This story is something else. Shadowy company collects $215m per year in ‘premiums’ from targeted Christians who think they’re buying Christian health insurance. But shadowy company doesn’t pay, and insists they aren’t selling insurance and therefore exempt from laws that regulate insurance. Also, too, they keep 80% of what they take in.
In other news, Christian Grifters gonna grift, thanks to “Religious Liberty” as well as corruption:
Health policy experts believe what propelled the rapid growth is a special carve out in the Affordable Care Act that exempted members from the law’s requirement to carry traditional health insurance or face a penalty. Lawmakers agreed to the exemption after the groups argued it was a matter of religious freedom.
Then, as premiums for individual plans offered through the ACA began to rise sharply, so, too, did interest in the typically cheaper offerings from health-sharing ministries, especially among those who had lost traditional coverage. And as membership grew, the marketing became louder and more sophisticated. Some began relaxing requirements to join.
Health policy advocates and regulatory authorities worry customers may not fully realize they are not buying insurance and there is no guarantee of coverage — or much recourse if something goes wrong. Aliera, for example, avoids traditional insurance terminology to sell its plans, but has used other words for the same concepts. In a broker’s email to another Aliera customer, obtained by the Chronicle, a translation was offered: “Member Shared Responsibility Amount = Deduction” and “Consult Fee = Co-Pay.”
Megan McCardle spent the day on twitter arguing that Trump secretly really wants to implement a new health care solution that would be great for everyone; but that he can’t do it because of the difficulty of politics. A bunch of people asked how you could tell that theory from the one where he just wants to fuck with people’s health care, but she had no adequate reply.
These morons are like a dog with a fucking bone with their “let’s screw sick people” agenda. Same with the US Census citizenship question.
Traitors, the lot of them.
I mean, I think that’s probably true. Trump would like nothing better than to create a health plan that’s better than what we have, cheaper than what we have, and that would make America healthier.
The problem of course is that he’s not that bright, he has no idea of what is actually wrong with the current system, no idea of what a good replacement might look like, no idea how to architect such an animal, and - worst of all - his worldview requires him to “win”, which means that in order for his mythical solution to work, his enemies (the Dems, right now) have to “lose”. Trump and his supporters think of that last part as the “difficulty of politics”.
The very idea of it is, well, laughable. Trump is a solipsist. It’s tempting to say he lacks empathy for his fellow beings, but in truth he does not believe any of those beings actually exist. He no more wants to improve health care than he wants to improve justice, or air quality, or commute times, because none of those things or people actually exist at all.
Meh, he’s a narcissist – if there is one thing Trump has demonstrated in his life is that he very keenly wants to love/attention of others… especially the press.
No matter what Trump does, Trump believes he has succeeded. Nothing will penetrate. Because he is a narcissist.
So whatever fucking with healthcare Trump manages to do, whatever shithole of a system he creates that is even worse than what we have now, Trump will believe it was a success and much better than what Obama did.
Menzo
3855
Well, more likely given the way he is, he actually always feels like a total failure, but covers for that by projecting that he’s always successful.
Someone who actually believes he or she is successful would not have to boast about it like Trump does.
Sure, but Trump wants the imaginary people in his mind to think he did something good is not the same thing as Trump wants to do something good.
Well sure. I’m not arguing that deep down Trump is actually a moral, ethical person who wants the best for the country and is somehow just misunderstood or being misled by scoundrels. He’s not. He’s a shit person.
I’m just saying that McCardle is technically correct – if Trump could somehow magically do what he’s been bullshitting about with healthcare, I think he would do it. The only thing keeping him from implementing a better, cheaper, and more efficient healthcare plan he’s been crowing about are those annoying “political difficulties”… plus all that “reality” stuff.
I think there is an addendum to this. Trump will do whatever he thinks will get him the attention and approval of people he actually cares about. I’m not so sure that’s the “losers” who have work-a-day jobs and ordinary lives, instead of the “winners” who are the titans of industries and other deserving rich who work so hard and don’t deserve to have to support the losers.
That’s part of the problem with Trump and conservatives in general. They just have a very different perspective on who is deserving, and it is a fundamental difference in world views. For conservatives, the rich are the people who make the world work - people who are not rich and successful are losers who frankly don’t matter all that much (other than the pesky need to try to get at least some of their votes, for which I think Noam Chomsky had one of the best analyses I’ve seen of why the conservative movement takes some of the platforms that it does).
Timex
3859
Trump also has a chronically short-term view of things. He is consistently only concerned with what is going on in the immediate future. He never plans ahead. He is incapable of passing up a short term gain for a long term one. He functions like an infant to some degree. He can’t pass the marshmallow test.
It’s part of why his administration is in such a constant state of anarchy. He can’t plan anything, and you need to plan stuff when dealing with a real organization. All he can do is just flail around and put out the immediate fires.
This is like saying Trump wants to get approval by saving the whales, so that means he wants to save the whales. He does not want to save the whales! Nor does he want to give people better health care, or he would not be so intent on taking away what little they have.
Just to be clear, nobody is giving Trump any credit for “wanting” a magical health care system. I mean, I want world peace, an end to hunger, and for my local teams to win the championships for their respective sports. But so does 99.99% of the public. @Tin_Wisdom is just saying Trump is statistically likely to fall in that group of being vaguely human and McCardle’s assertion is therefore such a platitude that it’s worthless.
Doctor Rand Paul reveals that the invisible hand is actually just cancer
KevinC
3863
Can we start a GoFundMe for another neighbor to go pummel the shit out of him?
