Selection of In-Box Articles I Found Interesting
Another collection of articles on various topics from my In-Box. Puling quite a bit from Healthcare. Some interesting articles in this batch. I hope you take a few moments and read some of them. Most are not terribly long winded. I wander in the comments section to see what is being said on various topics. I am not impressed with many of the responses. The ones on carrying bullet-spewing-weapons are just plain ignorant.
Healthcare
Doctor on Board? Legal Do’s and Don’ts of Care Outside the Hospital, MedPage Today, Max Feinstein. The details of “Good Samaritan” laws and more.
The Women of Rural America Are Dying Too Young, The Atlantic, Monica Potts.
Medicaid in GOP’s crosshairs, Gooz News, Merrill Goozner. Republicans in Congress are fixated on increasing the ranks of the uninsured. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy made Medicaid work requirements a key part of the budget cuts that the GOP insists must be part of any agreement to raise the federal debt ceiling.
GOP’s debt-limit bill could lead to 21 million people losing Medicaid, Biden White House says, Vox, Dylan Scott. As many as 21 million Americans could be at risk of losing their Medicaid coverage under the House GOP’s work requirement proposal, according to a new Biden administration analysis shared exclusively with Vox.
CMS Proposed Rules Aim to Increase Medicaid and CHIP Access, Transparency, MedPage Today, Joyce Frieden. For too many people, the [problem] comes from not having real access and not being able to reach that doctor. You may have insurance on paper, but if you can’t in practice get to that chair [in the doctor’s office], it really does make a difference.”
Children’s Health Coverage Report Card, Georgetown CCF Data. Georgetown University CCF’s 2022 child health coverage report finds that the number of uninsured children stabilized between 2019 and 2021, reversing a negative trend.
Why Work Requirements Don’t Work, The Atlantic, James Surowiecki. The debate over the bill is putting in place work requirements for people who get government benefits.
Who Are the Doctors Suing FDA Over the Abortion Pill? MedPage Today, Rachel Robertson. The Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine (AHM) remains something of a black box, and four individual physicians are listed as plaintiffs in the case as well.
Have Alternative Payment Models Led To Provider Consolidation? Health Affairs, Fang He. Two trends have transformed the health care industry in the past decade: the rise of alternative payment models and the rapid consolidation of health care providers.
What Can We Learn From Medicaid About Making ACOs Equitable? Health Affairs, Much of the innovation and research related to ACOs has occurred in the context of Medicare and commercial insurance, Medicaid ACOs may have the most to teach us about how payers can structure their ACO initiatives to improve care for the most disadvantaged patients.
Realizing the Potential of Accountable Care in Medicaid, Commonwealth Fund, Authors. While much of the experimentation with ACOs has focused on the Medicare program, Medicaid ACOs have been established in more than a dozen states. Much less is known, however, about the design of Medicaid ACOs and their impact on patients and costs.
Housing
Hotel Booking Is a Post-Truth Nightmare, The Atlantic, Jacob Stern. Buying stuff online is often stressful, but booking a hotel these days is a uniquely excruciating experience.
‘Landlords Are People Too’: Landlords Bravely Protest to Evict People Faster, vice.com, Roshan Abraham. Landlords took to the streets in Canada to protest for what they called “justice,” or overhauling tenant law to evict more people.
Landlord Software Is Making Life Hell for Renters, Report Says, vice.com, Roshan Abraham. Property technology, or proptech, is allowing big landlords to buy homes at scale, raise rents, and evict tenants remotely.
California’s Housing Problem Isn’t What You Think It Is, The Atlantic, Jerusalem Demsas. What has made California the worst in the country for housing is not uniquely bad policy but population growth running up against generically bad policy.
Government, Politics, and Dumb
Gov. Abbott Calls Texas Mass-Shooting Victims ‘Illegal Immigrants,’ businessinsider.com, Lloyd Lee. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is getting criticized for identifying the victims of a Friday mass shooting in Cleveland, Texas, as “illegal immigrants” in the same statement in which he offered condolences to their loved ones.
