Where have I seen this attitude of the 'conservatives' regarding the poor, before? 'Are there no prisons? The Union Workhouses are they still in operation? The treadmill...' Punishing the poor for being poor has ever been a goal of the well-off. What is destroying our society is the wealth gap. The poor can never get ahead and the wealthy can never have enough wealth - and are willing to bankrupt the Country so they can have ever more wealth. They don't need this money. They have more than they can ever spend. But taking it away from the poor gives them some perverse pleasure.. Is it any wonder why the French Revolution went in the direction it did? (Disclaimer: I am only a slightly reworked Eisenhower Republican.)
You're right, that conservative attitude goes back forever. And when it gets out of hand it always leads to some kind of revolution. As it will with the Trump administration, whose malevolence, arrogance and greed is as mind-boggling as the individual and collective stupidity. They all seem to believe they're immune from consequence. But their house of cards is already collapsing about their ears; a lot of people have done and are doing things that will land them in jail one day. And the GOP reps and senators are kind of paralysed; longing to escape, but unable to.
Jennifer, I’ve been thinking that when the shit hits the fan, the Administration will declare a real war on a real country. Wag the dog, anyone? The Houthis are just a warm-up target. Remember: Pete Hegseth wants to rename DOD to The Department of War. And the military parade to celebrate Agent Orange’s birthday will crank up the MAGAts.
NATO has an agreement that all the nations will unite against any nation that attacks a member of the organization. Trump keeps yammering about attacking Denmark to take Greenland from it. What happens when one NATO member attacks another one? Will we be essentially declaring war against 31 nations?
That's not entirely out of the question. But I don't think even Trumpkopf is stupid enough to do something so totally asinine. Not because of the potential NATO response, but because of the possible overwhelming response of We The People. The last straw could be anything at this point.
I wish I could be so sanguine. Every time I think that he and his enablers have reached rock bottom, they do something to prove me wrong.
And as to We the people: We had a fairly good turnout on April 5th, but the numbers have been declining since then. (Here in the DC area, in any case) So I am not sanguine about a popular uprising either.
IDK about DC, but here in NYC, April 19 was easily as large as April 5. May Day was a bit disappointing, but apparently it was expected to be because it was on a weekday.
I believe a popular uprising could happen at any time. Remember, we're only barely beyond the first hundred days and we've already had large nationwide demonstrations. That's unheard of. Other times this has occurred was over years, not days, so overall, we're doing pretty damn well as far as that goes.
Trumpkopf has already done some seriously asinine things already, and he's not done yet. The spark could be anything. If this "budget" bill goes through, and MAGAnuts, along with the rest of us, lose critical social safety net programs, health insurance, SNAP, Social Security, we're looking at a whole new ballgame. Ditto the impact of these insane tariffs when it hits.
If there's one thing authoritarian regimes are dependent on, it's fostering a spirit of hopelessness, so the best thing you can do is keep up the fighting spirit.
That's why it's imperative that we continue to Rise! Resist! ✊✊✊
We'll need 3.5% or the population, or around 12,000,000 people to be present. So at the next rally bring all your friends and families, bring your pets. Spread the word as far and wide as possible.
Marge, I think Hegseth is stupid enough to try and make it happen, but I have a feeling that he'd be stopped. I reckon it would ignite the majority against Trump. As for the military parade, I think it's just Trump flexing the muscle he imagines he has. But already his 'power' is draining away.
Not to mention a significant portion of the military itself might defy an illegal order from an incompetent drunkard who stupidly risked their lives on an unsecured commercial app. That had to chop away any remaining respect they might have had for him. If any.
I'm willing to bet at least half the military would balk, especially because they can't stand being ordered by a hardcore incompetent lush. Especially one who willingly, maybe even deliberately, held a top secret meeting over an unsecured commercial app that included an editor at the Atlantic.
And now those types inhabit the Democratic tent. My whole family reregistered as Dems a while ago. The rethuglicans just marched off into their crazed fever dreams and left us to make the necessary adjustment.
So this is what a gilded age looks like! Complete with a Cantaloupe Caligula who seems not only to be economically illiterate, but also appears to have a Strong-Man complex too.
