Are Republicans serious about health care? No, and here’s the proof. – By Jacob Weisberg – Slate Magazine
The real significance of that episode, however, is not their bad manners, but what Republicans ordered the last time health care was on the menu. Their bill, which stands as the biggest expansion of government’s role in health care since the creation of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965, created an entitlement for seniors to purchase low-cost drug coverage. Grassleycare, also known as Medicare Part D, employs a complicated structure of deductibles, co-pays, and coverage limits. Thanks to something called the “doughnut hole,” drug coverage disappears when out-of-pocket costs reach $2,400, returning only when they hit $3,850. Simply stated, the bill cost a fortune, wasn’t paid for, is complicated as hell, and doesn’t do all that much—though it does include coverage for end-of life-counseling, or what Grassley now calls “pulling the plug on grandma.”
In their 2009 report to Congress, the Medicare trustees estimate the 10-year cost of Medicare D as high as $1.2 trillion. That figure—just for prescription-drug coverage that people over 65 still have to pay a lot of money for—dwarfs the $848 billion cost of the Senate bill. The Medicare D price tag continues to escalate because the bill explicitly bars the government from using its market power to negotiate drug prices with manufacturers or establishing a formulary with approved medications.
And unlike the Democratic bills, which won’t add to the deficit, the bill George W. Bush signed was financed entirely through deficit spending. While Grassley and his colleagues accuse Democrats of harming Medicare through cost cuts, it is their bill that has done the most to hasten Medicare’s coming insolvency. Between now and 2083, Medicare D’s unfunded obligations amount to $7.2 trillion according to the trustees. Numbers like these prompted former Comptroller General David M. Walker to call it “… probably the most fiscally irresponsible piece of legislation since the 1960s.”
The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs : A not-so-brief chat with Randall Stephenson of AT&T
While I’m ranting, let me ask you something, Randall. At the risk of sounding like Glenn Beck Jr. — what the fuck has gone wrong with our country? Used to be, we were innovators. We were leaders. We were builders. We were engineers. We were the best and brightest. We were the kind of guys who, if they were running the biggest mobile network in the U.S., would say it’s not enough to be the biggest, we also want to be the best, and once they got to be the best, they’d say, How can we get even better? What can we do to be the best in the whole fucking world? What can we do that would blow people’s fucking minds? They wouldn’t have sat around wondering about ways to fuck over people who loved their product. But then something happened. Guys like you took over the phone company and all you cared about was milking profit and paying off assholes in Congress to fuck over anyone who came along with a better idea, because even though it might be great for consumers it would mean you and your lazy pals would have to get off your asses and start working again in order to keep up.
Funny and sadly true even if comes from the fake blog of a fictional character
Design with Intent | Three quotes from clever people
“Engineers are not the only professional designers. Everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones. The intellectual activity that produces material artefacts is no different fundamentally from the one that prescribes remedies for a sick patient or the one that devises a new sales plan for a company or a social welfare policy for a state.”
Herbert A. Simon, The Sciences of the Artificial, 1969 (p.129 of 1981 MIT press 2nd edition)
Favorite of the Decade: Film
Here’s my list, to join the innumberable others out there. This one will be a bit smaller than the following Enjoyed List. Don’t expect one for books. I might be forgetting a few as I have been using Wikipedia to jump start my memory and the lists there are no exhaustive.
