Health Care Reform

[Primula Baggins]

Nate Silver, who's not posting much because he's busy setting up his new independent 538 site, has posted about the shutdown, and it's interesting. His take is not an echo of anyone else's. Worth a read.

Link

[yovargas]

Ahh, Nate Silver, such a breath of fresh air. Love that guy.

[anthriel]

I really enjoyed reading that, Prim. He is really refreshing. Lots of good facts. No hyperbole, no hysterics, no passive aggressive emotional manipulation. It's kind of sad how unusual that is.

I love stuff like: "But the shutdown is another matter. I've been avoiding the topic for another reason: I'm not sure I have all that much to say about it."

He's saying he doesn't have enough facts to create an intelligent conversation. Refreshing, again. For some, emotion is all you need. Facts are sort of irrelevant, or are only treated something like Silly Putty, as a medium to create whatever image they would like to worship... or decry.

Here's another golden snippet:
"That's been my impression of the coverage of the shutdown: The folks you see on TV are much too sure of themselves. They've been making too much of thin slices of polling and thinner historical precedents that might not apply this time around.

There's been plenty of bullshit, in other words."


I think I like this guy.


Edit: cross-posted with yov. Yep, I agree.

[Passdagas the Brown]

Nate Silver, who's not posting much because he's busy setting up his new independent 538 site, has posted about the shutdown, and it's interesting. His take is not an echo of anyone else's. Worth a read.

Link

It is ALWAYS worth paying attention to Nate Silver. Not only is he a great read, but he is so often right.

In any event, 538 was, for most of its life, independent. He was only with the NY Times for a few years, I believe, and now he's getting back to his roots.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Thanks, Prim. Always a pleasure to read Silver's perspective Almost everything that he says I not only agree with, but have already thought, but without his ability to back it up with evidence.

[elfshadow]

Nate Silver is wonderful. I have a huge crush on him; unfortunately for me, he is gay. But, I think he is still single, so yov, you are in luck.

[yovargas]

One can dream.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Nate would be a very lucky guy.

[River]

My Danish friend just posted this on Facebook. It's a Scandinavian webcomic but it's in English for some reason. It's some family- and work-friendly hilarious insight into how they view our governmental situation.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

A particularly interesting and perhaps surprising element of a new NBC/WSJ poll shows support for the ACA has risen by seven percent since last month. The poll also shows a slight rise in President Obama job approval. And record low favorability ratings for the GOP.

http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2013 ... s-gop?lite

[Primula Baggins]

I'm not actually surprised by the improvement for the ACA, given that (despite the delays) more and more people have been able to go on and discover what it's going to do for them (or have heard from family and friends about that).

I think that's really what the Republican opponents of the ACA most fear: that people will find out that it's going to help them. How can the Republicans argue with that? "But it's morally better for you and your family to struggle without insurance than to accept government help." That seems to be about it, and it cuts no ice with me—or, apparently, with other sentient organisms.

[anthriel]

Well, I hate to be the Republican wet blanket, here, but this *is* sort of the honeymoon period. People are just signing up right now, and feeling a flood of relief that they can be covered.

There will be snags and problems and frustration when it kicks in, and the approval rating might not be so high, then. Any new system has to work out its kinks. And it may never be exactly what everyone wants.

But it is better than the nothing we have had for so long, that's for sure.

[Lalaith]

I had a friend saying that Glenn Beck said only 795 people have actually signed up so far. I said that that number could not possibly be correct. Does anyone know?

[Dave_LF]

My Danish friend just posted this on Facebook. It's a Scandinavian webcomic but it's in English for some reason. It's some family- and work-friendly hilarious insight into how they view our governmental situation.

I don't think this has been posted here yet:
How the shutdown would be reported if it happened somewhere else

[yovargas]

I had a friend saying that Glenn Beck said only 795 people have actually signed up so far. I said that that number could not possibly be correct. Does anyone know?

Well, of course that's totally ridiculous but I wanted to google to see if he'd actually said it. Instead, I found this video from a couple weeks ago of him saying that he'd be really really happy if the gov shuts down cuz that would be totally awesome:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rzch9c6TUJo

(There's also something about robo-squirrels a few minutes in. Neat.)


When I read this comment from Dave I thought it was probably a bit of hyperbole but I guess not:

Of course they don't. Shutting down the federal government is their main long-term objective. Perhaps their only one.

[Dave_LF]

I'm not in favor of abolishing the government. I just want to shrink it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.

[yovargas]

I suppose to be fair, neither Beck or Norquist are in actual positions of power in government, even if each has their own fan base/influence. Have any elected officials made such statements that anyone's aware of?

[Frelga]

I'm not actually surprised by the improvement for the ACA, given that (despite the delays) more and more people have been able to go on and discover what it's going to do for them (or have heard from family and friends about that).

I think that's really what the Republican opponents of the ACA most fear: that people will find out that it's going to help them. How can the Republicans argue with that? "But it's morally better for you and your family to struggle without insurance than to accept government help." That seems to be about it, and it cuts no ice with me—or, apparently, with other sentient organisms.

That's exactly what Colbert quoted an (according to him) Koch-brothers funded conservative youth organization telling its members, that it would be better for them to pay the fine than to get the insurance. Which, Colbert said, was like renting instead of buying, and then not getting a place to live.

anthy, I am sure no one expects a snag-free experience. I think right now many people are either like me - have coverage through their employer and are not yet affected by the new law, or like Prim and are vastly relieved to be able to get coverage at all.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I'm not actually surprised by the improvement for the ACA, given that (despite the delays) more and more people have been able to go on and discover what it's going to do for them (or have heard from family and friends about that).

I'm inclined to agree with the article that the improved numbers have more to do with a "boomerang effect" than any real improvement in its popularity. It just too early. And while I agree with Anthy that the law will have some ups and downs, I am convinced that ultimately it will have the same kind of popularity that medicare and social security (for all of their problems) have. I really do believe that the American people are basically good-hearted, and approve of fairness and compassion for those who need it.

I had a friend saying that Glenn Beck said only 795 people have actually signed up so far. I said that that number could not possibly be correct. Does anyone know?

Well, I'm sure that in some moment in time it was true that only 795 had signed up, but it certainly isn't true now! In Kentucky, which is about as red a state as there is, "By Monday afternoon, 6,946 families had enrolled in plans through Kynect and the website had handled 3.1 million page views, according to the governor’s office." "California said 28,699 people were signed up in the state’s health-insurance exchange in the first week, while New York had more than 40,000 sign up. The numbers for California, the largest U.S. state by population, were for the Oct. 1 to Oct. 5 period and exceeded expectations, Peter V. Lee, executive director of Covered California, said at a news conference today in Sacramento"

Edited to add: those are three of the 14 states that run their own exchanges. I haven't seen any specific figures for the national exchange being run by the federal government for the other 36 states. But I am quite sure that it is more than 795!

[Lalaith]

Well, that was my thought, too, especially since I knew at least one person who had actually signed up (Prim)! I told her that it couldn't possibly be true because it seemed statistically highly unlikely that I would personally know one of those 795 people. It just didn't make any sense whatsoever.

Unless she somehow caught an old broadcast and didn't realize it, this is what he said 2 days ago. Maybe she missed some type of qualifier on that number, like that was the number of people who signed up the first day? Or maybe Glenn Beck was lying.