“Traffic on the Obamacare sites will settle down pretty quickly, and that will take care of most of the overloading problems. The remaining load problems will be solved with software fixes or by allocating more servers. Bugs will be reported and categorized. Software teams will take on the most serious ones first and fix most of them in short order. Before long, the sites will all be working pretty well, with only the usual background rumble of small problems. By this time next month, no one will even remember that the first week was kind of rocky or that anyone was initially panicked. … I’ll say this: If there are still lots of serious problems with these websites on November 1, I’ll eat crow. But I doubt that I’ll have to,” – Kevin Drum, October 2, 2013.
Month: November 2013
Retail Politics 101
This Christie speech, given on the anniversary of Hurricane Sandy, is a great demonstration of his political charisma and helps explain why he was seriously considered for VP by the Romney campaign:
Allahpundit puts the clip in greater political context:
How much will Christie’s retail skills matter to the people in the middle (the “somewhat conservative”) who typically decide the nomination? Philip Klein of the Examiner and Jay Cost of the Weekly Standard tweeted in response to the clip that Christie’s New York/New Jersey shtick wears awfully thin very quickly in other parts of the country, which could mean disaster in Iowa and New Hampshire. But there’s no way around the fact that Christie will have sterling “electability” credentials in 2016, such that even people who may find him irritating will force themselves to give him a serious look. It may even be that “somewhat conservative” voters talk themselves into liking his shtick because of his electability; if he can convince you that he’s your best chance to win, you’ll find yourself looking for ways to find him acceptable in other respects. He is, undoubtedly, a stark contrast with Hillary Clinton, who’s 1/100th as effective a retail politician as Bill is.
Obamacare’s Losers, Ctd
Readers push back against this post:
Some people are going to lose, but look at this chart from TPM. Considering all the changes, 3% “losers” is pretty darn good. Like Gruber said, “… no law in the history of America makes everyone better off”. Indeed.
Josh Barro identified significant problems with that chart. A reader from the 3 percent writes:
I’m one of the people who got a “cancellation” letter. Blue Shield told me the individual policy I have for my healthy 17-year old will end Dec. 31. They said if I do nothing they will enroll my son in a new plan that will be $7 more per month. It is just about equal to the old plan, except the co-pays will double, and vision care has been added. It is November, and my son has had zero visits to the doctor this year, so no co-pays have been shelled out. He has terrible vision and needs an annual eye exam. I figure it will all even-out over the course of the year. Put me in the “no big deal” category of the 3 percent whose individual policies went away.
Another reader:
Mr. Laszewski doesn’t say what “Obamacare rule” purportedly makes his current coverage not “good enough.” Maybe that’s so, and maybe it isn’t, but it’s hard to evaluate his complaint based on no information.
David Frum apparently found a policy substantially identical to the one he currently has on the D.C. Exchange for $200/month more, and acknowledges that that is the likely cost of community rating. High income wealthy people who are currently in the individual market are going to pay a bit more under Obamacare – that’s the cost of not quizzing people about preexisting conditions. In any event, he didn’t lose his coverage.
Another:
Sorry if I cannot muster much sympathy for someone who can afford a Cadillac Plan. After I finished grad school and before I had my first real job, I had to muddle through without health insurance for about 9 months. I got one lousy urinary tract infection (read: INCREDIBLY treatable) and it ended up costing me a little over $800 because the initial antibiotics didn’t work. Oh, and I had a catastrophic plan. Some help those are! So yeah, sorry if I’m not bringing out the violins about some rich dude having to pay more for his extravagant plan.
Another:
I know a lot of people are commenting on the rate shock some people are experiencing when looking on the exchanges for insurance, even those who have very expensive health insurance today. I think there’s a very big piece of the puzzle most people commenting on this rate shock are missing.
Insurance companies on the individual market are in a bit of a fog for next year with pricing their coverage options. Many of them have never had to cover as many benefits as they are now. Many of them have no idea how many claims new people purchasing their coverage will make. They all know for sure that the premium rate review rules will stop them from making up potential losses next year with bigger premium hikes in the future. The confluence of these events has potentially pushed companies to overprice their plans.
What people are forgetting is there is a stopgap that prevents these companies from gouging people if they did end up overpricing. Plans on the exchange must spend at least 80% of their premium on actual health care services; similarly, businesses offering insurance to their employees must spend at least 85% of their premium on actual healthcare services. If they fail to do so, they are legally obligated to send their beneficiaries a rebate check for the difference. That will stop insurance from getting too expensive.
