Matthew Connor

Andrew Cray is a Policy Analyst for the LGBT Research and Communications Project at the Center for American Progress

Today, less than a year after the DC Department of Insurance, Securities, and Banking (DISB) issued a bulletin clarifying the meaning of gender identity nondiscrimination in insurance, Mayor Vincent Gray announced additional standards for health coverage that will improve health care access for transgender people in the District of Columbia.

Following today’s announcement, the District will have the most comprehensive policy in the nation when it comes to providing transgender people with the health care that they need to live healthy and authentic lives — including coverage for transition-related care. The policy applies to nearly all public and private plans throughout D.C., including:

• Individual, small group, and large group private market plans. This includes all plans sold through the DC Health Link, which is the Marketplace established for the district under the Affordable Care Act. The only exception is self-insured employer plans, which are regulated by ERISA.
• D.C. Medicaid. Medicaid coverage is particularly important for transgender residents in the District because, as Dr. Linda Elam remarked at the Mayor’s press conference, D.C.’s Medicaid program insures nearly one third of the District’s residents.
• D.C. government employee plans . The District now joins the many employers — both government and private — who offer comprehensive coverage to transgender employees.

With today’s announcement, DC joins the increasing number of states, municipalities, and employers who recognize that equal access to health coverage is supported by medical science, improves the health of transgender people, and does not significantly increase costs.

In fact, the District’s policy may serve as a model for other states recognizing the importance of equal access to health coverage for transgender people. The standards articulated in the announcement today expressly tie the coverage that must be provided to transgender people to standards of care established by medical experts in the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH). By adopting the WPATH standards as the guidelines for medical necessity, DC policymakers have taken the important step of recognizing that the determination of what care transgender people need is best made by patients in consultation with their medical providers, rather than by insurance companies.

This groundbreaking policy is the direct result of partnership between Mayor Gray’s administration and advocates with the National Center for Transgender Equality, the Center for American Progress, and transgender residents of the District. It also follows years of work from local advocacy organizations, including the DC Trans Coalition, Casa Ruby, Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance, Whitman Walker Health, and the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club.

Read the full announcement from the Mayor’s Office and bulletins from the Department of Insurance, Securities, and Banking, Department of Health Care Finance, and the Department of Human Resources.

The post DC Introduces Comprehensive Health Care Coverage For Transgender People appeared first on ThinkProgress.

Last week, it seemed like Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni was delaying taking action on the infamous anti-homosexuality bill, suggesting he was interested in hearing from more U.S. scientists about the nature of homosexuality. On Monday, though, he signed the bill into law.

The law, often referred to as the “Kill the Gays” bill because previous versions of it included the death penalty, allows for a lifetime jail sentence for people found guilty of being gay. Some more recent versions of the bill have still included reference to a different law that did allow for the death penalty. First-time offenders can be punished with 14 years in jail. Those who promote LGBT issues would also be in violation of the law, as would anybody who officiates a same-sex marriage.

Museveni explained that he signed the bill because he was concerned that gay people were “recruiting normal people” into homosexuality, using them as prostitutes, and exhibiting themselves. His statement suggests he was fully convinced by the distorted report from Ugandan scientists submitted suggesting that homosexuality as either an “open choice” or something caused by “indoctrination.” He seemed to suggest that any form of public display of affection is inappropriate, but all the more reason that gay people who hold hands or kiss in public should be punished if they cannot be rehabilitated:

Since nurture is the main cause of homosexuality, then society can do something about it to discourage the trends. That is why I have agreed to sign the Bill. [...]

Since my original thesis that there may be people who are born homosexual has been disproved by science, then the homosexuals have lost the argument in Uganda. They should rehabilitate themselves and society should assist them to do so.

President Obama condemned Museveni’s decision to sign the bill last week, noting that it will “complicate our valued relationship with Uganda.” On Twitter, Ofwono Opondo, an official spokesperson for the Ugandan government, accused Obama of being arrogant, chiding him for criticizing Uganda’s law more than he has Arizona’s bill allowing religious discrimination against the LGBT community. “Propaganda for blackmail against anti-gay law by European & US media,” he wrote, “won’t derail Pres Museveni signing.”

It was five years ago today that U.S. evangelicals announced they would be traveling to Uganda to promote their anti-gay views. Among those who participated in the conference were two ex-gay therapists and Scott Lively, who has argued that gay people were responsible for the Holocaust (despite being victims thereof). A suit against Lively filed by Ugandan LGBT activists for crimes against humanity is proceeding in U.S. courts.

Here is the full text of the new law:

The post Ugandan President Signs Anti-Homosexuality Bill Into Law appeared first on ThinkProgress.

As we draw closer to the theatrical release of Jonathan Glazer's Under the Skin, the trailers are becoming more detailed and yet remain opaque. Here's the official synopsis: "An alien seductress preys upon hitchhikers in Scotland." That it's! But that's all you really need, isn't it, with Glazer (Sexy Beast, Birth) in the director's chair, Scarlett Johansson as the alien, and a new trailer that unnerves at a cellular level. The film opens in UK cinemas on March 14; in the U.S., it opens first in New York and Los Angeles on April 4 before expanding across the country on April 11....

