short examples of Econ 101 to make my point on my site: BAM! WHAT IS CRONY CAPITALISM
Here Is My Addition Here On My Site
SCANDINAVIAN SOCIALISM
One can read and listen/watch all the media on my main post about “
Economics 101
In an excellent Bloomberg article entitled, “Booming Sweden’s Free-Market Solution,” the myth is dismantled in toto by Anders Aslund. Here is a snippet:
…From 1970 until 1989, taxes rose exorbitantly, killing private initiative, while entitlements became excessive. Laws were often altered and became unpredictable. As a consequence, Sweden endured two decades of low growth. In 1991-93, the country suffered a severe crash in real estate and banking that reduced GDP by 6 percent. Public spending had surged to 71.7 percent of GDP in 1993, and the budget deficit reached 11 percent of GDP.
TURNING POINT
The combination of the crisis and the non-socialist government under Carl Bildt from 1991 to 1994 broke the trend and turned the country around. In 1994, the Social Democrats returned to power and stayed until 2006. Instead of revoking the changes, they completed the fiscal tightening. In 2006, a non-socialist government returned, and Finance Minister Anders Borg, with his trademark ponytail and earring, has led further reforms. Sweden successfully weathered the global financial crisis that started in 2008, and the Financial Times named Borg Europe’s best finance minister last year.
Before 2009, Sweden had a budget surplus, and it has one again. For the past two years, economic growth has been 4 percent on average, and the current-account surplus was 6.7 percent in 2011. The only concerns are the depressed demand for exports caused by the current euro crisis and an unemployment rate that is about 7.5 percent.
Sweden’s traditional scourge is taxes, which used to be the highest in the world. The current government has cut them every year and abolished wealth taxes. Inheritance and gift taxes are also gone. Until 1990, the maximum marginal income tax rate was 90 percent. Today, it is 56.5 percent. That is still one of the world’s highest, after Belgium’s 59.4 and there is strong public support for a cut to 50 percent.
The 26 percent tax on corporate profits may seem reasonable from an American perspective, but Swedish business leaders want to reduce it to 20 percent. Tax competition is fierce in some parts of Europe. Most East European countries, for example, have slashed corporate taxes to 15-19 percent….
[….]
A Challenge Directed At Me
In conversation about an audio upload to my YouTube Channel of Dennis Prager discussing Bernie Sanders, I was challenged with this:
To which I responded with a quote from an International Business Times article:
Finland is joining military exercises with other Scandinavian countries, as well as several members of NATO, in late May, Finnish media report. The maneuvers called Arctic Challenge will span 12 days, starting May 25, and include nine countries and close to 100 planes. The drills, over Sweden and northern Norway, come amid increased tensions between Russia and its Baltic and Nordic neighbors.
Sweden and Switzerland, which like Finland are not members of NATO, are expected to join the exercise, along with NATO members Norway, the Netherlands, Britain, France, Germany and the United States. Finland plans to send 16 F-18 Hornet fighter jets, while the other countries will supply Gripen “multirole” fighters, F-16s, Eurofighters and Jet Falcons, as well as transports and tankers, Russian news agency Sputnik reported. The Norwegian armed forces said the purpose of the Arctic Challenge exercise is to “learn to coordinate efforts in complicated flight operations conducted in cooperation with NATO.”
Russia has ramped up military activity along its borders with northern Europe, causing consternation in several Baltic and Nordic countries and pre-emptive actions to head off — or prepare for — a possible military crisis. Latvia, which reported a Russian submarine near its coast in mid-March, is beefing up security on its eastern border, while Finland recently began a letter campaign notifying some 900,000 reservists of their duties in a potential crisis. Sweden also intercepted four Russian planes flying over the Baltic Sea in March with their radios off. Russian jets have been intercepted in other instances while flying in European international airspace….
