Has Michael Flynn flipped on Trump?

https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status ... 8018302977

Read the whole series of Tweets.

That would be YUGE. You know, you can't actually read the whole series of tweets when it's a breaking/trending event? It's been 2 hours, why isn't there a anything on CNN? You'd think if one of their own guys had something like that, they'd put something up prominently enough to see quickly on their site? I didn't see anything, but did learn that Jay Z has found the perfect suitcase. Thanks,CNN

crank wrote:

Agrippina wrote:

purplerat wrote:

crank wrote:
If I understand it correctly, it might be better to say the companies have to sell policies that are state specific, because they are still regulated by state law, the federal law sits atop the states' laws, mandated minimum coverages and other restrictions and requirements,. The companies cannot sell a plan to anyone that isn't a resident of the state. If you are traveling, you are still covered, but could likely face difficulties if you don't get all kinds of shit preapproved. Like, if you're not unconscious, get approval before you get in an ambulance, if having a heart attack, get approval before you so to a hospital. It'll be even worse if you out of country. I don't know about moving to another state, not sure how that would work.

Yes that is how I understand it.

The getting approval part though, for many you have to do that no matter where you are. It's not like having insurance in X state means you can just go to any doctor in that state. At least that's not the way it works for many.

***ETA***
That's one one of the arguments for not allowing insurance to be sold across state lines; that doing so would exasperate that situation whereby it would be harder for people to get approval even within their own state as they would be dealing with an out of state agency to find local access.

This is what baffles me. Everything is on computer today, so shouldn't all healthcare insurers be in every health facility's database so it can be accessed when someone is out of their state. That's how ours works, except if we're overseas. Then we produce our insurance card to show that we are covered, it's recorded on the account, but we pay upfront, then claim when we return, or even by email while we're away. I haven't had to use it personally. When I dislocated my shoulder in Scotland, I just put it in a sling, and dealt with it when I got back home. We have travel insurance up to R1m for illness or injury abroad, if we buy the ticket with a credit card, automatic, with no charge. They'll even pay for a family member to visit or to help you travel back home. I didn't think of using this with my shoulder. I think in the UK if you visit an A&E centre as a traveller, you don't pay. I might be wrong about that.
When we travel within the country, the health provider just puts in the details on the computer, and gets authorisation from the insurer and we either have a co-payment or not, depending on the service. For teeth for example, there is a small co-payment. For everything else, we've never paid in anything. I had my cataracts done in January, at a cost of about R50,000 without paying anything. Last year I needed a new tooth to replace one that had fallen out, I paid in R180 on a cost of a few thousand. We could give up our insurance but that would mean going to government hospitals, and waiting for treatment that isn't an emergency. So for my eyes, I wouldn't have had to pay, but would've had to wait for years for my turn. My kids' dad needed a pacemaker. He got it on the government, immediately, and at no cost because he was a state pensioner, with no insurance.

There's all kinds of shoulda about our health care system. I've had to go to a lot of office visits with my mom lately, and they make her fill out forms everywhere with the same info, over and over, it's absurd. There's been a big push to standardize all of this crap, and that seems to have hardly made a dent at most clinics/offices/hospitals. What we're doing to ourselves is insane, it really is that simple. This can be seen by how often you hear about how the US has the best health care in the world, blatantly, patently false, but a big percentage of people swear it's so. Even as they pay twice as much for much less care, and much worse outcomes.

The one positive of the Apartheid system was healthcare. Although employed people were made to belong to their employers' "medical aid" fund, the hospitals, all of them, even though they were separated along racial lines, were pretty good, and treatment, as I've said, was either free, or cheap, to people who didn't have money, or were unemployed. The big one in Johannesburg called "Baragwanath" was the go-to place to learn about diseases peculiar to Africa. People from all over the continent came here to be treated, and doctors studying those diseases came here to be trained. Then came the democracy of 1994, and the integration of all the systems, and it fell apart. In 1969 when I was in nursing training, we visited a hospital inside an African township, and the old one in Johannesburg that had been in operation since the days of the gold rush, and replaced in the 1980s by the new Johannesburg hospital. There was nothing to show the racial division there apart from the skin colour of the patients, and that the nurses trained there wore a different uniform. While we wore all white, they wore red dresses covered by a white apron. Our uniforms and shoes were supplied by the health department, and we had to live in the hospital residence. The training was done along military lines, and the same no matter where you were being trained.

