Is he tired of winning yet?

BREAKING: No Vote Today on Health Care!

Vote not happening today to repeal ACA and replace with TrumpCare!

#TrumpCare (Because he hates that name!)

A Question To My Friends At KDKA Radio

I listen to KDKA radio at work and I've heard numerous times throughout the day a KDKA promo that continues to list a number of problems experienced at the rollout of Healthcare.gov - including this soundbite from Representative Mike Rogers of Michigan:

They're trying to change a tire on a car going 70 miles an hour down the expressway.

Ok, so here's my question.

Given this:

After advising consumers to steer clear of Healthcare.gov in October, Consumer Reports health care expert Nancy Metcalf told MSNBC’s Chuck Todd Tuesday morning that the federal health care exchange website was improved enough following the Obama administration’s frantic month of repairs that users could confidently use it.

Consumer Reports had earlier told its readers not to even bother with the website through the first month, a provisional verdict it later said had been misrepresented.

“Now we’re saying, ‘it’s time,’” Metcalf said, in particular praising the new window-shopping function, in which users can peruse health plans without registering with the site. The requirement to make an account before viewing options was considered one of the main causes for the site’s initial traffic bottleneck. “It’s terrific, I’ve tried it, it was working yesterday through the busiest times,” Metcalf said. [Emphases added.]

Will you be rewriting the spot or will you continue to mislead your audience now that Consumer Reports is praising the website?

I have a question!

I was half watching Chris Hayes on MSNBC tonight and he was arguing with some anti choice guy about the Affordable Care Act provision which requires employers of a certain size to offer insurance coverage for contraceptives and other reproductive health services without a co-pay. I suppose this came up because the Supreme Court decided to take on Hobby Lobby's (and other for profit companies') objections to this provision.

Locally, the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh, the Diocese of Erie and several affiliated nonprofit groups have recently won an injunction against having to follow that same provision. Please note that the diocese themselves didn't need to follow that part of the act--only their nonprofit groups like Catholic Charities--you know, the ones that take taxpayer funding (and lots of it).

But Hayes, and no one else I see on my TV set asks the one question of the opponents of the provision that I want to hear. It goes something like this:

Sir/Madame: The Affordable Care Act requires larger companies and nonprofits to provide health insurance to people who work for them who, in turn, may or may not end up using it to cover contraception. The law requires companies and nonprofits to provide a paycheck to people who work for them who, in turn, may or may not end up using it to cover contraception. What is the fucking difference in terms of "morality"?

OK. For the sake of television they can leave out the "fucking" part of my question. But, seriously, what is the fucking difference? How are they not paying for contraceptives either way? In neither case are they actually being forced to purchase the contraceptives themselves and put it in the hands of their employees. In both cases they would be made to follow laws that everyone else must follow in terms of compensation to their employees. In both cases their employees end up getting birth control, and in neither case do they get to stone their employees to death (for the moment anyway) for being "immoral"--or for as Bishop Zubik and Cardinal Timothy Dolan have called it, "evil" and "facilitating scandal."

They are simply making it more expensive for their employees to get the birth control. If they really, really cared about the "morality" of their employees or being "pro life," shouldn't they fire their immoral workers? Of course they can't do that because they'd run out of employees as 62% of all women of reproductive age are currently using a contraceptive method.

And not having a ready pool of low paid women to exploit and impose your own religious beliefs on employ, my friends, would be bad for business.

Jack Kelly Sunday

Well, it's been 10 days since I posted this.  That was the blog post where I pointed out how the CBS Benghazi "story" that the P-G's Jack Kelly built his entire column on had been retracted by CBS.

When will the column be retracted by Jack Kelly?  I asked but to no avail, it seems.  So far, it's still up - and with no correction or anything to indicate an update to reflect the reality of the situation - that CBS retracted the 60 Minutes Benghazi story.

So what does the Post-Gazette's Jack Kelly do today?

Opens up with another debunked CBS "news" story:

The personal information you give to Healthcare.gov “is protected by stringent security standards,” said White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.

Not so.

“Software experts tell CBS News they have identified multiple security issues,” Jan Crawford reported Nov. 5. “We gave one technology expert the real HealthCare.gov user name of a CBS employee. Within seconds, he identified the specific security question she selected to reset her password.”

“Four days before the launch the government … granted itself a waiver to launch the website,” said CBS investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson. “The final required top-to-bottom security tests never got done.”