The "peasants" are trying to remember where they left their pitchforks.
There are so few of us, the Eisenhower Republicans left. The ones who shake their heads at the attacks on our beloved PBS because: wasn't that where we learned to debate Demicrats by watching Wall Street Week while smirking at Louis Ruykeyser's wry attempts at humour that made our less stodgy friends roll their eyes? Was that not the home of of William .f Buckley, Jr., whose analysis of the Nixon/Kissinger State Department made us almost believe Kissinger wasn't a Nazi? And why on earth are those seeming like the "Good Ol' Days?
Medicare Advantage has always been a system where a deep layer of multi-million-dollar executives gamed the system. They send out 'health techs' or LPNs with minimal credentials to do a 10 minute in-home assessment of wellness, bill Medicare for a complete annual wellness exam on the 'covered lives' in their area, collect the one time big (for Medicare) fee, and physicians who've spent years caring for those patients will see denials when they perform a complete home or office evaluation, assessment of need, plan and coordination of care. *We have a growing shortage ! of physicians and general surgeons. When Grandma does a spend down to qualify for Medicaid, or signs herself into a SNF using savings accumulated over a lifetime of work to cover the first three months of care, there will continue to be fewer physicians available for care home visits due to attrition. No Party in Power has ever worried or understood the negative impact of corporate medicine. Teddy Kennedy believed commercial insurers would bring business acumen and hold cost down. Hillary did too. Donald really doesn't care.
Example: I just made an appointment with an endocrinologist for what may be thyroid cancer. The appointment is on APRIL 21, 2026. The scheduler says all the endocrinologists are booked until at least next March. The shortages are becoming both absurd and terrifying.
If you can in any way afford doing so, look for a way to get an appointment in a country where you can get an appointment soonish. Some cancers are fast-growing and really dangerous.
Sorry for your situation. Republicans often point to the Canadian health care system as one which has lengthy wait times and which is therefore inferior to the US system. Never bought that argument.
I'm on Medicare Advantage and have gotten nmerous calls about a home visit. I have zero need for any home visit. I stupidly thought they were just doing some policy maybe required by Medicare (offering the visit, maybe hoping I wouldn't agree) but I'm sure you are right and they are just looking to do something Medicare will reimburse for a lot more than they spend on it, even though sending anyone at any level of medical expertise to homes is obviously an expensive thing.
Hmmm... let's look at the price of food. We are deporting and scaring off our farm workers and putting tariffs on food imports. At the same time, we cut food stamps. That isn't pinching pennies. That's a threat of malnutrition and starvation. Of course, somebody doesn't care. Look at the impact of the cuts to USAID. How many will die this year? The charitable organizations can't make up for all these cuts. This isn't from the New Testament. Christians should be outraged.
Did real private investment rise by 22% during 2025QI? Peter Navarro seems to be the first to make this dubious claim. It seems the loudmouth racist Stephen Miller was sent out to echo this claim. And it seems fake Ph.D. EJ Antoni is bragging on the Twitter about this piece in the renowned academic journal known as TownHall, which was published under the title “Economic Growth Hiding in Plain Sight”:
“But the best part of the GDP report was this showstopper: investment (the impetus of long-run real economic growth) is skyrocketing, up 21.9 percent at a seasonally adjusted annualized rate.”
That would be a showstopper but any review of the data provided by the latest from BEA also show this trio is lying big time. First of all, BEA’s reporting on the data I’m about to present is seasonally adjusted and analyzed. Then again – something tells me that EJ has no clue what these terms mean.
My first read of Navarro’s nutjob claim was that he was referring to real private fixed investment which rose from $4265.88 billion (all figures in 2017$) to $4348.811 billion for a 1.9% increase. Not bad but nowhere near 22%. Oh wait – did they include that inventory surge where inventory accumulation in 2025QI were 3.8 times its level in 2024QIV. Let’s see, investment including inventory accumulation rose from $4513.094 billion to $4533.684 billion for an increase = 5.07%. Now if one interpolates by assuming these growth rates for the next 3 quarters then investment not including inventory accumulation might rise by 7.8%. To get the Navarro-Antoni-Miller insane figure, one has to also assume even more massive inventory accumulations for the rest of the year. Something tells me that this is beyond implausible
But back to little EJ’s stupid claim. Does this fake economist really think massive stockpiling of inventories is the “impetus of long-run real economic growth”?
