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Comments
Yeah, she's basically doing low-profile stuff these days to help out worthy causes, I think.
Seems like the potential effects would be as follows, depending on the exact terms of the repeal/replacement bill, and depending on what insurance you currently get:
case A: You're on Medicaid.
A1. Medicaid funding is significantly reduced, so there may be loss of coverage and services. Medicaid is managed by the states, if I recall correctly, but funded at least in part by the feds.
A2. Hospitals in poorer and more remote areas might close due to lack of adequate funding.
case B: You're on a healthcare marketplace plan.
B1. possible loss of an insurance subsidy. This gets converted to a tax credit, from what I've heard. But if you already make too little money such that you owe very little or no federal income taxes (sadly there are other taxes to pay, something that the "but only 53% of people [federal income] taxes" jerks never mention), i.e. you get refunded most or all of the federal income taxes you pay, a tax credit would probably be useless to you.see below https://itjustbugsme.com/forums/discussion/comment/352351/#Comment_352351B2. Decreased coverage quality in the healthcare marketplace plan. The bill being discussed basically makes it possible for states to opt out of "essential health benefits", or basically stuff that insurers are forced to cover, so they don't need to cover some things. (Contraception is a particularly contentious subcategory that religious conservatives tend to hate.)
B3. On the bright side, require (and the tax penalty) for not having insurance is removed. However, this might mean that fewer people are covered, which means fewer people paying into the insurance pool, which means that the people who do pay have to pay more. Which would mean higher insurance costs to you, for the same plan.
B4. Hospitals in poorer and more remote areas might close due to lack of adequate funding.
B5. If you're placed into a high-risk pool because of some past or present health problems, your premiums might go way up. This is because the bill removes the rule that insurers can't charge people more for preexisting conditions. There's a pot of money for high-risk pools but it's significantly reduced from the amount that used to go toward subsidizing these plans for healthcare providers (like hospitals).
case C: You're on a non-marketplace plan, such as something offered by your employer.
C1. Decreased coverage quality due to a state possibly opting out of health benefits.
C2. Hospitals in poorer and more remote areas might close due to lack of adequate funding.
C3. I'm not sure what other impacts this might have, but they may be similar to impacts in case B.
Basically a lot of stuff gets left up to the states to decide, which generally de facto means that insurance companies have more leverage to issue less coverage, and charge more money for it, while the federal government saves a little bit of money.
While "Comey Day" was going on, Trump was addressing the Faith & Freedom Coalition. Not only that, he remarked that "we are under siege" -- likely talking about himself, and how many people are investigating him and his associates (which he conflates with political opposition), but this sort of remark has long been used by religious conservatives in the US (most notably conservative Christians) to indicate their dissatisfaction with what they see as an increasingly secular world going against what they consider to be Christian values (in their view, abortions, gay marriage, ignoring creationist "theory", separating church and state by not allowing displays of the Ten Commandments in courthouses (or forcing them to be accompanied by a display from atheists, in one case), and for some, even gender equality, etc.).
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/6/8/1670160/-Most-Brilliant-Take-On-Comey-s-Testimony-By-Far-The-Predator-In-Chief
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/urban-revival-caused-crisis-success/
I'm not very certain about how the tax credit thing works -- i.e. that batch of money you get from the government to help you pay for your insurance if you're not wealthy.
But what I've heard is that in Trumpcare it's changed in such a way that the poorest people can't get as much out of it.
You may want to dig up more info on that yourself. If I find something on this later I'll post it here.
Also, there is a buzz around here that The Donald is visiting us in July. My guess is that nothing specific will come out of it, but there might be some curious rhetorics or internal political hijinks.
I thought the right hates fundamentalist Islamists because they're Islamic, while the left hates fundamentalist Islamists because they're fundamentalist.
Mayor Pete Muldoon took it down. Apparently he replaced it with a portrait of Shoshone (Native American) Chief Washakie, a local leader from the 1800s. Needless to say, there were reactions: http://buckrail.com/jackson-mayor-pulls-presidential-portrait-from-town-hall/
(Apparently there was previously a portrait of Barack Obama in the Town Hall, but it had since been taken down as well.)
Mayor Muldoon wrote an e-mail explaining his decision and laying out the importance of civics: http://mailchi.mp/b0aee1adc3d7/presidential-portrits-926737?e=[UNIQID
I haven't yet figured that one out.
He tends to defy history, so he'll increase his majority in the Senate, keep the House handily, and cruise to reelection with probably another split vote.
I doubt the Russiagate investigation will lead to anything, even if it's true he made dealings with the mafia (both of them).
This is why I believe the GOP could hold on to everything in 2018 and why Trump might even win in 2020, unless the Democrats run somebody like Elizabeth Warren against him. (In which case, Warren is going to need to not move any further to the center than she currently is.)
Most of the country, including people in red states, want progressive policies such as those two things Ossoff opposed.
Even if you're a social conservative, you want to make enough money at your job to pay the bills. Speaking of bills, you want to avoid getting bankrupted by medical bills.
In a race between Republican and Republican Lite, Republican is usually going to win. Maybe give people in those red states an option. Don't just assume that they want to hear conservative shit and that therefore it's impossible to win in a place like West Virginia if you're anywhere to the left of Joe Manchin. That may have been true in the past, but it's certainly not true now.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/politics/political-pulse/os-gillum-governor-race-birth-control-20170622-story.html
i saw another commentator's piece about this, but i hadn't seen that video.
...
Anyway, speaking of political commentary people: here's John Oliver on Coal.
And just today, my bank charged me a $25 maintenance fee because information they previously gave me was wrong (specifically they told me that a certain minimum balance requirement was monthly average balance, when it's actually end-of-month or daily balance).
And then they charged me another $12 maintenance fee because another account was supposed to be linked to the first account and therefore not have a monthly maintenance fee but for some reason the two got de-linked.
(I had to call them to get both maintenance fees refunded. Thankfully, they did so.)
Good god man