Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Risk Corridor, Healthcare Premiums, Companies Leaving the Exchanges, and Republicans

The Washington Post story “Rubio’s inaccurate claim that he ‘inserted’ a provision restricting Obamacare ‘bailout’ funds” is about a year old. Its relevance to the PPACA is in depicting how the Republicans undermined the PPACA causing many Co-ops to go bankrupt, insurance companies to leave PPACA exchanges, saddled insurance companies with $millions in debt, and […]

Why Healthcare Premiums are increasing Faster than Healthcare Costs

In the first three years of the PPACA, a Risk Corridor Program was established to help insurers get past the initial loss phases. This is typical of startups and was used with Republican President George Bush’s Part D Drug insurance program. The PPACA had built-in protections for insurers who enrolled many abnormally sick people, provided […]

Tom Price for Healthcare and Human Services

For those of you who may have missed it, Rep. Tom Price (R-Georgia) is Pres. Trump’s pick to be the head of the Department of Health and Human Services. Price is an Orthopedic Surgeon (former?) and has been in the House for 12 years now and a member of the Congressional Healthcare Caucus. It appears […]

Alan Greenspan Forecasts Extremely Low Economic Growth for Germany, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Holland and Canada

Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, weighed in last week on one of the pressing issues facing the incoming Trump administration and the country — slow economic growth. Greenspan’s explanation is novel and bound to be controversial. To preview: He blames the welfare state and overall uncertainty for the slowdown. … By […]

Redefining Political Correctness to Include Criticism of Appointments of Wall Street, Banking and Fossil Fuel Insiders to Regulatory Bodies

And Extreme Pro-Corporate Lawyers and Judges to the Supreme Court and the Lower Federal Courts. Seriously. So far, the Trump transition team does not seem particularly concerned, for instance, about a transition team staffed heavily with lobbyists from energy, agriculture, transportation, and banking. “Frankly, one of the refreshing parts of it about the whole Trump […]

Relatively not bad news about Health Care Reform

Via (one of) the brillian Waldmans I find a very interesting and actually somewhat reassuring article by Caitlin Owens “Obamacare repeal? More like Obamacare reform”. I strongly recommend reading the article which considerably reduced my fear and loathing. An excerpt To be clear: Republicans will likely call whatever they end up doing Obamacare repeal, especially […]

James Comey’s Appalling Abuse of Office

“I got a lot of respect for Jim Comey, but I don’t understand this idea of dropping this bombshell which could be a big dud,” said former federal prosector Peter Zeidenberg, a veteran of politically sensitive investigations. “Doing it in the last week or ten days of a presidential election without more information, I don’t […]

“Why would you want to be associated with a party that’s so awful?”

This morning I overheard a part of a conversation between two 30-ish old high school friends, both from career-military families; their high school was on a military base.  One is a disabled Marine veteran, having lost his right leg below the knee, significant muscle in his left leg, a good part of the movement in […]