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Robot Jones posted:Not anymore- the current governor is a Democrat, and a fairly progressive one at that: Yeah, there is a Democratic Governor now. She's been in office for 4 months. But, there was only one Democratic Governor of Massachusetts before her in the last 33 years. Gumball Gumption posted:That's not actually the reason, traditionally our state legislature will be the second or third state to adopt new laws, letting places like California or Minnesota be the first to pass them. Once we see it works in those states our legislature is pretty willing to adopt them. It's also a lot more complicated than just "they have republican governors" since Heeley is the governor now and you had things like MassHealth which was a blueprint for the ACA under Mitt Romney. I know it's not just that. I was just making a little joke about Massachusetts having brain poisoning and their love of Republican Governors, but extremely blue legislatures. It's a very New England phenomenon, so there is obviously something in the water that is causing brain poisoning. Leon Trotsky 2012 fucked around with this message at 13:55 on May 25, 2023 |
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May 25, 2023 13:50
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Yeah, there is a Democratic Governor now. She's been in office for 4 months. Please don't poo poo post in D&D.
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May 25, 2023 13:55
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Gumball Gumption posted:That's not actually the reason, traditionally our state legislature will be the second or third state to adopt new laws, letting places like California or Minnesota be the first to pass them. Once we see it works in those states our legislature is pretty willing to adopt them. It's also a lot more complicated than just "they have republican governors" since Heeley is the governor now and you had things like MassHealth which was a blueprint for the ACA under Mitt Romney. Its more then that. The DFL in Minnesota had the state senate for 40 some odd years before 2010. 2011 to 2013 left scars on many DFLers because even though we barely had a DFL governor we had republicans gain control of the state house and senate. 2013 comes around and Gov Dayton felt like he needed to pick a fight with the DFL in the house and senate for stupid reasons, some very good legislation was passed but its viewed as a missed opportunity. 2015 though 2022 Republicans have a 1 seat majority in the State Senate, no major legislation passes. DFL takes the trifecta in 2023 and they are going to strike while the iron is hot.
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May 25, 2023 14:00
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The Massachusetts "let's have it both ways with a "reasonable" republican exec" was super loving real and I'm glad it finally died
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May 25, 2023 14:01
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morothar posted:See, I’m not sure I understand why that should be true for medium-sized, rich states. Europe has small countries and big countries, and basically all of them have some form of public health care that’s cheaper and provides better aggregate outcomes. I’m sure there are lots of articles on this, but a couple of specific reasons off the top of my head. The first reason is it’s a lot easier to move state to state than country to country. Because single payer healthcare will require a substantial tax increase to fund, I can guarantee a lot of [healthy] people would just move to a different state. The second reason is because people travel between states all the time, especially when you live close to the state border. So you have either no healthcare coverage in another state or the resident’s state reimbursing the full amount to other states. If it ends up being the second part of that, not only would that be ridiculously expensive, but you’ll probably have a lot of hospitals price gouging those patients since their state is footing the bill I’m sure there’s a lot of other issues too that I’m not aware of, such as regulations. But I can’t imagine a single state being able to implement a single payer system independently of the rest of the country.
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May 25, 2023 14:06
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Kalit posted:I’m sure there are lots of articles on this, but a couple of specific reasons off the top of my head. The first reason is it’s a lot easier to move state to state than country to country. Because single payer healthcare will require a substantial tax increase to fund, I can guarantee a lot of [healthy] people would just move to a different state. Minnesota is opening the MinnesotaCare health insurance system to all residents of the state and to have it be offered by all employers during open enrollment in 2027.
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May 25, 2023 14:15
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UKJeff posted:Really? As in, a democrat or left-leaning politician? I honestly can’t think of a single case. It’s always been “when they go low, we go high” and stuff like that. Rahm Emmanuel and Anthony Weiner were notorious assholes when they were in the house, and they were pretty good at getting things done. Rahm should have stayed in the house instead of moving to be chief of staff for Obama, and then a lovely mayor of Chicago, and Weiner should have kept his weiner in his pants.