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]

Roisin has spoken about her future musical plans in a interview with Rory Hall: "I have been incredibly productive of late actually. I've got a finished project which is called (...) Mi Senti, an Italian language project, where I sing in Italian. That will come out in May. And I'm working on an album, a Roisin Murphy album, which is going really well. I've got a single coming out on Eskimo

 

Need to see a doctor? You may have to wait.

A survey of physician practices in 15 metropolitan areas across the country, which was taken before the health law expanded coverage, found that the average wait time for a new patient to see a physician in five medical specialties was 18.5 days.  The longest waits were in Boston, where patients wait an average of 72 days to see a dermatologist and 66 days to see a family doctor. The shortest were in Dallas, where the average wait time is 10.2 days for all specialties, and just five  days to see a family doctor.

“We have too few providers, which is creating a significant access problem,” says Travis Singleton, senior vice president of Merritt Hawkins in Texas, which conducted the survey. The health care and physician search consulting firm spoke with 1,399 medical offices between June and November 2013 in five different areas of specialization: cardiology, dermatology, obstetrics/gynecology, orthopedic surgery and family practice. Researchers called the practices and asked for the first available appointments for new patients needing routine care, such as a heart check-up or a well-woman visit.

The good news is that wait times actually decreased slightly, down from an average of 20.4 days when the survey was last conducted in 2009, and down from 20.9 days in 2004. Singleton attributes the slight improvement to practices employing more mid-level providers like nurse practitioners, better health-care IT to help with scheduling and an increase in the number of urgent care centers.

Even Boston, which has eye-popping wait times, has gotten better. The city’s average wait time dropped from 50 days in 2009 to 45 days in 2013. That’s brings it closer to its level of 39 days in 2004 before Massachusetts adopted its version of health care reform.

The bad news is that fewer doctors are accepting Medicaid: An average of 45.7 percent of physicians surveyed take Medicaid coverage, down from 55.4 percent in 2009. Acceptance rates varied widely, however, ranging from 73 percent in Boston to 23 percent in Dallas. An average of 76 percent of physicians surveyed accept Medicare.

The rates of Medicaid acceptance are likely to prove problematic as more and more Americans sign up for Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. “At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how many physicians you have,” says Singleton. “If no one will take your insurance, you're going to end up in the same place, and that’s probably the ER.”  And with more patients covered both by Medicaid and private insurance, he says, wait times are likely to get worse.

But Ken Hertz of the MGMA Health Care Consulting Group, which consults with physician practices, says wait times don't always increase in proportion to patient volume. As plan deductibles and co-pays have gone up in recent years, patient volume in outpatient settings have actually declined, he says.

And long wait times can be attributed to many things other than patient volume, he adds, including operators not understanding the scheduling system. “Most practices are working diligently to see patients and see them in a timely manner, but there are a lot of moving parts,” he says.

“The successful practices will figure out new ways and approaches to shortening wait times. This isn’t going to be acceptable” in the long term, says Hertz.

This article was produced by Kaiser Health News with support from The SCAN Foundation. Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan health policy research and communication organization not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

In advance of the State of the Union on Tuesday, the Pew Research Center has a handy poll of the public's top policy priorities:

A few things stand out here:

1) Deficit reduction has faded a fair bit in the public's mind. That might be because the deficit is actually shrinking rapidly. But there also seems to be a partisan component here. Republicans and independents are only slightly less likely to think of the federal budget deficit as a top issue. But Democrats are much, much less likely to think so:

Notice that there's long been a partisan component to thinking about deficits. Democrats consistently thought that the issue was a bigger problem during the Bush administration than Republicans did. Once Obama entered the White House, conservatives became the more vocal deficit hawks.

2) The economy's still the considered top problem. In the poll, 45 percent of respondents said the U.S. economy was “only fair” and 39 percent said it was “poor.” Just 16 percent said things were "excellent" or "good."

3) There are huge partisan gaps on environmental issues, tackling poverty, and tackling global warming. Democrats are much, much more likely to see these issues as top priorities than Republicans are. By contrast, Republicans are much, much more likely to consider the budget deficit, strengthening the U.S. military, and "dealing with moral breakdown" as a top issue:

4) Infrastructure — namely, "improving roads, bridges, and public transit" — saw the biggest surge of interest this year. But it's still considered a somewhat lower-priority issue, as are things like global warming and global trade and even "illegal immigration."

While I missed this promotional video, for Third, upon its original 2008 release, I’ve since remedied via repeat viewings (thanks again for the hip, Matt). With a near 35 minute runtime, the footage captures Portishead running through the live arrangements worked up for the Third tour. Alright, now to revisit that Beth Gibbons/Paul Webb record. […]

A new study from the Network for LGBT Health Equity shows that in a given year LGBT Americans spend 65 times more on cigarettes — an estimated $7.9 billion — than is spent on all LGBT advocacy combined. Nearly a third of all people who identify as LGBT smoke, rates 68 percent times higher than the national average (19.5 percent). The Network believes this data proves that “smoking is the LGBT community’s biggest health concern.”

Numerous other studies have similarly found that not only are LGBT people more likely to smoke, but also less likely to quit. Three main factors contribute to these high rates of substance abuse: minority stress, a health care system that doesn’t recognize the unique needs of LGBT people, and targeted marketing by tobacco companies in LGBT publications.

