May 25, 2017

Senator Collins (R-ME) and Senator Cassidy (R-LA) on CBO Score

That's two!

WASHINGTON—Today, US Senator Bill Cassidy, MD (R-LA) released a statement, following the scoring of the American Health Care Act (AHCA) by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO):

“Congress’s focus must be to lower premiums with coverage which passes the Jimmy Kimmel Test. The AHCA does not. I am working with Senate colleagues to do so.”

https://www.cassidy.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/cassidy-comments-on-latest-acha-cbo-score



Washington, D.C. - U.S. Senator Susan Collins, a member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, issued this statement following the Congressional Budget Office’s release of its cost and coverage estimate for the House’s Affordable Care Act replacement bill:

“The goal of any ACA replacement should be to improve access to quality health care while providing consumers with more choices and restraining costs. Unfortunately, the CBO estimates that 23 million Americans would lose insurance coverage over the next decade, and the impact would disproportionately affect older, low-income Americans. In addition, for a 64-year old with an income of $26,500, the out-of-pocket premium cost could soar from $1,700 to as high as $16,100, an 850 percent increase.

“The ACA does need substantial reform. The individual health insurance markets are in danger of collapsing in many states, 28 million Americans remain without coverage, and those who do have coverage are experiencing huge spikes in out-of-pocket costs.

“Senator Cassidy and I recently brought together a group of Republicans and Democrats to determine whether there is a bipartisan path forward on a new health care reform bill. I urge my colleagues to support the comprehensive ACA replacement plan Senator Cassidy and I introduced that will allow more Americans to obtain health insurance, preserve significant consumer protections, and help moderate the cost of health care.”

https://www.collins.senate.gov/newsroom/us-senator-susan-collins%E2%80%99-statement-cbo%E2%80%99s-score-house%E2%80%99s-aca-replacement-bill

May 25, 2017

2 WaPo graphics explain CBO report.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/05/24/the-three-numbers-you-need-to-understand-the-cbo-report-on-republicans-health-care-bill/?utm_term=.adb24e391ea8

May 24, 2017

CBO Devastates Republicans As Trumpcare Would Leave 51 Million Without Insurance

Source: PoliticusUSA, by Jason Easley

The CBO report is out on the House passed Trumpcare bill and the news is a nightmare for Republicans, as the CBO concluded that the number of uninsured in America would jump to 51 million under The American Health Care Act by 2026.

The CBO reported, “CBO and JCT estimate that, in 2018, 14 million more people would be uninsured under H.R. 1628 than under current law. The increase in the number of uninsured people relative to the number projected under current law would reach 19 million in 2020 and 23 million in 2026. In 2026, an estimated 51 million people under age 65 would be uninsured, compared with 28 million who would lack insurance that year under current law. Under the legislation, a few million of those people would use tax credits to purchase policies that would not cover major medical risks.”

14 million Americans would lose their insurance in 2018 under Trumpcare. That number would jump to 19 million by 2020, and 23 million by 2026. Instead of moving the country towards 100% coverage, Trumpcare will increase the number people without health insurance to 51 million.

Trumpcare and the Republicans who passed it both have got to go.

http://www.politicususa.com/2017/05/24/cbo-devastates-republicans-trumpcare-leave-51-million-insurance-2026.html

May 24, 2017

"Would people work if they didn't have to?"

Universal Basic Income (UBI). The revolutionary idea to solve poverty and stimulate the economy by giving everybody free money is becoming mainstream. The goal of UBI is not to make everyone rich, nor to make everyone equal, but to provide everyone with a monthly basic income to provide for basic necessities. No more, no less.

Source: Medium, by Matt Orfalea


1. No More Poverty Trap

Our current welfare system in America is a disincentive to work. Because the money is conditional on you NOT working (unemployment, disability, etc). If you are on benefits and you get a job, you lose those benefits, so naturally you’re less likely to get a job. Even if you’d really like to get a job, you don’t because it no longer makes financial sense. You’d be risking you’re financial security by doing so. This is a “poverty trap”.
Replacing the current welfare system with an Universal Basic Income would remove that current work disincentive. Since Universal Basic Income is unconditionally guaranteed, nobody would be penalized for working. If we all had UBI, everybody who works a job will earn more than somebody who does not. It will finally pay to work again.


2. More Efficient Work

No bank teller is more efficient at counting and dispensing money than an ATM machine. That’s a fact. Machine work is a great thing in terms of productivity and efficiency. But it’s not so great a thing when we live in a society where we’re all dependent on a job’s income for survival.
Technology already exists that will likely automate half of all jobs in the next 20 years. This may sound like the dystopian plot of “The Matrix”. But it doesn’t have to be. A Universal Basic Income will protect workers from the otherwise inevitable poverty of joblessness. It will also be a catalyst for more efficient automated work, allowing humans to spend less time on thoughtless repetitive tasks, and more time on works of passion and innovation.

3. More Innovative Work


Due to an epidemic of financial insecurity, the large majority of the workforce is restricted to doing work that is profitable. But not all work, especially innovative work, or work that benefits society in the long run, is profitable. (For example, the invention of the polio vaccine has saved countless lives, but its developer Jonas Salk didn’t make a dime selling it. Because he never patented it.)
Henry George put it well in 1879:
“The fact is that the work which improves the condition of mankind, the work which extends knowledge and increases power and enriches literature, and elevates thought, is not done to secure a living. It is not the work of slaves, driven to their task either by the lash of a master or by animal necessities. It is the work of men who perform it for their own sake, and not that they may get more to eat or drink, or wear, or display. In a state of society where want is abolished, work of this sort could be enormously increased.”


