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

Millions Are Uninsured

When People claim “Millions Are Uninsured Under the PPACA,” it is a garbage statement meant to elicit a negative reaction without going into the detail of who is uninsured and why. Repeatedly Charles Gaba, Maggie Mahar, Commonwealth Fund, Urban Institute, Kaiser Foundation, etc. have explained the numbers and the whys of the uninsured, most of […]

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 […]

Neel Kashkari and the Minneapolis Plan to End Too Big to Fail

Neel Kashkari has been President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis since January 1, 2016. Prior to that, he was brought over from Goldman Sachs to be Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Stability from October 2008 to May 2009. His job was to hand out money to the banks as bailout. I believe […]

Election Integrity

From the beginning of this election cycle President-Elect Trump claimed the system is rigged, millions of illegal voters voted, the dead have voted, etc. That is until he won and then it was I also won the popular vote as millions voted illegally for Clinton. Historically, voter fraud has hardly been an issue and it […]

NPR discusses Steve Bannon and his impact on Breitbart News.

I have written about left of center or centrist organizations writing in a manner which no longer reflects a liberal, progressive, or centrist view. NPR just went out on a limb with its recent conversation with Breitbart Senior Editor at Large Joel Pollak about newly elected Donald Trump’s selection of Steve Bannon as his administration’s […]

Michigan Lame Duck Legislature

The Republican controlled House and Senate has been largely busy passing bills in the few days left in 2016. This particular one caught my eye. Michigan had put in place a new Unemployment System (Michigan Data Automated System or MiDAS) to help in detecting unemployment fraud. With the passage of Senate Bill 1008 by the […]