Presumptuous Politics

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

ObamaCare coverage options disappearing across country, report finds

Next president may face ObamaCare meltdown

Nearly a third of U.S. counties will be left with just one insurance option next year on the ObamaCare exchanges, according to a new analysis fueling warnings about the impact of the insurance company exodus from markets across the country.
The Kaiser Family Foundation study found residents in Pinal County, Ariz., are even at risk of having no insurance options on the exchanges, which provide subsidized plans.
Republicans seized on the report Monday to claim that the health care overhaul is not providing the choices promised by President Obama and others.
"The president repeatedly promised that his health care law would provide more choices, ‘bend the cost curve,’ and allow Americans to keep the plans they liked and could afford. He failed to live up to those promises, and families are paying the price," Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said in a statement, noting the majority of counties in Missouri could be left with just one insurance option on the exchanges.
The Kaiser Family Foundation study found that overall, 31 percent of counties will have just a single insurance option within the Affordable Care Act exchanges. That's up from 7 percent this year -- and underscores a problem many analysts have been warning about for years.
Further, about six in 10 counties could have two or fewer marketplace insurers in 2017, with the “bulk of the increase in single-insurer counties” the result of UnitedHealth Group’s exit, the study, released Sunday, reveals.
Indeed, six years after ObamaCare was signed into law, America’s major medical insurers, concerned about their own bottom line, have started to pull the plug on a variety of services and options available to consumers. Citing major losses, the top five insurers – Humana, Anthem, Aetna, UnitedHealth Group, and Blue Cross Blue Shield – have threatened to pull out of the exchanges and have selectively started to do so in many counties.
Near Phoenix, in Pinal County, Ariz., 400,000 residents are likely to have no insurer options on the marketplace next year. Both UnitedHealth and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona plan to exit the area.
“As a rural area of our state in which 18 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, the impact will be felt particularly hard,” Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., wrote in an opinion piece for FoxNews.com.
“My office has received countless other letters and phone calls from concerned Arizonans who have been left with fewer options, less access and decreased quality of care under ObamaCare,” McCain wrote. He added, “But this frustration is not unique to Arizona.”
Arizona had eight insurers operating in various parts of the state this year, but four are leaving entirely — Aetna, UnitedHealthcare, Humana and Health Choice. Two more, Blue Cross Blue Shield and Health Net, are scaling back their participation.
“Clearly this is a big concern for consumers,” Allen Gjersvig, director of navigator and enrollment services for the Arizona Alliance for Community Health Centers, told Kaiser.
He isn’t holding out much hope another insurer will step in, adding, “Things could change, but it’s not probable.”
When ObamaCare was first pitched to the public, the administration pushed the narrative that marketplaces would thrive and Americans who had been unable to afford medical coverage in the past would finally be able to do so.
While some aspects have been a success – 20.3 million Americans signed up for ObamaCare as of March 2016 – the unbalanced model of getting healthy younger people to foot the bill for older or sicker people who often require more coverage has presented a problem for ObamaCare and threatens its very existence.
The new report found that as insurers pull out, several states are now likely to have just a single insurance option across all counties.
“Given what is known at this time of entrants and exists, four additional states are likely to have a single marketplace insurer in all counties: Alabama, Alaska, Oklahoma and South Carolina, for a total of five states (including Wyoming, which already had one insurer in the states),” the Kaiser report said.
States with “significantly more single-insurer counties in 2017,” include Mississippi, Arizona, Florida, Missouri, North Carolina and Tennessee.
An analysis from the consulting firm Avalere found a similar problem, with the number of states with one marketplace insurer growing.
The health and sustainability of ObamaCare has also been a hot topic on the campaign trail. Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton has praised the ACA and said she hopes to improve on it.
Donald Trump has slammed the ACA’s instability. Stephen Miller, Trump’s national policy adviser, said ObamaCare is an example of Clinton’s “disastrously poor judgment.”
“Every policy she touches only produces more calamity,” Miller said in a written statement. “In this case, it means higher prices, fewer choices and less control over one’s most private medical decisions.”

