July 21, 2017 7:02 AM
Morning Reads for Friday, July 21, 2017
- Alton Brown. That is all.
- Georgian Christopher Wray – next head of the FBI.
- Paging Scully & Mulder. Creepy black-oil-looking worm headed toward Georgia.
- Gamers, rejoice!
- “You tell me whar a man gits his corn pone, en I’ll tell you what his ‘pinions is.”….
- Everyone does seem to be in a better mood.
- My kingdom for a history book.
- More ancient letters found.
- And there was great rejoicing. Really.
- Drug expiration dates are a racket.
- You complain about my behavior so much, I thought you were from HR.
- DC security robot sees no future in sight. Decides to end it all.
- See, there really is a reason to jog.
About Author
Ginny
Get off my lawn.
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With a Georgian heading the FBI, maybe hazard county can finally get the resources it needs to finally bring those dang duke boys to justice.
Wray, old Atlanta, Yale law, King & Spaulding , great at what he does, that would be a Georgian we are proud of.
You are upset that HHS is spending money that was earmarked to sell Medicaid expansion and they are now using that money to tell real people’s stories about how they were harmed by the ACA? I would encourage everyone reading these posts to take some time to listen to the “propaganda” that has Andrew all pissy.
So all these people are liars and or just stupid? Got it. How dare they speak up about the problems they are having. They should just shut their mouths.
Well yeah, it’ goes with the turf. The government needs to keep its cotton pickin’ hands off Medicare and Medicaid.
“shouldn’t HHS be focused on helping people access healthcare”
https://www.hhs.gov/healthcare/empowering-patients/providing-relief-right-now-for-patients/index.html
Has been in the news because it isn’t sexy, but HHS has been doing things to help patients. Just last Friday they released a new proposed change to the 340B program that would save Medicare recipients $180 million a year in prescription drug copayments.
For those that aren’t familiar with the 340B program, certain hospitals are allowed to negotiate the prices for certain pharmaceuticals. They pay say 50 cents for a drug then charge Medicare $1 for that same drug. The hospital keeps the difference. But this means that a Medicare recipient pays their copay on amount on the full price. Not the lower negotiated price. They are basically over charging Medicare simply because they can. This new rule doesn’t stop that, but reduces the amount hospitals can up charge. Saving Medicare receipts $180 million a year in copays.
The “savings” that Medicare saves by not paying they higher drug prices has to be spent in Medicare. So HHS is looking to set up a program with the estimated $900 million in savings to help struggling hospitals in rural areas.
But yeah. HHS is full of evil people that don’t care about helping people.
“discouraging people from signing up for ACA plans or refusing to pay cost-sharing subsidies is stupid, petty, mean, and short-sighted.” See, this is what you call the definition of a lie. HHS (under the current administration) has spent a lot of time and effort trying to stabilize the market with new market stabilization rules that encourage people to sign up and encourages insures to stay in the markets. Also, every cost sharing payment has been paid to date.
I’ll be at the MGM this weekend so you will need to drive out to National Harbor to bump into me.
I have not been overly impressed with National Harbor. But I’m not into over priced retail stores and chain restaurants. I’d rather go out in old town Alexandria. But I’ll be spending my time on the casino floor.
Here is the thing you too… You’re each are fighting over 2 different sections of the population. Every bill has a winner, ever bill have a loser. Each one wants your selected portion of the population to be the winner. The fact of the matter is that being able to cover everyone including pre existing conditions makes the price of coverage for everyone go up. Removing pre existing condition clauses or over all coverage for pregnancy makes premiums go down for the average healthy family but means people who pasted their life time limits even under employee plans (pre-Obama) will no longer have coverage or pay for it in the tens of thousands of dollars and force the births of uncovered pregnancy to be paid for by in-state Medicaid programs. The irony is neither one of you is wrong but your both not completely righter. Your both like congress – refusing to bend.
I posted this last week. And when the two of you are done fighting over who ays what and how many get what type of coverage, argue about ways to lower what my doctor charges me for care, and why one of my prescriptions cost thousands of dollars in this country (which I pay a $100 copay under my insurance) but the same pill from the same manufacturer (from the same production batch in some cases) is 1/12th the price in Europe, and South America? Solve those issues ( and with out the use of the terms like the ‘next phase’).
Although you two do crack me up… And your are both being pissy today. HAHAHA
https://www.axios.com/health-care-aca-in-context-2455036139.html?utm_medium=linkshare&utm_campaign=organic
Ellyn, I honestly believe if Andrew and I were put into a room and told to come up with a solution to health care we could. In a bubble, things are always easier. I wish we were the ones in charge and there wasn’t a Congress, news media with an agenda or Trump to deal with. Unfortunately, we have to deal with the political reality along with everything else. That makes a somewhat difficult task nearly impossible.
I don’t have the answer to that.
Couple of things on drug pricing. 1) Thank you for not opposing the changes to 340B just because I mentioned it. 2) Importation of drugs from India, Canada or anywhere is a non-starter. I think it was reported that 5 out of the last 5 FDA heads have opposed this because the FDA would not have the oversight to make sure the drugs you are buying are actually the drugs they say they are. We should probably not even debate the merits pro and con because it ain’t happening. 3) CMS negotiating prices isn’t a non-starter, but I have serious reservations because that can quickly turn into drug price fixing under a democrat administration. That would not be good. 4) Generic Drugs are extremely important to the market. Getting them to market faster is certainly a priority of the FDA. Streamlining the process is something I think you will see soon. 5) You are right that the drug lobby has had a firm grip on the testicle region of FDA and Washington, DC in general for years. I think if you were to go ask PHARMA if their grip is still tight they would tell you no.