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May 25, 2023 14:20
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karthun posted:Minnesota is opening the MinnesotaCare health insurance system to all residents of the state and to have it be offered by all employers during open enrollment in 2027. MinnesotaCare (and similar state Medicaid programs) are not even close to a single payer healthcare system. It still has premiums/copays/deductibles/etc
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May 25, 2023 14:27
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Kalit posted:MinnesotaCare (and similar state Medicaid programs) are not even close to a single payer healthcare system. It still has premiums/copays/deductibles/etc Single-payer just means there is one single payer for all insured services for all members that negotiates bulk payment rates. It doesn't mean there are no co-pays or deductibles. Medicare has copays and deductibles and many single-payer systems in other countries still have small co-pays.
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May 25, 2023 14:31
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Gumball Gumption posted:That's not actually the reason, traditionally our state legislature will be the second or third state to adopt new laws, letting places like California or Minnesota be the first to pass them. You're welcome. Given how dysfunctional CA state politics are, it's depressing to think we're the vanguard for anyone. I'm genuinely curious how well this sort of attitude would play today. I think it requires a majority of opinion that I'm not sure we have. It'd be incredibly refreshing.
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May 25, 2023 14:33
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Not to be all Massachusetts's guy but there is also legislation looking into reducing work hours to 30 from 35. Now normally one would be like, yah some lefty from Cambridge did this but it was a State Rep. from the Plymouth County area, so he's pretty moderate and makes me wonder if that is going to change soon too.
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May 25, 2023 14:35
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DeadlyMuffin posted:You're welcome. I think it would *make* a majority. The bigger issue would be how the media would treat it. It'd make fox voters even more feral but they're already pressing the pedal to the floor so no matter. Two years ago I'd have said it was the perfect attitude for Twitter but 
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May 25, 2023 14:37
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Ron DeSantis' campaign launch disaster was preventable, but Elon did no advance prep work and just assumed everything would be fine because there was nobody working there to test it. Musk also has been trying to save money on data storage and shut down one of Twitter's major data centers months ago. This reduced Twitter's max capacity and 600,000 simultaneous users was too much and crashed the iOS app and browser player. They had to cap the audience at 275,000 at kick out almost 2/3 of the people who came to listen to restore the service. Under Musk, Twitter now has planned "site reliability issues" phases each month. Twitter current has 433% more full downtime under Musk than it did last year and part of that is due to getting rid of server capacity to save money and instead find ways to manage the traffic and plan around 4-5 periods per month where the site will be down. In addition, they have slashed the teams that handle their cloud servers and completely eliminated the team that was supposed to oversee and manage all the teams at their data centers based on the idea that by shutting down 1 of their 3 major data centers, that everyone could just run their data center as its own thing separate from the other. https://twitter.com/RMac18/status/1661522563661721600 quote:Elon Musk’s Event With Ron DeSantis Exposes Twitter’s Weaknesses
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May 25, 2023 14:45
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somehow a doubplepost
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May 25, 2023 14:46
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Single-payer just means there is one single payer for all insured services for all members that negotiates bulk payment rates. It doesn't mean there are no co-pays or deductibles. Medicare has copays and deductibles and many single-payer systems in other countries still have small co-pays. Oh really? I was thinking all payments came from a single source (i.e. the government). Thank you for the correction. I guess it’s still split between federal and state government, so it’s still not a single payer system. And while it’s better than no coverage, it’s not a great system either, so guess I wouldn’t care if it was technically single payer or not
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May 25, 2023 14:50
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I mean Leon is right about single payer not precluding out of pocket costs, but MNCare is not single payer because there is still private insurance in MN, with which the program “competes.” It’s a public option. Which is a good thing, and I wish the ACA had had one, but it’s not single payer - which I agree would be impractical for a state to do alone, for the reasons Kalit laid out.
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May 25, 2023 15:04
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Bird in a Blender posted:Rahm Emmanuel and Anthony Weiner were notorious assholes when they were in the house, and they were pretty good at getting things done. Rahm should have stayed in the house instead of moving to be chief of staff for Obama, and then a lovely mayor of Chicago, and Weiner should have kept his weiner in his pants. Al Franken as well. Which highlights another aspect of Democrats' loud assholes -- the Dems at least make an attempt to police their own, provided they don't become President. Sometimes.