Shocking Parole Board Vote Clears Way for Richard Glossip’s Execution in Oklahoma, theintercept.com, Jordan Smith and Liliana Segura. Over the unprecedented pleas of the attorney general and state lawmakers to spare Glossip’s life, board members voted to deny clemency.
U.S. to set up migrant centers ahead of Title 42 change, Los Angeles Times, Andrea Castillo. The United States will establish regional processing centers for migrants in Colombia and Guatemala in an effort to reduce arrivals at the southern border after a pandemic-era policy ends next month, Biden administration officials announced Thursday.
Why these Democrats are defecting to the Republican Party, Vox, Nicole Narea. Four Democratic lawmakers in West Virginia, Louisiana, and North Carolina switched parties recently.
Economy and Business
Inflation destroys wage hikes in Switzerland, SWI swissinfo.ch. Swiss pay packets decreased by 1.9% in real terms last year as inflation erased wage hikes and further dented spending power.
When Private Equity Firms Bankrupt Their Own Companies, The Atlantic, Brenden Ballou. Companies bought by private equity firms are 10 times as likely to go bankrupt as those that aren’t.
Heat pumps have an image problem, The Washington Post, Shannon Osaka, Heat pumps are having a breakthrough. They have one issue: The wrong name.
Lordstown Motors Warns of Bankruptcy as Foxconn Deal Unravels, msn.com, Sean O’Kane and Chester Dawson. Lordstown Motors Corp. may be forced to cease operations and file for bankruptcy after manufacturing giant Foxconn told the electric-vehicle company that it’s prepared to pull out of a production partnership.
US government spending is propping up the GDP, qz.com, Most economics students understand that government spending boosts gross domestic product, but the latest GDP numbers in the US suggest that government spending also has resulted in increased private investment, compounding its influence on economic growth.
Why Prices, Inflation Are Still Soaring: Corporate Price Gouging, businessinsider.com. Juliana Kaplan. It’s becoming clear that corporate greed is screwing over the US economy.
Vice, once valued at $5.7 billion, may be headed for bankruptcy, qz.com, Aurora Almendral. The company, however, has failed to turn a profit for years, losing money and resorting to successive rounds of staff layoffs.
May FOMC Preview: Without Serious Risk Management, The Fed Will Keep Getting Mugged On All Sides, employamerica.org, Skanda Amarnath. What’s Changed Since The March FOMC Meeting?
Disney’s Lawsuit Against Gov. DeSantis Has Teeth: Law Experts, businessinsider.com, Sindu Sundar. “If it was unequivocally clear that the whole purpose of a law was to retaliate against Disney for its executives’ statements, that’s a First Amendment violation,” said David Schultz, a visiting professor at the University of Minnesota law school, who has taught constitutional law.
Colorado has made it legal for farmers to repair their tractors, qz.com, Diego Lasarte. The state’s new “right to repair” law is a major victory in the fight against planned obsolescence.
Climate
The status of the UN Sustainable Development Goals in 2023, qz.com, Julia Maleck. A new United Nations report shows that global progress on tackling poverty and climate change is falling short.
The US leads the world in weather catastrophes. Here’s why, AP News, Seth Borenstein. Blame geography for the U.S. getting hit by stronger, costlier, more varied and frequent extreme weather than anywhere on the planet, several experts said. Two oceans, the Gulf of Mexico, the Rocky Mountains, jutting peninsulas like Florida, clashing storm fronts and the jet stream combine to naturally brew the nastiest of weather.
Morality
The 90/10 rule of motivations. The one-handed economist, David Zetland. My point is that far more people (80%) are motivated by price (extrinsic incentives) than doing the right thing (intrinsic incentives).
Blogs and Other Links
Infidel753: Link round-up for 30 April 2023, Infidel 753 Blog
Last Week in God … , Homeless on the High Desert, g’da said . .