I also pointed out that this promise went back to the Cold War, and was not known about till a Swedish defense think-tank/security firm uncovered the agreements in 1994. The original story’s link has been lost, but it is here on FOI’s site. FOI’s “about us” page has this:
Here is the info from the old article via WIKI:
Initially after the end of World War II, Sweden quietly pursued an aggressive independent nuclear weapons program involving plutonium production and nuclear secrets acquisition from all nuclear powers, until the 1960s, when it was abandoned as cost-prohibitive. During the Cold War Sweden appeared to maintain a dual approach to thermonuclear weapons. Publicly, the strict neutrality policy was forcefully maintained, but unofficially strong ties were purportedly kept with the U.S. It was hoped that the U.S. would use conventional and nuclear weapons to strike at Soviet staging areas in the occupied Baltic states in case of a Soviet attack on Sweden. Over time and due to the official neutrality policy, fewer and fewer Swedish military officials were aware of the military cooperation with the west, making such cooperation in the event of war increasingly difficult. At the same time Swedish defensive planning was completely based on help from abroad in the event of war. Later research has shown that every publicly available war-game training, included the scenario that Sweden was under attack from the Soviets, and would rely on NATO forces for defence. The fact that it was not permissible to mention this aloud eventually led to the Swedish armed forces becoming highly misbalanced. For example, a strong ability to defend against an amphibious invasion was maintained, while an ability to strike at inland staging areas was almost completely absent.
In the early 1960s U.S. nuclear submarines armed with mid-range nuclear missiles of type Polaris A-1 were deployed outside the Swedish west coast. Range and safety considerations made this a good area from which to launch a retaliatory nuclear strike on Moscow. The submarines had to be very close to the Swedish coast to hit their intended targets though. As a consequence of this, in 1960, the same year that the submarines were first deployed, the U.S. provided Sweden with a military security guarantee. The U.S. promised to provide military force in aid of Sweden in case of Soviet aggression. This guarantee was kept from the Swedish public until 1994, when a Swedish research commission found evidence for it. As part of the military cooperation the U.S. provided much help in the development of the Saab 37 Viggen, as a strong Swedish air force was seen as necessary to keep Soviet anti-submarine aircraft from operating in the missile launch area. In return Swedish scientists at the Royal Institute of Technology made considerable contributions to enhancing the targeting performance of the Polaris missiles.
End Of Addition For This Posting
REPUBLICAN’S EXEMPTED THEMSELVES FROM THE BILL
After a friend posted something asbout the house passing the American Health Care Act (AHCA), his own flesh and blood… his mother… wrote:
American Health Care Act (AHCA),
I respond,
Yes, this is a great example of misinformation via the MSM [the Left]. But the reason that separated the two is explained well in this article…. BUT BEFORE THAT EXCERPT, which is more in-depth, let’s go barney style first:
NYT CORRESPONDENT FALSELY REPORTS HOUSE MEMBERS VOTED TO EXEMPT THEMSELVES FROM GOP HEALTH CARE BILL
A New York Times correspondent falsely reported Thursday on Twitter that members of the House of Representatives unanimously voted to exempt themselves from the Republican health care bill.
A day earlier, reporters noticed that a provision in the American Health Care Act would exempt lawmakers and their staff from losing some of the repealed Obamacare provisions. In response to the criticism, House leadership announced they would vote separately on the issue.
The House voted 429-0 to pass a bill rectifying the mistake, preventing lawmakers from being exempted. But the New York Times‘ chief White House correspondent, Peter Baker, apparently misunderstood the vote…..
OKAY, now that the short synopsis is done, let us get into the weeds for those interested in how BIG GOVERNMENT works.
This comes from BUSINESS INSIDER:
HERE’S WHY CONGRESS EXEMPTED ITSELF FROM THE NEW HEALTHCARE BILL
Last week, Vox dug into the Republican healthcare bill and found a provision that would exempt Congress and its staff from many of the bill’s effects.
This provision was bad “optics,” as they say in Washington.
But instead of taking it out — like you would usually do with a provision you aren’t wedded to and can’t defend politically — the House passed the American Health Care Act with the exemption intact after first passing a separate bill that would repeal the exemption that would be created by the AHCA if both bills became law.
There’s a reason for this mess, and it’s not about Republicans in Congress not wanting to be subject to their law.