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May 25, 2023 15:14
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Kalit posted:Oh really? I was thinking all payments came from a single source (i.e. the government). Thank you for the correction. I guess it’s still split between federal and state government, so it’s still not a single payer system. And while it’s better than no coverage, it’s not a great system either, so guess I wouldn’t care if it was technically single payer or not The main draw single payer has when dealing with insurers is that it prevents them from doing collusive poo poo to arbitrarily keep the prices of drugs high for some set of users despite the fact that they sell the same drug at low prices to other people with the same problem. For medical insurance specifically, they have what are called a formulary (like, a list of which medications can be covered for which diagnoses without getting the PCP involved with prior authorization (usually this is like, the doctor sending medical information expressing why a certain drug on the formulary can't be used with a bunch of bullshit added in so that the insurer backs down and says "okay fine we'll pay for this just this once.") When the body doing the bargaining against insurers (who, remember, exist to charge money and pay out as little as possible) is several different groups, the insurers have the leverage because they can always point to their competitors and say "look, we don't offer this drug for this disease because none of these other places do, and we can provide this other med to you (that we have a sweetheart deal with the producer of) to you at a savings to the consumer" -- which is one of those things that tends to be technically true, but belies the fact that they can only do this in places like the US, where the upcharge fees on medicine can be several thousand percent. This is largely due to the supply side of the parmaceutical corporations having the near universal backing of the US government, and so fundamentally private individuals are attempting to argue against two monolithic entities (the pharma and the government via the insurer). If, however, the government were not in the business of leaning on the scales in favor of pharmacy profit, then the governmental body would be the negotiator on the client's side. Or "single payer" as it were. Most countries simply don't allow drugs to be sold to their citizens for fees that are so extreme, and the US could do that too. So when people talk about single payer, this is what they're referring to. The pharmas going to the insurers to price hike, and the insurers being told by the conglomerate single payer to cram it and pay up. tl;dr private insurance is a scam that, like guns, is way worse in the US than in most other places, and single payer structure with their removal in mind would help a lot.
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May 25, 2023 15:19
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Kalit posted:Oh really? I was thinking all payments came from a single source (i.e. the government). Thank you for the correction. I guess it’s still split between federal and state government, so it’s still not a single payer system. And while it’s better than no coverage, it’s not a great system either, so guess I wouldn’t care if it was technically single payer or not Yeah, there are places that eliminate the coinsurance, deductibles, premiums, etc. But, most single-payer systems have some cost-sharing. For example, here's the current cost-sharing info for Medicare Part B: Premium: $164.90 Deductible: $226 Co-Pays: Generally none, but there are a few very specific circumstances. Co-Insurance: 20% of cost after meeting deductible as co-insurance. Prescription Drugs: Not included in part B and costs are variable depending on your Medicare Part D plan, type of drug, and pharmacy. Other: - Premium is based partially on your income, so higher-income individuals will pay a higher Medicare premium. - Low-income Medicare beneficiaries can become "dual eligible" and qualify for both Medicaid and Medicare. In this scenario, Medicaid will pay for your Medicare premiums and co-insurance costs. https://www.medicare.gov/basics/get-started-with-medicare/medicare-basics/what-does-medicare-cost Here's some for France's national health insurance plan (which generally has the lowest cost-sharing in healthcare among major countries) Premium: None Deductible: None Co-Pays: Minimum 1 euro + co-insurance. Co-Insurance: 20% for inpatient stays, 30% for outpatient doctor and dentist visits. Prescription Drugs: Variable rate for drugs, but a minimum of 15% co-insurance for drugs on the national formulary list and 100% coinsurance for drugs not covered under the national formulary list. Other: - There are means-tested exemptions to coinsurance based on income. Roughly 9% of France qualifies for the coinsurance exemption. - 95% of French citizens have supplemental private insurance that covers the co-insurance of the national healthcare plan and elective procedures not covered by the national healthcare plan. https://www.commonwealthfund.org/international-health-policy-center/countries/france Leon Trotsky 2012 fucked around with this message at 15:28 on May 25, 2023 |
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May 25, 2023 15:21
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:For example, here's the current cost-sharing info for Medicare Part B: When I was a medical biller Medicare part B's deductible was like $168 or something, making this a 34% increase in 8 years. Per the BLS inflation calculator, $168 8 years ago is $214.28 now, so I guess the deductible going up that much really isn't out of line with basic inflation. I'm guessing the deductible is tied to inflation in some way?
