Elon Musk claims to have found rampant fraud in the Social Security Administration. There’s a much simpler explanation
No, 150-Year-Olds Aren’t Collecting Social Security Benefits
Musk’s minions need to leave the Social Security and Veterans Administrations alone!
The Postmaster General is still wrecking the Post Office.
The past two weeks have been newsworthy, to say the least. You’d be forgiven if you missed a June 8th op-ed in The Washington Post entitled “We’re fixing the Postal Service. We can’t stop now,” written by none other than the embattled Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy.
The Coming Fight Over American Surveillance
But no threat of any kind is required to conduct surveillance under Section 702. The law permits surveillance of any foreigner abroad, as long as a significant purpose of the surveillance is to acquire “foreign intelligence information.” FISA defines this term extremely broadly to include any “information related to . . . the conduct of U.S. foreign affairs.” A conversation between friends about whether the United States should do more to support Ukraine would justify surveillance under this definition.
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The November elections will likely give Republicans control of the House of Representatives as a platform from which to oppose the Democratic-controlled White House. And one thing Republicans will do with this power, in all probability, will be to try to provoke a crisis in order to extort Democrats into accepting spending cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.
Republicans Plan Debt Crisis to Force Cuts to Medicare, Social Security
How family friendly!? Just throw Granny to the street! /s
Because Joe Biden and democrats act on behalf of the oligarchy instead of the people, they now risk a mid-term election loss. His solution to this political problem is to speak endlessly about Donald Trump and shout the word MAGA at every opportunity.
Biden’s MAGA Obsession Won’t Help Democrats
Prescription Drug Price Reforms Won’t Happen for Years
Read More »The two biggest benefits for seniors in the IRA are the Medicare negotiation of certain high-cost prescription drugs, and the $2,000 out-of-pocket cap. But while price negotiations technically start next year, no consumer will see the benefit until the new prices begin in 2026, and even then on only 10 drugs (another 15 are added in 2027 and 2028, rising to 20 by 2029 and subsequent years).
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The $2,000 out-of-pocket cap, which is across the board for all seniors, not just on certain drugs, is even worse. That cap doesn’t go into effect until 2025, although out-of-pocket costs get capped at $4,000 in 2024. If there is kind of an explanation for delays in setting up Medicare drug price negotiation, for the out-of-pocket cap there is not. You literally tally up patient out-of-pocket costs, which are fully transparent, until they hit $2,000, and then stop them. Why does this take more than two years to pull off? Medicare itself, the entire program, took only a year to implement.
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Other parts of the bill do come online more quickly. The insulin price cap of $35 a month for Medicare recipients starts in 2023, as does free vaccine coverage in Medicare and the rebates on Medicare drugs with price increases above inflation. But the inflation rebate is benchmarked to 2021 prices, locking in those high costs, and just would mute price growth. The real benefits here are Medicare negotiations that lower drug prices, and the cap on all prescription drug costs for seniors. Those are delayed.
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It is absolutely insane for a political party to boast that it lowered prices for seniors when the price reductions are years and years down the road. That kind of de facto bait and switch leads to distrust and anger. You’d have thought Democrats would have learned this lesson in the Affordable Care Act, whose major benefits didn’t kick in for four years after passage, a time lag that helped lead to two midterm wipeouts. But here we are again, as Democratic officials tout a drug price reform that isn’t visible to anyone.
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That’s not necessarily Democrats’ fault (although they could have ignored the parliamentarian, of course). What is their fault is the failure to immediately make evident the benefits of the policy. Democrats have had a tendency to break faith with their base, to make promises and fail to deliver. Here’s a policy they’ve been promising for nearly two decades, they pass the policy, and they’re going to spend years explaining how the implementation is just around the corner. It comes off as double-talk and toxifies a political brand. And in this case, it was unnecessary.
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 