Category Archives: health insurance
Elephant In Debate Room
CNN says Hillary Clinton won the debate. Donald Trump disagrees but most other polls aren’t backing him up, so far.
Trump seemed to get the best of Hillary in the first 30 minutes when they tangled over trade rules. He caught her on the wrong side of President Obama’s Trans-Pacific Trade Deal, pointing out that she had called it the “gold standard.” Hillary denied this and then replied it wasn’t her responsibility and that she had changed her mind. So Trump insisted that she say it was Obama’s fault:
TRUMP: You called it the gold standard of trade deals. You said it’s the finest deal you’ve ever seen.
CLINTON: No.
TRUMP: And then you heard what I said about it, and all of a sudden you were against it.
CLINTON: Well, Donald, I know you live in your own reality, but that is not the facts. The facts are — I did say I hoped it would be a good deal, but when it was negotiated…
TRUMP: Not.
CLINTON: … which I was not responsible for, I concluded it wasn’t. I wrote about that in my book…
TRUMP: So is it President Obama’s fault?
CLINTON: … before you even announced.
TRUMP: Is it President Obama’s fault?
CLINTON: Look, there are differences…
TRUMP: Secretary, is it President Obama’s fault?
CLINTON: There are…
TRUMP: Because he’s pushing it.
CLINTON: There are different views about what’s good for our country, our economy, and our leadership in the world. And I think it’s important to look at what we need to do to get the economy going again. That’s why I said new jobs with rising incomes, investments, not in more tax cuts that would add $5 trillion to the debt.
At that point Trump seemed to be mopping the floor with her. But Hillary quickly got under his skin by trashing his business acumen and ethics.
She took a page from the Harry Reid playbook to claim Trump doesn’t pay income taxes. Incredibly, The Donald seemed to agree by saying, “it makes me smart.” For the record, PolitiFact doesn’t agree. It rates her claim mostly false.
But after that Trump seemed Low Eenergy.
Elephant In Debate Room
The elephant in debate room was the fact that Immigration, Benghazi, and the Clinton Foundation didn’t make the cut. Those issues were never brought up by moderator Lester Holt or Trump.
Unburdened of that baggage, Hillary dragged her prey off into the tall grass. There she dismembered the small handed one with accusations of racism and sexism.
She claimed the Stop and Frisk law was ruled unconstitutional and moderator Holt backed her up. She also insisted the murder rate continues to decline. In truth, Stop and Frisk was never ruled unconstitutional. And the FBI released a report the next morning showing the murder rate had surged 10.8% in 2015.
Hillary went on to back up her racism charge using Tulsa and Charlotte as “tragic examples.” Trump lacked the energy to point out that Black people rioted in Charlotte where a black man was killed by a black police officer who worked for a black police chief.
FDA Gives Mylan Monopoly Jolt On EpiPen
Reuters reports that Mylan will produce “the first generic version of its allergy auto-injector EpiPen.” The generic version will sell for $300. That’s half the price of the “branded product.”
Mylan Monopoly
This will be the first generic EpiPen because the FDA has dragged its feet approving any other generic version. So Mylan has a near monopoly on a life saving product. Now it also has a monopoly on the generic version.
That monopoly enabled Mylan to increase the list price of an EpiPen two pack from $100 in 2008 to $600 today. The company is offering the generic version in response to criticism of its price hikes.
Here’s a WSJ editorial blaming the FDA for the Mylan monopoly.
Aetna Says Bye Bye to ObamaCare
The four biggest insurers are going wobbly on ObamaCare.
What initially looked like a great deal for them – customers federally mandated to buy their product – doesn’t seem to be working out as they had hoped. Bloomberg Businessweek reports that insurers are loosing hundreds of millions of dollars on Obamacare.
Aetna Says Bye Bye
So Aetna now says bye bye to ObamaCare by way of pulling out of exchanges in 11 of the 15 states it serves. UnitedHealth and Humana are following suit. UnitedHealth is ditching 31 of its 34 states, and Humana is leaving 9 of 19 states.
In July the Justice Department blocked a proposed merger between Aetna and UnitedHealth. At the time Aetna wrote that without the cost savings of the merger it would leave the exchanges.
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton supports a government funded public option to compete on the exchanges with the remaining private insurers.
Separation of Powers
In January 2014 President Obama decided to go it alone. He said he had a pen and a phone and if Congress wouldn’t act he would.
Congress refused to act to allocate funds to reimburse insurance companies for Obamacare costs. The president used his pen to sign an executive order to disburse the money anyway. The House of Representatives sued.
Separation of Powers
In House v. Burwell, Congress argued that the executive branch violated the Constitution’s separation of powers. District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer agreed. The case will be appealed.
Meanwhile the president is allocating school bathrooms.
Cancer Cure Czar
President Obama appointed Joe Biden Cancer Cure Czar.
Obama said he was putting Joe in charge of mission control for a “moon shot” to cure cancer. Politico reports that cancer researchers like the resources but not the “moon shot” approach.
Cancer Cure Czar
Maybe a war on cancer approach would be better than a moon shot. President Nixon tried that in 1971.
