The Motto of a Pharmaceutical Company – Your Money or Your Life

Greed in the United States Trumps Decency and Compassion

In the United States if a person tells another person that unless they pay a huge sum of money then they will die this is a crime.  Heck it is a crime in most if not all of the rest of the world.  Without knowing anything about the legal systems of Iran and North Korea one can assume that extorting money by threatening to kill the target is illegal. 

There is an exception.  In America a pharmaceutical company can raise the price of a life saving drug to such a level that it causes sufferers to forgo treatment and die.  From the business friendly WSJ.

In February a company called Marathon Pharmaceuticals received permission to sell a drug that treats a really awful type of muscular dystrophy. 

Marathon set the price at $89,000 a year. Some families were paying about $1,200 a year to buy the drug, a steroid called deflazacort, from an online pharmacy in the U.K. and have it shipped to the U.S.

And what about this disease?

It took only a month for sticker shock to cascade into criticism from families of patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a rare and fatal condition that primarily strikes young boys, a shame campaign from congressional lawmakers in both parties and then a surprise deal by Marathon to sell the treatment to another company.

So yes, a lot of criticism has caused the company to sell to another company.  And the new owner, they will probably lower the price as little so a couple of sufferers may be saved. 

Remember when Trump said he would do something about high prescription drugs prices?  Don’t hold your breath.

Think the Destruction of Health Care by Republicans Does Not Affect Your Employer Plan – Think Again

Employees in Group Sponsored Employer Plans Could Lose Coverage Areas, Have Huge Out of Pocket Expenses

The health care plan that just struggled past the House impacts individual plans and Medicaid, not employer group plans.  Or maybe not.  It seems under the terms of the Republican raid on health care employer plans can cut benefits and raise costs.

Under the House bill, large employers could choose the benefit requirements from any state—including those that are allowed to lower their benchmarks under a waiver, health analysts said. By choosing a waiver state, employers looking to lower their costs could impose lifetime limits and eliminate the out-of-pocket cost cap from their plans under the GOP legislation.

A company wouldn’t have to do business in a state to choose that state’s benefits level, analysts said. The company could just choose a state to match no matter where it is based.

The measure would give employers added flexibility to take steps that could lower costs by limiting more expensive coverage areas. And it would lessen the federal regulation of insurers, a goal of GOP lawmakers who believe the ACA is an example of government overreach.

That’s right.  Your employer can eliminate things like lab tests, maternity, mental health care etc.  Your employer can impose limits on their coverage and so guess what, you bill is too high you get stuck.

Thank a Republican when you see one, that is, if you can find one not hiding out from the angry voters.

President Bigot Signs Statement Questioning Ability of Feds to Help Historical Black Colleges and Universities

Probably Needs the Money for Tax Cuts for Billionaires

From the WaPo we have a story that slipped under the radar.  The Trumpie signed a statement in which he did this.

. . . . the White House released a signing statement connected to the recently approved federal funding measure. Tucked away in the last paragraph, the White House announced that it would treat a program that helps HBCUs get low-cost construction loans “in a manner consistent with the (Constitutional) requirement to afford equal protection of the laws.”

People in higher education circles worried that the statement meant that the president was planning to get rid of a capital financing program that helps historically black colleges repair, renovate and build new facilities. Congress approved the program in 1992 after finding that “HBCUs often face significant challenges in accessing traditional funding resources at reasonable rates,” according to the Education Department.

The best reaction here is from a Penn professor.

“I would rather have Trump do nothing with HBCUs — not even know they exist,” Marybeth Gasman, a University of Pennsylvania professor who has researched HBCU history, told The Washington Post. “He will see them as a handout. He doesn’t understand that he was given a leg up by his rich father. He doesn’t see that other people need help from programs because of past discrimination and inequity.”

But wait a minute, didn’t Trumper meet with the folks from those colleges and universities?  Oh, right.

In February, President Trump invited leaders from historically black colleges and universities to the White House, a move they hoped signaled his support for the institutions and showed an effort to give them more clout in his administration. But critics had a more cynical description of the Oval Office meeting: a photo op.

Yep, photo op for sure.  And it is not true that Beauregard “too bigoted to be a federal judge” Sessions, the new AG said “that will teach them to stay in their place”.

Least Suprising Headline Ever

From Yahoo.com

Vanity Fair Article Claims Melania Is Miserable as President Trump's Wife

The Cruel Heart of Conservatives on Health Care

From Taegan Goddard

Bonus Quote of the Day

May 6, 2017By Taegan Goddard

“Nobody dies because they don’t have access to health care.”

— Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID), quoted by the Idaho Statesman, during a town hall meeting defending his vote on the GOP health care bill.

Maybe, maybe not but a lot of people suffer so great they wish they were dead.

Update:  From a respected medical research publication.

SCIENCE & HEALTH  >  HEALTH & MEDICINE

New study finds 45,000 deaths annually linked to lack of health coverage

Uninsured, working-age Americans have 40 percent higher death risk than privately insured counterparts

Key Republican Supporter of Health Care Bill Chris Collins Admits He Didn't Read It

But His Staff Did

Please No Laughing - You Might Go to Jail

From the Buffalo News

"WASHINGTON – Rep. Chris Collins told CNN that he didn't read the entire Republican health care bill that the House passed Thursday.

And then he told The Buffalo News that he was unaware of a key provision in the bill that decimates a health plan that serves 635,000 New Yorkers.

Asked by CNN's Wolf Blitzer if he had read the entire health bill, Collins, R-Clarence, said: "I will fully admit, Wolf, that I did not. But I can also assure you my staff did"

Well that makes us all feel better doesn't it.  Collins represents an area in western New York around Buffalo.  Think he is looking out for his constituents, think again.

"Told by a Buffalo News reporter that the state's largest loss of federal funds under the bill would be $3 billion annually that goes to the state's Essential Health Plan, Collins said: "Explain that to me."

The Essential Plan is an optional program under Obamacare, offered only by New York and Minnesota, that provides low-cost health insurance to low- and middle-income people who don't qualify for Medicaid. State Health Department figures show that more than 19,000 people in Erie and Niagara counties were on the Essential Plan in January.

Asked by The Buffalo News if he was aware of the bill's cut in funding to the Essential Plan, Collins said: "No."

On the plus side it is now confirmed that the idiots in the nation have at least one of them in Congress.

Health Care Reform? – No – Robbing the Poor to Give to the Rich - Yes

Income Distribution Impact in Two Charts From The Incidental Economist

One of the biggest misconceptions about what the Republican House passed is that it was about health care.  No it was not.  The AHCA is a tax cut for the wealthy bill using health care as the vehicle.  The great web site The Incidental Economist has two charts that show this.

This first chart shows the income distribution of Obama’s health care program.  The groups the are lower income persons are to the left, to the right are higher incomes.

 

This second chart shows the income distribution of the Republican plan.  Anyone surprised?  Didn’t think so.

Next is a similar chart from the Urban Institute on the net transfer effects of the AHCA.

Exclusive: Actual Transcript of Trump Conversation with Heads of Mexico and Canada That Lead to His Not Withdrawing from NAFTA

Or Would Be If We Had It

In the Presidential campaign Donnie Trumpie promised he would withdraw from NAFTA, the worst agreement ever along with worst agreements ever like the Iran deal, the TPP, the refugee deal with Australia and all those other worst deals ever.  But apparently after a phone call with the leaders of Mexico and Canada he changed his mind.  Here is not the transcript.

Canada; Mexico:  Thanks for taking our call Mr. President.

Trump:  Well just so you know, nothing, I mean nothing you can say will change my mind on having the US withdraw from and end NAFTA.  I am 100% on this, it’s a campaign promise.

Canada:  We understand that, and let us tell you how impressed we and the world are with you.  You have been the best President ever.  Brilliant.  Better than we expected.  Pure Genius.

Trump:  Well, ok I will listen a little more..

Mexico:  Everyone was astounded that you found brilliant people like Jared and Ivanka to bring into your government.  How did you do that, get the two finest minds in policy along with their incredible experience?

Trump:  Well, it won’t hurt to listen to you on NAFTA.

Canada:  See we think you have the opportunity to be known as a great negotiator, and if you withdraw from NAFTA you won’t have that chance.  But if you just agree to re-negotiate the treaty you will have the chance to once again show the world how great a negotiator you are.  In fact, both of us are just scared to death of you negotiating skills.  You will probably get the best deal ever.

Trump:  You guys are really making sense.  Where to you think we should start?

Mexico:  To begin with we think we need to have more Mexicans and Canadians staying at Trump properties.  So if you will ease border restrictions and let them in we will give each one a coupon worth $10.00 off a three night stay at a Trump property.  Also, we think all of the negotiations should take place at a Trump resort, at full rates of course.

Trump:  I like that, a win-win.  What else you got?

Canada:  We need to import more Ivanka clothing.  Allow us to do that and in return Canada will lower the price of our exports of minerals and metals and with greater exports to the US it will lower prices.  You will be hailed as a great inflation fighter.

