Kind of a big deal because Oklahomans rejected Trunp’s Medicaid and Republican block grant-program which would be more vulnerable to cuts of Federal funding.  It is unfortunate Oklahoma did not get on board with the ACA Medicaid expansion as 100% of the costs of the Medicaid expansion from 2014 – 2016 and 90% there after. I could never understand the cold-hearted logic of states in not expanding Medicaid. Much of the costs of expanding Medicaid now would have been covered.

In spite of Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt’s plan to make the state a test case for the Trump administration Medicaid block grant program, Oklahoma voters narrowly approved its own initiative to expand Medicaid for low income people. In theory, the state will be in the driver’s sit (mostly) in deciding how much money it will allocate to the program rather than the Federal government.

Oklahoma is the the first state to expand Medicaid during the Covid pandemic. Oklahoma has the second-highest uninsured rate in the country following up Texas who is #1 in both uninsured and the numbers of new Covid cases. The State Question 802 initiative was passed by a margin of less than 1 percentage point amongst voters. It was strongly supported in metropolitan areas such as Tulsa and Oklahoma City and widely opposed in rural counties. While Idaho, Maine, Nebraska and Utah expanded Medicaid through ballot questions and amended state statutes, Oklahoma State Question 802 amended the Oklahoma Constitution which prevents  the Republican-controlled Legislature from altering  the Medicaid program or rolling back coverage.

At an “Americans for Prosperity” forum, Governor Stitt said “We will have a $billion shortfall next year. The state will have to consider raising taxes or cut to such services as education, first responders, or roads and bridges” in order to cover the additional costs of Medicaid.

Looking back, the expansion of Medicaid and also the ACA mandate would increase the numbers of people having healthcare insurance which would be a boon to healthcare insurance companies. The ACA tax on healthcare insurance companies (who would benefit greatly from the new business) was meant to provide additional funds to cover the costs of healthcare. Instead, the Oklahoma plan will increase the fees on hospitals from 2.5% to 4%.  There is more to this issue and I will tackle it another time.

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Coronavirus dashboard for June 29: renewed exponential growth in infections, decline in deaths has stalled

Total US infections: 2,549,069,  42,161 in last day

There is renewed exponential growth in the South and West. The Midwest also is beginning to look bad.

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(Dan here…David offers a different sort of presentation from the normal for AB. Interesting?…)

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The US Presidential election as forecast by State polling: tending towards a Biden blowout?

Trump polled his best during the impeachment and immediately after when he briefly seemed to take the coronavirus seriously; the “rally round the flag” effect. Conversely, his worst approvals have come at four times:

Trump has totally backed himself into a corner where the pandemic is concerned. He can’t suddenly start taking it seriously again. After all, that would be admitting that he was wrong before. And the pandemic will not be controlled in the next several months, which means the economy is not going to meaningfully improve. Indeed, in the recklessly reopened States, where businesses will likely have to close again, it is probably going to get worse. And some of these are swing States.

Finally, Biden is a well-known politician. He isn’t a newcomer like Dukakis who can be defined by a few devastating ads. While Trump’s standing may revert towards his mean, I just don’t see a big improvement from here. If anything, I think it is more likely that more of his fans abandon him as they sense that he will lose, and the US election moves towards a Biden blowout.

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Differences

by Ken Melvin

… He said I have no opinion about this

And I have no opinion about that

Asked an Honors History Class what they thought was the most important issue facing America. In an earlier period, Patrick, a kid from Africa, responded, “our differences.” In a later period, a black female, in a plaintive voice, responded, “we are different.”

Indeed. We are a world of people with many differences: different politics, different religions, … different cultures. Not just here; worldwide, humans are wrestling with this question: How to live with our differences? Can we humans, after all our centuries, change enough? Change enough to accept our differences?

The importance of these questions came to the fore with the recent onslaught of immigration into Europe and has since played out in referenda/elections throughout Europe and the United States. The pending further, and of greater scale, dislocations caused by global warming/climate change and globalization, makes their answering imperative. Plus: What will resulting cultures look like? At what point does an existing culture become more like that of the immigrant? What is the tipping point? Can the center hold?

Over the past 20 years, really quite late, much of our nation has come to believe that someone else’s sexuality is really none of our business. We, as a nation, now accept lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender, LGBT, people as they are. Not ignore them, not tolerate them, not demand that they change; but accept them as they are. Yet, there are still regions of America, sectors of the population, where a majority of the people think that they know how people should act, should think, … that they have the right to demand that others change.

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Coronavirus dashboard for June 27: infections -> hospitalizations -> deaths

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Via the Boston Globe  comes the consideration of boundary problems this pandemic poses between US states. Worth a discussion. Also, on the world stage, the EU and other countries consider relaxing travel restrictions from ‘safe’ countries, the US not among them.

Visitor quarantines may seem like a smart intervention to keep the virus from crossing state lines. Symptoms can take up to 14 days to appear after someone is infected, and research suggests people can transmit the virus even when they’re showing no signs of illness, said Dr. Nahid Bhadelia, an infectious diseases physician and medical director of the Special Pathogens Unit at Boston Medical Center.

But a quarantine strategy may not be a realistic approach to stopping further infections, she said, because it’s hard to monitor every car crossing the border, and the state can’t stop travelers flying in to airports, which are federal sites.

“After states have been going it on their own, we are now quickly realizing our state is tied to [other] states,” Bhadelia said. “What happens in Florida or Arizona is not independent. Our borders are so porous.”

Legal issues associated with attempting to block or impede travel may also prove an obstacle, said Wendy Parmet, a professor of law, public policy, and urban affairs at Northeastern University.

“Travel advisories are themselves deeply problematic,” she said. “The dilemma is showing up the disaster of what’s been happening: the fact that we don’t have a federal policy, and no consistency among the states.”

She allowed that the plight of Massachusetts this summer “may be an instance where there is some merit to [travel quarantines] because you have situations with people coming in from jurisdictions that are not doing social distancing, or widespread use of masks, and it’s a real problem.”

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All 4 coincident indicators of recession improved in May vs. April

With this morning’s release of personal income and spending, we now have all 4 coincident indicators for May that the NBER uses to determine whether the economy is in a recession or recovery/expansion. And all 4 improved from their “most horrible” readings in April.

A recession is a generalized downturn in production, employment, sales, and income. The “income” metric that the NBER uses is “real personal income excluding current transfer receipts,” (basically, government program payments to individuals) and as shown in the graph below, it improved from April:

Still a horrible decline from February, but “less horrible” compared to April.

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by New Deal democrat

Weekly Indicators for June 22 – 26 at Seeking Alpha

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