In particular, tobacco companies have engaged in predatory marketing particularly when it comes to menthol-flavored cigarettes, the only kind of flavored cigarettes that the Food and Drug Administration did not ban in 2009. Both the LGBT community and communities of color face higher rates of smoking because of the intense marketing of menthol cigarettes. Though the Centers for Disease Control and numerous cities are developing smoke-cessation ads that target the LGBT community, the FDA has delayed taking action against menthol cigarettes, which it is still studying.

For more details about the new statistics, the Network has provided the citations for the above infographic.

The post STUDY: LGBT Americans Spend $7.9 Billion On Cigarettes appeared first on ThinkProgress.

“Plus One”

Julianne Moore had a horrible year. Abigail Breslin had a horrible year. Lindsay Lohan had a horrible year (not just for that NY Times article, but for her movie, too). Judy Greer just did not know what she was getting into. And poor Chloe Moretz, her face plastered on advertisements worldwide for the most offensive horror remake known to man.

Hey, let’s start there.

WORST HORROR OF THE YEAR

CARRIE

REALLY BLOODY VAGINAL MESS

• Gratuitously overpacked, like a shitty 100-min trailer.
• Barely was any of that gratuity enjoyable in camp value.
• Forevermore painful because it’s the “update” of a gay-beloved classic.
• Wet-noodle acting from the upsettingly plain-jane lead. Come on. Do something.
• A truly humiliating supporting performance from a four-time Oscar nominated actress.
• An almost as humiliating turn from Judy Greer. Was she was acting in front of a green screen?
• SUE SNELL IS TERRIBLE.
• The embarrassingly flat AND WEIRD prom, and a woefully stupid sequel-baiting ending.
• All that kerfuffle around “an openly gay female director giving this classic a ‘feminist’ hard-fisted update,”and this commercialized POS as its result. Like, what the fuck happened, Kimberly Peirce? Will we ever get an answer?

Phew, now that that’s out of the way…

BEST ACTRESS

GEMMA ARTERTON, “BYZANTIUM”

Insane.

BEST HORROR OF THE YEAR

STOKER

Lush, seamless, fascinating, not to be missed.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

SARAH GADON, “ANTIVIRAL”

Fearless.

MOST LOVABLE TRAINWRECK

PASSION

Runner-up: Magic Magic

I mean, we’ll take it.

THE BEST PARTS OF “YOU’RE NEXT”

AMY SEIMETZ AND BARBARA CRAMPTON

Wonderful.

BEST PRODUCTION

“THE CONJURING” AND VERA FARMIGA

As designed by Taissa.

THE SCI-FI AWARD

PLUS ONE

Nostalgic magic.

BEST ACTOR

ERNST UMHAUER, “DANS LA MAISON”

Unsettling.

MOST DISAPPOINTING MOVIE

THE LORDS OF SALEM

Sheri Moon needs someone’s help.

WORST FACE

DANIELLE BISUTTI, “CURSE OF CHUCKY”

WHAT ARE WE EVEN LOOKING AT?

MOST SURPRISING PERFORMANCE

ROONEY MARA, “SIDE EFFECTS”

Girl carried this.

BEST TERRIFIED OLD BAG

JACKI WEAVER, “STOKER”

Greatly terrified, greatly matronly.

SPECIAL MENTION: SEE IT

“SIMON KILLER” AND BRADY CORBET

SPECIAL MENTION: AVOID THIS PIECE OF SHIT

“HAUNTER” AND ABIGAIL BRESLIN

A delicious year! Onto the next.

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According to the The Internet, Kylie Minogue has worked with your friend and ours will.i.am on two songs for her new album.

Jesus Christ.

Responding to Keith Caulfield from Billboard’s rhetorical question about how long it will be before i.am has his wicked way with Kylie in a studio environment, the Prince said:

@keith_caulfield already happened. Two songs, so far, Will told me today. Not yet confirmed if they’ll make Kylie’s album..

— Kevin Hughes (@Popprince) January 6, 2014

The ‘not yet confirmed’ bit is the key here isn’t it. As long as there is a Not Yet Confirmed there is hope.

The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) seems to have completed its disintegration from an organization that presented polished “pro-marriage” talking points to one that applauds homophobia and openly attacks homosexuality like the rest of its fellow opponents of marriage equality. Phil Robertson, patriarch of A&E’s Duck Dynasty, said in a new GQ interview published Wednesday that homosexuality is a sin comparable to bestiality, adultery, and prostitution, musing, “It seems like, to me, a vagina — as a man — would be more desirable than a man’s anus,” and NOM’s Brian Brown couldn’t agree more:

Well guess what — homosexuality IS a sin in the bible, and virtually every other sacred text out there. Engaging in homosexual sex IS considered by God to be sinful according to the teachings of most religions. And sin is NOT logical. Sin is deceitful, harmful and degrading to the human soul.

After harsh blowback for the comments, Robertson issued a non-apology, and by the end of Wednesday, A&E had announced he was “under hiatus from filming indefinitely.” Under the guise of a “petition” that doesn’t display signatures — so it will really only be used to collect information for future fundraising requests — NOM encouraged supporters to “stand with Phil Robertson,” using his comments to decry LGBT groups who spoke out, like the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and GLAAD:

But Christianity, and every other major religion, be damned in the eyes of the HRC, GLAAD and their allies. They will brook no objection, tolerate no dissent and accept no disagreement when it comes to their orthodoxy. In their twisted worldview, anyone who dares to speak the truth about homosexuality must be punished and effectively banished from civil society.

