Sunday, October 15, 2017
Does Weinstein affair account for poor Hollywood movies?
No doubt about it, Hollywood is making fewer movies, many of them are comic book movies, and box office has been terrible this season. And then we have Harvey Weinstein, allegedly a top man in Hollywood. Maybe he doesn't pay enough attention to making decent movies, and wastes too much time harassing and raping actresses? If Harvey is typical of Hollywood management, no wonder the movies are lacking.
Saturday, October 14, 2017
Cost Sharing Payments
President Trump has raised yet another firestorm from the Democrats. He has decided to stop "Cost Sharing Payments" to the health insurance industry. This is in accordance with a federal court decision calling the payments illegal, because Congress never appropriated the money for them. Plus the concept of my tax money going to private insurance companies boggles my mind.
Democrats claim these payoffs are necessary to keep Obamacare insurance premiums from going even higher than they have. To which one might ask why they haven't appropriated the money. And why the money should go to insurance companies, rather than to patients.
The Democratic whining over "Cost Sharing Payments" has drowned out Trump's other Obamacare reform, announced the day before, allowing sale of economical insurance policies, instead of the "covers everything under the sun" Obamacare policies. The medical industry loves the Obamacare policies, they pay for everything, whether it does any good or not. Patients don't complain about cost, 'cause it's all paid for. Used to be you could buy "covers everything" policies for $12000 a year. They cover routine physicals, the wife and kiddies, prescription drugs, out patient treatments, chiropracty , drug rehab, maternity, mental health, and all the cat scans, ultrasounds and MRI's the patient can stand. This was the usually deal for employer provided health care.
But, they was another option, one that paid for the big stuff that nobody has the money for, and let the patient cover the little stuff out of pocket. This coverage could be had (before Obamacare outlawed it) for $3000. If you were in reasonably good health (most of us are) you could save $9000 a year by going with "big stuff only" or "hospitalization only" policies. The $9000 difference was more than enough for yearly physicals, out patient treatments, pills and plasters, just about anything. I used to go this way until Obamacare outlawed such policies, and I became eligible for Medicare. My doctor never approved, he wanted me to get an MRI, I asked what it would cost, he didn't know, it took months to finally get someone to quote me a price ($ Many Thou) at which point to matter was quietly dropped.
Trump is going to allow writing policies that only cover what the patient wants to pay for, rather than cover everything under the sun policies, which are outrageously expensive. Good deal.
Democrats claim these payoffs are necessary to keep Obamacare insurance premiums from going even higher than they have. To which one might ask why they haven't appropriated the money. And why the money should go to insurance companies, rather than to patients.
The Democratic whining over "Cost Sharing Payments" has drowned out Trump's other Obamacare reform, announced the day before, allowing sale of economical insurance policies, instead of the "covers everything under the sun" Obamacare policies. The medical industry loves the Obamacare policies, they pay for everything, whether it does any good or not. Patients don't complain about cost, 'cause it's all paid for. Used to be you could buy "covers everything" policies for $12000 a year. They cover routine physicals, the wife and kiddies, prescription drugs, out patient treatments, chiropracty , drug rehab, maternity, mental health, and all the cat scans, ultrasounds and MRI's the patient can stand. This was the usually deal for employer provided health care.
But, they was another option, one that paid for the big stuff that nobody has the money for, and let the patient cover the little stuff out of pocket. This coverage could be had (before Obamacare outlawed it) for $3000. If you were in reasonably good health (most of us are) you could save $9000 a year by going with "big stuff only" or "hospitalization only" policies. The $9000 difference was more than enough for yearly physicals, out patient treatments, pills and plasters, just about anything. I used to go this way until Obamacare outlawed such policies, and I became eligible for Medicare. My doctor never approved, he wanted me to get an MRI, I asked what it would cost, he didn't know, it took months to finally get someone to quote me a price ($ Many Thou) at which point to matter was quietly dropped.
Trump is going to allow writing policies that only cover what the patient wants to pay for, rather than cover everything under the sun policies, which are outrageously expensive. Good deal.
