Several States Have Found Ways To Mitigate Obamacare’s Damage To Their Health Insurance Markets

Galen Institute

"A few states have found a key to undoing some of Obamacare’s damage to their individual health insurance markets by redirecting some federal funding to help sick people. These states are providing separate assistance to those with the highest health costs, thereby reducing premiums and increasing enrollment for healthy people driven out of the market by soaring costs.

"In a new paper published by The Heritage Foundation, scholars Doug Badger and Ed Haislmaier detail how several states have successfully used Obamacare’s Section 1332 waiver authority to begin to revive their non-group health insurance markets with better risk-mitigation strategies.

"They explain in State Innovation: The Key to Affordable Health Insurance Choices that Obamacare’s rigid and centralized federal regulation of the nongroup market has driven premiums up, choices down, and forced millions of people out of the individual health insurance market.

"Section 1332 of the Affordable Care Act permits states to seek waivers from certain federal health insurance requirements if they believe they can do a better job as long as their program doesn’t cost the federal government more money. But the rules the Obama administration subsequently issued were so strict that they make it very difficult for states to get approval for the broader innovative reform proposals envisioned by the provision’s authors.

"Alaska, Minnesota, and Oregon have received waivers from the Trump administration for targeted reform initiatives that have been successful in lowering premiums for individual health insurance by separately subsidizing those with the highest health costs. And the lower premiums also mean increased enrollment.

"According to the paper:

“Alaska was the first state to obtain a section 1332 waiver to implement this type of approach. The state sought a waiver of Obamacare’s “single-risk-pool” requirement, under which people who are likely to file large medical claims must be pooled with those who might never see a doctor. This Obamacare mandate had touched off a vicious cycle, in which insurers charge ever higher premiums, repelling the healthiest customers but not the sickest, resulting in premiums that are increasingly affordable only to those who receive federal subsidies.

. . . 

A senior leader for the Council on American-Islamic Relations in a tweet Sunday called for Israel to be “terminated.”

WND  "A senior leader for the Council on American-Islamic Relations in a tweet Sunday called for Israel to be “terminated.”

“ 'Iran’s regime calling Israel a ‘cancerous tumor’ is like the pot calling the kettle black. All the people of that region will be better off once both murderous regimes are terminated,” wrote Hussam Ayloush, the Investigative Project on Terrorism, or IPT, reported.

"IPT said the tweet might lead one to assume Ayloush, the head of the Los Angeles chapter of CAIR, has an equal disdain for the Islamic Republic of Iran and Israel.

But while Ayloush would like to see regime change in Iran, he has “a history of describing Israel in ways that echo Iranian rhetoric calling for its destruction,” IPT said Monday.

"A delegate in California’s Democratic Party*, he has referred to Israelis as “zionazis” and repeatedly equated the Israel Defense Force with ISIS terrorists.

“ 'You know how many hundreds of Jewish American kids are recruited to join the Israeli occupation army? Hundreds. Every year,” Ayloush said in May.

“ 'They leave their country, leave America, to go join with an army that is engaged, with no debate, in major violations of human rights, and maybe some would argue, and I’m one of them, war crimes.”

"The CAIR leader, continuing the equation of jihadists with IDF soldiers, added that the U.S. government has never established a Department of Homeland Security counter-terrorism program to track Americans who go fight for the IDF.

"No one, he said, has ever sought to find out “why would normal Jewish American kids leave their home and join to be part of an army committing war crimes.' ” . . . Read more

*Get that? California. That's C.A.L.I.F.O.R.N.I.A

Caravan migrants fake photos for gullible, biased U.S. press

Monica Showalter  "In the propaganda war, the organizers of the migrant caravan are intensely aware of what works for the U.S. press, and how to play its denizens to get the "narrative" going. They've got their number. And nowhere was it better played than with the recent series of photos seen during the migrant caravan surge that charged the Tijuana-San Ysidro border Sunday.

"Start with the "iconic" photo of the migrant mom in the Disney t-shirt moving her two toddlers out of the path of tear gas sent in response to rocks. NBC actually called this utterly staged photo 'iconic,' and rest assured, you can bet they are going to try to get themselves some news award for all that iconicity. Here's the New York Times promoting the pic on Twitter:"

 . . . 

"To start, why the heck was that woman even in that scene when so many other migrants told the press they stayed away precisely because of the dangerousness of the attempted border bust? Look at the bottom of this San Diego Union-Tribune piece here by Sandra Dibble, who's a genuinely honest journalist, beause she got the real story:

Armando Colindre, 21, said he stayed away from Sunday’s march, because he has two small children and a wife to take care of. “They were going in peace, nobody wanted to offend anybody,” he said.