It’s about Senate procedure.
Republicans are attempting to pass the AHCA through a process called reconciliation. This process, created by the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, allows the Senate to pass certain bills relating to the federal budget with just a simple majority. There is no need to get 60 votes — and, in this case, some Democratic support — as there is for other legislation.
A variety of complex rules govern what matters may and may not be considered through reconciliation.
One of those is that reconciliation must be conducted pursuant to reconciliation instructions passed by both chambers of Congress. That happened earlier this year — Congress sent reconciliation instructions to two Senate committees (finance; and health, education, labor, and pensions) that were designed to allow those committees to write bills making changes to healthcare policy.
The problem, as the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget explains, is that Congress’ healthcare is governed by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and that committee was not sent any reconciliation instructions.
Therefore, if a reconciliation bill makes changes to the way Congress gets its healthcare, it might become subject to a 60-vote threshold because it addresses a matter that is supposed to be the purview of a committee that doesn’t get to participate in reconciliation this year.
Here I add some information I came across a day later:
ADDENDUM 1
And also from FACTCHECK.ORG, there was this updated insight that confirms the above:
….Indeed, Republican Rep. Martha McSally of Arizona proposed a stand-alone bill to strike the exemption of Congress from state waiver provisions should the AHCA be enacted into law. From the House floor, McSally said that “due to very arcane Senate procedural rules within the budget reconciliation process,” the MacArthur amendment “does not and cannot apply to members of Congress.”
“I believe that any law we pass [that] applies to our constituents must also apply equally to members of Congress,” McSally said. “Individuals who are stewards of public trust must abide by the rules that they make.”
McSally’s bill passed on May 4 by a 429-0 vote. Unlike a reconciliation bill, the McSally bill would require 60 votes in the Senate to pass.
So there are now two bills that the House sent to the Senate. The AHCA — for esoteric procedural reasons — would exempt members of Congress and their staffs from state waiver provisions. But then there’s a bill that would strike that exemption if the AHCA becomes law. Clearly, based on the unanimous vote for the McSally bill, there is bipartisan agreement that a health care law Congress passes should apply in the same way to members of Congress.
NOW, to the last, and the worst of them all… and I will link to the many articles refuting it with a couple commentaries from a few.
RAPE AS A PREEXISTING CONDITION
It is the — yes crazy — understanding that RAPE is a pre-existing condition. Dumb! [<<< my commentary]. Here is the first “non-partisan” [left-leaning] POLITIFACT notes this claim is… WAIT FOR IT…
~ MOSTLY FALSE! ~
And the WASHINGTON POST gives it their MAXIMUM debunking rating of FOUR PINOCCHIOS
I know… crazy huh? Someone told my wife — roughly this:
I sent her this post from the not Trump friendly REASON.ORG website… to which yesterday the last article makes clear their bottom line:
If Democrats and progressives would just stick to actual details of the AHCA, they would still have plenty of material to make Republicans look bad (and the same goes for traffic-thirsty bloggers). But once again, that’s not enough for them. In their zeal to portray Donald Trump and the current GOP as worse than Nazis, the actual details of the bill don’t matter—and if that terrifies a ton of sexual-assault survivors and terrorizes American women in the process, so be it.
Since yesterday the article has been updated substantially, which I will post a portion of:
Update | May 6, 11:30 a.m.: Since I posted this, several other media outlets have investigated the rape-as-preexisting-condition claims and come to similar conclusions as mine. Politifact declared the claim “mostly false,” and The Washington Post—which yesterday morning published an op-ed yesterday perpetuating the rape claim—ran a Fact Checker column today giving it Four Pinnochios. “The notion that AHCA classifies rape or sexual assault as a preexisting condition, or that survivors would be denied coverage, is false,” wrote the Post’s Michelle Ye Hee Lee. In addition, “almost all states (at least 45 to 48) have their own laws protecting survivors of domestic violence and sexual abuse.”
“It takes several leaps of imagination to assume that survivors of rape and sexual assault will face higher premiums as a result of conditions relating to their abuse,” Lee continues.
