Stop Putting Your Phone In Your Bra

Don’t know of I can even get to twenty!

Chris Hayes, Jennifer Stefano, AFP, ObamaCare

 

As the Obama Administration has granted 15 additional days for enrollment in the Affordable Care Act, it should be no surprise GOP derangement is over the top.

Chris Hayes, MSNBC, ALL IN made the mistake of booking a guest who is an executive of the Koch Brothers Americans for Prosperity (AFP). What you are about to see could supplant the most classless and crass Jerry Springer staged “fool spectacles.”  

   

I introduce AFP’s Jennifer Stefano.  Warning! After viewing first three quarters of the segment you will know two things. You will know why it is important to fight Koch takeover of our society and, more important, you will see why the old Springer show fell out of vogue with millions. Actually, you will know a third item. You will have witnessed the level of communication and the type of video segment that will go viral on conservative social media and websites. In fact, you might even think of a Bill O’Reilly finger-pointing yelling segment from Fox News. 

http://www.nbcnews.com/video/nbc-news/52452609#54789581

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Stefano yelled seven million Americans had suffered insurance policy cancellations. As of march 6th, 2014, Charles Gaba, a very reliable ACA tracking source addressed reports of a lesser number of cancellations: reports of five million. 

Since Stefano snapped and yelled about seven million cancellations you might want to read this short piece from the Gaga ACAsignups.net webpage. As you read the piece know that Gaba is writing in response to a critique of his ‘dead-on’ accurate enrollment tracking. You have to know the Kochs are not to sit idly-by and watch Gaba’s tracking without dispatching a “data-assassin.” 

http://acasignups.net/graph Since you may not have visited the Gaba link above, I am posting a segment of the screed that addresses Stefano seven million cancellations.

Well, I forgot about one more thing: Not all of those 4.8 million “cancelled” policies were actually cancelled. 

Another commentor, danslabyrinth, reminded me that thanks to President Obama and HHS announcing their “grandfathering” policy which extended the deadline for existing non-compliant plans by a year (and, more recently, by another two years, to as far out as the end of 2016), this 4.8 million figure has already been vastly reduced. By how much?

Well, according to this article about the additional 2-year extension, 1.5 million people never had their policies cancelled after all (or at least, they had them reinstated after originally being cancelled, anyway): 

It’s not clear how many people will actually be affected by the most closely watched provision of the new regulations, the two-year extension on policies that were previously subject to cancellation. The administration cites a congressional estimate of 1.5 million, counting individual plans and small business policies. 

About half the states have allowed insurance companies to extend canceled policies for a year under the original White House reprieve. The policies usually provided less financial protection and narrower benefits than the coverage required under the law. Nonetheless, the skimpier insurance was acceptable to many consumers because it generally cost less. 

“It’s not likely to affect a large number of people but it certainly avoids difficult anecdotes about people having their policies canceled,” said Larry Levitt of the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, an expert on insurance markets. “I think it’s a small and dwindling number of people who are affected.” 

Now, that 1.5 million figure isn’t given as solid…but then again, neither is the 5 million figure (I’ve heard the number claimed being as low as 4.7 million or as high as 6 million, but the 6M sources are, to put it mildly, a bit shakey to say the least). 

UPDATE: Thanks to Tim Dickinson for pointing me towards the source of the “1.5 Million UNcancelled Policies” estimate…which is actually the same updated CBO report which lowered the exchange QHP estimate from 7M to 6M: 

In November 2013, the Administration announced that state insurance commissioners could give health insurers the option of allowing individuals and small businesses to re-enroll in coverage that did not comply with certain market and benefit rules, such as the prohibition against adjusting premiums based on health status, that were scheduled to take effect in January 2014. CBO and JCT estimate that, as a result, roughly 11⁄2 million people in the individual and small-group markets will renew policies in 2014 that are not compliant with those rules. In addition, because subscribers may renew such coverage between January and October of 2014, CBO and JCT estimate that half a million people will continue to be enrolled in noncompliant policies in 2015.  

So, here’s what I’m willing to do: Since 5M is the most-cited figure, I’m willing to use that. And since 1.5 million appears to be the maximum number that have taken the administration up on their extension offer, I’m even willing to knock a couple hundred thousand off of that in the interests of being, shall we say, “conservative”.

This means that we can subtract 1.3 million from 5 million, leaving 3.7 million people who genuinely had to replace their existing non-compliant health insurance policy with a fully-compliant one…via either the ACA Exchanges or off-exchange, directly through the insurance companies.

And as I explained yesterday, until I know how many of those 3.7 million replaced their policy off-exchange instead of on the exchanges, I have no way of knowing how many to “subtract” from the graph and therefore can’t do so.