Of course, if it turns out the companies are spending enough on healthcare to avoid sending rebate checks, then the insurance companies will have done their job and actually paid for their beneficiaries’ healthcare! People love getting refunds on their taxes. I presume people will love getting refunds on their health insurance as well.
Another:
It’s worth remembering that Cadillac plans create serious cost problems for our healthcare system. If they are tax-deductive, then it’s a huge tax expenditure, but even when not, they encourage over-utilization. There should be cost sharing mechanisms that put a slight disincentive on healthcare spending, especially utilization all over the place, where there are no shared medical records, tests are likely to be duplicated and there is more defensive medicine due to this.
As a physician, I see a lot of patients with disabling neuromuscular conditions. Many are forced to stop working, and thereby lose their insurance. I see this over and over again. There is just no comparison the gain these patients are getting by being able to get insurance, compared to this guy who has to either pay more for a Cadillac plan, or get a more regular plan.
One more:
At the very end of Robert Laszweski’s post he states that he will actually be keeping his Cadillac plan until at least December of 2014. It seems like an important point to make that he left hanging until the 2nd to last paragraph. A lot can change in 14 months …
The Divorce Divide
Derek Thompson notes that, with divorce, “richer you are, the less likely you are to do it”:
Divorce rates by age 46 are twice as high among high-school dropouts than college grads. The point isn’t that a 30-percent divorce rate among bachelor’s degree holders is low. Divorce is common. But it’s much, much more common for drop-outs and graduates of high school, only. This same point is made more starkly (albeit less colorfully) in new study of divorce trends from Demographic Research. Watch the rising black bars and falling white bars [in this chart]. The story you’re following is that divorce rates among dropouts are going up, up, up, while divorce for bachelor’s holders have fallen to half-century lows.
Are Women More Prone To PTSD?
There is reason to believe so:
Female veterans are already more likely than male veterans to be homeless, divorced, or raising children as single parents. Female vets under fifty are more than twice as likely as their male counterparts to kill themselves. And a growing body of research suggests that female vets may also be more susceptible than men to psychological disorders, including PTSD.
Those facts and new research—indeed, the very discussion of gender differences in the armed forces—are often incendiary, but they should not be taken as an argument against equality in the armed forces. Instead, they should be the catalyst for a worthwhile discussion. After all, we owe it to our veterans to study how some women experience war and homecoming differently, and to determine what can be done to better support female soldiers—women who are now poised, for the first time in history, to be deployed in large numbers in combat positions overseas.
New York Not So Shitty
Zadie Smith compares the American experience of “takeout” with the British version, “takeaway”:
In New York, a restaurant makes some “takeout” food, which it fully intends to take out and
deliver to someone. In England, the term is “takeaway,” a subtle difference that places the onus on the eater. And it is surprisingly common for London restaurants to request that you come and take away your own bloody food, thank you very much. Or to inform you imperiously that they will deliver only if you spend twenty quid or more. In New York, a boy will bring a single burrito to your door. That must be why so many writers live here—the only other place you get food delivery like that is at MacDowell. …
I’m not going to complain about Britain’s “lack of a service culture”—it’s one of the things I cherish about the place. I don’t think any nation should elevate service to the status of culture. … In London, I know where I stand. The corner shop at the end of my road is about as likely to “bag up” a few samosas, some milk, a packet of fags, and a melon and bring them to my home or office as pop round and write my novel for me. (Its slogan, printed on the awning, is “Whatever, whenever.” Not in the perky American sense.)
Ah, yes, one of the great miracles of New York City. I’ve never lived in a place where every apartment has room service, and usually delivered more quickly to your door than any hotel restaurant to your room. As a writer who doesn’t cook, it’s one huge benefit of living here.
But Seamless operates in DC as well!
For a comprehensive archive of all my insufferable bitching, whining and moaning about moving to New York, click here.
(Photo: Mayor Mike Bloomberg helps the online lunch ordering business Seamless at their midtown Manhattan headquarters on January 11, 2012. By Aby Baker/Getty Images.)
Trusting Technology Too Much
Nick Carr postulates “that automation, for all its benefits, can take a toll on the performance and talents of those who rely on it”:
Psychologists have found that when we work with computers, we often fall victim to two cognitive ailments—complacency and bias—that can undercut our performance and lead to mistakes. Automation complacency occurs when a computer lulls us into a false sense of security. Confident that the machine will work flawlessly and handle any problem that crops up, we allow our attention to drift. We become disengaged from our work, and our awareness of what’s going on around us fades. Automation bias occurs when we place too much faith in the accuracy of the information coming through our monitors. Our trust in the software becomes so strong that we ignore or discount other information sources, including our own eyes and ears. When a computer provides incorrect or insufficient data, we remain oblivious to the error.
