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To: i-node who wrote (763983)	1/14/2014 11:18:41 PM
From: THE WATSONYOUTH	2 Recommendations Recommended By FJB i-node Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573697

Insurers May Come to Regret Asking for a Bailout Tuesday, 14 Jan 2014 08:19 AM By Megan McArdle As seems to be customary, we have a lot of news out on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The Barack Obama administration is firing CGI Group Inc., the company with one of the largest contracts for work on the troubled healthcare exchanges. This was probably inevitable, but coming at this point, it suggests one of two things: that the exchanges are now stable enough that the administration can afford to claim a scalp, or that CGI’s work is so bad that it's better off being fired even if the exchanges are none too stable. The first option seems more likely to me, but the second is certainly not out of the question. More interesting is what’s going on with the insurers. They are simultaneously asking the administration for more money and trying to stave off Republican efforts to curtail the backdoor bailouts they’re already getting. This has an understandable business logic, and even a hint of fairness: The administration changed the rules on them midstream, in a way that seems likely to impose heavy losses. It’s understandable that they would like the administration to make them whole. I take this post by insurance industry consultant Bob Laszewski to reflect the insurer perspective on what should happen — and what they think will: The reinsurance program has done and will continue to do what it was intended to do; help attract and keep more carriers in Obamacare than might have otherwise come. No matter who did health insurance reform, Democrats or Republicans, there was always going to be a transitionary period when those currently sick and unable to get coverage before would come flooding through the doors. Does this mean that health plans would be happy to see their plans underpriced in the first year, as well as the second and third year? No, they will not have any incentive to see their products dramatically underpriced the first three years only to see their prices zoom in the fourth year and create havoc. But, my sense is that health plans, because they are so insulated from big losses, will generally stand pat with their 2014 rate structures for 2015 –– no matter how bad the early claims experience looks. I expect that the health insurance industry will be content to give the Obama administration one more chance to reboot Obamacare in the fall of 2014, when the 2015 open enrollment takes place. This is the plan that Republicans hope to cleverly foil by framing the risk-adjustment provisions as an insurer bailout and repealing them. As designed, the risk-adjustment mechanism was supposed to be revenue-neutral, and that is how the Congressional Budget Office scored it in their last estimate. But unless the demographics of the exchanges improve pretty quickly, the three temporary risk-adjustment programs are probably set to transfer a large hunk of cash to the insurance companies. That’s what the administration, and the insurers, want to happen; it’s how they are going to keep the insurers on board for 2015. Phil Klein at the Washington Examiner points out that Humana Inc.’s latest filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission warns of a “more adverse than previously expected” mix of customers enrolling through the exchange — but it doesn’t change its earnings forecast for 2014. So either it thinks its losses will be trivial relative to overall earnings or Humana thinks the chances of a bailout from the administration are basically 100 percent. But while the business logic is obvious, the political logic is considerably more dubious. I was initially skeptical that a repeal of the risk corridors had any chance of getting through a Democratic-controlled Senate, but I’ve heard a persuasive argument that this is just so politically toxic that Senate Democrats, and even the White House, may well go along. The optics of funneling money to the insurers through these programs is absolutely terrible. And now they are asking the administration for more money — the insurers want the extra expenses that the exchange debacle has imposed excluded from calculating their “medical loss ratio” requirements, which mandate that at least 80 percent of their expenses go toward treatment, not administrative overhead. I think the requirements are pretty silly, as a policy, but they are extremely popular. Asking the administration for a break on this is almost begging members of both parties to beat the snot out of them. White House attempts to explain that it isn't a bailout will be complicated by the fact that it obviously kind of is. Don’t get me wrong: I think the insurers are in a tough place. Unless the administration bails them out — or enrollment starts going even better than it did in December — they look set to lose quite a bit of money next year. But unless they really do have the administration in their pocket, this is probably the wrong time to be asking for yet another special administrative fix to funnel more cash to insurers. Megan McArdle is a Bloomberg View columnist who writes on economics, business and public policy. © Copyright 2014 Bloomberg News. All rights reserved. Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com moneynews.com Urgent: Should Obamacare Be Repealed? Vote Here Now!

To: i-node who wrote (763983)	1/14/2014 11:23:25 PM
From: puborectalis	Read Replies (6) \| Respond to of 1573697

Hothead bully who calls others animals....just what you need to run the country "Just one day before his Deputy Chief of Staff Bridget Anne Kelly sent an e-mail to the Port Authority requesting “traffic problems in Fort Lee,” Christie railed at a press conference about how Weinberg and other Democrats planned to challenge his reappointment of tenured Supreme Court Justice Helen Hoens. “I simply could not be party to the destruction of Helen Hoen’s professional reputation,” a fuming Christie told reporters at an Aug. 12, 2013 at a press conference after he decided to remove Hoens, a Republican, from the bench in order to spare her the ordeal of being challenged. “I was not going to let her loose to the animals.” Kelly fired off her now-infamous email — “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee” — the morning of Aug. 13.

To: i-node who wrote (763983)

1/15/2014 12:20:24 AM

From: THE WATSONYOUTH

1 Recommendation

Recommended By
FJB

Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 1573697

Mitch McConnell is the most unelectable Senate Republican incumbent.

Can't read this email? Click here.

Fellow Conservatives:

Republicans are in serious danger of losing the U.S. Senate seat in Kentucky because Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is so unpopular and refuses to retire.

After nearly thirty years in Washington, Mitch McConnell's image in his home state is so bad that he currently shares a dismal 31% approval rating with President Obama.

That spells serious trouble for a Republican running in a state that President Obama lost in 2012 by 23 percentage points.