When my husband died in 1985, he was treated in the cardiac unit of the new hospital in Johannesburg. It was as good as anything we have in the private sector today. In 2000 my eldest sister was admitted there for some of her breast cancer treatment, so I can compare the standards, it was a slum. The family had to bring linen for her bed, and food for her to eat. When I was nursing, we used to do treatments like cutting patients' toenails. I clearly remember being given that job as a junior nurse. Her nails were grown out like talons. I cut them for her when she said the nurses told her it wasn't "their job" to do that.

Since then, it has improved somewhat. One of my nieces by marriage did her medical training there. She says it's not perfect, but is vastly improved since the early days of the democracy, and I know my ex got his cardiac treatment there, so I do know that, but still nothing like the showplace it was in the 1980s. This because the government doesn't have the money to train nurses, or to provide the same quality of treatment of the period before democracy. This is why they want to switch private medical insurance to one funded by all the country's taxpayers, rather than having private hospitals which are world class, paid by insurance. Personally, unless they fix the system, I won't go to government hospitals. I know I will get treatment, but not what I get funded by my insurance.

So I understand the reluctance of American citizens to switch to a government-run system. If you have the two systems running concurrently, you won't get the high quality you do when there is one system. Of course it's understandable that patients want good quality that they pay for, and that the companies employ vast numbers of people who could lose their jobs, and the people who have shares in those companies have a financial interest. You can't exactly blame people for not wanting to lose money. It will create an upheaval, just as ours will, but you have to weigh up the right of ALL people to have access to healthcare, against the few privileged ones who can afford to pay either directly for treatment, or to insurance companies who take the risk that they won't get ill. The majority should always win.

This is the largest health insurance provider in South Africa.

What caused this was that the government's tax reforms stopped extra benefits being tax deductible. We used to be able to take benefits in part payment rather than just a cash salary. So if you were an executive, you were paid a sum of money, and got a company car, healthcare, share options, a home office, a company expense account and so on, all untaxed, except for the cash portion. Then the clamp-down stopped this and they were all included in your package, which is now taxed in its entirety. Having a company medical aid and a company pension fund was no longer financially beneficial, so companies dropped them, and Discovery Health bought out the medical aid investments to establish a company. Government employees still have a fund for healthcare and pension, and people who retired on company benefits have retained those. This is why we are on a medical fund still financed from our pension, and owned by our employer, coincidentally a life insurance company, and a portion of the contributions and medical costs, over what they pay, are tax-deductible to a limit, which is high considering we're old and likely to have high medical expenses. Of course this tax clampdown, and also the creation of a forum to protect people from being fired without recourse, caused other changes. Now companies, and even the government, employ people "on contract", so they're not employees, but private contractors who have to renew their employment agreement on a regular basis. They therefore do not have any benefits, like belonging to the government's medical scheme, but have to buy insurance, and from Discovery, privately.

It's going to be interesting to see what happens to Discovery when the government does come up with a national health system. They'll possibly give the system to them to run, buy them out as it were, turning them into government employees.

crank wrote:That would be YUGE. You know, you can't actually read the whole series of tweets when it's a breaking/trending event? It's been 2 hours, why isn't there a anything on CNN? You'd think if one of their own guys had something like that, they'd put something up prominently enough to see quickly on their site? I didn't see anything, but did learn that Jay Z has found the perfect suitcase. Thanks,CNN

Over the weekends, CNN tend to take a break from real news to talk about other stuff. Interesting to me because I learnt all about why I could live in Iceland this morning.

Meanwhile, in other news ... Internet privacy has just been kicked in the balls ...

The US Senate has just voted to overturn the internet privacy rules that were established by the Federal Communications Commission last October. That means that your internet service provider (ISP) can now sell your browsing history to advertisers, and no they don't need your permission to do so.

...

The bill was introduced by Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, he said he wanted to protect the public from "overreaching Internet regulation." He pointed out that under the FCC rules, ISPs would have different rules to follow than large companies like Google and Facebook, who can share some aspects of your search history.

The aptly named Senator Flake: "I want to protect the public from overreaching internet regulation".

Translation into honest English: "I want to protect money-grubbing corporations from greed regulation".

Agrippina wrote:It's going to be interesting to see what happens to Discovery when the government does come up with a national health system. They'll possibly give the system to them to run, buy them out as it were, turning them into government employees.

Well here they scrapped the department of health and gave the work of collecting and selling insurance to the insurance companies. These companies have to have the basic insurance packet as agreed upon by the health system anything else they sell is their profit. They have proved far more efficient than the government department.

Agrippina, crank et al:
It's been nearly impossible to do anything federal here. No ID card, no gun permit. The passport is, and as an offshoot you can get domestic or international card that days you are no risk on flights.

Social security cards are paper with no photo. Even a Medicare card is a huge step for IDs. Some libertarians off the grid will not get them.