I prefer to read the transcript over listening, so didn’t notice the no audio. I want to thank you for doing this interview. It really explains a lot of what is about to happen in the budgeting efforts. Let’s just hope there are a few republicans with a conscience who see that robbing from the poor to pay the rich is still wrong!
The new art of medicine is up-coding and hiding the true cost of the service provided. So when you go to an ER you are billed inflated prices for every little item used as well as outrageous fees for the use of the facility. For example in an ER visit among other inflated prices I was billed $65 for 5 cc of salt water (saline) used to flush an IV and $13,000 for the ER visit. My insurer settled the bill for between 1/3 and 1/4 of the total billed.
In addition to unrealistically high prices for every service offered, the billing game requires coders to bill insurers and patients on a higher grade of service than the one actually given the patient based on the perceived severity of the diagnosis rather than the time spent with the patient. For example you go to your doc and you have small superficial benign skin lesion and the doc sprays it with liquid nitrogen to freeze it. The coder will bill it as a surgical removal of a skin lesion adding a couple of hundred dollars to the bill. The service literally takes 5 seconds and uses $.50 worth of liquid nitrogen. And depending on the facility, more often in large health care facilities, coders will upcode every service.
Insurers often have contracts with the hospitals that guarantee their prices which are deep discounts off of what the coder billed. But if you are not insured you will be billed the full amount. At that point some Hospitals will sometimes negotiate with patients who ask for an adjustment. The other wrinkle is that hospitals will then claim that discount as "charity" care.
Understanding health care costs is worse than negotiating the purchase of a used car (apologies to used care salesmen). Sad to say the game is to overkill and collect the maximum.
Same with billing for services. They bill for each treatment at the highest $ number they think anyone would possibly pay. From records the insurance sends me I can see they typically get 10-30% reimbursement for each charge, which they accept.
When future historians look back at this period in history they will laugh about the Republican's attachment to Christian Nationalism. Jesus had simple and understandable messages, "shelter the homeless", "clothe the naked", and "feed the hungry". What type of Christianity do these people believe in? If tax cuts at the expense of people eating and having healthcare excites you then please lose the crucifix or the cross as you just don't get it.
Don’t wear a cross unless you’re willing to risk being nailed to a real one. Also, being willing to nail someone else to a cross doesn’t make it OK, either.
“because the US economy grows, because we have inflation, you can run budget deficits year after year and the debt will only grow as fast as GDP, which is not a problem, or not necessarily a problem”
I think that already the existing debt will become a serious problem if the Trumpist government continues to wreck US trustworthiness as a viable location for business and investments.
Ahh, but they will have gotten theirs. And they can retreat to their lavish island bunkers. So what do they have to worry about? Those bunkers have been tested and are impervious to pitchforks.
Well turnabout is fair okay I suppose, but the Republicans are using reconciliation as a way to kick the deficit can down the road and saddle our grandchildren with enormous debt. They do this over and over again and then the Democrats (who are the adults in the room) have to come and try to fix things up..
Am I naive to suggest that along with getting rid of "everything they hate," their ultimate plan is to bankrupt the government so they can move in to privatize all services?
I guess I see it as Plan A. I frame the whole debacle as a civil war between the public sector and the private sector. It's a war that, ideologically, goes back to the Revolution, if not throughout history. The south shall rise again! as the slogan went. Well, it has--if one understands "the south" as an economic and social ideology. The question is do we acknowledge it and address it? In a way, Musk is Trump's Sherman's March only in reverse. My concern is that focusing on, and bemoaning, the daily destruction going on does Trump a service by ignoring the larger threat. I mean, isn't it obvious that Trump is trying to drag government "into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." -- Norquist. It is to me. So much progressive commentary on these matters, to me, is like a general watching an invading force take a town, detailing how bad the consequence will be, ands fretting over it. Time to establish the enemy's motives for the public so we understand what's at stake. (two cents)
My gut tells me that the tariffs are a tactic to get the bill passed (giving cover to fiscal hawks so they can tell themselves that the debt impact will be minimal) and once the bill is passed Trump will largely pull the tariffs. Stock market will jump. Wealthy will be ecstatic. Republicans will say it was genius because he managed to pass the largest cuts to spending ever using tariffs as a negotiation tool. And Republicans, Wall Street, and the conservative media will try to move the narrative forward based on massive cuts to government spending and waste fraud and abuse, ignoring the massive increase to debt, and massive impact on the poor. They need to do it before they tank the economy with said tariffs. Their window is closing.
