Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[hack]

No, it was the ``Dems have no mandate'' argument, IIRC. McConnell is a master of arguing that Rs have a mandate and Ds don't, no matter what has happened. He's a heck of a politican.

[hack]

Hoss said:

Agree totally. This forum is at its best when posters give actual examples from their areas of expertise.

Yes. Which reminds me -- Talent, please do feel free to go on in further detail from the other day, on the finer points of administrative law.

[Dr. Strangelove]

https://twitter.com/_0Hour1__/status/819397628542746624

isn't it a crime for someone in the media to take pictures of federal document? Actually, not just media, but anyone?

The Washington Post and Doris Truong have vehemently denied that this was her. She wasn't even there.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Hoss said: ...... Can someone explain to me why the federal government is allowed to negotiate prescription pricing with Big Pharma under Medicaid, but not under Medicare. What's the difference?

That's an incorrect statement.

The details are complicated but basically when the ACA was created, in order to get it through congress there we're a ton of amendments passed that weakened it. One of them was support for a continued ban on negotiating drug prices established in 2003 when Medicare Part D was established.

This is one of the areas of the ACA that Trump intends to change (assuming there are changes rather than outright repeal and that's a good assumption right now). It is going to be an uphill battle though. Every administration has gone into office since 2003 with a mandate to do this. It's hard. It's hard because it is complicated.

Just amended this post to link the problem (if you see at as such and I do) to Medicare PartD drug pricing. It's important to understand the history of this and I found a decent article that lays this out as well as throws it's support behind the ACA CMMI - a very decent part of the ACA that allows this organization to test, by pilot programs, health care improvement processes.

One of those process ideas is something called Value Based Prcicing. What it does is tie drug pricing to outcomes. Better drugs based on health outcomes, get better coverage. To understand the implications of this, you have to understand how there actually are mechanisms in place to lowere Medicare drug costs ....... Like I said, it's complicated but I didn't want this opportunity to help people understand how this stuff works pass.

http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2016/09/19/the-politics-of-medicare-and-drug-price-negotiation/

[froot loops]

I believe that was a Joe Lieberman contribution to the weakening of the ACA.

[iam416]

If the gloves are off for one side, they come off for both.

Heh. Heh. Heh. The gloves have been off on both sides. This is one equivalency argument I have no problem making at all. I shouldn't have mixed the two points as I did.

As for Booker, LOL. I mean, I could mock his testimony all day, but his "requirements" for the AG and his self-serving foolishness are neatly summarized by this statement: “the next attorney general must bring hope and healing to this country.”

I'm glad he testified. I hope the Ds take the gloves off some more, Hoss. That's some gold mine stuff.

Courageous empathy!

[Wild Hoss]

Spare me the snark. His testimony was theater, and I said as much.

Agree that there is a symbiotic spiral downward....but its accelerated greatly of late.

[iam416]

"Implicit bias" is an argument put forth by Ds, including Hillary Clinton. When making "fact-based" assertions they are relying on results from the Implicit Association Test.

An author in New York Magazine, whatever that is, spends a lot of time showing why the IAT is, to be charitable, less than reliable. http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2017/01...o-the-job.html

The point is that the key experts involved in IAT research no longer claim that the IAT can be used to predict individual behavior. In this sense, the IAT has simply failed to deliver on a promise it has been making since its inception — that it can reveal otherwise hidden propensities to commit acts of racial bias. There’s no evidence it can.

That's not to say the concept is valid, but it's not validated by the IAT.

Some good reading for me ahead of my 2 hours of Diversity and Inclusion training next week.

[iam416]

Spare me the snark. His testimony was theater, and I said as much.

My Booker comments were general, not aimed at you. My apologies if my post was ambiguous in that regard.

I do think you should spare me the victim routine, though. Oh, the poor, noble Democrats! C'mon, man.

[Wild Hoss]

Poor noble democrats routine?

You're trying too hard again. Ease up on the throttle a bit my man.

[iam416]

Alright. My bad for weighing here. Carry on unabated with your schtick.

[Wild Hoss]

Oh, stop. Nobody has to believe the Ds are driven-snow pure to see what's happening now is some historically terrible shit.

[Wild Hoss]

Sorry, I have been in and out of here this morning, as things are getting skizzy around here with the impending Ice Age.

Now that I have a sec....if you want to make a case that the recent GOP legislative antics are not an escalation from previous Dem shenanigans, make your case and I will read it at some point today. I know you follow this subject closely and have a different ?30,000-foot view? than I do, so I would like to hear it if you have the time.

[iam416]

Escalation is ongoing. And has been. You could probably make a good case that the sea change was Bork and that the incremental/escalating trip to the bottom was inevitable therefrom. You could probably find evidence that something else led to Bork.

In any event, I'm not going to defend Rs and certainly not going to defend Trump. I don't, however, view the shenanigans in Washington as much more than incremental steps of awfulness.

I think you see it more pronounced outside the specific politics of DC. I'm sure you're familiar with the efforts in Wisconsin by Ds and a fairly awful abuse of subpoena power. I think you see it amongst AGs and their use of subpoena power re Exxon. I think you see it in general terms in "diversity/pc". I think there's a social orthodoxy on the left that is rigid and those who step outside it are in for trouble -- unless you're Trump, who managed to avoid it.

I think you see it in Rs in states in some ridiculous abortion laws. I think you see it in Rs in their own rigid social orthodoxy when it comes to things like patriotism. I think you see it in Trump with immigration and shit ton of other things. I think his scorched earth policy when it comes to the bearer of bad news is abominable.

My points -- rather, my opinion -- is that as limited to "the Swamp" we're incrementally getting worse and worse. One party does something, the other responds when they have power and off we go. In a broader context -- and this is one that concerns me -- the devolution of open-minded discussion and increase in hostility.

The latter is one that I will continue to work on personally as I'm flawed in that regard. I understand we probably disagree on the issue. I'm not trying to sway you, but rather giving my own opinion on the matter, as flawed as it may be.

[Da Geezer]

Jeff said about my question of negotiating drug prices, Medicare v. Medicaid, I said Medicare didn't negotiate prices, or couldn't.

That's an incorrect statement.

The details are complicated but basically when the ACA was created, in order to get it through congress there were a ton of amendments passed that weakened it. One of them was support for a continued ban on negotiating drug prices established in 2003 when Medicare Part D was established.

Good article, but no light on the subject.

Your post says there was a ban on Medicare negotiating prices beginning in 2003. The article makes clear that Obama reached an early accommodation with Big Pharma to eliminate negotiating Medicare drug pricing under the ACA. The ACA was pre-approved by all the big operators, Big Pharma, Big Insurance, Trial Lawyers etc who wanted to feed at the public trough. I know that.

But if negotiations were banned in 2003, and the ban was continued in the ACA (2010), I still ask the same question: Why the difference in treatment between Medicaid and Medicare? I understand there are different "Parts" in Medicare, and maybe some drug prices can be negotiated, but I am looking for the logic in not allowing the federal government to negotiate prices. That seems to me to be a valid exercise of government power to offset oligopoly power (thanks, Hack).

I agree fully with your position that the US should buy from the lowest-cost provider of efficacious drugs. If that means importing from Canada, then so be it.