From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
ACA Update: Maine Edition
Mike Michaud is itchin' to
expand Medicaid in Maine.
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Maine Governor
Paul LeVaseline, a walking embarrassment who oughtta go back to slapping price tags on fire sale remnants at his old discount store chain when he gets beat by Democrat
Mike Michaud next year, feels it's unpatriotic to expand health insurance here. Michaud disagrees, and one of his top agenda items as governor will be
expanding Medicaid in Maine in accordance with the Affordable Care Act.
In addition to helping around 70,000 Mainers, Michaud contends it "could create approximately 3,100 jobs and promote more than $350 million in economic activity annually in Maine." But until January, 2015, when LeVaseline officially gets the boot (we hope), the Medicaid expansion here will remain unexpanded.
Also too we have to rely on the federal exchanges to sign up for health insurance instead of a state-run site. And, like all states that find themselves in the same boat because they have short-sighted governors and/or legislatures, the first month of the rollout was less than stellar here:
From Oct. 1, when enrollment started, through Nov. 2, just 271 Mainers successfully signed up for coverage through the health insurance marketplace, according to data released this week by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
By comparison, how many signed up during the first month for Romneycare in Massachusetts, a state considerably more human-infested (6.6 million) than Maine (1.3 million)?
123.
Now that the healthcare.gov site seems to be
on the mend and
working much better, people are re-acquainting themselves with it and having a happier experience:
“Every single person I tried to sign up this week, I’ve been able to sign up,” said Jake Grindle, a navigator with Western Maine Community Action in Wilton. “There has been a dramatic improvement just this week.” … Along with some navigators, several Maine residents said this week that they got all the way through the enrollment process and now have insurance for 2014.
And this is why it matters:
In Portland, Stephen Costanza, a children’s book illustrator who also works part-time jobs to make ends meet, selected an insurance plan Tuesday, after being unable to navigate through the website in an earlier try. Now, he said, he will have insurance for the first time in several years. … “It feels great to have insurance, to have that security.”
Once the various enrollment deadlines get closer and the site improvements make for an easier signup process, people in Maine and across the country will be clamoring for what the ACA has to offer. I have every reason to believe it's going to succeed, mostly because Republican obstructionists like Governor LeVaseline say they have every reason to believe it's not. (Spoiler Alert: they're wrong about
everything.)
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Monday, November 18, 2013
Note: How DARE you accuse me of being proactive. I'm an American!
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12 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til 2014:
43
Days 'til the
North Pole Express rides at mid-coast Maine's Boothbay Railway Village:
12
Increase in factory production in October, up from 0.1% in September:
0.6%
(Source: AP)
Number of traffic fatalities last year, the first increase since 2005:
33,561
Increase in DUI deaths:
4.6%
(Source: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration)
Rank of December 1 and November 27 among busiest days for airline travel this holiday season:
#1, #2
Rank of November 28 & 29 among the lightest travel days:
#1, #2
(Source:
USA Today)
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Puppy Pic of the Day: "Bad, airline! Bad!".
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JEERS to more meteorological mayhem. If you were in the path of those wicked storms yesterday and overnight (Maine is getting drenched and battered by wind as I post this, and then the damn thing will drift out to sea), we hope this finds you safe. Weather experts say this may be the "the largest November tornado outbreak in the U.S. in almost eight years." Republicans who voted against federal disaster relief for Superstorm Sandy last year ("Think of the deficit!") will no doubt be asking if they can get a bunch of it for their own storm-wracked communities today. Despite their hypocrisy, their constituents of course should get what they need to recover. And because I hate to end on a downer note, there's this bit of good news: Atlantic hurricane season ends in 12 days and it looks like it'll go out like the proverbial lamb. Feliz Navidryness.
CHEERS to the love that dares to shout its name from the rooftops. Ten years ago today---half a freakin' generation ago---the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that gay couples were entitled to equal marriage rights in the commonwealth. Back then Mitt Romney said that Massachusetts would become the "Las Vegas of same-sex marriage"---as if that would be a bad thing. Five years after the decision, only one other state allowed gay marriage, 30 states had constitutional bans against it, and nearly two-thirds of the public viewed men marrying men and women marrying women akin to root canals and jury duty. Well, this is an update from AP that makes my jaw drop:
In the decade since the highest court in Massachusetts issued its landmark ruling legalizing same-sex marriage, 14 other states and the District of Columbia have legalized it, with Illinois poised to become the 16th in a few days.
