A lot of conservatives want to get rid of the Medicaid expansion enacted under Obamacare. If you’re in a state that hasn’t expanded Medicaid, then to be covered you have to be at or under the poverty level. For a family of four, that’s $24,300 or less. If you’re in a state that did expand Medicaid, you qualify if your family of four gets by on $33,534 or less. Right now, 10 million to 11 million people are covered under Medicaid who wouldn’t be covered under the old rules. I’d bet a healthy chunk of those folks voted for Trump.
.. But right now, too many markets don’t have plans that most consumers consider anywhere near “affordable.” (It’s fair to argue whether people have a realistic definition of “affordable” when it comes to on-demand access to the miracles of modern medicine.) The conservative philosophy has argued, correctly, that competition brings prices down. The problem is that in a lot of places, there isn’t much competition at all. In 2016, 85 percent of people using the marketplace on Healthcare.gov had at least three insurers to choose from in their area. This year, it’s down to 57 percent. Even if you believe competition will bring prices down, that rarely happens overnight.
.. He said that Aetna’s heaviest utilizers of health care — the top 1 percent to 5 percent — are driving half of the costs in the exchanges.
.. Even worse, whenever a legislator has the courage to tell the public that trade-offs and compromises are necessary, a political challenger will insist that it is not, that it represents lawmakers being stupid, or spineless, or selling out.
.. In 2018, congressional challengers will declare that if elected, they will give you excellent coverage for all of your health care needs and lower premiums, co-pays, and deductibles, and a tax cut, and a pony. Because it is very easy to promise a better health-care system with no compromises and trade-offs; it is pretty much impossible to deliver it.
As President Trump is no doubt learning.
.. Michael Flynn, who was fired from his prominent White House job last month, has registered with the Justice Department as a foreign agent for $530,000 worth of lobbying work before Election Day that may have aided the Turkish government.
.. How do you “forget” that you did a half-million dollars’ worth of work for a foreign company?
Contradicting Trump on Russia: Russian Officials
“I have nothing to do with Russia,” he told reporters on Thursday. “To the best of my knowledge, no person that I deal with does.”
The denial stands at odds with statements by Russian officials, who have at least twice acknowledged contacts with aides to Mr. Trump before the election.
.. The dispute began two days after the Nov. 8 election, when Sergei A. Ryabkov, the Russian deputy foreign minister, said his government had maintained contacts with members of Mr. Trump’s “immediate entourage” during the campaign.
.. More recently, Russia’s ambassador to Washington, Sergey I. Kislyak, told The Washington Post that he had communicated frequently during the campaign with Michael T. Flynn
.. “This is a nonstory because to the best of our knowledge, no contacts took place, so it’s hard to make a comment on something that never happened,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a White House spokeswoman, said on Monday.
.. The New York Times and other news outlets reported last week that Trump campaign advisers and other associates of Mr. Trump’s had repeated contacts last year with Russian intelligence officials. Those reports, citing anonymous current and former American government officials, were vigorously denied by the White House.
.. On Thursday, Mr. Trump made clear his annoyance when questioned about contacts with Russia.
“How many times do I have to answer this question? Russia is a ruse. I have nothing to do with Russia,” he said during a White House news conference.
Trapped in Trump’s Brain
President Trump likes maps. Once it was John King’s analysis of the CNN electoral map that Trump obsessed over. Now he wants policy papers heavy on maps and graphics and not dense with boring words.
.. It seems that at some point Trump decided that he didn’t really trust anyone else. While that was a reasonable strategy for a New York real estate developer who was always trying to rip off so-called partners, it’s obviously a limitation when you’re president.
.. Like all narcissists, he doesn’t like to be told if he’s screwing up, so he surrounds himself with people who don’t tell him.
.. The more he defends the odd duck Michael Flynn, saying he fired him only because Flynn misled Mike Pence about talking sanctions with the Russian ambassador before Pence went on “Face the Nation,” the more it raises the question: Why didn’t Trump himself tell Pence when the White House counsel told him?
And the more Trump decries America’s lack of innocence in the world relative to Russia and turns journalists into whipping boys and targets of hate, the more he sounds like a thuggy dictator himself.
.. “He thinks confidence is more important than competence and attitude matters more than aptitude. Others may be exhausted by the frenzy. You can see it in their drawn faces and pained expressions. Donald is energized by the fight. It also explains why he expects others to accept a bashing and be fine with him the next day.”
.. As Trump biographer Tim O’Brien puts it, “He’s the emperor of chaos.”
Flynn One of Many With Russian Ties Surrounding Trump
MIKE FLYNN
In December 2015, he visited Moscow to participate in a 10-year anniversary gala for RT, the Russian state-sponsored English-language network. In an interview last year with the Washington Post, Mr. Flynn said the network paid him through a speaking-engagement agent to attend the event.
PAUL MANAFORT
Advised pro-Russia Party of Regions in Ukraine.
CARTER PAGE
.. Mr. Page has stated that he “had the longest close relations with senior Russians amongst known supporters of the Trump campaign.”
RICK GATES
.. Deputy to Paul Manafort in advising pro-Russian Party of Regions in Ukraine.