A person would need to be in the individual or small-group market (most Americans under 65 are on employer-provided plans), in a state that sought waivers, and in one of two to five states that did not prohibit insurance-company discrimination against survivors of sexual abuse.
In other words, this claim relies on so many factors — including unknown decisions by a handful of states and insurance companies — that this talking point becomes almost meaningless.
We always say at The Fact Checker that the more complicated the topic, the more susceptible it is to spin. Both media coverage and hyperbole among advocates are at fault for creating a misleading representation of the House GOP health bill. We wavered between Three and Four Pinocchios, but the out-of-co
ntrol rhetoric and the numerous assumptions pushed us to Four Pinocchios.
Pre-Existing Sub
What is also sad is that people do not read the bill outside it being put into political talking points outside the media or their organizations. I have already noted the following above:
The best non-partisan summary is this:
➤ States may opt-out of requiring premiums to be the same for all people of the same age, so while individuals with pre-existing conditions must be offered health insurance there is no limit on the cost of that insurance. A new $8 billion fund would help lower premiums for these individuals.
But here is more of a response to the broader challenge at hand:
Myth #2: People with pre-existing conditions will lose their coverage or pay more.
In fact, people who have health insurance and want to make changes to their coverage during open enrollment or after a qualifying life event (birth of a child, job loss, marriage, death, divorce, move, etc.) cannot be charged more for health insurance because of a pre-existing condition.
That said, if someone went uninsured and waited until they got sick to enroll in a health insurance plan, the MacArthur amendment to the AHCAgives states the authority to try to prevent that from happening.
One of the things a state could do, under this amendment, would be to allow insurance companies to charge people with pre-existing conditions more money for their health insurance, if they’ve been uninsured for an extended period of time.
Those higher charges can last a maximum of one year.
The AHCA also provides $138 billion to help states cover the high cost of caring for people with pre-existing medical conditions.
(eHealth)
One of the authors of the AHCA has a congenetital heart issue, he says this in an op-ed:
The American Health Care Act (AHCA) that I voted for and passed in the House does just that:
(THE HILL)
And finally, here are a repition of what is above, but for good measure:
1. The Upton Amendment: The Upton Amendment, named after Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mi.), adds another $8 billion on top of the aforementioned $100 billion to cover high-risk patients with chronic and/or pre-existing conditions. This amendment was put in place to help satisfy more moderate-leaning Republicans who felt the AHCA took too much away from their constituents.
Here is the final explanation to be clear:
….As the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities puts it, without community rating, “Insurers could increase premiums by unlimited amounts for people with a history of cancer, hypertension, asthma, depression, or other conditions.”
Likewise, lifting the essential health benefits requirement would allow insurers to offer plans that don’t cover chemotherapy, maternity care, prescription drugs, or other expensive treatments.
In other words, insurers could effectively turn away the sick by refusing to sell policies that cover the services they need at any price, much less an affordable one.
These concerns are wildly overstated.
First, the only people supposedly at risk of being denied affordable coverage by these waivers are the 7 percent of Americans who buy coverage in the individual insurance market.
Insurers have long been banned from discriminating against the sick in the employer-sponsored market, where a little less than 160 million Americans get their coverage. Those with pre-existing conditions who get their coverage from Medicare, Medicaid, or another government program have nothing to worry about, either.
Second, the House-passed American Health Care Act would only allow insurers to base premiums on the health status of an applicant if that person went without coverage for 63 days or more the previous year. Those in waiver states who maintain continuous coverage could not be medically underwritten — and so would be protected from egregious premium hikes.
Further, pre-existing conditions are far less common than Rep. Pallone and his fellow travelers claim. A 2010 congressional investigation found that, pre-Obamacare, insurers denied just one in seven applicants in the individual market because of a pre-existing condition.
That means that about 1 percent of the total non-elderly population has a health problem serious enough to even need those pre-existing condition protections.
Even if we add the entire uninsured population to the individual market and assume the same denial rate, the share of non-elderly people declined coverage because of pre-existing conditions would be less than 3 percent. That estimate is almost certainly high, as a number of the uninsured are probably eligible for coverage elsewhere, whether through work or a government program.