"The Associated Press had independently similar reporting:

Mina and his wife and their toddler daughter avoided the march and were glad they did after hearing others recount what unfolded, he said as he sat in the doorway of his family's tent at Tijuana sports complex using a toothbrush to clean the fine dust that coats everything off his sneakers.

"It gets worse. Turns out the photo was staged, as these Twitterers have pointed out - lots of apparent photo posing in this picture here.

" To start, why the heck was that woman even in that scene when so many other migrants told the press they stayed away precisely because of the dangerousness of the attempted border bust? Look at the bottom of this San Diego Union-Tribune piece here by Sandra Dibble, who's a genuinely honest journalist, beause she got the real story:

Armando Colindre, 21, said he stayed away from Sunday’s march, because he has two small children and a wife to take care of. “They were going in peace, nobody wanted to offend anybody,” he said.

"The Associated Press had independently similar reporting:

Mina and his wife and their toddler daughter avoided the march and were glad they did after hearing others recount what unfolded, he said as he sat in the doorway of his family's tent at Tijuana sports complex using a toothbrush to clean the fine dust that coats everything off his sneakers.

"It gets worse. Turns out the photo was staged, as these Twitterers have pointed out - lots of apparent photo posing in this picture here.

View image on Twitter

Jim Acosta’s lecturing of President Trump about harmlessness of caravan requires an apology

Thomas Lifson
Watch as this intelligent, impartial reporter seeks the truth about the border-crossers

"After the scornful laughter subsides, Jim Acosta of CNN really owes an apology to President Trump for his inaccurate contentions about the harmlessness of the caravan and his prediction that they wouldn’t storm the border. He should have heeded Yogi Berra, who warned, “It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”

"Twitter is full of humor at Acosta’s expense:"

Raheem Kassam

✔@RaheemKassam

Hold on. CNN's @Acosta told us the migrants in the caravan would NOT be jumping fences, walls, and borders. They clearly are. Will there be an on air apology to @realDonaldTrump?

Border Agent Pushes Back Against CNN Fake News During Live Interview

At least this CNN reporter shows some honest curiosity

DC Whispers  "After weeks of CNN attempting to describe the migrant caravan as “women and children seeking asylum” a U.S. border agent corrects that falsehood, letting both CNN and the American people know that the caravan is made up primarily young and violent men who are not true asylum seekers but rather criminals willing to break U.S. laws to get what they want and using women and children to do so. Watch the video, share the video, and help to educate others as to what is really going on at our southern border. The men and women of the U.S. Border Patrol are working hard to stop an attempted invasion and the below interview is yet more proof of that."   Read more

What will it take for the American press to be respected?

Caravan migrants fake photos for gullible, biased US press

Robert Glenn posted:

"Staged photo ... same women and child in other caravan photos... "Shameful the left, democrats, mainstream media led by @CNN use humans (women & children) to push their far left agenda..."

Weasel Zippers

Benny‏Verified account    @bennyjohnson

Jim Acosta lectured President Trump about the migrant caravan saying: - Not an invasion - Hundreds of miles away - Would not jump border wall I overlaid actual footage from today of the migrant caravan storming the border to invade the US over Jim's question. I hope you enjoy: VideoAs usual, Mr. Acosta wants to debate the president

Media Equalizer

Limbaugh warns: “I don’t think you have any idea what’s coming.”

http://lucianne.com/

WND  "That’s the warning issued Monday by talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh, as he foresees an intensified threat to President Trump and his administration the moment Democrats officially take control of the U.S. House in January.

“I don’t think you have the slightest idea what’s coming next January and on after that, after the Democrat Congress is sworn in, the Democrat House, I don’t think anybody has any idea,” Limbaugh said.

"While Limbaugh is expecting a variety of investigations of Trump, he says what’s disturbing is that members of the president’s own party will hop on board in a calculated effort to oust him.

“I’m just warning you that there are more Republicans than you know that are gonna eagerly join Democrat efforts. There’s all kinds of Republicans on every one of these committees,” he explained.

“ 'You’re gonna find a whole lot of Republicans signing on to what the Democrats do, because most of the people in that town despise Trump, despise the fact that he won, have not been able to get over it, have not been able to accept the election results [of] 2016. They’re waiting with bated breath on the Mueller report. They can’t wait. They’re so excited.”

"Regarding the final report from special counsel Robert Mueller on alleged collusion with Russia, Limbaugh expects it to be written in damaging fashion to Trump, irrespective of any truth.

