In Drought, Abbott [Texas (R) Gov Candidate] Keeps Lawn Green by Drilling

Source: Texas Tribune

With what has been described as the worst drought in recorded history punishing parts of Texas, Attorney General Greg Abbott found a way to keep watering his yard without risking fines or incurring huge monthly bills: He drilled his own well.

Now his lawn is green, and there are no pesky city watering restrictions to worry about.

He is not alone. Abbott, the leading 2014 candidate for Texas governor, has joined an exclusive and growing list of Austin residents. That list includes Ben Crenshaw, the golfing legend, and Mack Brown, the University of Texas football coach — residents who are coping with the drought and rising water bills by procuring their own private water supply underneath their land.

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Abbott installed his well a few months before the city began aggressively enforcing its lawn-watering restrictions, issuing at least $11,000 in fines since August. In Abbott’s upscale West Austin neighborhood of Pemberton Heights, where lawns are remarkably green, some residents have put up signs that read “Watering by Private Well” to avoid reproach at a time when most of Austin can water grass only once a week.


Read more: http://www.texastribune.org/2013/11/10/drought-abbott-keeps-his-lawn-green-drilling/

Jonathan Cohn - "The Huge Obamacare Story You Aren't Reading"

Nice story that talks about how the MSM either ignores or, worse attacks, the fact that millions of people stand to gain access to Medicaid under the ACA:

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115542/obamacare-plan-cancellations-medicaid-expansion-and-media

But there is also a class element to the way this debate has evolved. By and large, the people receiving those cancellation notices and facing large premium increases are at least reasonably affluent. They’re not necessarily rich, particularly if they live in higher cost areas of the country. Many of them sweat monthly bills just like most of the country does. But, by definition, they don’t qualify for huge subsidies that would offset premium increases mostly or completely. By contrast, the people getting Medicaid are poor. They have to be, because it’s the only way to sign up for the program. And as political scientists have shown, the poor don't command the same kind of attention from politicians that the middle class—and particularly the upper middle class—does.

And this fact, I suspect, is also magnifying the impact of those cancellation letters. The best estimates suggest that 12 to 15 million people currently buy coverage on their own—i.e, in what's known as the non-group market. It appears that only a fraction of them will get to keep their current policies. The rest will end up having to get new coverage, or updated versions of their old coverage, that offers greater benefits and/or is available to everybody, regardless of pre-existing condition. That will drive up the price of insurance.

But when you take into account the subsidies, which for many people will knock the price of insurance right back down, and the number of people who would gladly pay more for insurance that offers real protection from financial shock, the number of people who truly end up feeling worse off ends up a lot smaller than 12 or 15 million. And even those people will end up with good health insurance, though they’ll be paying more for it and may not want it.

Meanwhile, the best available projections suggest that 13 million people will eventually sign up for Medicaid. That’s a much larger number of people, most of whom had no insurance—none—before. That doesn’t even include more than ten million presently uninsured people expected to get insurance through employers and the new marketplaces, assuming all of the websites start working better, or the millions of seniors getting extra help with their prescrpition drugs.

Huffington Post - "Story Wars: Why Personal Stories Are Shaping the Health Care Battleground"

Nice story on why coverage of the ACA has been highly misleading.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-kirsch/story-wars-why-personal-s_b_4240479.html

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) would not have become law if it were not for the willingness of survivors of the nation's health care mess - people who had lost loved ones, fought to get care after an insurance company denial, faced crippling medical costs - to tell their stories to members of Congress and the press. Many members of Congress voted for the bill, despite the political risk, because they were moved by personal encounters with constituents with compelling stories. Many of the most effective spokespeople during the legislative battle over the law were people whose lives and livelihoods had been threatened by our defective health coverage system.

Now that the central part of the Affordable Care Act is finally being implemented, however painfully and slowly, personal stories are again becoming the focus of debate. The stories that the press has focused on recently have been mostly negative, largely because of three press biases. The first is that "if it bleeds, it leads." Negative news gets people's attention, raising people's fears, a phenomenon with strong physiological and psychological roots that extends well beyond the news. Advocates for passage of the law used that to our advantage when we were chronicling insurance company abuses, but in the new terrain of the law's implementation, it's a handicap. Coverage of people successfully getting affordable coverage is not as compelling as that of someone who says she is being forced to pay higher premiums after being told she is losing her existing coverage.