4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days (2007) 24 Hour Party People (2002) Adventureland (2009) Amelie (2001) Adaptation (2002) American Psycho (2000) Appaloosa (2008) The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) Borat (2006) Brick (2006) Casino Royale (2006) Children of Men (2006) City of God (2002) Collateral (2004) The Dark Knight (2008) The Departed (2006) Dogville (2003) Doubt (2008) Downfall(2004) Eastern Promises (2007) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) The Fountain (2006) Good Night, and Good Luck (2005) Grizzly Man (2005) The Hurt Locker (2009) The Incredibles (2004) Infamous (2006) Jesus Camp (2006) Juno (2007) Kekexili: Mountain Patrol (2004) Kiss Kiss (Bang Bang) (2000) Let the Right One In (2008) Letters From Iwo Jima (2006) Lilya 4-ever (2002) Little Miss Sunshine (2006) The Lives of Others (2006) The Lookout (2007) Lords of Dogtown (2005) Lost in Translation (2003) Man on Wire (2008) March of the Penguins (2004) Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003) Memento (2000) Michael Clayton (2007) No Country For Old Men (2007) Oldboy (2003) Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) The Prestige (2006) Redbelt (2008) Rescue Dawn (2007) Russian Ark (2002) Sexy Beast (2000) Shaun of the Dead (2004) Syriana (2005) Team America: World Police (2004) Thank You For Smoking (2006) There Will Be Blood (2007) Touching the Void (2003) Volver (2006) Wall-E (2008) Walk the Line (2005) War of the Worlds (2005) Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001) Zodiac (2007)Poor Hulu
Read my lips: Hulu is going to change. A lot.
This is going to backfire. People like Hulu exactly the way it is. If anything, they want more movies and TV.
This is war. This is a war against what consumers want. This is an attempt to forestall the new business model which will eventually come no matter how hard they try to stop it: which is that people will be willing to pay for things they want, as they do with HBO, rather than forcing people to pay for what they don’t want, as cable plans do. Premium plans on Hulu? I think a lot of people would be happy to pay for that if they could watch without ads. I sure would. I can pick up the phone right now and tell Time Warner I want Showtime and it’s there, and my bill goes up accordingly. Or I can cancel.
The Breathtaking Narrow-Mindedness of Eric Cantor – The Atlantic Business Channel
Eric Cantor’s position on tax increases is like the Ghostbusters’ position on crossing the streams. It’s like Meatloaf’s position on that. His position is never, not ever, absolutely not, no way, not unless something extraordinary happens, and only then … probably not! Literally, the Republican House Whip said he won’t consider raising taxes until our unemployment rate is under 5 percent. Eric, that could be more than a decade from now. I’m not annoyed merely as liberal lover of planning new taxes (although that I am). I’m annoyed as a student of history. Eric Cantor loves Ronald Reagan. A lot. And you know who did raise taxes in the middle of a recession with unemployment way over 5 percent, and then plenty of times in the years after to help close the deficit? Ronald Reagan.
The dark side of Dubai – Johann Hari, Commentators – The Independent
I think Dubai is like an oasis. It is an illusion, not real. You think you have seen water in the distance, but you get close and you only get a mouthful of sand.
Great article about the one of the great fake places of our time
Craig Murray – Obama Is Wrong On Both Counts
Obama’s claim that “Our cause is just” ultimately rests on the extraordinary claim that, eight years after the invasion, we are still there in self-defence. In both the UK and US, governments are relying on the mantra that the occupation of Afghanistan protects us from terrorism at home.
This is utter nonsense. The large majority of post 9/11 terror incidents have been by Western Muslims outraged by our invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. Put bluntly, if we keep invading Muslim countries, of course we will face a violent backlash. The idea that because we occupy Afghanistan a Muslim from Dewsbury or Detroit disenchanted with the West would not be able to manufacture a bomb is patent nonsense. It would be an infinitely better strategy to make out theoretical Muslim less disenchanted by not attacking and killing huge numbers of his civilian co-religionists.
Our cause is unjust.
In praise of George W. Bush – James Fallows
The former vice president, Dick Cheney, has brought dishonor to himself, his office, and his country. I am not aware of another former President or Vice President behaving as despicably as Cheney has done in the ten months since leaving power, most recently but not exclusively with his comments to Politico about Obama’s decisions on Afghanistan. (Aaron Burr might win the title, for killing Alexander Hamilton in a duel, but Burr was a sitting Vice President at the time.) Cheney has acted as if utterly unconcerned with the welfare of his country, its armed forces, or the people now trying to make difficult decisions. He has put narrow score-settling interest far, far above national interest.