The top operations officer for the Obamacare websites told the House Oversight Committee that he was never given a Sept. 3 memo that detailed six security problems which pose “limitless” risk.

This is the CBS report to which the intrepid Jack is referring.  That last paragraph, however, refers a subsequent CBS report by Attkisson - and that's where the whole thing falls apart.

The public debunking happened in public at a Congressional hearing four days ago on November 13:


Here's my transcript of the discussion between Representative Gerald Connolly and Henry Chao (the top operations officer for the Obamacare websites, Kelly's referring to) and starting at about 1:44 in we hear:

CONNOLLY: Mr. Chao, during your interview with committee staff on November 1, you were presented with a document you had not seen before. And it was entitled "Authority to Operate," signed by your boss on September 3, 2013, is that correct?

CHAO: Correct.

CONNOLLY: The Republican staffers told you during that interview that this document indicated there were two open high-risk findings in the federally facilitated marketplace launched October 1. Is that correct?

CHAO: Correct.

CONNOLLY: This surprised you at the time.

CHAO: Can I just qualify that a bit? It was dated September 3 and it was referring to two parts of the system that were already--

CONNOLLY: You are jumping ahead of me. We are going to get there. So when you were asked questions about that document, you told the staffers you needed to check with officials at CMS who oversee security testing to understand the context, is that correct?

CHAO: Correct.

CONNOLLY: The staffers continued to ask you questions, nonetheless, and then they - or somebody - leaked parts of your transcript to CBS Evening News, is that correct?

CHAO: Seems that way.

CONNOLLY: Mmm. Since that interview, have you had a chance to follow up on your suggestion to check with CMS officials on the context?

CHAO: I have had some discussions about, uh, the nature of the high findings that were in the document.

CONNOLLY: Right. And this document it turns out, discusses only the risks associated with two modules, one for dental plans and one for the qualified health plans, is that correct?

CHAO: Yes.

CONNOLLY: And neither of those modules is active right now, is that correct?

CHAO: That's correct.

CONNOLLY: So the September 3 document did in fact, not apply to the entire federally facilitated marketplace despite the assertions of the leak to CBS notwithstanding, is that correct?

CHAO: That's correct.

CONNOLLY: And these modules allow insurance companies to submit their dental and health plan information to the marketplace is that correct?

CHAO: Correct.

CONNOLLY: That means that those modules do not contain or transmit any personally identifiable information on individual consumers, is that correct?

CHAO: Correct.

CONNOLLY: So to be clear, these modules don't transmit any specific user information, is that correct?

CHAO: Correct.

CONNOLLY: So when CBS Evening News ran its report based on a leak, presumably from the majority staff, but we don't know, of a partial transcript, expert- excerpts from a partial transcript, they said the security issues raised in the document, and I quote, "could lead to identity theft among buying insurance," that cannot be true based on what we just established in our back and forth, is that correct?

CHAO: That's correct. I think there was some rearrangement of the words that I used during the testimony in how it was portrayed and-.

CONNOLLY: So to just summarize, correct me if I'm wrong, the document leaked to CBS Evening News didn't in fact not relate to parts of the website that were active on October 1. They did not relate to any part of the system that handles personal consumer information, and there, in fact, was no possibility of identity theft, despite the leak.

CHAO: Correct.

CONNOLLY: Thank you, Mr. Chao. I yield back. [Emphases added.]

Seeing that Jack has yet to correct the record of his flawed CBS sourced Benghazi column, I don't have much faith that he'll be correcting the record of this flawed CBS sourced Affordable Health Care security risk column anytime soon.

Fact-Checking A Fact-Checker - Colin McNickle Edition

In a rather scathing indictment of a Republican (and conservative, though obviously not conservative enough) member of Congress by a conservative columnist writing for the conservative paper in that Congressional district, the Trib's Colin McNickle writes this about Congressman Tim Murphy:

“We were promised a website where people could easily compare plans and costs,” said Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pa., on Thursday during a contentious hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee on the many failures of the ObamaCare website.

“Five-hundred million dollars later” (it's actually something like $700 million and counting) “we find that the American people have been dumped with the ultimate Cash for Clunkers, except that they had to pay the cash and still got the clunker,” the Upper St. Clair legislator said.

It's a great line but one laced with hubris, irony, hypocrisy and whistling past the graveyard.