Scot Dutchy wrote:

Agrippina wrote:It's going to be interesting to see what happens to Discovery when the government does come up with a national health system. They'll possibly give the system to them to run, buy them out as it were, turning them into government employees.

Well here they scrapped the department of health and gave the work of collecting and selling insurance to the insurance companies. These companies have to have the basic insurance packet as agreed upon by the health system anything else they sell is their profit. They have proved far more efficient than the government department.

I'm a little on the fence about what I'd like to see. I know the hospitals were great in the past, I'd like to see them return to that level of efficiency. Right now it's all over the place with nurses being trained in "colleges" where the training isn't standardised to the level it was in the past. So a nurse from "fly by night college" will definitely not be as good as one who's done a BA in nursing at a university, and I think, the casually-trained one is a danger to patients. The one with the university degree might have the knowledge, but not the practical experience of the casually-trained one. So I don't know. We'll see what they come up with.

Tero wrote:Agrippina, crank et al:
It's been nearly impossible to do anything federal here. No ID card, no gun permit. The passport is, and as an offshoot you can get domestic or international card that days you are no risk on flights.

Social security cards are paper with no photo. Even a Medicare card is a huge step for IDs. Some libertarians off the grid will not get them.

I have no idea what the issue is with having your identity on record. I suppose I grew up with having an ID card/document/card, that it doesn't bother me at all. I'd like to see everyone's DNA being on record, mostly because I'm so sick of racism and xenophobia, I just want everyone to know how we're all related to each other. Surely being easily identifiable is efficient. If someone is found dead in a ditch, surely having a scanner that can identify them within seconds of their being found makes sense? But for some reason it's "invasive" having your identity on record.

It's the while libertarian thing. Fear of federal gov't. So you can have dope and polygamy etc.

Agrippina wrote:

Scot Dutchy wrote:

Agrippina wrote:It's going to be interesting to see what happens to Discovery when the government does come up with a national health system. They'll possibly give the system to them to run, buy them out as it were, turning them into government employees.

Well here they scrapped the department of health and gave the work of collecting and selling insurance to the insurance companies. These companies have to have the basic insurance packet as agreed upon by the health system anything else they sell is their profit. They have proved far more efficient than the government department.

I'm a little on the fence about what I'd like to see. I know the hospitals were great in the past, I'd like to see them return to that level of efficiency. Right now it's all over the place with nurses being trained in "colleges" where the training isn't standardised to the level it was in the past. So a nurse from "fly by night college" will definitely not be as good as one who's done a BA in nursing at a university, and I think, the casually-trained one is a danger to patients. The one with the university degree might have the knowledge, but not the practical experience of the casually-trained one. So I don't know. We'll see what they come up with.

Well all our hospitals became foundations and are strictly controlled by the health inspectorate. The same is true of all medical qualifications. Nurses are taught at third level colleges and qualify to BA level after four years. They can go onto a MA college degree. They can go on to university and do a doctors degree. Only doctors go university. A BA is not acceptable as a qualification for anything except working for companies dealing with sickness reports of employees of a branch of commerce (keuring artsen). They cant issue prescriptions. The rest are internationally accepted levels in medical science.

Donald Trump printed out made-up £300bn Nato invoice and handed it to Angela Merkel

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 50636.html

That's AMAZING. I think we've moved beyond being out of his depth into mental illness.

Scot Dutchy wrote:

Agrippina wrote:

Scot Dutchy wrote:

Agrippina wrote:It's going to be interesting to see what happens to Discovery when the government does come up with a national health system. They'll possibly give the system to them to run, buy them out as it were, turning them into government employees.

Well here they scrapped the department of health and gave the work of collecting and selling insurance to the insurance companies. These companies have to have the basic insurance packet as agreed upon by the health system anything else they sell is their profit. They have proved far more efficient than the government department.

I'm a little on the fence about what I'd like to see. I know the hospitals were great in the past, I'd like to see them return to that level of efficiency. Right now it's all over the place with nurses being trained in "colleges" where the training isn't standardised to the level it was in the past. So a nurse from "fly by night college" will definitely not be as good as one who's done a BA in nursing at a university, and I think, the casually-trained one is a danger to patients. The one with the university degree might have the knowledge, but not the practical experience of the casually-trained one. So I don't know. We'll see what they come up with.

Well all our hospitals became foundations and are strictly controlled by the health inspectorate. The same is true of all medical qualifications. Nurses are taught at third level colleges and qualify to BA level after four years. They can go onto a MA college degree. They can go on to university and do a doctors degree. Only doctors go university. A BA is not acceptable as a qualification for anything except working for companies dealing with sickness reports of employees of a branch of commerce (keuring artsen). They cant issue prescriptions. The rest are internationally accepted levels in medical science.

