June 27, 2017 6:00 AM
Morning Reads for Tuesday, June 27
Good morning! It’s kind of a slow week. So far…
- GOPers less than enthusiastic about the healthcare bill.
- Savannah-based Gulfstream turns 50.
- FOrmer Delta CEO Richard Anderson is Amtrak’s new CEO.
- Morehouse College alum (and valedictorian) Harold Martin, Jr., was named interim president of the historically-black, all-male college.
- European grocery behemoth Lidl (it rhymes with “beetle”) has big plans for Georgia, starting with 250 new jobs at its Cartersville distribution center.
- If you have a nascent driver and you live in Bibb County, take advantage of these free defensive driving classes.
- The Corps of Engineers released a “Drought Contingency Plan.”
- “You come at the king, you’d best not miss.” (With apologies to David Simon.)
- New Zealand wins the America’s Cup.
- Boys at one British school decided during a recent heat wave that since their school’s dress code forbade shorts, they’d wear skirts. (The dress code has since been amended to include shorts.)
- There’s a restaurant renaissance! The restaurant industry is struggling! Both of these things are true.
- The Clermont Hotel gets the recognition it deserves.
About Author
Teri
Teri Anulewicz is a Democrat who represents House District 42 in the Georgia General Assembly. She previously spent nearly a decade on the Smyrna City Council. A native New Orleanian and quasi-Texan, Teri graduated from Agnes Scott College in 1998. She's been a front page contributor since 2015, and she compiles each Tuesday's Morning Reads.
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The Georgia Supreme Court Monday rejected a religious challenge to a tax credit program for students to attend private schools.
Never saw what people saw in her from the outset. Karma, people, Karma!! She is the new Deborah Norville! Maybe The Squatty Potty needs a new pitch-person?
http://variety.com/2017/tv/news/tv-ratings-sunday-night-with-megyn-kelly-1202478257/
Informative story, Drew. I know you and Eiger are seemingly the two more informed folks on here on this subject. I’m almost to the point of supporting single payer. Don’t gasp too hard. I don’t know what to do, either. Can the two of you inform us on how a single payer system would be rotten — or a Godsend? They have a gov’t sponsored health system in my second country, Colombia. Your financial ruin scenario just hit someone close to our family. Their ten year old son was diagnosed with leukemia, father unemployed, just a devastating financial haymaker. Just damn….
Single payer would work great if you are okay with how the VA treats veterans and are okay with going from $20 trillion in debt to $40 trillion in debt almost overnight.
There are certainly ways to improve on any existing single payer system. What’s lacking is the vision, innovation, and courage. As an aside, health care costs will always increase steeply in the short term when you provide new care to previously uninsured or underinsured ppl. But imagine you could build a system from the ground up. It wouldn’t be the VA- but perhaps the VA equivalent would be a minimum safety net. And the safety net could include ways to address physician supply, etc. But in this country, we also have opportunity to be better than other countries’ systems in terms of tech innovation, and high-end care. Throw in supplementary market-based plans. Plenty would pay more for more more options, or elite doctors or hospitals, and that flow of funds would maintain the incentives for new service innovations. It’s time to start being Americans and come up with a new and better path.
Every other western democracy manages their national healthcare demands less expensively and with better results than the USA. They have done so without doubling their national debt while treating their patients including veterans efficiently and with dignity.
We haven’t done that. A large part of the ruling class don’t even want to try. With ACA nearing extinction many sick Americans will have to decide between dying and becoming a pauper. Hell of a choice there. Thanks America.
“Their ten year old son was diagnosed with leukemia, father unemployed, just a devastating financial haymaker. Just damn….” This is the perfect role for Medicaid. A safety net for the truly needy. That is what it was intended for. Now Medicaid dollars are being stretched because of the expansion of Medicaid. Instead of only taking care of kids with Leukemia who’s parents are unemployment it now has been expanded to the 28 year old millennial living in his parents basement holding out on that $100,ooo a year job instead of working his way up to it. He should not be on Medicaid.
