Children in book clubs to read the books the GOP is banning

If you see a doctor, you’re covered. I’d like that to be now American health care works, but it doesn’t. I spent a few hours today looking for a medical specialist that is both in my insurance network and in my medical system. The insurance website lists several of that specialty, some just a few miles away, but doesn’t have a good way to filter for those in my medical system. The medical system website doesn’t have any way to tell what insurance plans a doctor accepts. And this system lets each doctor to choose which insurance networks they belong to and which they don’t. So I paged between the two websites. There is a facility that’s a part of this system that has a few doctors of the specialty I’m looking for. But none of them appear in the insurance network. I plugged in the address of another facility a few miles farther away. The insurance site listed eight doctors. The medical system site listed eight doctors – but only three are in both lists. More troubling is the insurance site implies there are five doctors of this specialty at that facility that the medical system site implies are not there. Which is true? And all this before actually calling for an appointment to find out which doctors, if any, actually have an opening in the next three months (that’s the limit of how far ahead they schedule). I called the insurance help line and talked to Trish. She tried to help me any way she could, searching all the information I had already found. Along the way I emphasized how annoying this was. I was on the phone with her for at least 45 minutes. She finally called the specialist clinic to check. I found out if a doctor is in network there is a set fee for me. Behind that is a contract with insurance saying the specialist will receive an agreed amount of money for an office visit. For an out-of-network specialist I pay a percent of the fee. But there is no limit on what that fee might be. So Trish has no idea what I would pay for an out-of network doctor. I cannot compare the cost to me of in-network and out-of-network specialists. I’d gladly pay more to be able to take any doctor and not go through the hassle of matching the insurance website with the medical website. Alas, I have no idea how much more. Trish called back. She had Tiffany from the clinic on the line. Tiffany sorted through the issues and said the specialist I had seen a year ago (before I was on Medicare and this insurance plan) did indeed accept my plan, even though the plan’s website did not list this doctor as in-network. So I made an appointment. For mid April. In the future, instead of working through the insurance website to see which doctors are in-network, I will need to call the doctor’s office and ask whether my plan is accepted. Still a lot of work. The medical system in America is profoundly broken. It’s even broken for me, a middle class white guy. Laura Clawson of Daily Kos reported on another claim by the nasty guy. Yeah, he claims all sorts of false things which I usually ignore, but this false thing is important. One of the things Republicans in the Senate have been dangling in front of Democrats is a reform of the Electoral Count Act. The general idea of the bill is to strengthen the counting of Electoral College votes to make sure what the nasty guy urged the vice nasty to do couldn’t be done again. The Republican hope is that Democrats would go for ECA reform. Republicans would then say there is enough election reform and we don’t have to bother with the rest of that voter rights stuff. No, ECA reform is not enough, even though important. Some Senate watchers are wondering since the voter rights stuff has been shelved for now maybe Republicans will shelve ECA reforms too. Then the nasty guy released a statement. A bill that’s supposed to prevent the vice nasty from ever overturning an election means in his view the vice nasty did have that power in 2020. He could have overturned the election! Clawson wrote this is evidence that the nasty guy is now directly stating his intent of a coup, rather that implying it. Rep. Zoe Lofgren replied, saying if the nasty guy is claiming the vice nasty had the power to overturn the last election then certainly VP Kamala Harris has that power in 2024. Greg Dworkin, in a pundit roundup for Kos, quoted Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer who wrote about what the nasty guy said at a recent rally in Texas:

The man who’d occupied the White House little more than one year ago delivered one of the most incendiary and most dangerous speeches in America’s 246-year history. It included an appeal for all-out mayhem in the streets to thwart the U.S. justice system and prevent Trump from going to jail, as the vise tightens from overlapping criminal probes in multiple jurisdictions. And it also featured a stunning campaign promise — that Trump would look to abuse the power of the presidency to pardon those involved in the Jan. 6 insurrection.

One of the most incendiary? More or less incendiary than what he said on January 6th a year ago? Matthew Schwartz of NPR discussed a survey that said:

Nearly a quarter of Americans say it's sometimes OK to use violence against the government — and 1 in 10 Americans say violence is justified "right now." That's the finding of a new report by The COVID States Project, which asked 23,000 people across the country whether it is "ever justifiable to engage in violent protest against the government?" The report is one of several in recent months that find people more likely to contemplate violent protests than they had been in the past. Nearly 1 in 4 said violence was either "definitely" or "probably" justifiable against the government. A similar percentage of liberals and conservatives agree on this point.

David Lazer is co-director of the COVID Stated Project, which asks questions about COVID-related policy preferences. In today’s political climate these sorts of questions are close to questions of violence. Lazer said:

You know, we begin with the American Revolution against an illegitimate government and so we are, in a sense, taught from grade school that it is at some points in history justifiable to engage in violent protest.

That violence may not be directed just at Congress. It may also be directed at election workers, school boards, and other basics of democracy. Hiding in my browser tabs since the beginning of the month is a post by Kerry Eleveld of Kos reporting on poll that was new then taken by the Washington Post and University of Maryland. This poll said one third – 34% – of Americans say using violence against the government is sometimes justified. Back to Dworkin and his pundits. He quoted a tweet from Ryan Struyk who listed over a dozen categories of people with the percentage who are vaccinated. The list ranges from 91% of Democrats through 80% of Black people, to 75% of White people, and down to 63% of Republicans. Dworkin quoted a bit of a thread by Nirav Shah. I went to read the whole thing. It’s snark is quite appropriate for just after a blizzard that dumped two feet of snow south of Boston

Welp, I spent last night continuing my research into the #blizzard2022 #hoax. Thankfully, @Twitter and Facebook have helpful algorithms that pointed me in the direction of *real* experts who helped me round out my thinking. I studied poignant, analytical memes from leading thinkers in finance, technology, and art sales. To my surprise, their insights actually CONFIRMED all of my pre-conceived notions about this storm. Thanks for the research help @Twitter! All of this research has led me to conclude that the hype around #blizzard2022 is being driven by the weather-industrial complex. In short, it is all #propaganda.

Shah went on to rant against neighbors who want him to put salt on his sidewalk, the town’s parking ban which allows snow plows to get through, meteorologists who change their forecast, and gloves he refuses to wear because they don’t completely prevent frostbite. The last Dworkin quote is of a tweet by Brown Eyed Susan who linked to an article in the Reading Eagle newspaper (which I could not find).

How cool is this! Middle school children are forming book clubs to read all the books GOP Nazis are banning

Susan included this:

Fun Fact: Kids who read Maus don’t grow into adults who constantly compare minor inconveniences to the Holocaust.