keepthefaith

They've been ignoring the story as good soldiers of the left. I'm convinced that if several among the FBI/CIA/DOJ/State dept/Obama admin are ever charged and convicted for involvement of this, the majority of Americans won't be aware of it.

That Doc is disrupting the market. Keep up the good work.

There is great truth in that.

That's a beauty right there.

Yes, tax free money.

This whole mess is a circus with Rosenstein as a ringmaster in a clown suit.

I have not been treated at a VA center, but a close friend who was in the Military, then worked in private industry for 30+ years and then went to work as a pharmacist in the VA near Chicago has endless stories about how incredibly !@#$ed up it is including: sending prescription pills out to dead people (and not just a few), sending out the wrong pills, theft of drugs among employees, constant shortages and overall mismanagement. Facilities dirty. He would describe the culture and staff there as worse than anything he had ever seen anywhere. That was 5-10 years ago. Maybe it's better now. Maybe not. It's got a 2.5 star average review on yelp.

Once everyone is covered the gov can manage this like the VA. What could go wrong?

Ouch!

That's a lousy effort by the writer to conflate Trump to crimes Manafort may have committed years before Manafort worked for Trump.

There's nothing new here. I'll say this and will move on. I'm neither in the camp that wants to keep health insurance as it is nor go to a Canadian style government provided program. There is a lot of room for improvement in our private health insurance and health care markets. I'd like to see regulations substantially eased so that market disrupters can offer better alternatives. The devil is in the detail. I'd have to see the numbers to get anywhere close to believing this.

You're splitting hairs and missing the point which is that 50 sets of state regulations overlayed by additional fed regulations (and health insurance is more heavily regulated than most other forms of insurance) reduces competition and adds to the cost of coverage. Each of these "affiliates" has its own executive staff and any number of duplicate functions from one state to another. It's costly and all the red tape makes it harder or nearly impossible for competitors to enter markets with different/alternative insurance products. I'm able to buy auto insurance or business or life insurance pretty closely tailored to my needs. Can't do it with health insurance. I'm forced to buy coverages I don't want as are our employees. Now with state restrictions in place if we got the federal government out of the way, we might see some states adopt easier rules that could make greater insurance options available.

In no particular order... Automakers built cars for decades with separate emissions equipment for 49 state and California because for a long time it was cheaper to build 49 state compliant cars and California was the outlier standards-wise and the cost of the cars sold in CA was higher. Yes, insurance is regulated state by state. I can buy business insurance and other insurance from companies not headquartered in my state. Not true for health insurance. This is why you have Blue Cross of every state but not State Farm Insurance of every state. This and mandated minimum coverage levels make the barrier to entry for new competitors very high. There is less competition due to this much to the liking of the health insurance companies. The ACA mandates coverage levels beyond what a lot of people would like to purchase, me included. With other types of insurance we have more coverage level options and exclusions.

I'm not familiar with States' constitutional rights for health insurance. Apparently that doesn't apply to many other forms of insurance. If the automakers can build California emissions cars and 49 state cars, then insurers can offer different coverage options. IMO there is simply too much regulation and restriction on coverage and due to this each state becomes a protected market for few providers. We've seen it here with the large carriers buying the smaller ones who offered better rates, and the end of catastrophic plans (which were once offered) with new coverage mandates.

I'll get trampled for this but I think the chances of Allen being the opening day starter are zero unless one or both of the others are hurt. He simply doesn't have enough time to conquer all of the things that a starting QB needs to conquer as a rookie in the NFL. It would be the exception and not the rule if he won the job and also played well early in the NFL. I just don't see McD taking that risk unless there is a huge gap in pre-season between him and the others. McCarron should be way ahead of Josh in terms of leadership, grasp of the offense and predictability. He has simply played, studied and practiced a lot more football at this point than has Josh. Wouldn't be surprised if Josh were #2 on opening day though.

Not intended.

We will never have a single payer program in the US that restricts private insurance. Not in my lifetime. A majority of politicians will never have the guts to do it. Dems as a party (the majority of them) simply use the issue as a political tool. Some like Bernie may be willing to pull the trigger but not the majority. If they did it would have been done when Obama had the majorities in the house and senate. The lesson of the 2010 election is still fresh. Dems don't want to solve illegal immigration, health insurance or budget issues. These are too valuable politically and have to be kept alive. Beyond tinkering and raising taxes and passing out some additional benefits, they won't solve them. Republicans at the moment are proving to be similar. There are so many regulations that if corrected would make it easier and less expensive for a lot of medical services. As long as we have state line restrictions for health insurance and so many regulations, we'll have more expensive insurance. In most states you have the Fedex/UPS model for health insurance. Only a few carriers to choose from, basically the same coverage options and the same cost. Pick your favorite company logo and go with that because there is no meaningful difference. If you want to cite inefficiencies, start with 50 duplicative orgs for every national carrier.

I would support a government run single payer system for those that want to participate if: Those insured paid into the system Employers not mandated to pay into the system, but can contribute for employees if they choose All premiums collected are deposited by the government into a separate account used only to fund covered medical payouts Government doesn't force doctors to take these patients Fund not subsidized by other taxes, but donations from the rich especially liberals are accepted and published People can choose private insurance if they want In other words, if the government acted like an insurance company and had to balance the books for the program, go for it. Medicare is going broke at it's current level of funding and cost. We need to either raise Medicare contribution rates or reduce costs or a combination of both. Having a government entitlement program such as this that can't sustain itself is really stupid. Pols not leveling with citizens what it really costs and letting the thing run into the red is especially stupid.

Doctors limit their Medicare and Medicaid patients due to the low reimbursements from the government. Private insurers pay the docs more. If you eliminate private insurance, you'll have to pay the docs more because they won't keep their business at current government-only rates. Case in point, our local hospital is paid about 5% of list price for medicaid patients but good private insurance pays about 40% of list price for same service different patient. Huge gap and the hospital is a not for profit, so they aren't lining their pockets from the private insurers.

So our government will force private doctors and medical companies to provide the services and accept whatever the government decides is fair compensation for that?

Funny how all these great ideas for government run anything don't address those small details.

Well that's quite interesting. If the hunch is true and Trump and his people are well aware, why wouldn't there be something public on this by now 1.5 years into Trump's term? Seems that it would be a separate action from the Mueller investigation and one which Sessions and Wray could have pursued outside of that and without conflict.

My district went Hillary which is a surprise as we are a red area, but we have a lot up uppity women which probably went heavily for her.

Mueller's just checking off that box. Once he completes the tweets it'll be time to view all of the Celebrity Apprentice episodes and then he can wrap this up.

Nate: "The depth chart is in numerical order. That's how they do it around here"