But HRC didn’t send its letter to A&E alone; it was a joint letter with the NAACP. That’s because Robertson also made racially insensitive remarks, suggesting that African Americans were more content under Jim Crow laws: “They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues.” NOM makes no mentions of these remarks nor does it comment at all upon the NAACP’s joint reaction with HRC. This could be because acknowledging LGBT people and people of color standing in solidarity against oppressive speech would be contrary to their plans to “drive a wedge between gays and blacks.”

NOM is not alone in standing with Robertson. Conservatives across Twitter — tweeting with the hashtag #FreePhilRobertson — have joined together in rushing to his defense. A Facebook group called “Stand With Phil Robertson” already has well over 300,000 “Likes.” Fox News’ Todd Starnes was quick to attack detractors as “anti-straight groups.” Sarah Palin eagerly reminded her fans that she’s met the Duck Dynasty family, suggesting that “free speech is an endangered species.” The Westboro Baptist Church urged Robertson not to apologize because they were proud he “finally applied the Bible standard.” The American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer proclaimed, “What Phil said was not hate speech. It was the truth. The truth is only hate speech to those who hate the truth.”

It seems that Robertson’s comments represent a new Chick-fil-A moment, a catalyst for conservatives to own their anti-gay beliefs and take umbrage when anybody criticizes them. However, as NOM’s losing record exemplifies, outright condemnations of “homosexual behavior” and the sweeping proclamation that people who are gay are defying God and bound for Hell — let alone that African Americans were better off without equality under the law — are not palatable talking points writ large.

The post NOM All In On Duck Dynasty: ‘Homosexuality IS A Sin… And Degrading To The Human Soul’ appeared first on ThinkProgress.

Wojciech Kilar, a classical pianist and composer who also wrote soundtrack music, has passed away. His score for Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) is one of cinema's greats. 

Not every Christmas can be a merry one, but the punishment Zach Clark puts his protagonist Suzanne (Anna Margaret Hollyman) through in his third feature outing, White Reindeer, gives a whole new meaning to bah humbug. Luckily, Clark infuses a genuine tenderness in his black comedy that allows us to fall in love with Suzanne, without suffering the pains of her particular misfortune. White Reindeer is a wonderfully crafted film that's both full of laughs and full of heart. The film begins with Suzanne in full Christmas cheer. Working as a real estate agent, it becomes quickly obvious that White Reindeer isn't a typical holiday film when Suzanne shows a home to a nice couple, George and Patti (Joe Swanberg and Lydia Hyslop), who whisper...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]

The first trailer for Gareth Edwards' version of Godzilla makes a very strong case that it won't be another cookie-cutter blockbuster. Edwards' first film, Monsters, struck me as "languid and dreamy," fulfilling his wish "to begin where every other monster movie ends." This teaser has the quality of a waking nightmare, as paratroopers parachute into a situation that none of them has ever experienced before. The official synopsis is brief: "An epic rebirth to Toho's iconic Godzilla, this spectacular adventure pits the world's most famous monster against malevolent creatures who, bolstered by humanity's scientific arrogance, threaten our very existence." Godzilla stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, Bryan Cranston, Ken Watanabe, Juliette Binoche, and the big guy from Japan. It's heading to theaters on May 16, 2014....

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]

Are you a new parent terrified that the liberal media will turn your child into an Obama supporter? Or do you just need something to entertain your kids during those long drives to Tea Party rallies? If so, then a brand new coloring book is just the thing for your family! The “Ted Cruz to the Future™ – Comic Coloring Activity Book” is a “non-partisan, fact-driven view of how Texas Sen. Rafael Edward “Ted” Cruz became a U.S. senator and details, through his quotes and public information his ideas for what he believes will help America grow,” according to its publisher Really Big Coloring Books.

Some of the “non-partisan, fact-driven” things children will learn from the new book are:

• Ted Cruz Is A Man Of Great Virility And Stamina: Many “career establishment politicians are far too out of shape, old or overweight to even perform such a magnificent feat” as standing on the Senate floor and talking for over 21 hours. But not Ted Cruz!
• Ted Cruz Can See The Future: Cruz spoke with “clairvoyant precision” about the “quickly approaching Obama Care disaster.
• Cruz Is The Constitution’s Guardian: Ted Cruz is a “passionate fighter for limited government, economic growth, and the Constitution.
• America Is A Christian Nation: American history is “replete with official references to the value and invocation of Divine guidance, including official Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, House and Senate chaplains, the national motto ‘In God We Trust,” the Pledge of Allegiance, [and] religious paintings in the National Gallery.” So hands off those government-sponsored Ten Commandments monuments!
• Providing Health Care To People Who Can’t Afford It Is Worse Than War: Cruz’s failed stand against the Affordable Care Act “was so important because millions of citizens believe Obama Care is worse than any war. At least American soldiers have weapons with which to defend themselves.”

The book also warns children that President Obama and his administration will “use any opportunity to go after the Second Amendment right and other constitutional rights such as free speech.” So make sure you snatch up a copy quickly before Obama bans it.