The second press bias is to take people at their word and not actually investigate them, particularly when they make good news. We have seen a lot of this in the coverage of people who have received letters from insurance companies telling them they are being forced into higher-priced plans.

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Which brings us to the third media bias, focusing on the white middle class. This is a general bias when it comes to the press, particularly when not reporting on government services or crime. In this case, it is a bias that will accentuate the problems with the Affordable Care Act and downplay its benefits to millions. As Cohn points out in another piece, there are some people who will pay more for comparable insurance plans under the new law. This is the small minority of people in the individual insurance market who, because they have been in good health and have enough income to buy insurance, have been able to find decent coverage at a price they can afford. Their good health has shielded them from big premium hikes or losing their coverage altogether, which will happen when they have a serious illness.

The Obamacare Success Stories

The fact of the matter is that coverage of the ACA has been incredibly tilted towards right wing narratives with little discussion of the thousands of folks who have successfully enrolled for coverage. Of course, the moment that any of these folks are discussed, the right wing media will start complaining about bias, because reality does have a liberal bias.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/10/23/the-obamacare-success-stories.html

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution tells the story of Lissie Stahlman, 60, who credits “a combination of patience, luck and different platforms” for getting her through the system late last week after trying for three weeks. She says she saved 50 percent over her current premiums and cut her deductible in half from $5,000 to $2,500.

ThinkProgress, a liberal website, reported on a 61-year-old lifelong Republican, Butch Matthews, who was heavily skeptical of the Affordable Care Act when it first passed. A former small business owner in Little Rock, Arkansas, Matthews used to get up every morning before dawn to deliver canned beverages to retailers before he retired three years ago. Medical care is his family’s biggest expense, since his home and vehicle are paid for. So he was pleased to discover his local Blue Cross Blue Shield would cover him under Arkansas’ Obamacare marketplace for less money than he had been paying, and with more benefits.

If you’ve read this far, you’re probably skeptical of extrapolating too much from these examples of people in their early sixties, who are too young for government-provided Medicare and probably willing to crawl over broken glass to find good health-care coverage. But stories abound about younger people as well. Enroll America, working to recruit people to Obamacare in Texas, a state that has been ostentatiously hostile to the law, tells the story of Mark Sullivan, a 31-year old worker in Austin’s tech sector who immediately created an account on healthcare.gov and settled on a bronze plan with added dental insurance. He will receive an $82 per month subsidy, which will halve his monthly premium to $78, giving him the financial freedom and security to put his energies into his new tech startup.

The Washington Post reported that California, an early embracer of Obamacare, has signed up 600,000 low income Golden Staters for the law’s expanded Medicaid, and over 100,000 are in some stage of applying for insurance on the marketplaces. The Wall Street Journal reported on a 28-year-old freelance filmmaker in Hollywood who was among the first to sign up on the California exchange market. “At $62 a month in direct costs to him, the plan, offered by managed-care firm Health Net Inc. is ‘a great deal,’ Mr. Foster said. Because he earns only about $20,000 a year doing freelance videography and odd jobs, Mr. Foster qualifies for federal subsidies that cut deep into the premiums for health plans available in the new marketplaces…”

CNN's Reliable Sources Ignores the Real Story Behind CBS's Benghazi Scandal

Here is a great piece that underscores the real story behind the Benghazi scandal is how easily and willing the MSM is ready to adopt and facilitate right wing narratives whether it is the Benghazi scandal or the latest death panel myth regarding the ACA.

The general debacle of the CBS 60 Minutes' coverage of Benghazi is really a microcosm of the failures of journalism at large nowadays and Reason #1 why most Americans don't trust corporate media. They relied almost wholly on an unreliable source, appeared to do almost no independent vetting, disregarded existing information that was available on the grounds of it coming from a partisan source and attempted to hide their own massive conflict of interest in the publishing of Dylan Davies' book.

It perfectly exemplifies how incestuous and enmeshed the mainstream media has become with the "vast right-wing conspiracy" noise machine that continues to frame and drive narratives independent of reality. It's why we can't do real fixes to ACA, global climate change, Social Security, gun safety regulations and a host of other issues facing the country.

