Private schools in Indiana aren't obligated to provide support for special needs students. That's everything from autism, to wheelchair support, to any developmental disability. Since the school won't provide the needed support, they tell parents that perhaps the school isn't the best fit for their student. It's not denying admission, but it it's making it impossible for those kids to get the support that they need to be educated in those schools. The private schools also don't need to accept students that would 'change the fabric of the culture of the school'. So they are still free to pick and choose who they bring in.

The entire thought process that this was for choice of the under educated and kids in bad schools has gone out the window. Every year more and more kids from the 'burbs get vouchers to go to the schools they were always going to go to.

It's created a pool of undesirable students that are still in public schools, only now the public schools have less money. You can argue that the state is only providing 90% of the cost they normally would in a public school, but the cost to provide education is easily double the cost for a typical student, depending on needs.

The state has legally created a distorted market where you can point to the few success stories that it's created, but is it worth it when you consider the cost for those few students that it's actually worked for, without quantifying the costs to the students that it's hurt?

I don't think there's a comparison. The public school system is dirty and ugly and hard as fuck. There's never a simple solution and never an easy way out. But giving money out to the kids who were always going private, and taking it away from the kids who quite literally have no other options is a terrible injustice.

So... anything happening in Washington today?

Also, the Boeing plant in Charleston is doing a round of layoffs, with potentially more to come. This is after the workers voted not to unionize a few months ago, and after Trump visited to promote Boeing and his MAGA platform.

Just another day in lunacy that's all. (trump admitted via twitter of course that he did not have tapes of Comey after all).

And the Republicans finally revealed their healthcare plan in the Senate

Senate health care bill 2017 Obamacare changes - Washington Post

So, wait... insurance can't increase price or deny coverage on the basis of pre-existing conditions, but also there is no price incentive for people to stay on insurance (the House bill allowed insurance to charge 30% more if you had a break in coverage and allowed higher premiums for some pre-existing conditions if they had a break in coverage).

The Senate bill would destroy the insurance industry (what incentive is there for people to buy insurance if you can just jump on when you feel sick and not have to worry about increased premiums?)! I didn't agree with the House bill, but at least they thought about ways to not have the insurance industry enter into a death spiral.

I think the answer is in the repeal of essential health benefits. Insurers would have to offer a policy, but what that policy covers is up to the insurer.

I don't know about all of that. If there's one lesson that can be learned from the past year or so, it's that the only difference between a "moderate" Republican and a Trump Republican is that the moderate one will wish Trump was a bit more tactful with the way he says things sometimes.

Pretty short article so not sure if all the context is there, but if Depp really did say what was in the article, I'm all for him getting the same treatment as Kathy Griffin.

At Glastonbury, Depp asks about assassinating the president - The Washington Post

Nugent needs that treatment too though

Depp's addiction problems are going to kill him sooner rather than later.

Trump admits his tweets about tapes were literally meant to influence Comey's testimony. I guess if the President does it, its not illegal though.

The question is for Congress. Period.

Here's something I wrote a million years ago when someone asked about impeaching Bush. I recycled it when someone asked what if it was "proven" that Obama is not a citizen. I guess every President has 45% of the country wanting to get rid of him at any given time, so these questions keep coming up.

It's good to be the king

Obama handled the Russian interference incredibly poorly.

I agree, but I think any administration would have struggled in that situation. We didn't realize our election system was so vulnerable, we were in the middle of an election, and the goal was to create doubt in our election process. The administration probably felt limited in what they could do during the election because going public or sanctioning them during the election just helps reach their goal to begin with. With states controlling their voting it also means its going to take some time for the federal government to get an idea of the severity.

The part that's most concerning is the Russians got into our systems and didn't do anything. It's pretty obvious they were proving for vulnerabilities for a bigger attack on our election process at some point in the future.

Chris Hayes of MSNBC is claiming there's a non-zero chance of Justice Kennedy resigning on Monday.

Hold on to your butts

Pro-Trump group to target GOP Sen. Heller over health care bill - POLITICO

I sometimes wonder if the Dems even have a party.

GOP Senator comes out against the bill (like, really against the bill, not the show-opposition that Cruz, etc. are putting up to make it seem like the GOP is actually debating). Super-PAC comes right out to run an ad against him.

THAT's how you do politics in 2017. The Dems? No idea.

What should the Dems be doing that's similar? Targeting the Manchins and Heitkamps of the world? That would be suicidal.

And I'm not so sure this ad is a great idea. If anything, it just locks Heller into the position he already had, since if he flips now, then he guarantees he will lose in the general because he'll be seen as caving to Trump instead of whatever policy spin he could've put on it before this ad. Maybe he loses in the primary if the GOP is dumb enough to run Angle or some other lunatic again, but if he sticks to his guns he can paint himself as a McCain-style "maverick", which may be the only way he can win the general in a blue leaning purple state during a bad climate for the GOP.

Yeah, I mean Heller represents Nevada, not Texas. Nevada went for Clinton.

Supporting Republicans who actually come out against the administration. No need to attack your own. But you can at least seem aware that there's a fight going on.

Ehhh, they threaten everyone with this. I'll believe it when I see it.

Pushing farther to the right in Nevada just flips the seat to the Democrats. Sharron Angle was the lesson.

They can't come out in support of someone they're about to run an election against in 16 months.