For you see — and many of you might have forgotten and Mr. Murphy obviously is hoping you have — Murphy voted for Cash for Clunkers, that odoriferous multibillion-dollar government intervention that would have been funny if it weren't such a perversion.

What McNickle also left out was Congressman Murphy's support of the strained rollout of Medicare Part D in 2006.  Here's what Murphy said THEN about that glitchy Bush-era guv'ment program:

It is of no value, as a matter of fact, it is a negative value and of questionable ethical value I think sometimes if people only spend their time criticizing the glitches that have been in the program, as with any program that occurs, whether it is a public or private program, criticizing it, standing on the outside and frightening seniors, frightening seniors into thinking that because there was complexities and difficulties, therefore they should not sign up. [Congressional Record, Page H1665]

But that's a minor point - the major fail of McNickle's fact-check is the cost of the Obamacare website.  He says it's something like "$700 million" and reality says otherwise.

From the Washingtonpost's Glenn Kessler.  His initial assessment is admittedly fuzzy:

So here’s where we stand.

A conservative figure would be $70 million. A more modest figure would be $125 million to $150 million. Or one could embrace the entire project, as outlined by GAO, and declare that it is at least $350 million.

But he added a few updates - one with an upper/lower limit:

The floor for spending on the Web site to date appears to be at least $170 million, with an upward potential of nearly $300 million.

Significantly lower than the "factual" numbers so innocently slipped by your eyes by the "fact-checking" Colin McNickle.

According to Mediamatters, there's only one place where such a large number as McNickle's is found (though they go up to a billion).  That would the the Scaife-owned Newsmax.

And, as we all know, Scaife owns the Tribune-Review.  Where Colin McNickle hangs his fact-checking hat.  How interesting.

Mike Pintek and Ann Coulter, BFFs - seriously?

I caught a few minutes of Mike Pintek's show on KDKA yesterday.  I was lucky enough (I suppose) to snag a few minutes of his interview with Ann Coulter.

Why would anyone take Ann Coulter seriously these days?  Let's examine some of the ways she's invalidated herself.

Well there's this:

Slash-and-burn columnist Ann Coulter shocked a cable TV talk-show audience Monday when she declared that Jews need to be "perfected" by becoming Christians, and that America would be better off if everyone were Christian.

And this:

I think the government should be spying on all Arabs, engaging in torture as a televised spectator sport, dropping daisy cutters wantonly throughout the Middle East and sending liberals to Guantanamo.

And finally this:

If we took away women's right to vote, we'd never have to worry about another Democrat president. It's kind of a pipe dream, it's a personal fantasy of mine, but I don't think it's going to happen. And it is a good way of making the point that women are voting so stupidly, at least single women.

THAT'S who Mike Pintek invited onto his air yesterday.  I'll ask it again: In light of the above, why would anyone take her seriously?

Seriously, Mike.  Why?

In any event, they were talking about the recent NBC reporting about the ACA:

President Obama repeatedly assured Americans that after the Affordable Care Act became law, people who liked their health insurance would be able to keep it. But millions of Americans are getting or are about to get cancellation letters for their health insurance under Obamacare, say experts, and the Obama administration has known that for at least three years.

It all has to do with which policies were "grandfathered in" and which comply with ACA regulations.  From NBC again:

Buried in Obamacare regulations from July 2010 is an estimate that because of normal turnover in the individual insurance market, “40 to 67 percent” of customers will not be able to keep their policy. And because many policies will have been changed since the key date, “the percentage of individual market policies losing grandfather status in a given year exceeds the 40 to 67 percent range.”

That means the administration knew that more than 40 to 67 percent of those in the individual market would not be able to keep their plans, even if they liked them.

Mike and Ann were discussing how Obama "lied" by withholding this information until now.

Except that it was reported a few years ago.  Here - THREE YEARS AGO.

Ann made the comment to the effect that had this been a republican president, the Democrats would be saying it's an impeachable offense.

No, Ann.  An impeachable offense would be:

• Okaying torture
• Lying to Congress to justify an illegal invasion
• Sidestepping the FISA court

All of which were committed by the previous republican president.

Why would anyone take Ann Coulter seriously?  And more importantly, Mike, why would you?

An interview with a member of the Tea Party Caucus in the House

Shutdown

Yes, the federal government has been shut down. Here's Jon Stewart's great take on it. The only thing missing from it is the fact that there are enough votes in the House to pass a clean Senate bill. The blame lies with 30 to 60 representatives--call them, oh I don't know, TEA PARTY members--and House Speaker John Boehner who fears them.