Substacks
May 1, 2023, Letters from an American, Prof. Heather Cox Richardson
Republicans are angry at a warning from the Department of Veterans Affairs— the VA— that the House bill will force a 22% cut to the department’s budget, costing 81,000 jobs in health services, reducing outpatient visits for veterans by 30 million, increasing food insecurity for about 1.3 million veterans, and adding 134,000 claims to disability backlogs. Republicans insist this is a lie, but they have declined to say where their cuts would come from.
Medicaid in GOP’s crosshairs, Merrill Goozner, GoozNews
Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress are fixated on increasing the ranks of the uninsured. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy made Medicaid work requirements a key part of the budget cuts that the GOP insists must be part of any agreement to raise the federal debt ceiling, which must be lifted sometime next month or the nation’s economy will be thrown into chaos.
Previous Collections of In-Box Commentary
Overdue Selection of Stuff from My In-Box, Angry Bear
Interesting Stuff from My In-Box, Angry Bear
House Democratic leaders try to maneuver to increase pressure in debt limit fight
Boston Globe – May 2
With the revelation on Tuesday that House Democratic leadership quietly planted the seeds for an escape route on the debt ceiling back in January, the chamber’s minority party also sent a message to Speaker Kevin McCarthy: You’re going to need us.
When leaders from both parties meet with President Biden next week, the spotlight will be on McCarthy and Biden, who ultimately must hash out any deal. But House Democrats are nonetheless making their presence felt in a supporting role, knowing that when a proposed solution must pass, it will almost certainly require votes from their side.
“If we’re going to get to some sort of deal where we’re going to raise the debt ceiling, [McCarthy’s] going to need Democrats,” Worcester Representative Jim McGovern, the top Democrat on the Rules Committee, said in a recent interview.
In a letter to colleagues Tuesday, House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York revealed Democrats had surreptitiously filed a measure earlier this year that would allow them to bypass McCarthy, who controls the House floor, to raise the debt ceiling if Congress got close to the deadline without striking a deal. In conjunction with a procedural move this week seeking to capitalize on House rules, Democrats can force a vote on the shell bill filed earlier if they’re able to get just five House Republicans to break ranks. It’s a long-shot tactic to get around McCarthy, but serves to increase pressure on the the speaker.
The high-stakes battle to raise the debt limit is the first major test for a Democratic leadership team who all are serving for the first time in their positions. When McCarthy eked a debt limit bill that made hard-line spending cuts on a party line vote, Democrats unanimously hung together to vote for their proposal, instead, though that vote failed to amend Republicans’ bill.
… The urgency increased on Monday, when Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen announced the country could run out of money to pay its bills as early as June 1, significantly sooner than previously forecast. Biden invited congressional leaders to a meeting shortly thereafter. Democrats have argued Congress should raise the debt ceiling without strings attached since it is for funding Congress has already allocated. Republicans, meanwhile, are attempting to use must-pass legislation on the debt limit as a vehicle to force spending cuts.
In marshaling the bare minimum number of Republicans to pass his bill last week, McCarthy showed he could get more than just the vote on his speakership across the finish line.
But House Democrats were pleased at how well their side held together, all echoing the same arguments to criticize the Republican bill, an example of the concerted effort Democratic leadership has been putting into the showdown since the early days of this Congress.
“We are united, we’re not going to do anything that is going to conflate the two issues here: raise the debt ceiling, then let’s have a great big debate about the budget,” said Representative Angie Craig, a Democratic moderate from Minnesota, echoing the same message as virtually all her colleagues. “When you link these two, Republicans are playing Russian roulette with our economy and it’s a very dangerous game.”
And as the deadline pressure increases, Representative Katherine Clark, the Democrat from Revere who is the party whip and second in command, is key to the effort to make it as uncomfortable as possible for the majority party.
That strategy is heavy on communication, both internally and with the general public. The leadership team refers to the Republican “Limit, Save, Grow Act” as the “Default on America Act,” and a Budget Committee Democrats website details potential impacts of the cuts in each district to hammer home how they believe the bill would adversely impact Americans’ lives.