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May 25, 2023 15:34
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Judgy Fucker posted:When I was a medical biller Medicare part B's deductible was like $168 or something, making this a 34% increase in 8 years. Per the BLS inflation calculator, $168 8 years ago is $214.28 now, so I guess the deductible going up that much really isn't out of line with basic inflation. I'm guessing the deductible is tied to inflation in some way? CMS uses a formula to set it that does include inflation. They lowered the premium by about $7 this past year even though inflation was very high, so it is not directly tied to inflation, but it does include inflation. I believe the specific formula is based on actuarial rates that estimate how long current beneficiaries will live, how much money they are estimating to take in, how many people will be beneficiaries, and inflation. Then, they use that formula to determine what the deductible should be.
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May 25, 2023 15:51
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11-year-old Mississippi boy who was shot by responding police officer after calling 911 is released from the hospital https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/24/us/mississippi-police-shooting-11-year-old-boy/index.html Cops are demons. This kid called 911 for help when his mother was being beaten by her partner, and then the cops come and shoot the kid.
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May 25, 2023 16:05
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Young Freud posted:Trump's spoken about the DeSantis-Musk announcement: The new Jeb! has been crowned, everyone. I'm actually mad at these terrible primary challengers now because they're going to give Trump a chance to look mildly impressive by completely dunking on them. He didn't have to go anywhere near this hard to humiliate DeSantis, but he sure went hard.
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May 25, 2023 16:05
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Mooseontheloose posted:Yah the MBTA is...a whole kettle of fish. Is the Health Connector program the state's Medicaid plan, a public option with provider rates set by the state, or something else?
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May 25, 2023 16:09
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Willa Rogers posted:Is the Health Connector program the state's Medicaid plan, a public option with provider rates set by the state, or something else? It's Romneycare.
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May 25, 2023 16:16
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UKJeff posted:Really? As in, a democrat or left-leaning politician? I honestly can’t think of a single case. It’s always been “when they go low, we go high” and stuff like that. Katie Porter's pretty good at that, but will likely lose her Senate race to establishment-backed Schiff, and then her House seat will be gone as well. Cori Bush has her moments, as do Omar & Tlaib. But yeah, they're few & far between, and don't get much press when they rock the boat. (eta: unless it's negative, fake controversies as with Omar.) I can think of several candidates, like Nina Turner, Ben Jealous & India Walton, who were stymied either by the establishment supporting their opponent in the primary or g.e. and/or by the might of groups like DMFI. As long as donor-driven politics continues to dominate our country, politicians will continue to carefully pick their battles for being loudmouths. Willa Rogers fucked around with this message at 21:13 on May 25, 2023 |
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May 25, 2023 16:16
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:It's Romneycare. So an ACA exchange like every other state? I'm trying to suss out what makes it more left-leaning than other states, as intimated by the post to which I was replying. Maybe I misunderstood that post.
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May 25, 2023 16:18
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I sure hope the Biden administration actually has a backup plan for if/when debt ceiling negotiations break down. If they just shrug and let it happen rather than try ANYTHING then they are going to end up owning this more than they think IMO... e: assuming they don't just cave which is entirely possible
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May 25, 2023 16:23
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Willa Rogers posted:So an ACA exchange like every other state? I'm trying to suss out what makes it more left-leaning than other states, as intimated by the post to which I was replying. Maybe I misunderstood that post. Pretty much. There's some minor differences, but they were basically doing the "free healthcare for people just above Medicaid eligibility and subsidized for everyone else up to 400% of the poverty line" before Obamacare. They shunted some people off onto Medicaid after Obamacare expanded it and got a few waivers to keep running their own exchange the way they were before, but it is essentially Obamacare.