The post There’s Now A Coloring Book To Teach Your Children To Love Ted Cruz appeared first on ThinkProgress.

The National Republican Congressional Committee is offering tutorials to staffers of men up for election next year on how not to offend women. Politico reports the sessions are meant specifically to assist Republican men in how to speak on the campaign trail when they are up against Democratic women.

The classes are surely a response to a gender voting gap that favors Democrats, one that has been bolstered in recent years as male candidates use certain wording and language that offends female constituents.

During the last election cycle, several male Republican candidates lost popular support after making flippant remarks about women. Senate candidate Todd Akin (R-MO), for example, stirred up controversy by suggesting that victims of “legitimate rape” can’t get pregnant because “the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” That comment was followed up just weeks later by another Senate candidate, Richard Mourdock, saying that pregnancies resulting from rape are a “gift from god.”

Presidential candidate Herman Cain (R) also asserted that “many men know more about” policy “than the general public,” while Republican nominee Mitt Romney assured voters that he had “binders full of women” he considered hiring for his administration as Governor of Massachusetts.

A GOP aide told Politico that Republicans have had “multiple sessions” ahead of the 2014 elections to try teach candidates and their staff “messaging against women opponents.”

While the content of the meetings is not known, NRCC chairman Greg Walden told Politico, “You need to be very careful in how you approach any group and what you say… That’s just Politics 101.” It is the second such opportunity for Republicans to learn how to be less offensive toward women; earlier this year, anti-choice groups offered classes to try to teach Republicans how to talk about rape.

But at its heart, policy, not messaging, is what’s preventing more widespread support for Republicans from women. The party has ignored the needs of female constituents in several ways: Republicans have worked to roll back the contraception mandate in Obamacare that allows women to get birth control without a co-pay, they have opposed the Paycheck Fairness Act that seeks to reduce the pay gap between men and women, they have refused to expand Medicaid — a program with an out-sized effect on women — under Obamacare, and, during the shutdown, they let nutrition programs for low-income women and children lapse, and they delayed the passage of the Violence Against Women Act because it included protections for LGBT victims of domestic violence.

The post Republican Staffers And Candidates Are Taking Classes To Learn How Not To Offend Women appeared first on ThinkProgress.

Welcome to Health Reform Watch, Sarah Kliff’s regular look at how the Affordable Care Act is changing the American health-care system — and being changed by it. You can reach Sarah with questions, comments and suggestions here. Check back every Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoon for the latest edition or sign up here to receive it straight from your inbox. Read previous columns here.

Ah, Thanksgiving: That treasured, American holiday where you can eat an incredibly uncomfortable amount of food and have incredibly uncomfortable political conversations, all at the same time!

This Thanksgiving, it's a pretty safe bet that debates over Obamacare will be just about as central as turkey. As Wonkblog readers hit the road and head home, we didn't want to leave you totally unprepared. Here's a guide to the questions you might get -- and their answers.

Your mom wants to know whether Obamacare is a total disaster.

This is probably the most obvious question to come up on Thursday: How busted is this law? These questions might refer to recent reports that HealthCare.gov might not be fixed by the end of December or that a third of the computer system still hasn't been built.

It's fair to say the launch of HealthCare.Gov has not exactly gone as the White House would have hoped. Officials promised that Americans would be able to purchase coverage on Oct. 1. That turned out to be true for exactly six people. For many more, it was impossible--and shopping remains difficult even today.

Only a fraction of the people the Obama administration expected to sign up for insurance in October actually bought coverage. If that trend continues, the law won't get anywhere close to its projections that 7 million people will sign up for coverage in 2014.

That's the part of the health-care law that isn't working. But in some states that built their own insurance marketplaces, Obamacare is working--and the health law is meeting enrollment projections. California, for example, has signed up 80,000 people for coverage and Washington has enrolled nearly 12,000. These examples are limited, but the suggest that the problem isn't with demand but a technical one. We won't know whether this is true everywhere, though, until HealthCare.gov is fixed.

Your father is convinced that Obamacare is a total disaster, and recovery is impossible, because: Death spirals. Young people won't sign up this year, premiums will spike and, by next Thanksgiving, Obamacare is pretty much done for.

This is a riff on the so-called "death spiral" and it calls to mind something that Kaiser Family Foundation vice president Larry Levitt recently told my colleague Ezra Klein: "You give a little bit of actuarial science to people and they go nuts."

Yes, there would eventually be a "death spiral" if we had an insurance program where only the really sick people signed up for coverage. That would make insurance incredibly expensive and unappealing to young people.

The thing is, the health-care law includes a number of safeguards meant to mitigate the impact of lousy enrollment and make it a bit easier for insurance companies to weather the first few years. These include policies that give extra payments to insurance companies that end up with really sick enrollees and those who set their premiums too low to cover their costs.

If by some freak accident you happen to be born into a family of actuaries, you can call these risk adjustment and risk corridor payments. If that does not happen to be the case, just describe these as transitional policies that stretch until 2017 and give the health law a bit of breathing room. These policies essentially guarantee that premiums won't spike in 2015--or 2016. They might in 2017 but, before then, we're not looking at imminent failure.

Your grandfather has some concerns about getting death paneled.