For this small share of the population that could potentially be priced out of the individual market because of pre-existing conditions, the AHCA includes several additional layers of protection. The House bill seeds a Patient and State Stability Fund with $130 billion over ten years to reduce premiums and out-of-pocket costs for these folks.
A last-minute amendment to the AHCA provides an additional $8 billion over five years specifically earmarked to help those with pre-existing conditions in waiver states who let their insurance coverage lapse for more 63 days or more pay their premiums. Insurers can consider these folks’ health status when determining premiums — but only for one year. After that, they’d pay the standard rate for their age.
Many waiver states will choose to direct at least part of that $138 billion toward high-risk pools — programs that offer subsidized coverage to those rendered uninsurable because of a serious medical condition.
By removing these most costly patients from standard risk pools, high-risk pools would help keep premiums down throughout the insurance market — and ensure that younger, healthier patients have affordable coverage options.
The AHCA has plenty of flaws. But it’s dishonest to argue that it abandons individuals with pre-existing conditions.
(FORBES)
LINKS
Here are some other sources:
The second video was the next guest, Joe ConCha, who commented on Jeff Mason’s previous comments. Jeff was still in studio and cam back on. Great exchanges!
While I like their rants (Paul Watson, Mark Dice, and others) and these commentaries hold much truth in them, I do wish to caution you… he is part of Info Wars/Prison Planet network of yahoos, a crazy conspiracy arm of Alex Jones shite. Also, I bet if I talked to him he would reveal some pretty-crazy conspiratorial beliefs that would naturally undermine and be at-odds-with some of his rants. Just to be clear, I do not endorse these people or orgs. (LANGUAGE WARNING)
To see a fun tour of pictures mocking this, see this TWEET! As well as this WASHINGTON FEED post.
Great study via NEWSBUSTERS:
MRC analysts reviewed all 141 stories on the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) network evening and morning shows that mentioned the efforts of the House Freedom Caucus and their Senate counterparts during the ObamaCare repeal/replacement debate, and discovered that while congressional conservatives were overwhelmingly given ideological labels, those that opposed them were rarely, if ever, labeled by journalists.
CBS provided the most coverage (54 stories) that mentioned House and Senate conservative efforts on the health care bill. NBC was next (49 stories) followed by ABC, which aired (38 stories) on its morning and evening newscasts during this period.
In these stories, MRC analysts documented how network reporters assigned a whopping 223 ideological labels to House and Senate Republicans — either to individual members of Congress, or factions like the House Freedom Caucus within the GOP.
Overwhelmingly, the networks used “conservative” tags to talk about Republicans. Fully 80 percent of these labels (179) talked about “conservatives” or those on the “right;” just 20 percent (44) referred to “moderate” Republicans.
Eleven percent of the labels (20) painted conservatives as extremists: “far right,” “hardline,” “very conservative” or “ultra-conservative.” Such deliberate labeling is designed to stigmatize conservatives, casting them as outside-of-the-mainstream ideologues, as compared to their (usually unlabeled) adversaries.
Democrats were never labeled as “liberal” or “progressive.” Twice Democrats were referred to as “moderate,” both times on CBS.
CBS led the way with 61 uses of the “conservative” label to just 17 “moderate” tags. ABC was second with 60 “conservative” labels and 15 uses of the word “moderate.” NBC had 58 “conservative” labels to just 12 “moderate” uses.
An older study shows much the same… but it seems to be getting worse. POLITICO is now warning that the media bubble is worse than many think. Here are just a few of the graphs I have saved over the years… I wonder is something analogouse can be pointed out to me by a Leftist?
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Dennis Prager interviews David Savage, washington bureau writer for the L.A. TIMES, about his article seemingly making last years Supreme Court pick by Obama, Merrick Garland, a centrist. While this isn’t the entire interview, it is the first two segments of this March 2016 interview.