GOP moderates always cave.

It wouldn't surprise me a bit that this was worked out beforehand. They'll be some amendment that does little, but "fixes" the problems Heller had. Everybody can then crow about how this healthcare bill is so much better now that moderates have been listened to.

And 20+ million will still lose their healthcare so the rich can get a tax cut.

New healthcare bill is really unpopular in Nevada. Maybe he does cave but it probably costs him the election.

It's sad to say but the best thing that can happen for the Democrats is this bill going through. Premiums will continue to go up and people will lose insurance. There won't be any boogeyman to blame anymore. The Republicans will own healthcare and everything that comes with it.

Then hopefully the Dems are smart enough to run on single payer, which is where we're headed anyway.

600 of the 700 Carrier jobs that Trump boasted about saving are lost to Mexico.

Everything is a Con.

yeah, but that was a long time ago, and nobody cares. He saved the jobs, move on.

They won't own it. They'll blame the Democrats for sitting on their hands while the bills were being crafted and their base will believe them. It'll be another "You should have stopped us from doing something stupid!" moment.

And politics on both sides will go on as usual.

Absolutely. There's enough left out, that will be negotiated in as "improving" the plan, it'll pass next week.

The same Carrier union reps who were on camera talking about Trump saving their jobs were back in the news by Christmas talking about how they'd been duped and how stupid they felt for believing Trump.

Needle moved not a whit in Indiana. It's not a con when everybody knows it's a con while it's happening. It's just participatory propaganda.

Don't worry though, the remaining jobs will stay until Carrier has used the tax incentives it received to fully automate the factory in Indiana.

Am I the only one that thinks a single payer campaign would be a disaster? Without either going into healthcare, just the hundreds of thousands that would lose their jobs would be fodder for endless ads.

I think a public option could work, but any plan to transition to a single payer system has to deal with all the lost jobs.

It'll take a critical mass of dead grandmas, that's for sure.

It would be. It can't even pass in heavily blue states at the moment.

Best bet has always been to get a public option and keep expanding Medicare to cover younger people. Medicare should probably start around 55 because buying insurance at that age on your own is near impossible. And a lot of companies are going to lay off people who are running up their insurance bill at that age.

*Ftfy

The only public option that would probably work is for individual states to completely assume all responsibility for their residents and to actually tax appropriately.

Single payer healthcare is one of those inevitable steps towards an inevitable future where we just don't need as many people to work. And it's one of the more productive steps in that transition because it logically pushes us forward - a lot of people would maybe be just fine working part-time instead of full time if they didn't have to worry about healthcare.

At some point we have to embrace the future era of the robot slaves rather than fear it.

I think raising the Medicare payroll tax would be the easiest solution to do it on a federal level. Paycheck would likely be bigger since you aren't paying for health insurance in your check. Plus you can actually tax capital gains for it which is absurd that we didn't (and won't if this new bill goes through).

Here's the comparison analysis of Obamacare, House & Senate plan.

Senate health care bill 2017 Obamacare changes - Washington Post

Just some thoughts ...

1) Senate seems to protect pre-existing condition coverage more than House but not sure of the details yet
2) I'm okay with insurers able to charge older folks up to 5x vs from Obamacare's 3x times
3) Senate didn't have details on HSA contributions. House had up to $13,100 for couples. More the better
4) States being able to define "essential health benefits" is okay with me. I assume the red states will be less generous than the blue states
5) Planned parenthood is not a big issue for me
6) Kids are still allowed to stay on parent coverage until 25

The biggest negative impact to me is higher cost if I try to retire early. This can be offset with higher HSA limits though.

I guess giving insurers and states more flexibility to decide what is in-or-out will ultimately reduce rates for those able to enroll but this will mean more people won't be able to afford healthcare.

I really liked Obamacare's care protection on pre-existing conditions. The House and Senate have not eliminated it completely so that's good.

Eliminating essential health benefits is basically a repeal of pre-existing coverage. Insurers would have to offer a policy, but what that policy covers is left to the insurer. Without a benefits mandate, mandatory offers don't mean anything.

Yes, "Better Care" seems to be making worse insurance available to the poor for higher costs.

Meaning it isn't insurance. No matter how great a scenario for the consumer it is, it's still utterly & completely asinine.

And one reason that nothing short of full repeal is really an acceptable solution.

The biggest piece of this is that it prohibits insurers from denying coverage for pre-existing and that is a good thing. It still allows insurers to exclude coverage for certain conditions, which it sounds can be decided by the states. The way this part seems to be worded encourages people to maintain coverage and not let it lapse, then pick it up again if they get sick. At least from quickly skimming it.

I really want to know more about the planned parenthood piece as that could have an extremely negative impact. If the poor/at risk population cannot afford birth control you have additional costs, plus the chance of bringing kids into less than desirable living conditions, which potentially impacts their health as well. Again, I need to take time to dissect this part more.

Things like birth control, norplant, Morena, why do we need Doctor's to prescribe them? We have tons of data on these drugs. Seems like a pharmacist/rn could be empowered to take stuff like this on.

It hasn't been insurance since 1986. Repealing Obamacare doesn't change anything.

Mcconnell and Ryan may shiv him.

It changes an unconscionable overreach by government.

It was horrible legislation when it had Obie's name attached, it's horrible legislation if you rename it with some new catchphrase.