Not only my gut tells me that the tariffs are up for negotiations. So, yes, of course the tariffs are not here to stay longer than necessary, but Trump might snuff the trust in US finance in the process.
Mr. Krugman and Mr. Kogan rightly focus on the people who will lose their Medicaid coverage and food benefits. But cutting Medicaid by hundreds of billions will hurt rural hospitals and health clinics causing many to severely cut back services and staff or even close. Medicaid also covers nearly two-thirds of nursing home residents so many will also likely close or at least send grandma and grandpa back to live with you while the cost of living goes up under Trump tariffs and higher interest rates.
Cutting SNAP benefits will directly hurt farmers. There's a reason SNAP is part of the so-called "farm bill," because the benefits go to pay for food they grow. While the argument to destroy USAID was that it was "foreign aid," in fact, much of the funding was used to buy food from American farmers, so they lost billions. Add to that the massive cuts in Chinese imports of American agricultural products because of Trump tariffs and farmers are three-time losers under Trump in the first 100 days. So much winning.
I frankly have little sympathy for the Trump voters in farming regions and none for the Republican representatives and senators who will have to answer for their cuts to health care and agriculture. Like many Trump-voting federal employees "shocked, shocked to find that" they were fired and not some other person they assumed was the "waste, fraud and abuse," in government, I'm afraid that Trump voters in farm country with neighbors, hospitals, grocery stores, etc. dependent on Medicaid and SNAP will only realize that Trump doesn't care about them at all when they are the ones who lose out.
Oh, to live in MAGA Trumplandia where science, facts & law don’t matter. For the convicted fraudster in chief & his capos the presidency is a side hustle & the grifting never ends.
The same Trump economic adviser who in March predicted the Trump 1st quarter GDP growth would be 2 to 2.5% "at least”, now blames Biden when the 1st quarter GDP declined for the 1st time in 3 years.
Where have I seen this attitude of the 'conservatives' regarding the poor, before? 'Are there no prisons? The Union Workhouses are they still in operation? The treadmill...' Punishing the poor for being poor has ever been a goal of the well-off. What is destroying our society is the wealth gap. The poor can never get ahead and the wealthy can never have enough wealth - and are willing to bankrupt the Country so they can have ever more wealth. They don't need this money. They have more than they can ever spend. But taking it away from the poor gives them some perverse pleasure.. Is it any wonder why the French Revolution went in the direction it did? (Disclaimer: I am only a slightly reworked Eisenhower Republican.)
You're right, that conservative attitude goes back forever. And when it gets out of hand it always leads to some kind of revolution. As it will with the Trump administration, whose malevolence, arrogance and greed is as mind-boggling as the individual and collective stupidity. They all seem to believe they're immune from consequence. But their house of cards is already collapsing about their ears; a lot of people have done and are doing things that will land them in jail one day. And the GOP reps and senators are kind of paralysed; longing to escape, but unable to.
Jennifer, I’ve been thinking that when the shit hits the fan, the Administration will declare a real war on a real country. Wag the dog, anyone? The Houthis are just a warm-up target. Remember: Pete Hegseth wants to rename DOD to The Department of War. And the military parade to celebrate Agent Orange’s birthday will crank up the MAGAts.
NATO has an agreement that all the nations will unite against any nation that attacks a member of the organization. Trump keeps yammering about attacking Denmark to take Greenland from it. What happens when one NATO member attacks another one? Will we be essentially declaring war against 31 nations?