When others talk about the “cut” to Medicaid (spending actually grows faster than inflation) they are referring to offering that 28 year old in his mom’s basement a cheap alternative to Medicaid in the private market. Your friend’s child with Leukemia would not have a cut in Medicaid. Under the current law sick children are being squeezed in Medicaid because Medicaid is now taking care of healthy individuals instead of the truly sick.
The problem is that it’s not a safety net- Medicaid eligibility already depends on poverty. With the exception of a few legal mechanisms as exemptions, Medicaid requires ppl to be too poor or to bankrupt themselves in order to be eligible. Avoiding bankruptcy to pay medical bills is something that Drew’s story alluded to. No insurance, even public insurance, should require that. Single payer could eliminate the requirement to go bankrupt, and have some graduated premiums.
And for the record, healthy ppl are not the ones using up Medicaid- or other health care- dollars.
The original intent of Medicaid was to be a safety net for the poor and disabled. Politicians since 1965 have layered more and more into Medicaid. You may think that is a good thing we have expanded Medicaid to people who aren’t poor or disabled. I do not think it is a good idea.
And I’ve been trying to digest the whole reference to the 28-yr. old Millenial in the basement. Not that I know all Millenials, but the only way one qualfies for Medicaid is if you are poor AND disabled. That 28-yr.old may have stayed covered under the portability of their parent’s plan through age 26, but the idea that an able-bodied/non-mentally-ill indivdual (who is not a child or pregnant) will get Medicaid is simply incorrect.
And the idea of pregnancy just brings up another major flaw in the system. What is it, like over half of all births are covered by Medicaid? That’s in no small part because of the pre-existing condition limitation. Where folks want to let insureres offer pared-down plans bc it will allow cheaper options, without some sort of mandate, insurers will, wherever possible, simply not offer coverage for certain conditions (see also autism). That is an epic market failure. So maybe Medicaid is perfect for maternity coverage. And maybe it can be expanded to cover other non-profitable conditions and people, with a much higher income eligibility threshhold, to prevent bankruptcy (there are already some allowances for concerbs like this in exemptions like the Katie Beckett waiver).
“That 28-yr.old may have stayed covered under the portability of their parent’s plan through age 26, but the idea that an able-bodied/non-mentally-ill indivdual (who is not a child or pregnant) will get Medicaid is simply incorrect.”
That statement is correct for non expansion states like Georgia, but completely false for the states that expanded Medicaid.
Here is the list. Key word being “individuals” not families or children. So…I’m not incorrect. Thanks for playing.
“Individuals at or below 133% FPL Age 19 through 64”
https://www.medicaid.gov/Medicaid-CHIP-Program-Information/By-Topics/Waivers/1115/Downloads/List-of-Eligibility-Groups.pdf
Yes, I was focused on GA. Typical. But then the concern is that Medicaid is a disincentive for someone to get a job? So, just a brief look into the stats show that around half of adults receiving Medicaid (nationally) are in fact disabled. Of the remaining, over half have jobs (albeit low-paying ones) or are in school. The rate of unemployment is either similar or lower among Medicaid recipients as compared to the rest of the public. So, the incentive argument fails. But I get the concern nonetheless. So, then the policy problem goes to smaller and more specific populations– the working poor and the non-working poor. There are existing and carefully crafted rules allowing for cost-sharing among the non-medically-needy with income over 100% of the FPL. But adjusting those could be a fine way to address the concerns over incentives and costs. And time limits and work requirements, I believe, are also being implemented or explored. What are the other options being presented for affordabile coverage for these sub-populations (assuming the idea is to repeal the marketplace subsidies)?
I don’t believe I said that being on Medicaid was a disincentive to getting a job.
A better option would be to allow insurance plans to be sold that may not meet all of the essential health benefits in the ACA, but still covers catastrophic events and would be much more affordable. Pairing this with needs based tax credits and refundable tax credits. This is an idea that Claire McCaskill recently talked about on Morning Joe about how it would help stabilize the market and keep people insured.
But I’m cruel and a terrible person when I mention it.