“ 'He can write a report making Trump look like the biggest doofus that ever walked the Earth,” Limbaugh noted. “He can write a report making Trump look like the most dumb, vulnerable, naive president we’ve ever had. He can write a report saying the election of Donald Trump and the Trump campaign opened the door for the Russians to have whatever they wanted in the United States. Yeah. All he has to do is write a report that says something like that. With no evidence. Just make it a character reference report on Trump with any kind of allusions here.”

"He said right now there are some 20 leaders in Congress who “are going to be devoted to doing nothing but getting rid of Donald Trump. Not by way of impeachment, by the way. They’re going to try to do it by forcing every Republican in the Congress, House and Senate, that they can to abandon Trump.

“ 'They are going to try to establish circumstances where some senator, some member of Congress is going to one day have to make a fateful trip to the White House to tell President Trump that he’s lost all support and that he’s got two choices: He can either resign or undergo the impeachment process. That’s what they did with [President] Nixon.” Read more

‘The Enemy of the People’

I don’t particularly like the term “the enemy of the people.” I don’t take it very seriously. Nietzsche was right that we are hard-wired to exaggerate when speaking about what ails us. That goes double for political discourse. . . .

Andrew C. McCarthy

"Criticism of the media by a president is not necessarily a bad thing"

"Depending on your perspective, one of President Trump’s real talents, or one of his most baleful traits, is his knack for the zinger label, pinned on a political or institutional foe. “Crooked Hillary,” “Lyin’ Ted,” “The “The Swamp” — the labels often stick . . . and sting.

"In commentary about the media that is sometimes withering and sometimes unhinged, the president uses the term “the enemy of the people.” The epithet has gotten under the skin of many journalists. Some of them worry aloud about being targeted for retribution, a concern that is overwrought as applied to Trump partisans generally, but that cannot be dismissed out of hand — Cesar Sayoc’s attempted pipe-bomb rampage against Trump critics, like James Hodgkinson’s gunfire spree against Republican congressmen, reminds us that no one has the market cornered on evil and dementia. 

"But who exactly is “the enemy of the people”? Trump maintains that he is not referring to the entire press, only to “fake news” coverage by mainstream-media outlets. Is such line-drawing appropriate? Even if the public at large may validly make such distinctions, should they be drawn by a president of the United States, or does that specter imperil constitutional free-press protections? 

"The Pretense of Objectivity"
"Before Trump zapped our politics with his lightning rod, it was a commonplace in conservative circles to complain about that most pernicious practice of the political press: the pretense of objectivity. No, we did not begrudge the New York Times and Washington Post their editorial pages, nor resent opinion pieces and programs clearly advertised as such. Our objection was to patently biased news coverage that was presented as if it were dispassionate, just-the-facts-ma’am reporting. The bias is seen and unseen, but pervasive. It is found in the reporting itself. It is intimated in the description of sources (e.g., conservatives always described as “conservative”; left-wing sources — the ACLU, SPLC, CAIR, etc. — described as civilrights groups with no partisan agenda). Most important, it is concealed in editorial decisions about what does not, camouflaged by the thread that gets emphasis and the “lede” that gets buried." . . . Full article

What You Should Know about the Socialist Causes of Venezuela’s Crisis

What on earth is wrong with the American education system that it has produced a generation of socialists such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the people who vote for her?

The American Interest  "The current Venezuela has been kidnapped by enemies of the West,” says Jorge Jraissati, a Venezuelan activist who fled the crisis-engulfed country to come to America. He’s now a student at Florida Atlantic University, but continues to advocate for free market capitalism and individual freedoms in his home country. “I still remember the moment I decided to take action and fight for political change in Venezuela. I was sixteen at the time.” Today, Jorge is twenty-two and still fighting for the brighter future Venezuela deserves by speaking about his experiences to students across America.
"Once an oil-rich, prosperous nation, Jorge told me how Venezuela descended into utter chaos after former dictator Hugo Chavez was elected. “Economically, the government has heavily regulated the private sector with currency controls, price caps, and widespread expropriations and nationalizations.”
"The country now faces an undeniable humanitarian and political catastrophe. In 2017, each Venezuelan lost an average of twenty-four pounds in weight due to a lack of food and skyrocketing inflation. To purchase basic household items like milk and eggs, Venezuelans must carry around thousands of bolivars—encouraging the continued growth of the nation’s dangerous black market. Indeed, the International Monetary Fund reports that inflation rates in Venezuela are set to top one million in 2018.
"Even so, socialist sympathisers of Venezuela continue to falsely portray dictators Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro as “heroes” and champions of the working class. But Western left-wing activists and politicians who support Bolivarian socialism—such as Jeremy Corbyn —only worsen the perilous situation that innocent Venezuelans face while fighting for their country’s freedom.' . . .