You can reassure any elderly relatives that there is absolutely, definitely, without a doubt no death panel in the Affordable Care Act. There is an Independent Payment Advisory Board, which would be allowed to recommend payment cuts for doctors who serve Medicare patients. This board is not allowed to deny patients' care; they only get to tinker with reimbursement rates.

On top of that, the IPAB isn't going into effect this year--or in the foreseeable future. That's because it only kicks in when health-care costs are growing faster than the rest of the economy, and right now they're growing at about the exact same rate. So, at least until Thanksgiving of next year, there is no chance of any panel changing his benefits.

Your really liberal aunt from San Francisco thinks this would all be working perfectly if we'd just enacted single-payer.

Setting the immense legislative and political hurdles standing in the way of creating a single-payer health care, we do at least have some evidence that building a government-run insurance system isn't exactly an easy lift. Vermont is attempting to do so right now and it's been a bumpy road. Most recently, a new report estimated the state would need $2 billion in new taxes in order to finance its planned health-care system.

Meanwhile, you know how Obamacare canceled a few million policies? Single-payer would presumably cancel every private policy. Imagine the political outcry if rather than a few million cancelled policies, there were tens of millions, or hundreds of millions, as the government moved everyone onto government-provided insurance. Bring that up, and watch the mashed potatoes fly!

Your brother who has insurance at his job wants to know if he needs to pay attention to this slightly uncomfortable fight.

Probably not: We're really not seeing much in the way of employers dropping workers into the marketplaces. He can keep his focus squarely on such important issues as when will Hannukah and Thanksgiving overlap again, or how long he has to stay at the dinner table.

Your uncle who is losing his health insurance plan thinks he'll pay more under Obamacare. Perhaps he brings out his cancellation notice after a few glasses of wine, who knows.

There are about 7 to 12 million people losing insurance coverage under the health-care law this year and, while they make up less than 5 percent of the population, it's not unfathomable that one of them will turn up at your Thanksgiving table.

Your uncle has a right to be angry, given that he got a promise he could keep his plan, if he liked it. But it also turns out there's a chance that he can: The president announced earlier this month that insurers have the option of re-issuing cancelled plans, provided the state insurance commissioners go along with the plan. If he wants to know whether his insurance regulator is on board, he can check this list.

If your uncle does have to get a new insurance plan, chances are it will include more benefits than what he has now, since all compliant plans need to cover 10 essential benefits. But more benefits cost more money, which means his premium might go up. It's possible though, depending on what he earns, he might qualify for a subsidy to purchase that plan. You know what goes great with pumpkin pie? A whirl on the Kaiser Family Foundation subsidy calculator to get an estimated Advance Premium Tax Credit!

Your cousin who supports Obamacare is pretty sure the disastrous roll out is the result of hackers who hate the law.

This is a thread of reasoning that turns up a decent amount in my inbox: Surely the whole screw-up is due to health law opponents who have screwed up the Web site, perhaps by overloading it with traffic.

Most reporting, though, shows that this is not true and even the Obama administration readily admits that it, with a strong assist from government contractors, botched the launch. It also vociferously denies any successful hacking attacks on the Web site, which should be the last nail in the coffin against this argument.

Your cousin's significant other who has a bachelor's degree in computer science thinks if the administration just did [insert thing they should do here], the Web site would be fixed.

Maybe the suggested fix would work, maybe it wouldn't. Either way, there's a decent chance that whatever suggestions come up at the dinner table are unlikely to be the one silver bullet to get HealthCare.gov up and running. That's because there are lots of problems that range from difficulty sending enrollment forms to health insurance plans to getting subsidy calculations right. Unless your suggested solution includes a way to connect all of the agencies in this diagram, it, sadly, is unlikely to be HealthCare.gov's magical fix.

Alternatively, if the proposed fix does involve all the agencies above, you should probably get your cousin's significant other on the phone with Jeff Zients immediately.

Your sister who would like to know how to enroll in Obamacare--or when the Web site will work well enough for her to do so.

The best place to start is HealthCare.gov, which will direct your sister to her state insurance exchange, regardless of whether it is being run locally or out of Washington. Once there, she could get started on the shopping process.

As to the best timing, the federal government has said that the Web site should work smoothly for most users by the end of this month--conveniently two days after Thanksgiving. By "most users," they mean that about 80 percent of shoppers should have a smooth experience purchasing coverage. Thanksgiving evening could actually be a great time to shop, given that the Web site tends to do better when there are fewer users.

That weird guest who you're not sure even knows anybody at Thanksgiving has a pretty weird and specific question.

Who invited this guy to Thanksgiving? Who knows! But chances are if he has a very specific question about the health care law, we've addressed it in this big explainer on life under Obamacare, this one on all the technical glitches or this one on cancellation notices. Good luck with mystery guest!

Health Reform Watch's Fix Tracker!

President Obama has asked states to allow insurance companies to renew non-Obamacare compliant plans through 2014. We'll be using this tracker to keep a running list of how states are deciding. For a more thorough version of this tracker, check here. And let us know if your state is missing!

Allowing late renewals: Hawaii, Ohio, N.C., Fla., Ky., Tex.

Not allowing late renewals: Calif., Mass., Md., Minn., R.I., Vt., Wash.

Still deciding: Colo., D.C., Ind., Miss., Ore., S.D.

KLIFF NOTES: Top health policy reads from around the Web.