I wouldn’t say cruel, not on this particular issue, anyways 😉
But the degree of passion is understandable. But your position doesn’t seem to be the one that’s on the proposed Congressional bill(s) either. As for the bare bones plans, OK, but then how best to manage the risk and costs when those plans fail? Tax credits would mean the doc bills could still be astronomical, and you can’t refund so much. There needs to be a better back-up for the un/underinsured (and poor). Medicaid-negotiated pricing makes sense. Evan absent all-out expansion. Or Medicaid could be a re-insurer for private insurance-negotiated pricing and spending. Medicaid also has the ability to advance expenses, and recapture later. All possibie tools I have never heard being discussed. Did the idea of tax credits even get any traction? I think ppl are afraid of real suffering for lack of good ideas and courage.
I’d rather offer him insurance he can afford (which is possible) and take care of the people that Medicaid was designed for.
Again, if young healthy folks aren’t using a lot of health care we should be able to offer them a product that they can afford without having to put them on Medicaid. The whole idea of the ACA was to get young healthy people in the market to drive down costs for older sicker people. The ACA failed at this. Also, you don’t help drive down costs by adding healthy young people to a “free” government program. We would all be better off if healthy young people were offered a product in the private market that they can afford. Adding healthy young people to spread the risk for older sicker people in the private market. Then allowing Medicaid dollars to be used on truly sick people.
But I’m obviously a terrible person for wanting Medicaid to be solvent and able to take care of really sick people.
“This isn’t about saving Medicaid. This isn’t about providing more affordable healthcare. This isn’t about providing better healthcare. This is about giving a tax break to the wealthiest Americans at the expense of poorer ones.”
All false as usual. Please keep defending the failures of the ACA. I’ll keep trying to fix the problem. The fix isn’t adding healthy abled bodied people to Medicaid. I’ve seen first hand the good that Medicaid has done for families that truly need it. Yes, I want to save Medicaid. Expanding Medicaid is not how you safe it.
I am neither an attorney nor health care wonk. However, it seems to me that single payer will never be the answer here for a number of reasons including possible constitutional issues.
However, many folks conflate single payer with public option. They are not necessarily the same. I could see us eventually devolving into a 2 track health care system. A private pay/ private insurance driven system for the healthy, relatively well off and a public option for those with pre-existing conditions and the less well off. I believe this is the system some Euro countries employ.
If structured as Medicare for all you are probably correct. I was thinking more on the Canadian type lines. As stated, I am definitely not a con lawyer. But as you and others have stated there are other hurdles as well. I just don’t see it here. It will be difficult enough getting the right to go along with public option.
But I believe public option is inevitable. As it seems to me as an acknowledged non wonk, that: guaranteed issue, community rating, no mandate ( or an ineffective mandate in ACA’s case), and low premiums, are mutually exclusive.
It seems something could soon break with respect to the Trump campaign colluding with the Russians, based on the new GOP talking point making the rounds:
Collusion, while it would be obviously alarming and highly inappropriate for the Trump campaign, of which there is no evidence by the way, of colluding with the Russians. It’s not a crime. — Brit Hume
What was the collusion? That maybe somebody in the Trump campaign talked to somebody in Russia … Is that a crime? — Sean Hannity
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: collusion is not a crime. … You can collude all you want with a foreign government in an election. — Gregg Jarrett
Establishment Republicans will wring their hands and everything if there were collusion, but if it’s necessary to defend collusion in order to Make American Great Again, their prepared.
Here you go, fake news, CNN regrets being caught and blames employees.
AJC headline:
“Trump sounds off after 3 CNN employees resign over retracted Russia story”
Read the story. It wasn’t that it was fake news, but that it didn’t meet CNN journalist standards and probably wasn’t true. I know the concept of standards with respect to truth and facts is tough to comprehend, what with a sociopath leading the country, and the GOP enthralled.
Conservative income redistribution… What a concept.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/27/opinion/the-gop-rejects-conservatism.html
President Trumps has stated many times we are more respected in the world then before (or something along those line).
Survey say…
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-image-survey-idUSKBN19I00F
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2017/06/27/american_pravda_project_veritas_catches_cnn_producer_admitting_russia_story_is_bullshit_about_ratings.html
Want to ride in the HOV lane in GA? Carry an alien.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/not-quite-warp-speed-speeding-man-had-alien-205730398.html