  (If you're in Pittsburgh, you can learn more about the Affordable Care Act at this event today.)

"I can smell the booze wafting from members as they walk off the floor"

While voting to shut down the government Saturday night, apparently some of the House members weren't just drunk on power. From a Politico Congressional reporter:

I'm not over exaggerating when I say I can smell the booze wafting from members as they walk off the floor.
— Ginger Gibson (@GingerGibson) September 29, 2013

And from a Buzzfeed reporter on Capitol Hill:

I def saw more than 1 member of congress putting a few back on Penn earlier. Ran into 2 in the liquor store.
— KateNocera (@KateNocera) September 29, 2013

And before they even got drunk, they were already acting like drunken pigs:

[T]hey have added a “conscience clause” to the spending bill which takes away preventative care from women, which includes birth control.  

[snip]  

Friday afternoon, Republican John Culberson from TX got huge applause from his colleagues when he compared the GOP’s effort to destroy Obamacare to the heroes of 9/11. Culberson compared the House Repubs to the passengers on United Flight 93 who overtook the terrorists and got control of the plane on 9/11. Yes, Seriously.

This is your government on drugs Tea.

So Much Wrong In Such A Small Space

From our friends on the Tribune-Review editorial board today:

Sayeth pundit Ben Stein: “Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured but not everyone must prove they are a citizen. And now, any of those who refuse or are unable to prove they are citizens will receive free insurance paid for by those who are forced to buy insurance because they are citizens.” Only in America in the 21st century. Sigh. [Bolding in original.]

Let's start with Ferris Beuller's teacher.  Did Ben Stein actually say what the braintrust said he said?

Snopes.com says no.  A couple of years ago they looked at whether he said:

Fathom the odd hypocrisy that Obama wants every citizen to prove they are insured, but people don't have to prove they are citizens.

And they wrote:

We don't know who originally came up with this statement about mandatory health insurance coverage, but it wasn't Ben Stein. The actor/economist/essayist replied in response to a query that it was not something he either said or wrote.

You'd think a news organization like the Tribune-Review would be able to check out something like this rather easily.

And then there's the second part of the quote - the part about how "those who review or are unable to prove" citizenship will be given free insurance - is THAT true?

Politifact says no.  In fact it's a "pants on fire" statement.  From politifact:

It may be the longest chain e-mail we've ever received. A page-by-page analysis of the House health care bill argues that reform will end the health care system as we know it: "Page 29: Admission: your health care will be rationed! ... Page 42: The 'Health Choices Commissioner' will decide health benefits for you. You will have no choice. ... Page 50: All non-US citizens, illegal or not, will be provided with free health care services."

Most of the e-mail's claims are wrong, and you can read our extended analysis to find out why.

One of its most bizarre claims is the one about free health care for noncitizens, "illegal or not."

We read the bill and its legislative summary, and could find nothing about free health care for anyone, much less noncitizens.

In fact, they add that:

...the legislation specifically states that "undocumented aliens" will not be eligible for credits to help them buy health insurance, in Section 246 on page 143.

How could an politically motivated editorial board attached, as it is, to a news organization get so much so wrong in such a teeny tiny space?

I think you have your answer already.

I was robocalled by The Catholic Association

Yesterday morning I received a recorded call by "Sue." "Sue" said she wasn't trying to tell me who to vote for, BUT instead of trying to get folks jobs, President Obama was spending his time trying to take away the religious freedoms of Catholics. Uh-huh. I'm not even sure the call mentioned birth control.

The recording said the call was paid for by The Catholic Association. I'm assuming that I got the call because I'm a super voter, registered Democrat in Western PA with a Catholic-sounding name(?). (What exactly would that computer algorithm look like anyway? First name "Maria"/"Angela"/"Carmela"/"Theresa" and last name ends in a vowel?)

I will repeat what I said back in February:

Let's get it straight. The Affordable Care Act requires health insurers to cover contraception without co-pays. It does not, however, require religions, churches, parishes, dioceses, archdioceses, etc. to cover contraception -- they are exempt (if you're a secretary working for a church you're shit out of luck). What we're talking about are public institutions like universities and hospitals -- non-profit businesses (much in the same way that UPMC, for example, is a "non-profit") -- who take government money and who take money from the public being required to follow the law to not discriminate against women when covering their health care costs.

That's it.

If the Catholic Church does not want to follow the law, they can stop taking federal funds or they can get out of the business of running businesses.