Trump:  I am a fighter, aren’t I.  But hey Mex, what about all those plants moving to your country.  Will you try and stop that?

Mexico:  Absolutely, we will raise taxes on anything imported from America and use that money to improve roads between our countries and make it easier and safer to send stuff to the US.  We are sure a man as smart as you will understand how that will help.

Trump:  Uh, that doesn’t sound completely right, but as you say I am probably the smartest man ever to be President so if you say so that’s good enough for me.

Alright, I am going to announce we are just re-negotiating the NAFTA treaty and that Canada will pay for the hotel bill at Trump Montreal where we can start.  I hope you guys don’t think I was too rough on you, but I had to get a great deal for America.

Bye now.

Mexico and Canada:  Bye to you too.  (then after Trump hangs up)  What a smuck!

Justice in America - Laught at Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Go To Jail

A Window into the Philosophy of the Trump Administration

Free speech is one thing, and maybe the most important thing that separates free societies from totalitarian societies.  So it is not hard to imagine which way America is moving when it turns out a woman is being prosecuted for laughing during the confirmation hear of Jeff Sessions.

WASHINGTON ― The U.S. Capitol Police officer who decided to arrest an activist because she briefly laughed during Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ confirmation hearing in January is a rookie cop who had never conducted an arrest before nor worked at a congressional hearing. Nevertheless, prosecutors persisted this week in pursuing charges against the 61-year-old woman the rookie had taken into custody.

So what was she laughing about? Well this.


Katherine Coronado of the U.S. Capitol Police was in her second week on the job when she was assigned to keep watch over Sessions’ confirmation hearing on Jan. 10. Coronado was involved in the arrest of Desiree Fairooz, an activist affiliated with the group Code Pink, after Fairooz laughed when Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) said that Sessions’ record of “treating all Americans equally under the law is clear and well-documented.”

Come on, admit it. No one could keep a straight face hearing that.

Update:  The woman was convicted and now faces a fine or jail.  Hopefully this injustice will be corrected on appeal.  Besides, the jails and prisons are not large enough to hold all the people who are laughing at Jeff Sessions.

Integrity Once Again Leaves Paul Ryan - Will Pass Health Care Bill Republicans Know Nothing About

From Taegan Goddard's Political Wire

Flashback Quote of the Day

May 4, 2017By Taegan Goddard

“I don’t think we should pass bills that we haven’t read that we don’t know what they cost.”

— Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), interviewed on MSNBC in 2009.

Republican Health Care Bill to Cut Aid to Special Needs Children

The Cruel Just Get Crueler

One strategy that Republicans are using to perfection to get their health care bill passed is to do it so fast that nobody has time to understand what is in the bill, think about it or understand it.  The objective is to get something, anything passed so the politicians in the House can say they did something.  If health care for millions is destroyed, too bad.

It turns out one part of the bill which nobody is focused on deals a devastating blow to children receiving Medicaid for special needs.  The NYT has the story that nobody else cares about.

Under a little-noticed provision of the health care bill, states would no longer have to consider schools eligible Medicaid providers, meaning they would not be entitled to reimbursements.

What does this mean?  Well this.

School districts rely on Medicaid, the federal health care program for the poor, to provide costly services to millions of students with disabilities across the country. For nearly 30 years, Medicaid has helped school systems cover costs for special education services and equipment, from physical therapists to feeding tubes. The money is also used to provide preventive care, such as vision and hearing screenings, for other Medicaid-eligible children.

And this

“School-based Medicaid programs serve as a lifeline to children who can’t access critical health care and health services outside of their school,” said the letter sent this week by the Save Medicaid in Schools Coalition, which consists of more than 50 organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, and the School Superintendents Association.

One person sums it up this way.

John George, executive director of the Montgomery County Intermediate Unit in Pennsylvania, said Medicaid primarily paid for speech, physical and behavior therapists.

Special education students make up roughly 16 percent of his student population, he said, and his most recent Medicaid reimbursement was about $5.4 million.

“It’s devastating,” Mr. George said of the potential impact of losing Medicaid funding. “Our most vulnerable citizens are going to be suffering the most. If any legislator votes for this, it’s unconscionable.”

So everyone think about special needs kids being denied health care when you watch the Republican crow about their success.  Try not to be ill, if Republicans have their way you won’t get treatment for it.

Fact Checkers Overwhelmed by Trump Lies

Maybe That's the Strategy

This site does not like fact checkers, at least the ones that get a lot of publicity.  A few years back they decided that fact checking was interpretation, and instead of just checking facts they decided to put subjective judgment in place.  Bad idea.