But CNN's Reliable Sources doesn't want to look at the real issues of the Benghazi reporting. They don't want to open the Pandora's Box of partisan truthiness that has infected the corporate media and made it virtually impossible to trust anything coming from them. While inviting Media Matters' David Brock to the table, guest host Eric Deggans is very, very careful to not let Brock start treading too much towards the big partisan elephant in the room: conservatives have crafted and perpetuated this evidence-free campaign for the purpose of taking down President Obama during his re-election campaign and taint the potential campaign of Hillary Clinton in 2016.

DEGGANS: Now, David, you called for "60 minutes" to retract this story more than a week before they actually did. What did you see in reporting that made you question what they were doing and what do you think happened here?

DAVID BROCK, MEDIA MATTERS FOR AMERICA: Well, the first thing we saw was the day after the "60 Minutes" report ran. On FOX News, it was disclosed they had used Davies as a source up to the point where he demanded money. So, that was one flag.

Obviously, Davies has a book out from a right wing publisher. That was the second flag.

And then "The Washington Post" story ran, that day, we asked for a retraction. That took quite a while. The excuse that CBS is giving now is that they were dupes. Dupes of what?

I think they were eager and willing dupes of a right wing hoax. They suspended the traditional standards of CBS News and they adopted the shoddy practices of FOX News, and when you get and go down the FOX path, that's where you end up.

And, really, the bigger piece for me is we have written a book called "Benghazi Hoax" for Media Matters and everybody that followed this story for the past 13 months knows that the entire scandal is a hoax. The only reason the story exists is partisan politics, Republicans trying to sabotage health care, and prevent Hillary Clinton from running for president.

DEGGANS: Now, we would expect that from a group like Media Matters, you would see it that way.

Ubiquitous Web Ad/Fake News - "Billionaire Tells Americans to Prepare For 'Financial Ruin'"

I think everyone has seen these right wing type headlines on various "mainstream" news websites. Instead of being limited to ads, paid propagandists use services like Taboola, which blur the line between content provided by the relatively trusted website that you are on and paid political propaganda or advertisements disguised at news. First, I think this is a serious breach of ethics that news organizations allow such ads to be distributed on their websites, since they falsely suggest that the article is being published by a reputable news organization. You have to read the fine print that the content is actually provided by another provider, and sometimes it is not disclosed that it is essentially a paid ad. Second, displaying such ads constitutes a fraud on viewers and readers of content. Sometimes, these pseudo editorials and news stories encourage viewers to take certain actions that might benefit the hidden advertiser. For example, a seller of precious metals might push financial collapse stories in order to generate demand for precious metals.

In the end, what difference is there between such fake news and propaganda and more typical pump and dump schemes? It is amazing the lack of scrutiny that is being given to these growing practices.

ROFL! After I posted this, I noticed a web ad that was displayed alongside my most:

http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/simgad/5686844314163817920

Interest in Obamacare rises despite website problems: Reuters/Ipsos poll

Source: Reuters

Uninsured Americans are showing more interest in the coverage offered under President Barack Obama's healthcare law despite technical problems that have hindered enrollment through a government website, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.

The glitches have crippled HealthCare.gov, the new online insurance marketplace meant to serve people in 36 states, frustrating millions of would-be applicants since it opened for enrollment on October 1.

The poll's findings are good news for Obamacare supporters who worry the problems and bad press could dissuade people from signing up, particularly the young and healthy who are crucial to diversifying the pool of insured and keeping premiums down.

The uninsured view the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, more favorably since online marketplaces opened - 44 percent compared with 37 percent in September, according to the Reuters/Ipsos poll. It found that 56 percent oppose the program compared with 63 percent in September.


Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/06/us-usa-healthcare-uninsured-idUSBRE9A505W20131106

WaPo (Nov. 2005) - "Medicare Drug Plan Finder: Still Waiting" - ACA Is Doing Great By Comparison

The MSM has been working overtime to pronounce the ACA dead or flawed based on the first month's experience in rolling out its website. Of course, the MSM refuses to acknowledge that thousands that have already benefited from the ACA. Likewise, the MSM willfully ignores the experience of the Bush administration in rolling out a program that was much more limited in scope:


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/07/AR2005110701415.html

The rollout of the new Medicare drug benefit has been anything but smooth.

At a news briefing yesterday, Mark B. McClellan, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, provided a how-to demonstration of the much-awaited Medicare Prescription Drug Plan Finder, which he said would be available on http://www.medicare.gov by 3 p.m. It wasn't.