The Antifa Press

Photosnark by Rich Terrell

Don Surber  "Conservatives following the media's coverage of the caravan in Mexico are getting a flashback from the media's coverage of the Antifa attack on Israel. The terrorists and criminals use women as human shields.
"The Washington Post offered a yellow journalism headline: "These children are barefoot. In diapers. Choking on tear gas."
"What kind of mother endangers her toddlers like this? She is wicked.
"The coverage of what the New York Times called "a peaceful protest gone wrong" is sappy.
"Paragraph Three of another Washington Post story encapsulated the third-world press coverage that shrouds the story.
"Linked through a third party, the story said, "What had begun Sunday morning as a migrant protest of the slow pace of the U.S. asylum claims process devolved into a chaotic scramble in which hundreds made their way to the border hoping to cross onto U.S. soil. To block that from happening, and as some threw rocks and bottles, Customs and Border Protection officers took the rare step of firing tear gas into Mexico as well as closing all legal vehicle and foot traffic to the San Ysidro border crossing, which U.S. officials say normally has about 100,000 visitors per day."
"This is the same press that took an unverified rumor of one person calling a congressman the N-word to brand the millions of Tea Party members as racist.
"But "some" people (500 according to BBC) throwing projectiles at American officials somehow doesn't represent the "protesters," who apparently are all babies in diapers and their mothers." . . .

The caravan’s organizers also pushed women and children to the front of the clash,

Border Patrol agents revealed in interviews that the migrants storming the U.S.-Mexico border over the weekend were using women and children as human shields as they launched rocks at agents.  . . . "Judd explained that the situation at the border yesterday was “unprecedented” and that migrants had never tried before to rush a port of entry. The Border Patrol veteran explained that illegal immigrants often abandon woman and children while being chased by authorities, knowing that they will hinder officers while they abscond. " . . . 

Remember when Obama used tear gas on these people in 2013?  
(Copyright © 2018, The San Diego Union-Tribune)

Tear gas used once a month at border under Obama. No complaints here.

Ocasio-Cortez trivializes Holocaust by comparing Jewish refugees from Hitler to Central Americans

The under-educated Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is another exhibit of the encroaching third-world status America is morphing into. Not just Obama was a third-world leader, but the wretched quality of many we choose as leaders, people with no regard for the Constitution nor America's crucial role among nations. TD

Thomas Lifson  "It is by now abundantly clear that the youngest person ever elected to Congress is an ingenue ignoramus, serenely unaware of the depths of her obliviousness. For someone who grew up in New York City – oops, make that Westchester County (but it’s a suburb, so kinda counts) -- to compare fleeing systematic extermination in the Holocaust to people seeking more lucrative employment and better welfare benefits in this country is obscene. It trivializes the Holocaust, period. 
"Yet, glamour girl Ocasio-Cortez did exactly that in a tweet yesterday:

"I don’t recall Jews fleeing Hitler announcing they would violate our borders if not accorded entry on demand. And I certainly don’t recall  Jews storming the border, throwing rocks at our Border Patrol.

"But these differences, as important as they are, pale beside the comparison of the Holocaust to economic deprivation.

"The Anti-Defamation League, before it became a shill for Democrats, used to criticize those who compared the Holocaust to lesser perils.  So far, there is nothing on the ADL website concerning Ocasio-Cortez’s trivialization of it."

Alexandria, this was what a real holocaust looked like:

And this:

Post-Midterm Meltdowns

Conrad Black

"Not even a week had elapsed after the midterm elections before there were eruptions of foolishness in Washington and abroad that do not augur well for an improved climate of relations in domestic or international affairs.

"CNN has sued the president and his entourage for revoking Jim Acosta’s White House press pass. This is the perfect illustration of the presumptuousness of the fake news press. This description “fake news” was furnished by the president when CNN took the Steele dossier public and asked the president if he had participated in a festival of urination by a group of prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room because the Obamas had slept there. In those early days of the administration, Wolf Blitzer claimed immense enterprise by CNN to unearth the dossier (that the Democratic National Committee, which paid for it, was shopping desperately to the media). CNN elaborately portrayed this now infamous hack-job as the work of an eminent retired British espionage official.

"After Acosta attempted to filibuster the president’s post-midterm press conference and engage him in debate, the revocation of Acosta’s pass was an appropriate measure. CNN has many other accredited representatives and could nominate a replacement, but the network’s media director, Brian Stelter, a foaming-at-the-mouth Trump-hater, instead has sued the president.

"A moron—and presumably any lawyer the cable network consulted—could see that there is no statutory basis to a presidential press conference." . . .