We have two systems of tertiary education here: university, which issue degrees, and "FET" or vocational colleges, which issue diplomas. Some of these FET colleges. From their home page:

Technical and Vocational Education and Training courses are vocational or occupational by nature meaning that the student receives education and training with a view towards a specific range of jobs, employment or entrepreneurial possibilities. Under certain conditions, some students may qualify for admission to a University of Technology to continue their studies at a higher level in the same field of study as they were studying at the TVET College.

Our previous "technikons" are now Universities of Technology, like MIT, for example. Nursing is taught at both, with the qualification from the UofT being of more value than that of the FET colleges, which, as I said, some are "fly by night" and not highly regarded. None of our nurses are allowed to write prescriptions, only doctors with an MD can do that. Yes, our university-trained nurses are recognised internationally. In fact British hospitals clamour for our nurses, also our teachers, because they are so well-qualified.

This is a little off-topic, but it is relevant to the discussion about health insurance. It would be interesting to see how the president who takes over when Trump and his administration are brought down, handles the problem.

Calilasseia wrote:Meanwhile, in other news ... Internet privacy has just been kicked in the balls ...

The US Senate has just voted to overturn the internet privacy rules that were established by the Federal Communications Commission last October. That means that your internet service provider (ISP) can now sell your browsing history to advertisers, and no they don't need your permission to do so.

...

The bill was introduced by Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, he said he wanted to protect the public from "overreaching Internet regulation." He pointed out that under the FCC rules, ISPs would have different rules to follow than large companies like Google and Facebook, who can share some aspects of your search history.

The aptly named Senator Flake: "I want to protect the public from overreaching internet regulation".

Translation into honest English: "I want to protect money-grubbing corporations from greed regulation".

If you want to help fight this, there's probably no better way than to support EFF, The Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading nonprofit organization defending civil liberties in the digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF champions user privacy, free expression, and innovation through impact litigation, policy analysis, grassroots activism, and technology development. We work to ensure that rights and freedoms are enhanced and protected as our use of technology grows.

ronmcd wrote:

Donald Trump printed out made-up £300bn Nato invoice and handed it to Angela Merkel

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 50636.html

That's AMAZING. I think we've moved beyond being out of his depth into mental illness.

Oh hell, he past that a long time ago.

Very interesting interview of Jane Meyer and her reporting on Robert Mercer, the billionaire, cofounder/funder of Breitbart, major funder of Trump campaign, and more. From The Nation: One of Trump’s Biggest Donors Thinks Cats Have More Value Than Welfare Recipients. That links to the article with some of the interview, an excerpted audio stream, and a link to the full interview stream.

Robert Mercer is a little-known hedge-fund billionaire who, along with his daughter Rebekah, played a key role first in making Trump a candidate, and then in shaping his White House staff. Jane Mayer is the first to file an in-depth report on the elusive figure. She’s a staff writer for The New Yorker and author of several award-winning and bestselling books. Her latest, Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right, was named one of the ten best books of the year by The New York Times

She had to talk to Stephen Bannon for the research, his take on Mercer: "He said the Mercers had launched the Trump revolution, and that, more than any other donor in the last four years, they had the biggest impact of anyone in putting Trump in power. He was pretty up front about the whole thing." [emphasis added]


Excerpt:

JW: Let’s talk about that political project. You say Robert Mercer basically never speaks, nevertheless you were able to find out quite a lot about his political ideas. What does Robert Mercer say about racism in the United States?

JM: He believes that white racism doesn’t exist in America. He says there’s only black racism. He says that the civil-rights movement has made blacks less well off. He thinks that the Civil Rights Act was one of the great mistakes in modern American history.

JW: What does he say about the dangers of nuclear war?

JM: He got into an argument with somebody he worked with in which he argued that Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and nuclear war in general, were not as bad as people think. It’s survivable, he argues, and not only that; the radiation from it, he suggests, from the fallout, is good for people. He’d say, “Well, you know, in the blast zone it wasn’t so great for the Japanese,” but outside of the blast zone, he would claim, it was great for the Japanese health.

JW: And you have a fascinating story about what he says about the value of cats.

JM: He has, according to his colleagues, a theory of humans which is that they have no inherent value. That a human being is only worth as much as they can earn. He argues that he earns thousands of times more than a school teacher, which makes him that much more valuable than school teachers. And people on welfare, he suggests, have no value. They have negative value. He argues, though, that cats have value—because watching them provides pleasure to people.

Trump tweeted this four years ago.

Trump has never had all the cards, the deck never a full one.