That's not entirely out of the question. But I don't think even Trumpkopf is stupid enough to do something so totally asinine. Not because of the potential NATO response, but because of the possible overwhelming response of We The People. The last straw could be anything at this point.
I wish I could be so sanguine. Every time I think that he and his enablers have reached rock bottom, they do something to prove me wrong.
And as to We the people: We had a fairly good turnout on April 5th, but the numbers have been declining since then. (Here in the DC area, in any case) So I am not sanguine about a popular uprising either.
IDK about DC, but here in NYC, April 19 was easily as large as April 5. May Day was a bit disappointing, but apparently it was expected to be because it was on a weekday.
I believe a popular uprising could happen at any time. Remember, we're only barely beyond the first hundred days and we've already had large nationwide demonstrations. That's unheard of. Other times this has occurred was over years, not days, so overall, we're doing pretty damn well as far as that goes.
Trumpkopf has already done some seriously asinine things already, and he's not done yet. The spark could be anything. If this "budget" bill goes through, and MAGAnuts, along with the rest of us, lose critical social safety net programs, health insurance, SNAP, Social Security, we're looking at a whole new ballgame. Ditto the impact of these insane tariffs when it hits.
If there's one thing authoritarian regimes are dependent on, it's fostering a spirit of hopelessness, so the best thing you can do is keep up the fighting spirit.
That's why it's imperative that we continue to Rise! Resist! ✊✊✊
We'll need 3.5% or the population, or around 12,000,000 people to be present. So at the next rally bring all your friends and families, bring your pets. Spread the word as far and wide as possible.
//
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DOD's real name is War Dept. Like back in the days of WW2
"You can't fight in here! This is the War Room!"
Marge, I think Hegseth is stupid enough to try and make it happen, but I have a feeling that he'd be stopped. I reckon it would ignite the majority against Trump. As for the military parade, I think it's just Trump flexing the muscle he imagines he has. But already his 'power' is draining away.
Not to mention a significant portion of the military itself might defy an illegal order from an incompetent drunkard who stupidly risked their lives on an unsecured commercial app. That had to chop away any remaining respect they might have had for him. If any.
It was originally the Department of War. I think Pete would prefer Department of Warfighters though.
I'm willing to bet at least half the military would balk, especially because they can't stand being ordered by a hardcore incompetent lush. Especially one who willingly, maybe even deliberately, held a top secret meeting over an unsecured commercial app that included an editor at the Atlantic.
Yes, I too see them getting us in a real war. Distract. Bang the drum and raise the flag.
Are we really waiting that long to petition for impeachment, state by state ?
Those GOP reps and senators ought to land in jail right along with King MAGA and his band of nitwit, arrogant criminals.
The MAGA faithful are still largely supportive. Tariffs aren’t for revenue they’re to rebuild America. They really believe this will happen.
Ike was the last decent Republican president. Not great, but decent, meaning a decent human being in addition to being reasonably competent.
And now those types inhabit the Democratic tent. My whole family reregistered as Dems a while ago. The rethuglicans just marched off into their crazed fever dreams and left us to make the necessary adjustment.
With some reservations, I'd agree.
So this is what a gilded age looks like! Complete with a Cantaloupe Caligula who seems not only to be economically illiterate, but also appears to have a Strong-Man complex too.
The "peasants" are trying to remember where they left their pitchforks.
I love ‘Cantaloupe Caligula’!
You beat me to it! 😂
Illiterate, not only economically. When he said "I never read Mein Kampf" he meant he had to have someone read it to him.
Even better than Old Yam Tits!
: )
😂
WELL SAID.
Elon Musk waves around a chainsaw as he’s firing people. Then he wonders why sales of Tesla are down so much. Self-aware, he is not.
I read somewhere this week that he thought he was going to sire 5000 children....
Strange guy.
Thank you Stephen. In some small measure you give me hope.
There are so few of us, the Eisenhower Republicans left. The ones who shake their heads at the attacks on our beloved PBS because: wasn't that where we learned to debate Demicrats by watching Wall Street Week while smirking at Louis Ruykeyser's wry attempts at humour that made our less stodgy friends roll their eyes? Was that not the home of of William .f Buckley, Jr., whose analysis of the Nixon/Kissinger State Department made us almost believe Kissinger wasn't a Nazi? And why on earth are those seeming like the "Good Ol' Days?