Thursday, October 12, 2017
Republicans don't really control the federal government
So what is a Republican? Really. A real Republican votes for measures (Obamacare repeal!) important to the party. There is a shortage of real Republicans in DC these days. We have a lot of RINOs, who call themselves Republican but believe in Democrat policies like tax and spend. They actually like robbing their constituents of as much tax as they can get away with, and then using their ill gotten proceeds to buy votes in their districts with pork barrel spending. And we have a lot of just plain weirdos, like John McCain and Rand Paul and Susan Collins who stick it to the party every time they can, just because they can. And we have the "House Freedom Caucus", a bunch of "Republicans" from safe districts, who will bolt the party at the drop of a hat, for any reason at all, or no reason.
As we have seen on Obamacare repeal, these people cannot be depended upon to vote for crucial bills. In the Senate the Republicans have only 52 members and four or five of them are undependable weirdos. Things are a little better in the house, but not much.
Rather than saying "The Republicans control the government." it would be more realistic to say, "The weirdos have enough votes to stop anything."
As we have seen on Obamacare repeal, these people cannot be depended upon to vote for crucial bills. In the Senate the Republicans have only 52 members and four or five of them are undependable weirdos. Things are a little better in the house, but not much.
Rather than saying "The Republicans control the government." it would be more realistic to say, "The weirdos have enough votes to stop anything."
Wednesday, October 11, 2017
Girl and Boy Scouts of America??
Just heard about this on the TV. Apparently the Boy Scouts have announced that all ranks of scouting are now open to girls as well as boys. The Girl Scouts of America have objected to what they see as a grab for their membership. Actually, a co-ed scouting program sounds like a good idea in many ways. Maybe the leadership of both the Boy and Girl Scouts can get together on this. Or maybe not. Stay tuned.
Forgiving Debt would Hurt Puerto Rico ??
Headline of an op ed in today's Wall St Journal. Author is a John Tamny, director of Center for Economic Freedom at Freedomworks, editor of RealClearMarkets, and author of "Popular Economics". He has some credentials, although the name is new to me. His arguments make little sense to me, even after re reading the piece several times. He says "By erasing Puerto Rico's debt, Mr. Trump would be handing the territory's political class more money to spend inefficiently." Let's be real here. Fixing up after Hurricane Maria needs lots and lots of money. Puerto Rico doesn't have any money at all. There are only two ways for Puerto Rico to get the needed money, borrowing it, or getting it as a free gift from mainland taxpayers. Lenders are scarce on the ground. It's obvious to real people (but perhaps not to dumb as rocks Wall St bankers) that Puerto Rico doesn't have the money to ever pay off the $93 billion in debt they have already racked up. Those lenders won't get paid back, not ever. New loans won't get paid back either. Lending to Puerto Rico is just plain charity, loans that won't get paid off are charity, not banking.
The other source of money to fix up the hurricane damage is for the US Congress to appropriate the money out of federal tax revenue, or by selling some more T-bills, or both. This is charity, and there is a decent chance that the Congress will feel charitable and will cough up the money, especially if the MSM and the Democrats get on board with the idea.
The concept of "forgiving" Puerto Rico's debts is just psycho-babble. They don't have the money, they will never have the money, and the lenders are never gonna get paid. For that matter Puerto Rico declared bankruptcy a couple of months ago, which means they won't pay anyhow, even if they had the money, which they don't.
The other source of money to fix up the hurricane damage is for the US Congress to appropriate the money out of federal tax revenue, or by selling some more T-bills, or both. This is charity, and there is a decent chance that the Congress will feel charitable and will cough up the money, especially if the MSM and the Democrats get on board with the idea.
The concept of "forgiving" Puerto Rico's debts is just psycho-babble. They don't have the money, they will never have the money, and the lenders are never gonna get paid. For that matter Puerto Rico declared bankruptcy a couple of months ago, which means they won't pay anyhow, even if they had the money, which they don't.
Tuesday, October 10, 2017
Decertifying the Iran Deal?
TV newsies have been talking about it. But they say "decertifying" isn't like canceling the deal. If so, why do we care? It may be a way of expressing disapproval of the deal, but if it doesn't do anything, why does it matter?
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