High School reverses American flag ban at football stadium

Students at Travelers Rest High School in South Carolina will once again be able to wave American flags at football games.
Principal Lou Lavely reversed his ban on Old Glory just a few hours after we posted a column about the controversial decision.
Click here to join Todd’s American Dispatch: a must-read for Conservatives!
The high school's stadium is named after my great uncle -- Chico Bolin, a decorated World War II Marine veteran.
Uncle Chico restarted the football program at Travelers Rest in 1949 - and named the team the Devildogs in honor of the Marines.
Following is the school district's complete statement:
"Today, after meeting with Travelers Rest student and faculty leadership, and with the benefit of time to reflect, Mr. Lavely has reached a different decision. He based this decision on current students’ request that he judge them on their own merits and not based on the actions of past students. As a result, effective immediately, students are allowed to bring the American Flag to any and all Travelers Rest High School events. Instead of restricting possession of the flag, the TRHS administration will, if needed, address the misuse of the Flag, or any other inappropriate behavior, on an individual basis.
“I fully support Mr. Lavely’s thoughtful reconsideration, and his willingness to respond to advice and input from his community,” said Superintendent Burke Royster. “I am appreciative of the Travelers Rest High School community for sharing its concerns and opinions on this matter in a respectful, civil manner. I also appreciate and applaud their desire to promote patriotism and service as a part of the culture of their school and am in agreement that students’ desire to carry and display the American flag should be encouraged and supported throughout the District.”
Uncle Chico, who passed away in 2007, lived long enough to see the school name its new football stadium in his honor – a decorated war hero who loved America.
So you can understand why our family was disturbed to learn that students and fans were initially blocked from entering the stadium with American flags.
This item appeared in the Greenville News:
“Several people posted about the incident on social media Saturday, claiming the student wasn’t allowed to carry the flag into Friday night’s Travelers Rest – Berea game because it might offend Berea’s large Hispanic community.”
Beth Brotherton, a spokesperson for Greenville County Schools, confirmed to me that several students who wanted to bring American flags were blocked from entering the stadium.
“The principal, in an effort to prevent any potential issue in this rivalry game, decided not to allow students to bring in full-sized American flags,” she told me. “They were turned away at the gate with the flag and told they were welcome to come in but they could not bring their flags with them.”
So here’s the back story: during last year’s game, some students allegedly flew Old Glory and hollered out, “Go home, go home.”
“The principal made a decision in terms of what he thought was best for student safety,” Ms. Brotherton said. “Because of prior incidents, that was not something he felt like was in the best interest of maintaining a good relationship between the two school communities.”
Travelers Rest Police Chief Lance Crowe disagreed with the principal’s decision and fired off a statement letting the locals know that the police department loves America and Old Glory.
“To my knowledge, every TRPD officer, except one, believes that barring the American flag from a football game is not a correct policy,” Chief Crowe wrote.
Todd Starnes is host of Fox News & Commentary, heard on hundreds of radio stations. His latest book is "God Less America: Real Stories From the Front Lines of the Attack on Traditional Values." Follow Todd on Twitter@ToddStarnes and find him on Facebook.

Trump calls Kaepernick's refusal to stand for national anthem 'terrible'

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump criticized San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick Monday, calling Kaepernick's refusal to stand for the national anthem "a terrible thing."
"I think it’s personally not a good thing," Trump told Seattle radio station KIRO when asked about the controversy. "I think it’s a terrible thing, and you know, maybe he should find a country that works better for him, let him try, it’s not gonna happen."
Kaepernick became the subject of national controversy over the weekend when he remained seated on the San Francisco bench during the playing of the "Star-Spangled Banner" prior to Friday night's preseason game against the Green Bay Packers.
While explaning his stance to reporters Sunday, Kaepernick criticized both Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
"You have Hillary who has called black teens or black kids super predators, you have Donald Trump who’s openly racist," Kaepernick said. "We have a presidential candidate who has deleted emails and done things illegally ... That doesn’t make sense to me because if that was any other person you’d be in prison. So, what is this country really standing for?"
The Clinton campaign has not commented on Kaepernick's statements.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Monday he was confident President Barack Obama is aware of Kaepernick's actions, but hadn't spoken directly with the president about it.
"In general, what I can say is that I certainly don't share the views that Mr. Kaepernick expressed after the game in explaining his reasoning for his actions, but we surely would all acknowledge and even defend his right to express those views in the settings that he chooses," Earnest said. "That's what he's done, and even as objectionable as we find his perspective, he certainly is entitled to express it."
Kaepernick has characterized his actions as a protest at the state of race relations in America, not as a slight against men and women in the military.
"There's a lot of things that need to change. One specifically? Police brutality," said Kaepernick, who is biracial and whose adoptive parents are white. "There's people being murdered unjustly and not being held accountable. People are being given paid leave for killing people. That's not right. That's not right by anyone's standards."
In a letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and 49ers CEO Jed York, Martin Halloran, the president of San Francisco's police union, said Kaepernick's statements showed "naiveté" and "total lack of sensitivity" toward police, along with an "incredible lack of knowledge" about officer-involved shootings.
"I only wish Mr. Kaepernick could see the emotional and psychological challenges that our officers face following a fatal encounter," Halloran wrote.
"Some are so affected they never return to the streets. In short, Mr. Kaepernick has embarrassed himself, the 49er organization, and the NFL based on a false narrative and misinformation that lacks any factual basis."