We’re definitely in a “let them eat cake” moment under Orange Julius & Republican rule.
Oh snap ! I'd forgotten about that song. Thank you Jane !
I shall; You're now on my radar - in the best of ways....
Medicare Advantage has always been a system where a deep layer of multi-million-dollar executives gamed the system. They send out 'health techs' or LPNs with minimal credentials to do a 10 minute in-home assessment of wellness, bill Medicare for a complete annual wellness exam on the 'covered lives' in their area, collect the one time big (for Medicare) fee, and physicians who've spent years caring for those patients will see denials when they perform a complete home or office evaluation, assessment of need, plan and coordination of care. *We have a growing shortage ! of physicians and general surgeons. When Grandma does a spend down to qualify for Medicaid, or signs herself into a SNF using savings accumulated over a lifetime of work to cover the first three months of care, there will continue to be fewer physicians available for care home visits due to attrition. No Party in Power has ever worried or understood the negative impact of corporate medicine. Teddy Kennedy believed commercial insurers would bring business acumen and hold cost down. Hillary did too. Donald really doesn't care.
Example: I just made an appointment with an endocrinologist for what may be thyroid cancer. The appointment is on APRIL 21, 2026. The scheduler says all the endocrinologists are booked until at least next March. The shortages are becoming both absurd and terrifying.
If you can in any way afford doing so, look for a way to get an appointment in a country where you can get an appointment soonish. Some cancers are fast-growing and really dangerous.
Norbert has the right idea. India seems to be the country that most British people in your shoes use.
singapore, seoul
Sorry for your situation. Republicans often point to the Canadian health care system as one which has lengthy wait times and which is therefore inferior to the US system. Never bought that argument.
I've witnessed this trend as well. The medical consequences will be disastrous.
I'm on Medicare Advantage and have gotten nmerous calls about a home visit. I have zero need for any home visit. I stupidly thought they were just doing some policy maybe required by Medicare (offering the visit, maybe hoping I wouldn't agree) but I'm sure you are right and they are just looking to do something Medicare will reimburse for a lot more than they spend on it, even though sending anyone at any level of medical expertise to homes is obviously an expensive thing.
Hmmm... let's look at the price of food. We are deporting and scaring off our farm workers and putting tariffs on food imports. At the same time, we cut food stamps. That isn't pinching pennies. That's a threat of malnutrition and starvation. Of course, somebody doesn't care. Look at the impact of the cuts to USAID. How many will die this year? The charitable organizations can't make up for all these cuts. This isn't from the New Testament. Christians should be outraged.
they don't care about the new testament despite what they piously preach
If we’re weakened by starvation, we won’t be able to storm the Bastille (i.e. Maralago). Clever little monkeys!
Did real private investment rise by 22% during 2025QI? Peter Navarro seems to be the first to make this dubious claim. It seems the loudmouth racist Stephen Miller was sent out to echo this claim. And it seems fake Ph.D. EJ Antoni is bragging on the Twitter about this piece in the renowned academic journal known as TownHall, which was published under the title “Economic Growth Hiding in Plain Sight”:
“But the best part of the GDP report was this showstopper: investment (the impetus of long-run real economic growth) is skyrocketing, up 21.9 percent at a seasonally adjusted annualized rate.”
That would be a showstopper but any review of the data provided by the latest from BEA also show this trio is lying big time. First of all, BEA’s reporting on the data I’m about to present is seasonally adjusted and analyzed. Then again – something tells me that EJ has no clue what these terms mean.
My first read of Navarro’s nutjob claim was that he was referring to real private fixed investment which rose from $4265.88 billion (all figures in 2017$) to $4348.811 billion for a 1.9% increase. Not bad but nowhere near 22%. Oh wait – did they include that inventory surge where inventory accumulation in 2025QI were 3.8 times its level in 2024QIV. Let’s see, investment including inventory accumulation rose from $4513.094 billion to $4533.684 billion for an increase = 5.07%. Now if one interpolates by assuming these growth rates for the next 3 quarters then investment not including inventory accumulation might rise by 7.8%. To get the Navarro-Antoni-Miller insane figure, one has to also assume even more massive inventory accumulations for the rest of the year. Something tells me that this is beyond implausible
But back to little EJ’s stupid claim. Does this fake economist really think massive stockpiling of inventories is the “impetus of long-run real economic growth”?