But with that caveat look at this from the WaPo.

"Fact Checker

Analysis

During President Trump’s first 100 days, he made 488 false or misleading claims

Trump has earned 16 Four-Pinocchio ratings as president. But that number obscures the pace and volume of the president’s misstatements, and we cannot possibly keep up."

Trump Preparing East German Style Deportation Force – Like He Promised

Here Come Raids, Storming Churches, Demanding Papers and Incarceration without Due Process

In one of the candid moments of the campaign Donnie announced he would have a deportation force.  He then decided it was politically inadvisable so he pretended to retract his position, but everyone knew he meant it.  Now he is implementing it.

Trump administration moving quickly to build up nationwide deportation force . . .

“An internal Department of Homeland Security assessment obtained by The Washington Post shows the agency has already found 33,000 more detention beds to house undocumented immigrants, opened discussions with dozens of local police forces that could be empowered with enforcement authority and identified where construction of Trump’s border wall could begin.

The agency also is considering ways to speed up the hiring of hundreds of new Customs and Border Patrol officers, including ending polygraph and physical fitness tests in some cases, according to the documents.”

The new 33,000 storm troopers will threaten, harass, jail and mistreat men, women, children, the old, the disabled and anyone else they feel like attacking.  Applicants are probably pouring in from the group that dragged that doctor off the United Airlines flight.  That's the type of so-called law enforcement troops we are talking about.  Be afraid, be very afraid.

Republican Feels Pre-Existing Conditions Happen to Bad People

That's Why They Should Pay More

At least one Republican has come clean about why Republicans want to charge huge insurance premiums for pre-existing conditions.  If you have pre-existing conditions you are a bad person and deserve everything you get, at least according to an Alabama congressman.

"Speaking with CNN's Jake Tapper about House plans to vote on a revised health insurance bill, Rep. Mo Brooks, R-AL, referenced people who lead "good lives" and said they should not have to pay as much as others.

"My understanding is that (the new proposal) will allow insurance companies to require people who have higher health care costs to contribute more to the insurance pool," Brooks said. "That helps offset all these costs, thereby reducing the cost to those people who lead good lives, they're healthy, they've done the things to keep their bodies healthy. And right now, those are the people--who've done things the right way--that are seeing their costs skyrocketing."

What a jerk!

Ivanka Trump Has a New RivaL Clothing Line

And We Are Betting on Goofy Bill Murray and Brothers over a Spoiled Princess

Despite Trump there are some new businesses being created.  Here is some exciting new sportswear.

"Last fall, the Murray brothers, who host a yearly charity tournament in St. Augustine, Fla., near the World Golf Hall of Fame, deepened their ties with the sport by introducing a golf apparel line. Its name, William Murray Golf, carries a stodgy whiff of Judge Elihu Smails (another character from the movie), though the marketing copy says the clothes are meant to “introduce casual irreverence” to the links."

Bill Murray in February in a William Murray Golf shirt from the fall 2016 line. CreditJonathan Ferrey/Getty Images

Justice Clarence Thomas – the Most Cruel and Callous of Them All

Only Dissent in a Case Where the State of Colorado Tries and Fails to Keep Defendants Money After They Have Won Their Case on Appeal

In a recent case decided by the Supreme Court the practice of Colorado retaining money for costs and other fees extracted from defendants after those defendants were found not guilty on appeal was deemed un-Constitutional.  As well it should have been.  If due process means anything it means that government must return money it collected on the basis of a conviction if that conviction is later overturned.

But Clarence Thomas does not agree.  He feels once government has the money it can keep it, even if the person it was taken from was not guilty of committing a crime.

Here it is, plain and simple, well simple minded in Clarence’s view.

In my view, petitioners have not demonstrated that defendants whose convictions have been reversed possess a substantive entitlement, under either state law or the Constitution, to recover money they paid to the State pursuant to their convictions. Accordingly, I cannot agree with the Court’s decision to reverse the judgments of the Colorado Supreme Court.

Here is some reasoning (?) by Thomas the Cruella.

Because defendants in petitioners’ position do not have a substantive right to recover the money they paid to Colorado under state law, petitioners’ asserted right to an automatic refund must arise, if at all, from the Due Process Clause itself. But the Due Process Clause confers no substantive rights. McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U. S. 742, 811 (2010) (Thomas, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (“The notion that a constitutional provision that guarantees only ‘process’ before a person is deprived of life, liberty, or property could define the substance of those rights strains credulity for even the most casual user of words”).