Monday, August 29, 2016

China's President Cartoons

New emails reportedly show Clinton Foundation exec, State Dept. aide discussed access to China president

Chinese President Xi

Recently released emails appear to further show a direct connection between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department when Hillary Clinton was secretary of state, including efforts to get foundation donors seats to an official lunch with Chinese President Hu Jintao.
In emails dated December 2010, Clinton State Department aide Huma Abedin and then-top Clinton Foundation official Doug Band discussed potential guests for the lunch with the Chinese president -- including three executives from groups that had donated millions to the foundation, according to an ABC News report late Saturday.
Among the possible guests discussed were Bob McCann, then-president of wealth management at UBS; Judith Rodin, Rockefeller Foundation president, and Western Union CEO Hikmet Ersek.
The emails reviewed by ABC News were obtained by the conservative group Citizens United through a Freedom of Information Act request.
UBS Wealth Management USA contributed $500,001 to $1 million to the foundation. The Rockefeller Foundation gave $10 million to $25 million and Western Union and its foundation gave $1 million to $5 million, according to ABC News.
Nearly two weeks after the Abedin-Band exchange, Band wrote a follow-up email that specifically asked that Rodin be seated at Vice President Biden’s table. "I'll ask," Abedin replied, according to the ABC News report.
Band declined comment to ABC News.
Josh Schwerin, a Hillary for American spokesman, said Sunday that the State Department’s actions under Clinton "were always taken with the intent to advance our foreign policy interests and with no other intent in mind than that."
Schwerin also repeated what the department has previously said: that its officials are "in touch with a wide range of outside individuals, organizations, nonprofits, NGOs, think tanks" and others as part of normal business.
An he called Citizens United "a right-wing group that's been attacking the Clintons since the 1990s" that is again "trying to make something out of nothing."
A representative for McCann told ABC News he did not attend the lunch. A representative for Ersek said he doesn't have a "record" of the event. And Rodin's office did not return a request for comment.
The State Department said it could not provide a list of attendees.
The new emails follow an Associated Press report last week that found more than half the people outside the government who met or spoke by telephone with Clinton while she was secretary of state had given money -- either personally or through companies or groups -- to the Clinton Foundation. The report was based on the review of a partial list of State Department schedules that the agency provided through a court order.
Earlier this month, newly-released documents showed the State Department, shortly after Clinton left the agency, considered buying land for a U.S. Embassy in Lagos from a company with ties to Gilbert Chagoury, who donated more than $1 million to the foundation. (The story was first reported by Fox News.)
And in 2011, foundation donor Rajiv K. Fernando was put on a sensitive U.S. intelligence advisory board without having any known related experience, according to ABC News. Fernando resigned within days, amid questions about his qualifications.
Clinton is the Democratic presidential nominee running against Republican nominee Donald Trump. She currently leads the race by 6 percentage points, according to the RealClearPolitics.com polls average.