Did that fake economist really think? No, he didn’t.
He's got a little random number generator. In Computer Science, we used to say that random numbers are too important to be left to chance.
I'm so grateful folks like you are paying close attention James.
So we’d better stock up on toilet paper before the oligarchs corner the market on that durable good, too?!
I prefer to read the transcript over listening, so didn’t notice the no audio. I want to thank you for doing this interview. It really explains a lot of what is about to happen in the budgeting efforts. Let’s just hope there are a few republicans with a conscience who see that robbing from the poor to pay the rich is still wrong!
The new art of medicine is up-coding and hiding the true cost of the service provided. So when you go to an ER you are billed inflated prices for every little item used as well as outrageous fees for the use of the facility. For example in an ER visit among other inflated prices I was billed $65 for 5 cc of salt water (saline) used to flush an IV and $13,000 for the ER visit. My insurer settled the bill for between 1/3 and 1/4 of the total billed.
In addition to unrealistically high prices for every service offered, the billing game requires coders to bill insurers and patients on a higher grade of service than the one actually given the patient based on the perceived severity of the diagnosis rather than the time spent with the patient. For example you go to your doc and you have small superficial benign skin lesion and the doc sprays it with liquid nitrogen to freeze it. The coder will bill it as a surgical removal of a skin lesion adding a couple of hundred dollars to the bill. The service literally takes 5 seconds and uses $.50 worth of liquid nitrogen. And depending on the facility, more often in large health care facilities, coders will upcode every service.
Insurers often have contracts with the hospitals that guarantee their prices which are deep discounts off of what the coder billed. But if you are not insured you will be billed the full amount. At that point some Hospitals will sometimes negotiate with patients who ask for an adjustment. The other wrinkle is that hospitals will then claim that discount as "charity" care.
Understanding health care costs is worse than negotiating the purchase of a used car (apologies to used care salesmen). Sad to say the game is to overkill and collect the maximum.
Same with billing for services. They bill for each treatment at the highest $ number they think anyone would possibly pay. From records the insurance sends me I can see they typically get 10-30% reimbursement for each charge, which they accept.
It's an insane non-system.
Musk is definitely not interested in this source of waste and fraud. Interesting…
When future historians look back at this period in history they will laugh about the Republican's attachment to Christian Nationalism. Jesus had simple and understandable messages, "shelter the homeless", "clothe the naked", and "feed the hungry". What type of Christianity do these people believe in? If tax cuts at the expense of people eating and having healthcare excites you then please lose the crucifix or the cross as you just don't get it.
Why, the Republicans are consistent: They have the same reverence for the teachings of Christianity as they have for the US Constitution.
While loudly and continually touting their allegience to both.
If you attend one of their services, you will find that they don't preach Christ. They preach Paul.
I'm going to start wearing the cross of Lorraine, a symbol of the French Resistance.
Send me one. All in!
Don’t wear a cross unless you’re willing to risk being nailed to a real one. Also, being willing to nail someone else to a cross doesn’t make it OK, either.
National Christianity?
The Prof. is just naturally cool.
Not enough hair.
Audio not working…
“because the US economy grows, because we have inflation, you can run budget deficits year after year and the debt will only grow as fast as GDP, which is not a problem, or not necessarily a problem”
I think that already the existing debt will become a serious problem if the Trumpist government continues to wreck US trustworthiness as a viable location for business and investments.
Ahh, but they will have gotten theirs. And they can retreat to their lavish island bunkers. So what do they have to worry about? Those bunkers have been tested and are impervious to pitchforks.
Indeed; Our 'debt' is entirely predicated on 'full trust and faith' in America.
Well turnabout is fair okay I suppose, but the Republicans are using reconciliation as a way to kick the deficit can down the road and saddle our grandchildren with enormous debt. They do this over and over again and then the Democrats (who are the adults in the room) have to come and try to fix things up..