The AFP executive spent the last two minutes of her on-camera appearance deflecting from a potentially intelligent point-counter-point with a typical Fox News-like performance. Stefano successfully deployed the very technique used by Mitt Romney to disarm a scantily prepared and (appearing) reticent Barack Obama during their first debate. Romney deployed the Gish Gallop debate technique via overwhelming Obama with machine gun-like issues and comments laced with either half-truths or outright lies. I suggest based on reading in preparation for this piece, Stefano also threw veracity on the floor of the host studio.

The Gish Gallop–  Named after creationist Duane Gish, is the debating technique of drowning the opponent in such a torrent of half-truths, lies, and straw-man arguments that the opponent cannot possibly answer every falsehood in real time. The term was coined by Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education.

She spoke repeatedly of how Hayes, “did not know her,” while reminding of many of the Springer Show segments. Yet, the one thing she left for all to see and hear. Other than the Fox News Network, we now know her and we know she is very much not fit for prime-time appearances on national television.

Kaiser Family Foundation Visualizing Health Policy And The KFF March 2014 Tracking Poll

“Visualizing Health Policy: What Americans Pay for Health Insurance Under the ACA,”

The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, 5.26.2014, [ http://kff.org/infographic/visualizing-health-policy-.….. ]

The March 2014 Visualizing Health Policy infographic shows examples of what Americans will pay for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, using different scenarios for 40-year-old individuals living in different parts of the country.

Visualizing Health Policy is a monthly infographic series produced in partnership with the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). The full-size infographic is freely available on JAMA’s website and is published in the print edition of the journal.

For deeper readers Kaiser offers a slideshare of the infograhic with data set numbers. 

What Americans Pay for Health Insurance Under the ACA from KaiserFamilyFoundation

We have linked Kaiser march 2014 Poll results here.  The study is typically Kaiser in detail, thorough and impeccable methodology.  We are posting a couple of key figures from the study. 

“Over half report having personal conversations about ACA, but similar share are weary of national debate”

   The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, 5.26.2014, [ http://kff.org/health-reform/poll-finding/kaiser-health-tracking-poll-march-2014/ ]

The ACA was a common topic of personal conversations this month, and the public reports that the tone of those conversations was mostly negative. Just over half the public (55 percent) say they had at least one conversation about the law with friends or family in the past month, up from 31 percent in January 2012 (the last time this question was asked). About half those who say they discussed the law with friends or family (28 percent of the public overall) report hearing mostly bad things about the law in these discussions, while a much smaller share (5 percent of the public overall) say they heard mostly good things and the remainder say it was a mix of the two.

Figure 9

While personal conversations may be on the rise, many Americans appear to be weary of the national debate about the law. Just over half the public (53 percent) say they’re tired of hearing about the debate over the ACA and want the country to focus more on other issues, while about four in ten (42 percent) say they think it’s important for the country to continue the debate. Democrats and those with a favorable view of the law are more likely to say they’re tired of hearing about the debate, while Republicans and those who view the law unfavorably are more evenly split between those who are tired of hearing about it and those who want the debate to continue. 

Excerpt 

Perhaps reflecting this sense that the debate has gone on long enough, more of the public would like to see Congress keep the law in place and work to improve it (49 percent) or keep it as is (10 percent) rather than repeal it and replace it with a Republican-sponsored alternative (11 percent) or repeal it outright (18 percent).

Figure 11

The previous graph unequivocally shows most Americans do not want repeal of defunding the ACA.

If that is the case, why does Boehner and Cantor continue to enact frivolous repeal ACA votes?  The question is actually rhetorical, we already know the answer. 

The Land Of OZ And The Horror Of Racism

The power of the (communication) message doesn’t go unnoticed as we watch America’s social and political Right work to shape a nation in its likeness. Communication is a innate and incredible gift to human beings. The gift is often an influencing a propaganda tool of people skilled in delivering messages of fear, indifference intolerance and messages that do great harm. While you may think our society is well beyond that you are about to read, slow-down and think about how tragedy need not end in the ultimate act of death. Tragedy also has reality in deprivation. And, deprivation erodes the human spirit such that it can actually place people in states of servitude that is deleterious and dangerous to the greater society.   

The lovely and heart-warming story of Dorothy, her clinging troupe (The Lion, The Tin-Man and The Scare Crow) and the Kansas tornado has roots in evil with fissures that point to the gifted communicator as a Shepard of the evil. A communicator who may have manipulated like a skilled marionette.

The Land of Oz

L. Frank Baum

A beautiful memory for us all. An image of and from our childhood and a reminders of the awe of movie-making and television. When accompanied by the fanciful innocence of youth and the enormous youthful power of imagery, the creative work from the mind of L. Frank Baum and his gift of writing prose affected us all. 

