Tag: Health Care Reform

Mid-term election special: Trumpy and the Wingnuts got their asses kicked

Just not quite as bad as Bush did in 2006 or Obama did in 2010 but an ass kicking is an ass kicking. Ironically the reason Obama got his ass kicked in 2010 seems to have come around full circle:

Red-State Voters Opt for Obamacare – Mattie Quinn

Making sure the working poor have access to health insurance pays for itself, unlike tax cuts, and the unwashed masses appear to have figured this out. If you believe exit polling and I think there is a kernel of truth to what the exit polls found last week, health care ranked number 1 on the list of issues that were most important to those that voted. In Arizona, Wing-nut Senatorial Candidate Martha McSally resorted to lying about her record of trying to gut access to health insurance in a vain attempt to run from her past votes on that issue. You wonder who the hell these Wingnuts thought they were representing trying repeatedly to increase the ranks of the uninsured over the last two years but it wasn’t their constituents. Back to healthy workers being more productive, from Quinn’s article in Governing magazine linked above:

While the price tag of Medicaid expansion can come with some sticker shock, independent analyses have found that states often save money by insuring people — there are fewer instances of uncompensated care, and people are healthier when they have insurance. According to a 2016 report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 11 states experienced some savings from Medicaid expansion.

2016 studies showing healthy populations pay for themselves are fine and dandy but is there more recent data? How about from next door in Louisiana:

Medicaid expansion created 19,000 new jobs in Louisiana, according to study ~ Marcia Clark

Phil Bryant’s mishandling of this issue will be the biggest stain on whatever legacy he leaves the state and the refusal of Phil and the GOP to take Medicaid expansion to cover the working poor has contributed to some very real problems in Mississippi such as community hospitals breaking under the weight of having to eat the cost of uncompensated care along with the sheer human misery of not being able to have sufficient access to the health care system.

It is against this backdrop that an idea from the far left has gathered significant traction even among the right wing: Continue reading “Mid-term election special: Trumpy and the Wingnuts got their asses kicked”

Hey Barack. Out here on Main Street we’re still not buying in.

I only blog about my accounting practice indirectly when I express popular sentiment as I hear it from my small business clients. We in the trenches of the economy have a vantage point on the action the generals simply don’t have. I listened to part of  the State of the Union last night and heard all the promises and nope none of us are buying in. CNN Money has a good story that drives home the point, here is a snippet:

….small business owners across the nation say they feel left out of the stimulus and recovery action.

“Basically, it seems to me that Washington’s efforts have been to help Wall Street, not Main Street,” said Kim Griebling, president of Custom Flag Company in Westminster, Colo. Griebling and her father bought the company in 1998 and now employ a staff of eight. As the economy deteriorated, so did the demand for flags.

Griebling applied in September for an America’s Recovery Capital (ARC) loan, an emergency financing program created as part of February’s stimulus bill. The program offers qualifying business owners a small, government-backed loan on very attractive terms, but those trying to land ARC loans face a gauntlet of administrative obstacles. While bailed-out financial giants like AIG got financing fast from Washington, business owners wait months. Continue reading “Hey Barack. Out here on Main Street we’re still not buying in.”

Politics and devious stuff: Yep I can verify the people hate it

There are many times I really do not envy our US Representative Gene Taylor. On the coast we know Gene as a straight shooting guy that hangs his hat with the democrats while nationally Gene is known as a conservative southern democrat that represents one of the most conservative congressional districts in this country. It is an amazing feat considering he routinely wins re-election with 75 plus percent of the vote. He does that despite being stuck between the proverbial rock of modern-day progressive ideology and the hard place of being in a district populated by folks with a strong predisposition to vote republican. The voters are attracted to Gene because he is, as Steve would say, a man of the people in that he truly represents the folks in his district over special interests. That stance makes Gene enemies with the special interests in DC and occasionally that manifest itself in weird ways such as in an article published at Politico where a member of the house democratic caucus took a cheap shot at Gene instead of a hard look in the mirror and it is there we begin: (h/t Alan Lange)

Massachusetts Rep. Mike Capuano kicked things off by telling colleagues that health care reform wasn’t the only reason Democrat Martha Coakley, who beat him in the primary, lost the general election. Capuano said his party failed to explain to voters what the legislation means for average Americans, saying they should never have passed a 2,000-page bill.

“The health care bill is too complicated, and it looks like too many backroom deals,” Capuano said in an interview with POLITICO. “We need to do a much better job explaining what we are trying to do.”

Mississippi Rep. Gene Taylor got up after Capuano and said Congress should do a bill a week and have a pep rally, according to people present at the meeting. Continue reading “Politics and devious stuff: Yep I can verify the people hate it”