4. More Work Opportunity.

What if you don’t want to invent the next polio vaccine. What if you just want to a traditional job working for someone else to earn enough to to afford a nicer house, a bigger family, and/or a vacation every once in a while? Well, Universal Basic Income helps in that department as well. Because UBI will create more business opportunities.
By putting more money in the hands of more people, UBI will increase aggregate demand (create more potential customers). This creates an environment with more incentive and opportunity to create new businesses (and improve old business) to compete for the new customers.

Much more at: https://medium.com/basic-income/would-people-work-if-they-didnt-have-to-ef91cbec600f

May 23, 2017

'Twin Peaks' Creator David Lynch and a Surreal Vision of Cooking Quinoa

I saw this years ago on the 'Inland Empire' DVD.

I could comprehend this part of the DVD.

May 23, 2017

The Alabama crossover vote goober-picking party is over

Source: al.com, by J.D. Crowe

The crossover goober-picking party is over.

Gov. Kay Ivey signed a bill on Monday to ban crossover voting in Alabama primaries. 

Messing with the GOP election is pretty much the only entertainment Democrats have had in recent years. In some cases, Democrats haven't even fielded a candidate to waste a vote on. Republican goober-picking is all they've had. 

Democrats have had a party rule prohibiting Republicans from crossing over and voting in their runoffs for decades.

Some blame the crossover vote {yallerdawg pleads guilty! } for Alabama's biggest gubernatorial goober of all - Dr. Robert Bentley - at least his first term. The second term - the Luv Guv term - is all on his home team.

http://www.al.com/opinion/index.ssf/2017/05/new_primary_rule_vote_for_the.html

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May 21, 2017

Abroad, President Trump's reality collides with candidate Trump's words

When a sociopath has a complete lack of self-awareness.

Source: CNN, by Kevin Liptak and Jeff Zeleny

*****

The President's message Sunday was far closer in tone to Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush than to the rhetoric that electrified the Republican campaign trail and helped send Trump to the White House.

This, for example, is not something candidate Trump would have said: "This is not a battle between different faiths, different sects, or different civilizations. This is a battle between barbaric criminals who seek to obliterate human life and decent people of all religions who seek to protect it."

*****

Yet the most stark difference on display here this weekend was not between Trump and Obama, but Trump and Trump.

In this country, which he once scorned his predecessor for appeasing, Trump has given in to its gilded embrace. The kingdom's outsized welcome, intended to flatter a president hungry for affirmation, appeared to work.

"Words do not do justice to the grandeur of this remarkable place," Trump said during his remarks.

*****

Read it all at: http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/21/politics/trump-saudi-arabia-speech-terror-rhetoric/index.html

May 21, 2017

Got 'Spike TV'?

Arguably, Stephen King's best 'short story.' But you knew that!

'The Shannara Chronicles' Season 1 aired previously on MTV. Shockingly good! Season 2 is on the way!

May 21, 2017

Here's what passed and failed during Alabama legislative session

A few interesting ones.

Source: al.com, AP

WHAT WAS APPROVED:

JUDICIAL OVERRIDE
Alabama ended its outlier status of allowing a judge to override a jury's sentencing recommendation in death penalty cases. Alabama had been the only state that allowed a judge to impose the death penalty when a jury has recommended life imprisonment. A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers had pushed for the change. It will affect only future cases and not inmates currently on death row.

CONFEDERATE MONUMENT PROTECTIONS
The bill prohibits the removal, alteration and relocation of any monument that has stood on public property for more than 40 years. A new state commission would have to approve changes for those that have stood for more than 20 years. The measure comes as some Southern cities rethink the appropriateness of Confederate emblems. Black lawmakers opposed the bill.

CROSSOVER VOTING BAN
Alabama voters would be prohibited from voting in a political party runoff if they voted in the preceding primary election of the other party. The bill was passed to prevent voters from one party trying to sway the outcome of the other party's runoff election.



WHAT FAILED:

PERMITLESS GUN CARRY
The bill would have allowed people to carry a handgun without getting a concealed carry permit. The bill cleared the Senate but stalled in the House amid heavy opposition from law enforcement officers across the state.

More at: http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2017/05/heres_what_passed_and_failed_d.html#incart_river_home

May 21, 2017

The answer to the coming 'Robot Revolution'? Universal Basic Income!

With an impending robot revolution expected to leave a trail of unemployment in its wake, some Silicon Valley tech leaders think they have a remedy to a future with fewer jobs — free money for all.

It’s called universal basic income, a radical concept that’s picking up steam as a way to provide all Americans with a minimum level of economic security. The idea is expensive and controversial — it guarantees cash for everyone, regardless of income level or employment status. But prominent tech leaders from Tesla CEO Elon Musk to Sam Altman, president of Mountain View-based startup accelerator Y Combinator, are proponents.

“We should make it so no one is worried about how they’re going to pay for a place to live, no one has to worry about how they’re going to have enough to eat,” Altman said in a recent speech at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. “Just give people enough money to have a reasonable quality of life.”

*****

That means a mother living on the poverty line would get the same amount of free cash as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Widerquist said. But Zuckerberg’s taxes would go up, canceling out his basic income payment.

*****

Much more at: http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/article/NE/20170520/NEWS/170529965