Obamacare could have a huge impact on the homeless. "Housing advocates say they believe that the Medicaid expansion has the potential to reduce rates of homelessness significantly, both by preventing low-income Americans from becoming homeless as a result of illness or medical debt and by helping homeless people become eligible for and remain in housing." Annie Lowrey in the New York Times.

Key Obamacare contractor CGI had high confidence--but a low success rate. "All told, of the 45 items in which CGI had expressed high confidence at the late August meeting in Baltimore, most were still not ready by the time consumers were supposed to be able to start to buy health plans online through the federal marketplace, according to a government official familiar with the project who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private information." Amy Goldstein and Juliet Eilperin in the Washington Post.

Democrats' Obamacare frustrations could boil over next month. "Some Capitol Hill Democrats are preparing to launch broadsides against President Barack Obama if the Affordable Care Act website isn’t fixed by the end of the month. That will come in the form of more aggressive scrutiny in Republican-led oversight hearings, open advocacy for further delay in the enrollment deadline and individual coverage mandate, and more calls for a staff shake-up in the White House." Jonathan Allen in Politico.

Much like Batkid, Hawaii has found its own superhero. Except that instead of protecting the powerless from harm, he roams the streets with a sledgehammer and looks for homeless people in order to literally smash their possessions.

Remarkably, this vigilante isn’t just some random Hawaiian, but five-term State Rep. Tom Brower (D).

Noting that he’s “disgusted” with homeless people, Brower told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser about his own personal brand of “justice”: “If I see shopping carts that I can’t identify, I will destroy them so they can’t be pushed on the streets.” Brower has waged this campaign for two weeks, estimating that he’s smashed about 30 shopping carts in the process.

“I want to do something practical that will really clean up the streets,” he explained to Hawaii News Now as he showed off his property destruction skills while sporting an Armani Exchange hat:

Uncontent to just destroy homeless people’s items, Brower is also on a mission to wake those he finds sleeping and tell them to sleep somewhere else. “If someone is sleeping at night on the bus stop, I don’t do anything, but if they are sleeping during the day, I’ll walk up and say, ‘Get your ass moving,’” he said.

It’s no stretch to assume that if Brower were found roaming middle-class neighborhoods and smashing items in people’s homes, he would find himself both out of office and behind bars. But segments of society view homeless people as less important and undeserving of the dignity of having their possessions kept safe.

One homeless person in Honolulu, Edward Ferreira, witnessed Brower in action. “To see someone banging on stuff like that, it was very scary for me,” he told Hawaii News Now.

Without a home, homeless people often have nowhere to store their possessions. A shopping cart can be very useful in both its storage space and mobility. Some localities, including New York, San Francisco, Chicago, and others have tried to address this problem by offering free storage space to homeless people.

Hawaii, on the other hand, is garnering a reputation for a less-than-compassionate approach to its homeless population, and it’s not just because of Brower. It’s got the highest rate of homelessness in the country, but rather than build more shelters or offer more services for the poor, lawmakers approved $100,000 over the next two years to offer one-way flights off the islands to any of the state’s estimated 17,000 homeless persons.

The post State Rep. Uses Sledgehammer To Destroy Homeless People’s Possessions appeared first on ThinkProgress.

A judge in Alabama has ruled that a man convicted of raping a 14 year old on three occasions will get no jailtime. Instead, Limestone County Circuit Judge James Woodroof reduced the rapist’s 10- and 20-year prison sentences to two years in a program for nonviolent criminals and three years on probation. He will also pay a $2,000 fine.

In an interview with Mother Jones, Austin Smith Clem’s defense lawyer said the sentence, however light, will inconvenience his client’s lifestyle. “It would seem to be relatively mild,” defense attorney Dan Totten told Mother Jones. “But [Clem's] lifestyle for the next 6 years is going to be very controlled…If he goes to a party and they’re serving beer, he can’t say, ‘Can I have one?’ If he wanted to go across the Tennessee line, which as the crow flies is 8 or 9 miles from his house, and buy a lottery ticket, he can’t do that…It’s not a slap on the wrist.”

The family of the raped teenager, now 20, said they were “floored” by the light sentence. She said she fears for her family’s safety because Clem is free. The district attorney, meanwhile, is reviewing his options to pursue a new sentence.

If this outcome of a rape trial sounds familiar, that’s because two months ago a Montana District judge suspended most of a rapist’s sentence to only 30 days in jail. The decision gained notoriety, particularly for the judge’s comments that the 14 year old held responsibility for the perpetrator’s actions.

It’s rare for rapists to serve an extended time in prison, if they serve any time at all. According to RAINN, for every 100 rapes, less than half are ever reported to police. Even fewer lead to an arrest, and successful trials and convictions are in the single-digits. Three rapists out of the 100 actually end up in jail.

On the other hand, federal drug offenders are sentenced on average to about six years of jailtime. Since the 1980s, average prison sentences have doubled for drug offenders, due to state laws that mandate harsh sentencing and take away the judicial discretion that’s sometimes allowed in rape sentencing. More than 2,500 people serving life sentences in the nation’s prisons are nonviolent drug offenders, and yet most rapists never face the judicial system for their violent act.

The post Judge Slashes Sentence For Alabama Man Who Raped Teen To Probation With No Jailtime appeared first on ThinkProgress.