In a thoughtful challenge on my FaceBook, the following conversation took place:
I respond a bit:
A great question by B.M. followed:
Here are my more in-depth responses to the above…
It was not official, but was well known to both sides, and pushed most by Democrats — shown by Sen Biden in 1992 (called thereafter, the Biden Rule):
…..Biden contended this was not an attempt to play politics with the selection.
In the case of Obama’s nomination of Garland, Democrats have argued that the Supreme Court seat should be filled immediately because the court needs a deciding vote.
Biden in his 1992 speech addressed that issue, saying that some people “may fret that this approach would leave the Court with only eight members for some time. But as I see it, Mr. President, the cost of such a result, the need to re-argue three or four cases that will divide the justices four to four are quite minor compared to the cost that a nominee, the president, the senate, and the nation would have to pay for what would assuredly be a bitter fight, no matter how good a person is nominated by the President, if that nomination were to take place in the next several weeks.”
So, by the breaking of this decorum, Republicans declined to move Obama’s nominee through the Senate, AGAIN, most recently based on the principle articulated by Sen. Joe Biden: that a Supreme Court Justice should not be confirmed in the last year of a lame duck administration.
…OH YEAH…
He [Biden] also called on the Senate not to schedule any confirmation hearings until after the election that year between incumbent President George H. W. Bush, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton and independent candidate Ross Perot.
“It is my view that if the president goes the way of Presidents Fillmore and Johnson, and presses an election year nomination, the Senate judiciary committee should seriously consider not scheduling confirmation hearings on the nomination until after the political campaign season is over.”
B.M. kindly noted:
Via POLITIBREW:
Andrew Klavan had a thoughtful show on several subjects today, one of which is Planned Parenthood, the undercover films, and how the people who secured those films showing Planned Parenthood’s activities with regards to not only killing babies by the millions, but selling their parts, have been charged with felonies. Planned Parenthood however, is still skating, and will probably get not just a new pair of roller skates, but a brand new key…to continued public funding.
Here’s a WND article from earlier today about that for further reading:
Felony charges for pro-lifers behind Planned Parenthood videos
The left wants to show that the nation’s largest provider of abortions is off limits. Sacrosanct, I guess. An utterly disgusting blight on the world and it’s history too. But that’s just the opinion of well over half the world’s living inhabitants. The unimportant ones, many of whom live in “flyover country” where that big city Democrat-controlled water never finds it’s way to them, whether comprised of navigable streams or not. Have no idea what’s in that water, just know it’s fatal.
Another subject Klavan deals with here can be summarized with the most brevity I can muster, in a short statement: The “mainstream press” is slanted. To expand a little on that, I don’t mean slanted as in leaning. I mean slanted as in horizontal and otherworldly at the same time. The words bias or slanted, just can’t do what they do, justice, and ‘they’ certainly do the truth no justice. They’re like the Incredible Hulk of hypocrisy, and every bit as big, green, massive, and temperamental…with emphasis on the mental, and there seems not to be filter or cure that sinks to the occasion of remedy.
It’s also mailbag day, where Klavan answers questions from viewer/subscribers to The Daily Wire, and his answers are always thoughtful. He’s a very good off-the-cuff talker and held my interest pretty well today, so here’s that.
Here is the video played in the audio above
The “Sage” r-e-a-l-l-y got into his role as the “whinny liberal 3rd-person actor this episode. Very funny! The topic is Ben Carson and his comments about slavery, and slaves being immigrants that has caused all of the MSM and Hollywood into a dither. There is one problem with this however… NONE of this “outrage” was present during the 11-times Obama said essentially the same thing. What this does however is offer a stark example of the hatred by the Left… dare I say “selective racism/bigotry”… of conservative black persons.
Just a couple stories to set the “record” straight (really #fakenews). While there are some credible vandalism, like in the Philadelphia cemetery (CNN), what hasn’t been shown is that they were done by anti-Semites. Or if they were by them, if they were Arab or not. In other words, as ours and other Western nations are letting in many Muslims from North Africa and the Middle-East… you will see more of this hatred directed towards Jews. ALSO note that what the media has not trumpeted as loud is the vandalism of a CATHOLIC cemetery as well in Philadelphia. T-h-a-t doesn’t fit the narrative against Trump… since straight white Protestant males are the spawn of the devil.