Examples of complacency and bias have been well documented in high-risk situations—on flight decks and battlefields, in factory control rooms—but recent studies suggest that the problems can bedevil anyone working with a computer. … In using e-mail or word-processing software, we become less proficient proofreaders when we know that a spell-checker is at work.
Skimming A Show
J. Bryan Lowder likes spoilers. He calls them “a prophylactic against mediocrity in shows of middling appeal”:
In truth, if the spoiler does her job well, you will leave with an appreciation of the episode at least equal to, if not better than, those poor souls who gambled their lives watching the whole thing. Memory is organized in flashes, moments, and a few pithy, secondhand ones recounted on a newsfeed are, considering cost-benefit, preferable to recording some myself over a long hour. (And honestly, I find the practice so seamless that I often can’t remember whether I actually watched something or spoil-watched it.)
You could say that, in my support of spoil-watching, I’m arguing for a CliffsNotes approach to television—and why not? Every good student knows there are texts worth reading in full and texts for which it is perfectly appropriate, even necessary, to skim. As students of pop culture, we should jealously guard our time with the former and, each according to his taste and ability, help each other get on with the latter as quickly and efficiently as possible. Such a utopian arrangement won’t spoil anything, I promise.
The TV Character Census
Alyssa looks at the major prime time shows and uses them to determine what America would be like if it television diversity was an accurate representation:
-Half the population would be white men.
-Five percent of the population would be black men.
-Just 1.9 percent of the world would be Asian or Latino men.
-Overall, 57 percent of the population would be men.
-34 percent of the world would be white women
-3.8 percent would be African-American women
-And 3.8 percent would be Latino or Asian women
-31.8 percent of the population would work for the police or some sort of federal law enforcement agency.
-9.7 percent of us would be doctors.
-2.6 percent of us would be criminals.
-1.9 percent would be supernatural creatures or robots.
Heads In The Rafters
Ex-architect Christine Outram assails her former peers, arguing that those in the field simply “don’t listen to people”:
Let’s face it, most commercial buildings, hospitals, and police stations are underwhelming. And even when they are pleasing to the eye, it doesn’t mean they are built to address human needs: If you don’t believe me, read this New York Times review of Santiago Calatrava’s buildings. No wonder architecture has become a niche vocation. You don’t connect with people any more.
The problem is that architects seem to pray at the feet of the latest hyped-up formal language. I dare you. Flip through an architectural magazine today. Find any people in the photographs? I didn’t think so. Find plenty of pictures that worship obscure angles and the place where two materials meet? You betcha.
Kaid Benfield concedes some points but says “the issues involved with today’s architecture are a lot more nuanced than Outram acknowledges”:
First, I know lots of architects who are doing good, humanist, contextually sensitive design. Outram gives a passing nod to Jan Gehl in this regard, but only minimally. He’s hardly the only one (here are some great examples). Second, highly original, “statement” buildings and places are not inherently anti-human. One of my favorites is the modernist high-speed rail station just outside Avignon in France. It’s as much sculpture as rail depot, but it also is an utter delight to visit or pass through. …
Third, I’m not sure it’s fair to compare retail to other kinds of architecture. Most of the cold, lifeless architecture I see is corporate or institutional. Retail establishments such as Starbucks are in the business of attracting customers and, if they have adequate resources and the location is right for business, I’d say they succeed at that more often than not. It may not be Great Architecture, but it works for people. Consider the amazing success of the enclosed suburban regional shopping mall, for example. The exterior architecture is generally hideous, as are the parking lots; but, on the inside, designers figured out exactly what people wanted.
Update from a reader:
Could not agree more with Outram. But it gets worse. These days I’m exposed regularly to grad students at one of the top architecture schools in the world, and the dehumanized understanding of architecture’s concerns is matched by what amounts to a fuzzier, more patron-pleasing version of the awful Le Corbusier school of architecture as a means of social engineering. Both the profs and, as a result, their students seem to believe that their primary job is to build “meaning” into their work in order to inspire a desirable response in its users (e.g. open-floorplan offices and glass-walled courthouses, to inspire dialogue, communication, equality before authority). There often seems to be no concern for the fact that to most people, the primary question asked of a building is not “what does it mean?” but “where’s the fucking bathroom?”
This said, I’ve visited that Calatrava train station in Lisbon, and it functions as beautifully as it looks.
(Photo: Santago Calatrava’s Estação do Oriente in Lisbon)
The Dish 
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