“The challenge there is that you’re basically creating another avenue for the prescription drug makers to wield influence on the regulatory process.” That is correct and I believe this problem can be fixed at home and by broadening the issue to outside our borders you are making it that more complicated to solve.
Here are a few other propaganda videos.
https://youtu.be/ktn6eGKfTkQ?list=PLrl7E8KABz1EifD5BWCrauFUNqrMEKAQ0
https://youtu.be/h-p-mNkOgPM?list=PLrl7E8KABz1EifD5BWCrauFUNqrMEKAQ0
How dare HHS share the story of this child.
https://youtu.be/oBItUJ8Q_HE?list=PLrl7E8KABz1EifD5BWCrauFUNqrMEKAQ0
You really are pissy this morning. I’m at work trying to help real people like those in the videos above. The ones you called liars and stupid. I feel good about what I do daily.
From Trump’s interview with the NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/19/us/politics/trump-interview-transcript.html
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TRUMP: Nothing changes. Nothing changes. Once you get something for pre-existing conditions, etc., etc. Once you get something, it’s awfully tough to take it away.
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HABERMAN: That’s been the thing for four years. When you win an entitlement, you can’t take it back.
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TRUMP: But what it does, Maggie, it means it gets tougher and tougher. As they get something, it gets tougher. Because politically, you can’t give it away. So pre-existing conditions are a tough deal. Because you are basically saying from the moment the insurance, you’re 21 years old, you start working and you’re paying $12 a year for insurance, and by the time you’re 70, you get a nice plan. Here’s something where you walk up and say, “I want my insurance.” It’s a very tough deal, but it is something that we’re doing a good job of.
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Does POTUS even know what health insurance is? His response seems to be a word salad description of whole life insurance (that for a very young, healthy person could have a low $12/year premium) or Social Security. Nothing else in the world of insurance is in the ballpark of what he’s talking about. The embarrassing and shameful conclusion is POTUS does not actually know what health insurance is, except for Republicans, for which ignorance is a source of pride and power.
From the NYT: “Things are starting to feel incoherent,” said Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, reflecting on the health care efforts. “There’s just not a lot of progress happening.”
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Damn, the elected GOP establishment is perceptive—we can rest easy.
HURRY! Everyone working on a campaign or government agency that needs to get a bad news story out of the way now is the time to drop it. Spicey is out and the news media are losing their minds.
I think he may have googled if he can pardon himself as well.
He asked Barron to Google it for him… the Tweeter app doen’t not have that feature.
I’m pretty sure a leak said that he asked his attorney to google it.
That is what is bizarre to me. How many people would know that he is looking into pardons? You would think only his most trusted people. And they are leaking?
He had a shake up in his legal time yesterday…
Meanwhile down in the hostess city…
http://www.wtoc.com/story/35938033/savannah-city-council-to-hold-special-called-meeting-to-discuss-citycounty-police-agreement
This is going to be a messy divorce.
A dog would be too average. He would want a tiger or a something rare and ‘huge’…
https://www.axios.com/maybe-trump-needs-a-dog-2463033259.html
But he wouldn’t take care of it. And it would probably growl at him when he came around it.
Silly moppet, he PAYS people to be nice to it and make sure he never sees or hears a thing unless he needs a photo op.
And his dog handler would leak embarrassing details.
I thought about that as I was writing that reply, then lectured myself for being too cynical.
So, by whatever mechanism it takes, does Trump fire Mueller? Does he preemptively pardon himself and family?
Currently, he would have to get DAG Rosenstein to fire him. OR… He gets a new AG who can do it for him. The chances of him getting a new AG through the Senate…Piff, OR… he fires Rosenstein, which leaves him DAG Brand, was I have read is more a rule of law person the Rosenstein… If he fires Mueller himself, he loses some key senators for any future legislation (or other Senate hearings) and the huge SCOTUS battle.
I agree. If he does the preemptive pardoning, his presidency’s hope of any congressional cooperation is over on anything and it will operate on executive orders only until ’20.
Haven’t researched it, but “preemptive” pardoning doesn’t seem like it would make sense. Even blanket absolution for any criminal conduct in the past wouldn’t logically extend into the future. I’m sure not one S.Ct. justice would go for that. So, if he pardoned now, the door to the future would remain open. If he waits, the door to the past remains open. Prosecutors could have a long memory, and if public opinion is such, they could wait until he’s a private citizen and chargeif/when he were to mess up. The Pres. may have gotten into politics to boost his brand name, but I think he killed it for his whole family.
Serious question: If Washington is spending millions of our tax dollars investigating any possible Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, why are they only looking at one of the two campaigns that were part of the election? There’s plenty of smoke coming from the Clinton fire, but it’s as if she wasn’t even running as the Democrat candidate. Unless they investigate both campaigns, we can never know more than half of the picture. The public deserves full disclosure on the whole shebang.
I bet John Podesta intentionally allowed his emails to get hacked. He did consent when he clicked the link.
Who is to say they are not. Glenn Simpson was just slapped with a subpoena, which his lawyer is objecting to and saying he will plead the 5th. Susan Rice and a few other ranking NSA people spoke to the senate committee in closed secession (not under oath) from Wednesday thru Friday. That media nugget was lost because some one had to invite 3 NYT reports to the Oval Office to say some really dumb things (healthcare at $12 a month…) and hire a Mini- Me for his comms director, leading to the resignation of Spicer. While all this was going on, the Primetime lineup at FOX on Thursday focused one… O.J. for the A block lead. Seriously. Keep in mind what most of ‘know’ about the investigation are from leaks originating from White House sources or by Trump’s own words and actions. Almost everything Trump complained over about Clinton in that last few weeks has been investigated a number of times by the house special commission, FBI investigations, the Departments of Defense, State, and the IRS in the case of the foundation. Again, congress can reopen a lot of this. Ask yourself why they have not.