Semi-adults.
Which we do
Am I naive to suggest that along with getting rid of "everything they hate," their ultimate plan is to bankrupt the government so they can move in to privatize all services?
It pretty much worked for Putin. But he didn’t require bankruptcy; he just required authoritarian power.
Trump is working on that as his backup plan.
I guess I see it as Plan A. I frame the whole debacle as a civil war between the public sector and the private sector. It's a war that, ideologically, goes back to the Revolution, if not throughout history. The south shall rise again! as the slogan went. Well, it has--if one understands "the south" as an economic and social ideology. The question is do we acknowledge it and address it? In a way, Musk is Trump's Sherman's March only in reverse. My concern is that focusing on, and bemoaning, the daily destruction going on does Trump a service by ignoring the larger threat. I mean, isn't it obvious that Trump is trying to drag government "into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." -- Norquist. It is to me. So much progressive commentary on these matters, to me, is like a general watching an invading force take a town, detailing how bad the consequence will be, ands fretting over it. Time to establish the enemy's motives for the public so we understand what's at stake. (two cents)
Good call.
Yes; And the cabal picks the private owners.
I'll repeat the super over simplified model for medical care:
Non profit model:
budget - overhead = service
For profit model:
budget - overhead - profit = less service
Optimized for profit model:
budget - overhead - more profit = even less service
That's why we have the most profitable medical care on the planet. We optimized profit.
My gut tells me that the tariffs are a tactic to get the bill passed (giving cover to fiscal hawks so they can tell themselves that the debt impact will be minimal) and once the bill is passed Trump will largely pull the tariffs. Stock market will jump. Wealthy will be ecstatic. Republicans will say it was genius because he managed to pass the largest cuts to spending ever using tariffs as a negotiation tool. And Republicans, Wall Street, and the conservative media will try to move the narrative forward based on massive cuts to government spending and waste fraud and abuse, ignoring the massive increase to debt, and massive impact on the poor. They need to do it before they tank the economy with said tariffs. Their window is closing.
Not only my gut tells me that the tariffs are up for negotiations. So, yes, of course the tariffs are not here to stay longer than necessary, but Trump might snuff the trust in US finance in the process.
Mr. Krugman and Mr. Kogan rightly focus on the people who will lose their Medicaid coverage and food benefits. But cutting Medicaid by hundreds of billions will hurt rural hospitals and health clinics causing many to severely cut back services and staff or even close. Medicaid also covers nearly two-thirds of nursing home residents so many will also likely close or at least send grandma and grandpa back to live with you while the cost of living goes up under Trump tariffs and higher interest rates.
Cutting SNAP benefits will directly hurt farmers. There's a reason SNAP is part of the so-called "farm bill," because the benefits go to pay for food they grow. While the argument to destroy USAID was that it was "foreign aid," in fact, much of the funding was used to buy food from American farmers, so they lost billions. Add to that the massive cuts in Chinese imports of American agricultural products because of Trump tariffs and farmers are three-time losers under Trump in the first 100 days. So much winning.
I frankly have little sympathy for the Trump voters in farming regions and none for the Republican representatives and senators who will have to answer for their cuts to health care and agriculture. Like many Trump-voting federal employees "shocked, shocked to find that" they were fired and not some other person they assumed was the "waste, fraud and abuse," in government, I'm afraid that Trump voters in farm country with neighbors, hospitals, grocery stores, etc. dependent on Medicaid and SNAP will only realize that Trump doesn't care about them at all when they are the ones who lose out.
Well said.
Trump & Co demand we abandon reality & threatens prosecution/retribution for challenging fabricated evidence & propaganda.
https://youtu.be/XCxNzFfX8Z8?feature=shared
Oh, to live in MAGA Trumplandia where science, facts & law don’t matter. For the convicted fraudster in chief & his capos the presidency is a side hustle & the grifting never ends.
The same Trump economic adviser who in March predicted the Trump 1st quarter GDP growth would be 2 to 2.5% "at least”, now blames Biden when the 1st quarter GDP declined for the 1st time in 3 years.
And no worldwide pandemic this time.