Two killed in Louisiana bus crash, driver in US illegally, cops say

An out-of-control bus driven by an illegal immigrant carrying flood recovery volunteers hit a fire truck and firefighters who had responded to an earlier crash Sunday morning on a Louisiana interstate, killing two people and injuring 36, according to state police.
The ladder truck from St. John the Baptist Parish, located west of New Orleans, had parked across the right lane of Interstate 10 to block traffic while police investigated an earlier crash involving a pickup truck that had skidded on the wet road, crashing into both guardrails about 6:40 a.m., Trooper Melissa Matey told local media.
The bus hit the fire truck, then hit a car, and then veered behind the fire truck and into the pickup truck, knocking three firefighters who were standing near the guard rail into the water below, Matey said.
Matey said the driver, identified as Denis Yasmir Amaya Rodriguez, 37, of Honduras, was an employee of that company.
"He is in this country illegally from Honduras. He has no driver's license. He had minor injuries," she said.
Rodriguez will be booked in the St. John the Baptist jail and will be charged with two counts of negligent homicide, reckless operation, and no driver's license, Fox 8 reported. Police told the television station that additional charges are forthcoming.
Matey said the wreck killed Jermaine Starr, 21, of Moss Point, Mississippi, a back-seat passenger in the Camry, and St. John the Baptist Parish district Fire Chief Spencer Chauvin. The injured included the other two firefighters, the bus driver, 24 bus passengers and a total of nine people in the car and pickups.
Firefighter Nicholas Saale, 32, of Ponchatoula, and Camry passenger Vontravous Kelly of Moss Point, Mississippi, are in critical condition, she said. The Camry's other two occupants, driver Marcus Tate, 35, and David Jones, both of Moss Point, are in serious condition.
Other injuries — including the Titan's two occupants, who suffered minor injuries in the original crash — ranged from minor to moderate, Matey said.
Matey said the bus was taking flood recovery workers from New Orleans to Baton Rouge and belonged to a company with two names: AM Party Bus and Kristina's Transportation LLC, both at the same address in Jefferson, about 30 miles from New Orleans in Jefferson Parish, Matey said.
No listing in Jefferson was available. A call by the Associated Press to Kristina's Transportation in Destrehan, 12 miles from Jefferson in St. Charles Parish, was not answered Sunday. A woman who answered the phone at AM Party Bus of New Orleans told the AP was only authorized to take booking calls.
“This is a very sad day for all first responders in Louisiana,” Colonel Mike Edmonson, Louisiana State Police Superintendent said in a statement obtained by Fox 8. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the St. John the Baptist Fire Department. Louisiana has the “Move Over” law in place to protect our first responders on our roadways. Please adhere to this law and slow down when approaching emergency vehicles and disabled vehicles on the road.”

Trump says he'll deliver speech in Arizona on immigration

Kellyanne Conway on alt-right, keeping Trump on message

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump announced late Sunday he'll be making a speech on illegal immigration on Wednesday in Arizona, after a week of speculation that he might be softening his promise to deport 11 million people living in the United States illegally.
The announcement of the speech, posted in a Tweet, was initially set for last week in Phoenix, but was pushed back as Trump and his team wrestled over the details of what he would propose. There has been debate within his campaign about immigrants who haven't committed crimes beyond their immigration offenses.
The candidate's evolving stance hasn't made it easy for top supporters and advisers, from his running mate on down, to defend him or explain some campaign positions.
On Sunday, Trump’s campaign and his supporters were challenged again to explain the candidate’s evolving policy but appeared to find solid ground in arguing it was the opposite of Hillary Clinton’s plan.
“There are very few issues where they're more different,” Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway told “Fox News Sunday.” “In fact, Hillary Clinton is to the left of Barack Obama on immigration.”
Trump won the GOP primary largely by appealing to the party’s conservative base with vows to deport all of the country’s estimated 11 million illegal immigrants and to build a wall along the entire southern-U.S. border and have Mexico pay for the construction.
However, Trump has in recent weeks appeared to search for a less austere approach, knowing that he’ll need some support from Hispanic and other minority voters to win the General Election race against Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee.
Conway said Trump indeed wants to find “the fair and humane way” to address the issue, which includes whether to separate families to enforce federal law.
But she made clear that Trump still intends to build the wall and that he supports neither amnesty nor legalization for people who entered the country illegally.
“We all learned in kindergarten to stand in line, to wait our turn,” said Conway, who argued Trump has stopped talking about a deportation “force” to remove people.
“Give Donald Trump credit for at least trying to address a complex issue and not pretending like Hillary Clinton does, that we don't have these problems,” she said.