I doubt there is a person in the nation who was not in some way influenced by exposure to Baum’s Land of Oz. Furthermore, I am confident we can extrapolate knowledge of the Land of Oz to people across the globe.

How about a circa 2014  high definition image of the road to Oz? A road that becomes a ‘yellow brick” road as Oz draws near. 

The beauty and imagery of OZ may have a basis in pure horror and shame. We offer an intriguing perspective. A perspective heard many years ago and simply filed into the old gray matter. Upon seeing a broadcast of MSNBC earlier today, the gray matter regurgitated the information. There was a side of my brain that refused to accept what you are about to read. The information was compartmentalized in a “forget me” file, never to be reenacted via recall. Baum may have provided facilitating written treatises about genocide against a band of Original Native Americans. He wrote with fiery hatred and racism about the remnants of the great Lakota Sioux Nation. His writings also may have salted the minds of people willing to listen to the railings of a racist to send the Lakota to a final resting place for hundreds of women and children. The Wounded Knee Massacre occurred on December 29, 1890,[4] near Wounded Knee Creek (Lakota: Čhaŋkpé Ópi Wakpála) on the Lakota Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in the U.S. state of South Dakota. It  is well known scourge of US History and became known to millions based on movies through our recent past. ( Lakota Woman, Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee-HBO Films, The Tragedy At Wounded Knee 17 minute documentary).  Many have written about Baum’s deep racist writings, which for some in Manifest Destiny America may have helped to rationalize unrestrained killing of men, women and children. We certainly cannot confidently report that Baum’s racist writings and blood thirst was the deciding factor in the Wounded Knee Massacre. On the other hand, we can confidently say his writings may very well have been a contributing factor. Communication to sympathetic ears has major impact. Do you recall the disparaging phrases broadcast across radio waves and loud speakers as the genocide in Rwanda was perpetrated, “Cockroaches, kill the Cockroaches.”  Need I remind you of how Joseph Goebbels portrayed the Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and minorities as the Third Reich conquered greater Europe?  “Why Not Annihilation?” L. Frank Baum. L. Frank Baum’s Editorials on the Sioux Nation Before the Massacre The Sitting Bull editorial (Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer, December 20, 1890)  L. Frank Baum’s (Wizard of OZ Author) Editorial on the Sioux (Lakota) Nation About a week prior to the slaughter at Wounded Knee (1890), L.Frank Baum, editor of South Dakota’s Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer in an editorial wrote:  ” The nobility of the Redskin is extinquished and what few are left are a pack of whining curs who lick the hand that smites them. The whites by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of the American continent, and the best safety of the frontier settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians.(WHY NOT ANNIHILATION?)Their glory has fled, their spirit broken, their manhood effaced, better they should die than live the miserable wretches that they are.” .L. FRANK BAUM (author of THE WIZARD OF OZ )

After the Massacre

The Wounded Knee editorial (Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer, January 3, 1891)

JUNE 26-28, 2004 L. Frank Baum: Racist Indian-Hating in “The Wizard of Oz” by THOMAS ST. JOHN August 17, 2006 ‘Oz’ Family Apologizes for Racist Editorials by CHARLES RAY

If you visited the NPR link just above, you either heard or read the descendant family of Baum apologizing for his racism.  Well, as I often state the (act of) apology is nothing more than words offered far too late when proper behavior would have eliminated the need to go there. Apologies from Baum’s relatives can do nothing to reconnect the DNA and bloodline of the slaughtered. Their words cannot reach back in time to stop the senseless killing of Lakota generations from children through the elderly.  

The American people must carefully watch, scrutinize and question growing plutocracy from the Right. It is a fact the nation is probably resilient enough to deal with far-right leaning governance. While our past reflects on the horrors of such governance, we weathered the storm. Nonetheless, we have to stay diligent in recognizing the social and the political Right of today; it is not the Right of Ronald Reagan. It is not a Right that respects people with opposing views. It is the Right of Fox News and AM Radio with daily feedings of hatred and fear broadcast primarily to older white listeners and viewers. It is a Right backed my uber wealthy plutocrats who spend billions working to establish and instill a form of US oligarchy. A form of government where you and I may not face genocide, but we could very well become mindless “Stockholm Syndrome” droning hordes divided into economic wherewithal, races, gender and sexual orientation class groupings. Groupings that could stand rigid until the passing of time completes inevitable erosion. Groupings and society controlled by people that occupy one racial demographic: the Paleozoic Era conservative white male. A demographic that refuses to step outside of his aquatic (comfortable) paradigm for life on the shore. Life with much more opportunity for thriving and passing-on a better life to those who will follow.

Increasing exhibitions of bigotry and racism tend to draw the mind back to Baum and his careless and horrific writings. And, as I think of Baum and his over-the-top exaltation of “the whites”, I am reminded of my often quoted “House of OZ.”