That's it.

That's their choice.

(Jesus' choice -- from all available evidence -- would seem to be to sell everything and give it to the poor. Just saying...)

But, now I'll add this from a Republican-appointed judge's ruling in federal court late last month who upheld the Obama Administration’s birth control coverage rules:

The burden of which plaintiffs complain is that funds, which plaintiffs will contribute to a group health plan, might, after a series of independent decisions by health care providers and patients covered by [an employer's health] plan, subsidize someone else’s participation in an activity that is condemned by plaintiffs’ religion. . . . [Federal religious freedom law] is a shield, not a sword. It protects individuals from substantial burdens on religious exercise that occur when the government coerces action one’s religion forbids, or forbids action one’s religion requires; it is not a means to force one’s religious practices upon others. [It] does not protect against the slight burden on religious exercise that arises when one’s money circuitously flows to support the conduct of other free-exercise-wielding individuals who hold religious beliefs that differ from one’s own. . . .

[T]he health care plan will offend plaintiffs’ religious beliefs only if an [] employee (or covered family member) makes an independent decision to use the plan to cover counseling related to or the purchase of contraceptives. Already, [plaintiffs] pay salaries to their employees—money the employees may use to purchase contraceptives or to contribute to a religious organization. By comparison, the contribution to a health care plan has no more than a de minimus impact on the plaintiff’s religious beliefs than paying salaries and other benefits to employees.

Or as Think Progress explains it:

A key insight in this opinion is that salaries and health insurance can be used to buy birth control, so if religious employers really object to enabling their employees to buy birth control, they would have to not pay them money in addition to denying them comprehensive health insurance. An employer cannot assert a religious objection to how their employees choose to use their own benefits or their own money, because religious freedom is not a license to “force one’s religious practices upon others.”

Cause that would hardly be "small government" now would it?

Contrasts

First, President Obama at a campaign event in Sandusky, Ohio:

At one point, he consoled a crying woman, Stephanie Miller, who was telling him a story.

President Barack Obama, right, talks to Stephanie Miller after speaking at an ice cream social at Washington Park in Sandusky, Ohio, Thursday, July 5, 2012. Miller's sister, Kelly Hines, died from colon cancer four years ago. She could not afford proper health insurance, had no employer-provided coverage, and "even after she was diagnosed with cancer, she was told her income was too high for Medicaid," Miller said. Miller thanked Obama for the getting the Affordable Health Act passed.

Miller, reached by phone afterward, said her sister, Kelly Hines, died from colon cancer four years ago because she could not afford proper health insurance. She had no employer-provided coverage

"Even after she was diagnosed with cancer, she was told her income was too high for Medicaid," Ms. Miller said. "I thanked him for the getting the Affordable Health Act passed," she said.

And now, Senator Mitch McConnell on, of course, Fox "News":

Pressed by Chris Wallace to say what he would do to insure the 30 million people who will get insurance under Obamacare, McConnell at first dodged the question, instead launching into a litany of complaints about the law. He repeated the debunked claim that it would cut $500 billion from Medicare. Asked the question again by Wallace, McConnell actually laughed, and said he’d “get to it in a minute,” before claiming the best thing we can do for the health system overall is to get rid of the law and all of its “cuts” to health providers. He labeled Obamacare a “monstrosity” and vowed that there would not be a “2,700 page” Republican reform bill.

Asked a third time how Republicans would insure those 30 million people, McConnell said: “That is not the issue. The question is how you can go step by step to improve the American health care system.”

Allowing a few people to die so that the GOP "improvements" can be implemented step-by-step - that's the plan.

This from the pro-life party.

Rally to Celebrate the Affordable Care Act

It's constitutional, bitchez!

We're liberals -- win, lose -- we rally!

Via One Pittsburgh:

Rally to celebrate the Affordable Care Act and tell Corbett we demand a PA Healthcare Exchange
When: Today! June 29, 2012, Noon
Where: Piatt Place 301 5th Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15222 (map)
What: The Affordable Care Act has been upheld by the Supreme Court, guaranteeing that millions of Americans will receive healthcare! As Attorney General, Tom Corbett filed a lawsuit against the ACA. We are going to rally to celebrate the SCOTUS decision and to remind Corbett that WE WON and that we demand he stops dragging his feet to create PA's healthcare exchange.

RSVP at link above or via MoveOn.

(Graphic via Facebook)