Justin Timberlake has likened the criticism he’s received for his music and film work to someone taking a shit on his face.

In an interview with GQ (as quoted here), the ‘Take Back The Night’ hitmaker singles out Billboard and Variety magazines for their recent criticisms of ‘The 20/20 Experience’ and his latest film Runner, Runner.

“I feel — literally — like a bunch of people just took a shit on my face,” he mused.

‘Literally’.

He then elaborated slightly:

“You sound like a dickhead… It just shocked me because, like, you’re trade magazines. None of your opinions count. And by the way, none of you can do it.”

Brilliant!

“I grew up with a little bit of a chip on my shoulder, so sometimes I find it funny that I’ve been able to acquire the patience it takes to be kind to people in our business,” he continued. “Because sometimes I just want to fucking kill everybody.”

How charming.

On Saturday, nearly 40 armed men, women, and children waited outside a Dallas, Texas area restaurant to protest a membership meeting for the state chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a gun safety advocacy group formed in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

According to a spokeswoman for Moms Demand Action (MDA), the moms were inside the Blue Mesa Grill when members of Open Carry Texas (OCT) — an open carry advocacy group — “pull[ed] up in the parking lot and start[ed] getting guns out of their trunks.” The group then waited in the parking lot for the four MDA members to come out. The spokeswoman said that the restaurant manager did not want to call 911, for fear of “inciting a riot” and waited for the gun advocates to leave. The group moved to a nearby Hooters after approximately two hours.

MDA later released a statement calling OCT “gun bullies” who “disagree[d] with our goal of changing America’s gun laws and policies to protect our children and families.” The statement added that the members and restaurant customers were “terrified by what appeared to be an armed ambush.” A member of OCT responded by tweeting, “I guess I’m a #gunbullies #Comeandtakeit.”

This is not the first time that gun advocates have rallied at MDA events. In March, a group of armed men crashed a MDA gun-control rally in Indianapolis. Other gun advocate groups will hold rallies this upcoming December 14th, the anniversary date of the Sandy Hook shooting.

Licensed gun owners are allowed to carry concealed weapons, but Texas is one of six states that prohibits open carry of handguns. Attorney General Greg Abbott, a likely Republican successor for Gov. Rick Perry (R), has vowed to permit concealed handgun owners to display their firearms in public. Four GOP contenders for lieutenant governor similarly hope to put in place open carry laws if elected.

The post 40 Armed Gun Advocates Intimidate Mothers Against Gun Violence In A Restaurant Parking Lot appeared first on ThinkProgress.

The Koch brothers-funded Generation Opportunity — famous for its series of over-the-top advertisements trying to scare young Americans into not buying health coverage through Obamacare’s insurance marketplaces — took its opposition to health care reform to a whole new level on Saturday. The group threw a tailgate party during the University of Miami-Virginia Tech football that featured flashy cars, drinking games, models, a DJ, and plenty of “educational” material about why young people shouldn’t take advantage of Obamacare.

“We rolled in with a fleet of Hummers, F-150’s and Suburbans, each vehicle equipped with an 8’ high balloon bouquet floating overhead. We hired a popular student DJ from UMiami (DJ Joey), set up OptOut cornhole sets, *beer pong tables, bought 75 pizzas, and hired 8 ‘brand ambassadors’ aka models with bullhorns to help out,” wrote David Pasch, Generation Opportunity’s communication director, in en email to the Tampa Bay Times. “*Student activists independently brought (lots of) beer and liquor for consumption by those 21 and over. Oh yeah, and we educated students about their healthcare options outside the expensive and creepy Obamacare exchanges.”

Generation Opportunity’s Dropbox account and a Vine video posted by the group chronicles the booze-fueled festivities.

The tailgate party’s fun-and-games atmosphere is a departure from the doom-and-gloom ambiance of its “Creepy Uncle Sam” ads. One such advertisement features a young woman going in for a Pap smear, only to be greeted by Creepy Uncle Sam leering over her with a speculum.

This won’t be the last time Generation Opportunity throws this kind of event, either. The group is touring 20 different campuses this fall in a $750,000 effort to convince college students that they’re better off being uninsured than getting health coverage through Obamacare.

In reality, about 6.4 million Americans — many of them young people — will be able to buy affordable insurance with robust benefits through the Obamacare marketplaces for less than $100 per month.

(HT: Tampa Bay Times)

The post Koch Group Throws Boozy Anti-Obamacare Tailgate Party At College Football Game appeared first on ThinkProgress.

Appetizer 09/13

Deep-Fried Pimento-Stuffed Olives


These couldn't easier (or tastier)... Take olives stuffed with pimentos, roll them in your favorite GF flour mix, then into a slurry of cornstarch and water, and finally roll them around in a pan of ground GF Chile BBQ chips. Then drop them in a deep-fryer at 350°F for a few minutes until golden brown and delicious. Best with a nice glass of Sherry.

Happy Halloween everyone! Your reward for the day is this glorious picture of Patrick Stewart in a bright red lobster costume sitting in a bathtub, which he posted to Twitter earlier today. It's unclear whether Stewart's best buddy Ian McKellen has seen the costume or whether he's going to participate in Halloween, but we're hoping for some kind of complementary costume choice.