Such gains were considered almost impossible before Massachusetts opened the door on Nov. 18, 2003, with a Supreme Judicial Court ruling that declared a ban on gay marriages unconstitutional. Opponents made doomsday predictions about how gay marriage would damage traditional marriage and lead to problems with children raised in same-sex households. But as the years have passed, public opinion has shifted.
Today overall approval is well in the 50s (and much higher the younger you go), and the anti-marriage forces are the ones now being compared to root canals and jury duty. Meanwhile the Massachusetts divorce rate---a true measure of the strength of the so-called "institution of marriage"---remains the lowest among the states, and divorce rates in states with marriage equality remain
the lowest in the country by a mile. So congratulations and thank you, Massachusetts Supremes, for a job well done. By expanding marriage, you may have saved it.
JEERS to solar system rivalry. And now a message from one of our middle planets, Neptune:
Earth is sending another probe to MARS? Really??? How come Mars gets all the attention? What do I need to do to get noticed anymore? Oh, Martian Martian Martian! It's always about Martian! Where's my probe?! I want a probe!!!
Touchy.
CHEERS to things that work on the first try. Haters of public transit won’t like this at all: Amtrak's new Downeaster line, which extends the Boston-to-Portland route north to Freeport and Brunswick, carried 50% more passengers than initially predicted in its first year---52,000 total. That sound you hear is conservatives conveniently forgetting that their hero Ayn Rand was hot for choo-choo.
JEERS to drinking the Kool-Aid (as in, really drinking the Kool-Aid). There's a paragraph in the late Randy Shilts's brilliant book, The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk, that reveals the Rev. Jim Jones' influence in San Francisco politics (Mayor Moscone actually made him chairman of the city Housing Authority, if you can believe that) during the mid-70s, before he moved his sheeple to Guyana:
"Weird and Dangerous."
"Make sure you're always nice to the Peoples Temple," [Milk] admonished [campaign volunteer Tory Hartmann]. "If they ask you to do something, do it, and then send them a note thanking them for asking you to do it. They're weird and they're dangerous, and you never want to be on their bad side."
No shit. Today is the 35th anniversary of the infamous Jonestown massacre. At least 900 followers drank you-know-what laced with cyanide. Time's cover said it all:
Cult of Death. By the way, it's also the 35th anniversary of the only time in history anyone ever saw Kool-Aid Man break through a wall and exclaim,
"Oh, Nooooo!!!"
CHEERS to fresh sightings. The World Wildlife Federation released footage showing a species of mammal not seen since since 1998. The Asian unicorn is considered one of the rarest species in the world. To put that in perspective, conservationists put it in the same endangered category as the overpaid Walmart employee and the liberal Republican.
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Five years ago in C&J: November 18, 2008
CHEERS to the lion's return to the den. Well, look who's back to knock heads together in the Senate again: Teddy! He's absolutely chomping at the bit to get health care legislation passed early next year, and he'll certainly have the wind at his back this time, economic crisis be damned. Oh, and extra points for saying the president-elect's name correctly: "Barack Obamer." Glad someone knows how to say it right.
Prolific practitioner
of mass backstabbery.
CHEERS or
JEERS to the fickle fingers of fate. Senate Democrats, clad in their burnt-sienna robes and wielding ceremonial badminton racquets, will meet in their secret star chamber today to decide the fate of Joseph Isadore Lieberman. Specifically, whether or not to strip him of his chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee because he devoted his heart and soul to getting Republicans---Susan Collins, Norm Coleman, John McWhatsizname---elected and is adored by Orcs like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. The late word is that our team will jump on their own grenades rather than toss them at the traitor and risk mussing his hair. (Contrast that with the Republican party, which punishes acts of betrayal with a steamroller in the congressional parking lot---a career-ender called "The Flat Stanley.") All in all, just another day in the collegial chamber. Great work if you can get it.
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And just one more…
JEERS to the perpetual shroud of darkness. What fun---here in Maine we're at the time of year when it turns dark by 4 and we get a whopping 9 hours or less of daylight. It'll be like this for at least three months. If you catch me quoting Nietzsche, you'll know why.
Have a tolerable Monday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Bishop Thomas Paprocki of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Daily Kos said he will offer prayers for “exorcism in reparation for the sin of snark” at the same time Bill in Portland Maine is expected to post Cheers and Jeers.
---The Chicago Tribune
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