Democratic lawmakers said Clark, who as whip is responsible for counting votes and ensuring all Democrats vote in lockstep, has been in constant contact with them. She has kept tabs on how lawmakers are feeling and where they might begin to get cold feet, and has sought to understand how they can get more comfortable with a vote, they said.
Still, House Democrats’ role in the showdown only extends so far. Ultimately, Biden will need to cut a deal with enough Republicans to get to 60 votes in the Senate even if House Democrats successfully help it clear the lower chamber. For now Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is sidelining himself in negotiations, saying the deal making should flow through McCarthy and Biden. House Democrats say they stand ready with their backup plans should that fail. .;.
Thanks run … mint the coin
Paul Krugman says yes, Biden could mint a $1 trillion coin to avert the debt ceiling
Fortune – May 3
… but there’s a better option out there
Nobel laureate Paul Krugman (said) yes (back in 2014), mint a $1 trillion coin to avert the debt ceiling—but (now says there’s a) there’s a better option out there.
The (former) Princeton professor and (current) “New York Times” columnist said circumventing the national debt limit with a platinum coin could work, but public perception is the problem. …
“By minting a $1 trillion coin, then depositing it at the Fed, the Treasury could acquire enough cash to sidestep the debt ceiling—while doing no economic harm at all. So why not?” the economist explained in a 2014 New York Times op-ed. This was a sea change in trillion-dollar-coin discourse, which had been popularized by former Insider editor Joe Weisenthal, who is now ensconced at Bloomberg as the co-host of the Odd Lots podcast.
However, Krugman appeared to have a change of heart about the $1 trillion coin Wednesday, arguing that “premium bonds” would be a better solution to the debt ceiling problem in a lengthy Twitter thread. With so many critics of the coin firmly believing it’s a “gimmick” that could cause inflation to soar, there’s a credibility issue, according to the economist, and negative perception alone could undermine the viability of the idea.
“People who really should know better constantly get this wrong, and imagine that the coin would be inflationary,” Krugman wrote, clarifying that he still thinks the coin would be a workable solution, but it basically has a public relations problem. “And that’s a reason to prefer a route that doesn’t inspire confident misconceptions.”
To Krugman’s point, even Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has chimed in on the coin question, albeit just to dismiss the idea. “There are no rabbits to be pulled out of hats here,” he said when questioned about the topic at a meeting of a House Financial Services Committee meeting in early March. “That would be a rabbit coming out of a hat.”
Krugman also noted that the complexity of his new solution, premium bonds, could be a good thing. He believes the Treasury could offer premium bonds, or bonds that trade higher than their face value due to a high coupon rate relative to prevailing market rates, and raise money without increasing the national debt. …
A Few Ways Out of the Debt Ceiling Mess
NY Times = Paul Krugman – April 18
… There are several options. Moody’s Analytics seems to think that the Biden administration might simply ignore the debt limit, invoking the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which says that the validity of U.S. public debt “shall not be questioned.”
Another possibility is the famous platinum coin. U.S. law allows the federal government to issue commemorative platinum coins in any denomination it chooses; so it could in principle mint a coin notionally worth, say, $3 trillion, deposit it at the Federal Reserve and pay its bills by drawing down the account thereby created. (The Fed would offset any effect on the money supply by selling off some of its large portfolio of U.S. government bonds, so this would in effect simply be borrowing through the back door.)
Yet another possibility would be to issue “premium bonds.” These are bonds that offer an unusually large “coupon,” i.e., annual interest payment, relative to their principal, the amount they pay when they come due. The Treasury could auction off these bonds for substantially more than their face value, in effect borrowing without increasing the official size of the debt.
All of these plans have drawbacks, and considered in isolation they each sound a bit silly. But they should be graded on a curve — compared not with normal fiscal management, but with the catastrophic consequences if the U.S. government simply stops paying its bills. …