The online interactive tool has been pitched as a high-tech way to help the 43 million Medicare beneficiaries sort through all the drug coverage choices. After seniors key in their name, birth date, the names of drugs they take and other information, the Web site spits out a personalized list of drug plans in their area ranked by annual cost.

Advocates for seniors say they expect the tool to be an indispensable aid in signing people up for this significant new government-sponsored benefit.

Salon - "The right’s Virginia delusion: Somehow, a Democratic win is bad for Obamacare!"

The MSM has been working overtime to spin a Republican loss, where Republicans last won by a double digit margin, is somehow a loss for Democrats. Don't believe it.

http://www.salon.com/2013/11/06/the_right_deludes_itself_about_virginia_no_a_democratic_win_is_not_bad_for_democrats_or_obamacare/

The truth: Cuccinelli's anti-women positions were far more disqualifying than McAuliffe's pro-healthcare stance

It was fun waking up this morning and witnessing the various ways Republicans across the spectrum are contorting themselves to argue that Obamacare was the one thing preventing Terry McAuliffe — World’s Most Likable Democrat™ — from winning an off-year landslide in a statewide race in Virginia.

Everything else is noise, but that Obamacare is the single greatest political liability to either party in the country! Some of the people repeating this mantra must know it’s silly, but are engaging in political psy-ops — hoping to spook Democrats, and trick them into fracturing over the issue or undermining the law.

But the phenomenon is also a twist on the question begging conservatives engage in to ward off all sources of ideological doubt. Conservatism can’t fail, it can only be failed. Republicans have invested too much in a scorched Earth campaign against the Affordable Care Act to acknowledge that their strategy is out of proportion to the law’s contentiousness. And as unrelenting hostility toward Obamacare has become a tenet of conservative orthodoxy, relenting somewhat would amount to more than simply confessing to strategic error. It would require conceding a failure of infallible conservatism. Thus anti-Obamacare absolutism can’t fail, it can only be failed. Arguing that Ken Cuccinelli’s defeat is bad news for Obamacare isn’t just psy-ops. For some, it’s a preservation instinct.

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The truth is that if Obamacare were as bad as Republicans have convinced conservatives it is, McAuliffe probably would have lost. To understand why, imagine he’d run on a platform of secession, or imposing a broad-based state income tax hike with a 75 percent top marginal rate, or turning the Pentagon into a purple triangle and selling it to Pennsylvania at a discount. Be creative. Or if you want to be less absurd, imagine he’d run on a platform of getting an Obamacare exemption for Virginia by standing up a single-payer system in the state. Elections are driven by fundamentals, but you can imagine any number of parochial or national positions McAuliffe could have taken in the campaign that would have been disqualifying.

NY Times - "Without insurance it’s cheaper to die.”

The cable media goes through great lengths to ignore the hundreds of thousands of people who have already signed up for insurance, particularly through State run exchanges. Ironically, Kentucky has had one of the best programs, even though its two Senators have been leading the charge to kill the ACA. I wonder how this will play in McConnell's Senate campaign?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/05/us/for-uninsured-clearing-a-way-to-enrollment.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0

LA GRANGE, Ky. — Kelli Cauley’s fingers raced over her keyboard as she asked the anxious woman at her side a series of questions. What was her income? How many people lived in her household? Did she smoke? (“That’s the only health question it asks,” Ms. Cauley said of the application they were completing.)

The woman, a thin 61-year-old who refused to give her name, citing privacy concerns, had come to the public library here to sign up for health insurance through Kentucky’s new online exchange. She had a painful lump on the back of her hand and other health problems that worried her deeply, she said, but had been unable to afford insurance as a home health care worker who earns $9 an hour.

Within a minute, the system checked her information and flashed its conclusion on Ms. Cauley’s laptop: eligible for Medicaid. The woman began to weep with relief. Without insurance, she said as she left, “it’s cheaper to die.”

Known as “navigators” or “assisters,” people like Ms. Cauley are going to work across the country, searching for the uninsured and walking them through the enrollment process. Under the Affordable Care Act, these trained, paid counselors typically work for community groups or government agencies, with a mandate to provide impartial guidance. Given the problems plaguing the federal online insurance exchange used by 36 states, the workers have become even more important in helping people understand their insurance options.