Despite Republicans having a big advantage in Kentucky, Cook Political Report rates the Senate race a "Toss Up" between McConnell and his Democratic opponent.

According to Cook's analysis of all 2014 Senate races, McConnell is the only Republican incumbent in danger of losing to a Democrat this year.

Mitch McConnell was urged to retire and put the interests of the party ahead of his own political ambitions, but he refused.

Now McConnell is headed for defeat, which will likely cost the party an important Senate seat and could prevent it from winning a majority.

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The Democrats know this and it's why they hope McConnell wins the May 20 primary. National Journal recently published a story exposing this fact.

Democrats are hoping to turn the Senate race into a referendum on an unpopular incumbent. But without McConnell on the ticket, the presumed Democratic nominee, Alison Lundergan Grimes, will face a much tougher foe in the fresh-faced Republican...

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Conservatives are used to being told by the GOP establishment that our candidates are unelectable, but the opposite is true in Kentucky. It's the establishment's candidate who is going to cost the party this seat.

The reason the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) is backing McConnell is because he controls the committee. If any other Republican were at risk in a red state like this, McConnell and the NRSC would be pressuring them to retire. It's exactly what McConnell did to his former home state colleague, Senator Jim Bunning, back in 2009.

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Best regards,

Matt Hoskins
Executive Director
Senate Conservatives Fund

To: i-node who wrote (763983)	1/15/2014 1:05:22 AM
From: zax	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573697

>> Christie is a really good man. Honest, forthright, smart, intelligent. Its getting closer... day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute... Port Authority’s Chairman May Be the Next to Topple JAN. 14, 2014 nytimes.com Launch media viewer David Samson Todd Heisler/The New York Times By JIM DWYER It is starting to look as if this could be the traffic jam that ate New Jersey. David Samson, one of the closest advisers to Gov. Chris Christie, is a little-known potentate in New Jersey politics: A former attorney general appointed by a Democratic governor, he was named chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey by Mr. Christie, a Republican. Mr. Samson served in Mr. Christie’s campaign for governor as counsel, and was chairman of the transition committee. His law firm, Wolff & Samson, is hired by developers and others for work in which the lawyers’ political connections, though not their visibility, are especially prized assets. Yet Mr. Samson, 74, has emerged as a pivotal figure in efforts to contain the scandal around the throttling of access lanes at the George Washington Bridge as political punishment. Emails released last week show that Mr. Samson was regularly consulted by the political operatives at the port who conceived and carried out the shutdown. Now, Mr. Samson, who had spoken about stepping down long before the uproar over the bridge, has again raised the subject, according to government officials who said that no final decision had been revealed and so spoke only on the condition of anonymity. They expect that could take place before the authority’s next board meeting in February. Aides to Mr. Christie said they knew of no plans by Mr. Samson to resign, and in an email on Tuesday night, Mr. Samson said, “The story is incorrect.” If Mr. Samson is called to testify by legislators investigating the events, he is sure to be asked questions that he has yet to address in any public forum about his actions in the aftermath of the traffic jam. During a news conference last week, Mr. Christie said he felt sure that Mr. Samson was not involved. “I sat and met for two hours yesterday with Mr. Samson — General Samson — and again, I’m confident that he had no knowledge of this, based upon our conversations and his review of his information,” the governor said at the time. “So I think, you know, as he said yesterday, he is angered by this and upset about it.” But in Port Authority emails, Mr. Samson expressed no anger about the traffic jams manufactured at the bridge by allies of his and the governor. Instead, he railed about the executive director, Patrick J. Foye, who had been kept in the dark about what was going on at the bridge and who immediately ordered an end to it when he learned about it. Mr. Samson said Mr. Foye was “stirring up trouble.” In a Sept. 18 email to Scott Rechler, the vice chairman of the board, Mr. Samson wrote: “This is yet another example of a story, we’ve seen it before, where he distances himself from an issue in the press and rides in on a white horse to save the day. (If you need prior examples I will provide) In this case, he’s playing in traffic, made a big mistake.” In fact, Mr. Foye did not have to distance himself from the bridge issue; supervisors of operations at the bridge had been told by Christie political operatives that they were specifically not to inform Mr. Foye of the lane shutdowns. Mr. Samson was upset about an article in The Wall Street Journal that quoted from a memo Mr. Foye had sent within the Port Authority, ordering the lanes to the bridge reopened and saying that the action may have broken state and federal laws. Mr. Foye also said it was “reckless, ill-advised” and a threat to public safety. Mr. Rechler, who, like Mr. Foye, is an appointee of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, replied that he did not believe Mr. Foye had been the source of The Journal’s article. “More evidence of reckless, counterproductive behavior,” Mr. Samson replied. In another email to Mr. Samson, Bill Baroni, a political operative appointed by Mr. Christie, said he was going to complain to Mr. Rechler: “General, I shall again make my concern known to the vice chairman.” During his news conference last week, Mr. Christie said that Mr. Samson had work to do at the agency. He would “lead a discussion at the Port Authority about what could be done in the future to stop such conduct,” the governor said.

To: i-node who wrote (763983)	1/29/2014 9:27:15 PM
From: zax	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573697

>> Christie is a really good man. Honest, forthright, smart, intelligent. Your typical republic hero is getting into hotter water now. Two new Christie fiasco's on the day. Christie Allies Pushed a Project in New Jersey nytimes.com For Christie, Politics Team Kept a Focus on Two Races nytimes.com Maybe you should seriously reconsider your value system and political beliefs, i-node. Both of these stories are really quite damning.