…Two weeks ago, about a dozen headstones were damaged at a Catholic cemetery in Philadelphia, the Philadelphia mayor’s spokeswoman Lauren Hitt told CNN.
[….]
The Catholic cemetery is about two miles away from the Jewish cemetery….
(CNN)
This seems like it is done by people who hate the Judeo-Christian worldview (like their professors), or may be drunk kids, or maybe Muslims from a Jewish and Christian hating culture, or may be religiously motivated by the occult… WHO KNOWS. At least CNN included this quote from someone they interviewed: “Maybe we’ll never know if this was an anti-Semitic act, but it’s a desecration of a holy site.”
Yep.
Part of the “rising tide of anti-Semitism” Trump is apparently inspiring is exemplified by threats against Jewish Centers. One St. Louis man was arrested for making several threats against Jewish Community Centers in the United States.
So did this man fit the profile of a racist Trump voter emboldened to express his hatred publicly?
Nope.
That fine looking gentleman to the right is a far-Leftist (communist), Bernie Sanders supporting, black man who was pissed at his ex-old-lady.
Another failed narrative is Jewish graveyard vandalism as somehow connected to Donald Trump’s election. Again, while some may be racially motivated, I would make a guess that some of it as well may be motivated by Islam. Or committed by some asshole teens bored and drunk. At any rate, here is an example of the narrative by Democrat leader, Chuck Schumer:
Unfortunately for good ol’ Chuckie Schumer, the NYPD got involved… (H-T Moonbattery)…
…But the NYPD investigated at the cemetery, and said later that the damage to the tombstones were old.
“It was old damage, years if not decades,” old, an NYPD spokesman said. The cemetery had issues with older tombstones in the past, he added.
A man who answered the phone at Washington Cemetery, who gave only his first name, Sam, confirmed there wasn’t vandalism at the cemetery.
“There was not vandalism, it is wrong information,” he said.
(DNA INFO)
So this example used by Chuck Schumer was nothing of the sort.
The only other cemetery story I could find where there have been some arrests is in a case from Indiana… but it is unclear what their political affiliation was, if they were truly anti-Semitic, or what was the final motivation. I called and spoke with someone from the newsroom of this smaller newspaper… and asked this (roughly):
The person responding called back and said this was just a bunch of dumb, bored young people with no known motive as of yet — other that social retardation (*my words*).
This could be just as much a hate-crime against the Judeo-Christian viewpoint or worldview — like in almost all the humanities classes in higher education. The headline, “UPDATE: Arrests made in anti-Semitic gravestone vandalism in Scottsburg,” seems a bit misleading to me and is named this maybe to try and grab the readers attention, not report the news. I wonder why only the Jewish cemetery stone is noted in most of the stories… but is James Hart a Christian? Why isn’t this an example of Christophobia, or a prime example of a theophobic hate crime? Anti-Judeo-Christian hate? There are plenty of crosses desecrated — probably weekly, across our nation.
As many of these stories as there are… I think the majority of them do not fit the narrative the mainstream media is trying to pawn off on us.
YES, there is a rise of threats against our Jewish bretheren… but most of this — I suspect — will have other sources than the ones the media is trying to get us to believe — i.e., emboldened Trump supporters. But never did I see a national outcry like this for the following story:
Remember, many of these “hate-crimes” end up not being hate-crimes at all, and have a more “innocent” explanation. But politics is the driver in this news cycle.
John and Ken detail some of the media’s double-standard and how Trump continues to befuddle the press… much to the delight of the common man.
While I like their rants (Paul Watson, Mark Dice, and others) and these commentaries hold much truth in them, I do wish to caution you… he is part of Info Wars/Prison Planet, a crazy conspiracy arm of Alex Jones shite. Also, I bet if I talked to him he would reveal some pretty-crazy conspiratorial beliefs that would naturally undermine and be at-odds-with some of his rants. Just to be clear, I do not endorse these people or orgs.
See more CNN #Fakenews highlighted HERE.