See in Thomas’s sick and twisted min the Due Process we are all entitled to is only for ‘process’.  And once Colorado said the money was theirs, no defendant had a right to take it back and so there was no due process issue.  In the real world this is known as sham law, Catch 22, or more correctly, tyranny. 

Thomas has hinted he may step down sometime, and if the fact that Trump is President encourages him to do so, well that might be the one and only contribution of the Trumpman.  Of course, Gorsuch may be a Thomas in better clothing, hopefully not.

Jimmy Kimmel Explains Health Care in Very Personal Terms

Something Paul Ryan, Donnie Trump and Mitch McConnell Should Watch - But They Won't

As usual, other people can explain the issues in the health care debate much better than this Forum.  And Jimmy Kimmel described his own story and miracle.  Here is the link, and because it is so powerful nothing more today is posted.

Explains Health Better Than We Could Ever

Trump on North Korea Shows We Need a President Who Speaks Good and Well

Inarticulate Thoughts Lead to Inarticulate Words

See if you can make sense of this, we can’t

From the WaPo. On Trump’s interview with CBS.

Asked about North Korea’s recent failed missile launch attempts, Trump said he’d rather not discuss the matter, because he does not want to reveal his next move. But he said the United States cannot allow North Korea to have a better nuclear arsenal.

“It is a chess game. I just don’t want people to know what my thinking is. So, eventually, he will have a better delivery system. And if that happens, we can’t allow it to happen.”

Ok, if that happens we can’t allow it to happen.  But if we can’t allow it to happen then that doesn’t happen.  So we don’t need to not allow it to happen.    Yes it is as dumb as it sounds.

Wisconsin Governor Walker Wants Future Wisconsonites to be Just As Stupid as He Is

Proposes Eliminating Minimum School Hours

It's hard for conservatives to come up with even worse ideas than they already have, but in Wisconsin their Governor has risen to the challenge.

"If Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) has his way, the Badger State will become the first to stop requiring students in public schools to spend a minimum number of hours in class.

A proposal in Walker’s new budget plan calls for ending the state’s current minimum requirements — 437 hours for kindergarten, 1,050 hours for elementary schools and 1,137 hours for secondary schools —  and allowing school districts to do what they want in terms of seat hours for students."

Yes, everyone knows that more schooling is necessary in a tech crazed world.

"Walker’s proposal is in direct opposition to what has been an attempt in recent years by policymakers to expand instructional time in public schools. The Obama administration encouraged schools to add instructional time, with then-President Barack Obama saying in 2009:

We can no longer afford an academic calendar designed for when America was a nation of farmers who needed their children at home plowing the land at the end of each day. That calendar may have once made sense, but today it puts us at a competitive disadvantage. Our children — listen to this — our children spend over a month less in school than children in South Korea — every year. That’s no way to prepare them for a 21st century economy. That’s why I’m calling for us … to rethink the school day to incorporate more time -— whether during the summer or through expanded-day programs for children who need it.

But it is in line with thinking of school reformers, such as Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who are pushing school choice as a top educational priority. "

Yeah, we all thought Bets would turn up here. The Secretary of Education pushing for less education.  Welcome to Trumpworld, brought to you by the Idiotcracy Wing of the Republican party.

If Trump Really Wanted to Creat Jobs He Would Promote Solar, Not Coal

But That Would Require Thinking and Reading on His Part - And That Ain't Gonna Happen

The coal industry is dying.  This is a natural death as progress in clean energy and concern for the environment have made coal fired electrical plants economically and operationally obsolete.  But in order to pretend to be friends of the victims of the demise of the coal industr and those employed in it, Trumpie put out the false claim that he could restore it to life.  He can't, it is dying.

But the good news is that one of the technologies that is taking the place of coal is labor intensive and that is where the jobs are being created.

There are now twice as many solar jobs as coal jobs in the US

Even though solar power still provides just a fraction of America’s electricity — about 1.3 percent — the industry now employs more than 260,000 people, according to a new survey from the nonprofit Solar Foundation. And it’s growing fast: Last year, the solar industry accounted for one of every 50 new jobs nationwide.

The chart below breaks it down by job type. The majority of solar jobs are in installation, with a median wage of $25.96 per hour. The residential market, which is the most labor-intensive, accounts for 41 percent of employment, the commercial market 28 percent, and the utility-scale market the rest:

So a concerned and honest President would be pushing solar, and working to offset the economic damage to the mining industry employees who through no fault of their own are suffering.  But as we say, that would required a concerned and honest President, not the one we have.