The Real Clear Politics average of recent polls shows Clinton leading Trump by 6 percentage points. Such polls also indicate Clinton is ahead in some of the most competitive and pivotal states, with 72 days remaining before Election Day. The nominees’ first presidential debate is set for Sept. 26.
“The real issue is look at the two plans,” Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus told NBC’s “Meet the Press." “Look at where Hillary Clinton is. She wants to put Barack Obama's immigration plan on steroids. The issue is that this is an election of choices: One, allow everyone in through complete amnesty, or number two, a tough plan that's fair and humane.”
The Clinton campaign argues that Trump’s plan remains as “dangerous” as before, despite efforts to make it seem different.
“He may try to disguise his plans by throwing in words like ‘humane’ or ‘fair,' " said campaign spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri. “But the reality remains that Trump’s agenda echoes the extreme right’s will -- one that is fueling a dangerous movement of hatred across the country.”
GOP vice-presidential nominee Mike Pence said Sunday the main tenets of Trump's immigration plan will include building the wall, no path to legalization or citizenship and stronger border enforcement.
The nominee and Indiana GOP governor also sought to distinguish Trump’s position from Clinton’s.
“It is going to be fair. It is going to be tough,” Pence told CNN’s “State of the Union.” “He has said that very consistently -- the contrast with Hillary Clinton, who supports amnesty, open borders, who wants to implement executive amnesty again on Day One, even though the Supreme Court of the United States rejected it.”
Pence did not answer questions on whether the campaign’s position, as Trump has said, is that children born to people who are in the U.S. illegally are not U.S. citizens.
Native-born children of immigrants, even those living illegally in the U.S., have been automatically considered American citizens since the adoption of the 14th Amendment in 1868.
Pence also could not definitively say whether Trump was sticking with his vow to remove those living in the U.S. illegally, with the help of a deportation force.
“What you heard him describe there, in his usual plainspoken, American way, was a mechanism, not a policy," the nominee said.
Trump has focused lately on deporting people who are in the U.S. illegally and who have committed crimes. But who Trump considers a criminal also remained unclear Sunday.
Pressed on the question, Priebus replied: "I just don't speak for Donald Trump."

Ex-Congressman Weiner embroiled in new sexting scandal

Former Congressman and New York City mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner sent explicit photos to a woman multiple times over the past 19 months, according to a New York Post report published late Sunday.
Weiner, who is married to Hillary Clinton's top aide, Huma Abedin, also admitted to sexually fantasizing and masturbating about the unidentified woman, calling her "literally a fantasy chick," according to the report.
At least one of the photos Weiner sent the woman showed his underwear-clad crotch as his son Jordan slept next to him in bed.
When contacted by the Post, Weiner admitted he and the woman "have been friends for some time," but added that their conversations were "private ... and were always appropriate."
Weiner, 51, added that he had never met the woman, despite repeatedly inviting her to visit him in New York.
Weiner spent 12 years in the House of Representatives before resigning in June 2011 after posting an explicit image of himself on his Twitter account. At the time, he admitted that he had "exchanged messages and photos of an explicit nature with about six women over the last three years."
With Abedin's public support, Weiner entered the New York City mayoral race in 2013. However, his campaign collapsed when a second woman, Sydney Leathers, came forward to claim Weiner had sent her more explicit photos while using the alias "Carlos Danger." Weiner finished fifth in the Democratic primary with just five percent of the vote.
The woman, who described herself to the Post as a supporter of Donald Trump and the National Rifle Association, has two adult children and lives with a boyfriend who routinely travels for work.
The Post reported Sunday that Weiner was concerned that he had repeated his 2011 mistake and posted the photo of his son publicly.
"You do realize you can see you [sic] Weiner in that pic??" the woman messaged.
"Ooooooh ... I was scared. For half a second I thought I posted something," Weiner responded. "Stop looking at my crotch."
"Whatever. You did it on purpose," she replied, adding, "O [sic] I see you thought you posted on your TL [public timeline] not DM [direct messages]. S–t happens be careful."