Free Market Idiocy on Steroids

If every dollar of tax revenue collected from a successful business corresponds to a dollar decrease in potential economic growth, (and conservative "thinkers" tell us there is a direct correlation while reality tells us no such relationship exists), then the looming explosion in health insurance premiums that will ripple out of the destruction of the ACA should really hit the economy hard.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that it will cut 90 percent of its budget for advertising Obamacare’s open enrollment period and will nearly cut in half the funding for hundreds of navigator groups across the country who provide in-person assistance to people signing up for health insurance. Former HHS officials and health care experts predict the sharply scaled-back outreach effort will significantly depress insurance signups this fall, especially among the young and healthy, causing premiums to skyrocket. “The people who are sick will navigate any obstacle in order to obtain insurance,” Josh Peck, the former chief marketing officer for HHS, told TPM. “They don’t need a reminder because their illness is their reminder every day. But healthy people need and respond to reminders, so this clearly will have a negative impact on the risk pool.”

Open Thread For September 3, 2017

Trump Leaving Trade Deal With South Korea?  The timing seems a little...curious, don'tchathink? Feds Have Ignored Terrorist Threats From Right-Wing Extremists Forever.  Including, of course, allowing these nut jobs to…

A bit of bloggy nostalgia

In 2001 and 2002, I was reading and commenting on Dana Garret's blog and Mike Mathews. There was also someone ...Delacrat? who had a great wit, but didn't stick with it. I was also trolling some Republicans pretty hard. Hube mostly. Like everyone I was shocked and outraged about how terrible George W. Bush was. About how he wanted to invade Iraq on a transparently flimsy pretext and with no plan for the occupation. (Little did I know that the GOP had not yet begun to scrape the bottom of the barrel.) Anyway, my arms were to short to box with GWB, so I decide to keep an eye on Mike Castle who I discovered to be a straight down the line "Yes Man" for Bush in spite of his PR campaign to the contrary. I tricked Liberalgeek into coming aboard, then Pandora and Cassandra, Nemski, Donviti. El Somnambulo was a goldmine of a commenter for a long while before he came on board. Delaware Dem started "Daily Delaware" but decided to come over after a while. Those years were fun. Then Hillary Clinton came along and ruined America with her shit ass campaign. I think that's how it went down. This short piece in technically Delaware reminded me of all of that. Read Steve Newton's post on outing. That's one for the time capsule.