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May 25, 2023 16:25
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Single-payer just means there is one single payer for all insured services for all members that negotiates bulk payment rates. It doesn't mean there are no co-pays or deductibles. Medicare has copays and deductibles and many single-payer systems in other countries still have small co-pays. The government setting provider rates, premium rates, deductibles, co-pays & universality (being able to obtain healthcare coverage beyond one's state or county lines) is what keeps traditional Medicare so much more affordable for most people. Of course, with the government promoting & subsidizing "Medicare" "Advantage"--which is neither Medicare nor an advantage over Medicare--that's changing by the year, but some Democrats in Congress (Warren & Wyden, e.g.) are trying to stop that.
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May 25, 2023 16:32
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Levitate posted:I sure hope the Biden administration actually has a backup plan for if/when debt ceiling negotiations break down. He better pull the coin from behind McCarthy 's ear
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May 25, 2023 16:33
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Pretty much. There's some minor differences, but they were basically doing the "free healthcare for people just above Medicaid eligibility and subsidized for everyone else up to 400% of the poverty line" before Obamacare. At one point a few years after the ACA was put into effect I remember reading that the Massachusetts exchange had the highest premium costs in the country. Do you know if that's still true?
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May 25, 2023 16:36
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cat botherer posted:11-year-old Mississippi boy who was shot by responding police officer after calling 911 is released from the hospital It's like American cops are competing for the most WTF shooting case. Did they get worried after that Australian cop tasered a 95-year old grandma to death? Concerned that shooting a guy in a wheelchair wouldn't be enough for them to defend the title?
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May 25, 2023 16:37
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Willa Rogers posted:At one point a few years after the ACA was put into effect I remember reading that the Massachusetts exchange had the highest premium costs in the country. Do you know if that's still true? No clue. They had the most comprehensive coverage for a long time, so that + high COL might have contributed. I don't know if that is still true or if there were other factors that made it more expensive.
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May 25, 2023 16:39
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UKJeff posted:Really? As in, a democrat or left-leaning politician? I honestly can’t think of a single case. It’s always been “when they go low, we go high” and stuff like that.
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May 25, 2023 16:41
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Willa Rogers posted:At one point a few years after the ACA was put into effect I remember reading that the Massachusetts exchange had the highest premium costs in the country. Do you know if that's still true? Looks like it's Vermont - WV as the 1-2 at all bronze / silver / gold tiers. Mass all the way down to 17th at worst for gold tier. Jumped back to 2018 and Mass was still not showing up above the fold in any of them https://www.kff.org/health-reform/s...2:%22desc%22%7D
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May 25, 2023 16:43
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Thanks, Kalli. Speaking of health care: https://twitter.com/Serenad7/status/1661620178948435968 quote:The percentage of American adults who say they skipped medical care due to costs rose significantly last year, hitting 28 percent. That's up from 24 percent in 2021 and 23 percent in 2020, according to a survey out this week from the Federal Reserve titled Economic Well-Being of US Households in 2022. Reminder that the number of Americans who die each year due to being uninsured or underinsured was 80,000 the last I heard (when Bernie was campaigning in 2020). It's likely greater now given these new stats, and will continue to grow particularly as no-questions-asked Medicaid enrollment continues to phase out after the pandemic. And this is after the Biden administration & its promoters have touted record insurance enrollment as well as the enhanced subsidies that the federal government has provided private health insurers. Willa Rogers fucked around with this message at 16:51 on May 25, 2023 |
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May 25, 2023 16:48
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Young Freud posted:Trump's spoken about the DeSantis-Musk announcement: Oh this made my day. 
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May 25, 2023 16:49
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Oracle posted:Rahm Emmanuel comes to mind. That one lawyer for Stormy Daniels people were crowing about until they realized oops, he's just an rear end in a top hat... Michael Avenatti? Adrian Fontes (newly elected Arizona SoS) Ruben Gallego (running for Senate in Az for Sinema's seat). Rahm was a loudmouth, but his target usually was the left, not the right.
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May 25, 2023 16:50
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pencilhands posted:Hmmm maybe I’m just ignorant of what’s going on I've been living in the city for close to 20 years now and the MBTA is the worst it has ever been by an enormous margin lol. It's genuinely kind of hilarious how much it's falling apart (well apart from that one guy who got dragged to death by a malfunctioning train, that wasn't funny)
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