The Dish

Chait downplays the importance of delaying various Obamacare components:

The entire Republican case against the law is grounded in erasing the distinction between essential and nonessential pieces of the law. Yuval Levin, in a post titled “Delaying Obamacare” — as if Obama was delaying the entire law — gloats: “The administration’s brazen disregard for and denial of plainly evident problems with Obamacare has been absolutely central to sustaining the morale and dedication of the law’s defenders.” Right, so apparently the only basis for supporting the law was the belief that every single piece of it was perfect! Even though its supporters all argued repeatedly and extensively to the contrary.

But, in an e-mail to McArdle, Yuval Levin argues that the delay of Obamacare’s health status and income verification mechanisms is a major problem. He writes that “system doesn’t make sense without some meaningful prior verification”:

The Obamacare statute really limits the ability of the IRS to sort it out and recover [health insurance subsidy] overpayments at tax time. And this is not only because it can only recover payments by reducing people’s income-tax refunds (which not all people have of course). There’s a more explicit barrier: In section 1401, the statute limits the amount of excess tax credit that any person with an income under 400% of poverty would have to pay back. (That begins at the very bottom of page 116 and into 117 in this final text of the law, under the section “Excess Advance Payments). The original statute limited the amount that could be clawed back to just $400. Then in the Medicare extenders bill they passed at the end of 2010 (see the table at the very end of the statute), Congress increased that amount and made it a graduated amount based on income, so it now ranges from $600 to a maximum of $3,500 for a family (half that for an individual).

CBO projects that the AVERAGE subsidy in the exchange would be worth $5,290. So the amount they’re able to claw back from people who have incomes below 400% of poverty but receive subsidies they shouldn’t (because they report a lower income than they have, falsely claim not to have been offered qualifying coverage by an employer, or report a higher income than they actually have in order to receive subsidies instead of Medicaid coverage) is likely in most cases to be significantly lower than the amount of excess payments.

“Delaying” employer reporting and income verification means more people are likely to do this and the IRS is less likely to know about it (they won’t know about people falsely claiming they don’t have an employer offer, for instance), so that even if the IRS collects back everything it possibly can at tax time, which is unlikely, there would be a major gap, and the risks people take by filing fraudulent applications are fairly limited (as you have noted before, the tools permitted to the IRS to go after excess payments are very limited).

The potential for massively expensive fraud, or even massively expensive confusion, is just enormous.

McArdle adds:

Obviously, the preference of the law’s supporters is to hemorrhage cash.  Just go ahead and hand out subsidies indiscriminately, the better to build political support to block repeal.  But this seems . . . well, I’m struggling for kinder words, but I can’t find any.  It seems wildly irresponsible. Not to mention a fundamental betrayal of the promises that were made to get the law passed in the first place.

Readers continue the popular thread:

I just read your “recent keeper” about Dusty. I am so sorry. It brought back a lot of memories of my beagle, Toby, who left us in July two years ago. She was also experiencing an age-related decline of health (she was 16) and I , too, was challenged on when was the “right time”. Without going into details that may add to your burden, I can only say that Toby, in her way, told me when it was the right time. I had hoped for three more days so our daughter could come home from college, but it wasn’t to be.

Remember you may be crying not only for her but for all the other loves in your life who have passed. When Toby passed, a part of me thought “Whoa, where are all these tears coming from”. But I realized they come from a deep down place where I was grieving for my parents, family members and pets.

Another reader:

During the past 12 months I’ve lost my mom, my dad, and my dog. It’s been the year from hell – so much death, and all at once. We rescued Chewy from a shelter and he instantly became my best friend. He died at age 7 – so fucking soon – due to a rare cancer. In the nine months since then, every day I mutter aloud, “I wish Chewy were here.” Dogs nudge themselves into our lives in such a way that they become family, and even in the wake of my parents’ deaths, my mumbles and daily griefs center on that brown and white friend, which makes me wonder if I’m focusing on him at the expense of grieving for my parents. Were he still here, I just know he’d have silent wisdom to share with me on this godawful year.

Another:

I’ve had to put down several pets who were very dear to me.  Each time, when that day arrived, I knew it was time.  Either my pet was obviously suffering or it was apparent that the body was shutting down (but not quickly enough) and it would be cruel not to intervene. Meanwhile, other than one case of sudden illness, all of my pets have enjoyed lengthy golden years.  My wife and I provided each with extra creature comforts as the various needs of old age presented themselves. I always knew that waiting another day would have brought needless physical discomfort.

I should add that my Christian faith helps soften the blow of a pet’s passing, since I believe the Resurrection and New Creation will, of course, include animals.  And, as long as animals are along for the ride, why wouldn’t that lot include our animals?

I’ll leave you with this:

I was once told a story (a true story, I might add) of a stodgy, old professor at a Christian seminary (think John Houseman’s Kingsfield in The Paper Chase).  Students generally gave the guy a healthy buffer in the hallways, and they avoided asking him questions during lectures, if it could at all be avoided.  However, a student once dared to approach the grumpy theologian and ask him if he thought that our pets would join us in Heaven.  The professor arched his eyebrows and stared at the student as if he were crazy; and then replied: “Of course pets will be there!  It wouldn’t be Heaven if they weren’t!”

Another:

I’m in my mid 20s and went home this year to visit my parents for Easter. They have been tending to their two beagles for a few years, since my youngest sister went off to school. We got the dogs in the late ’90s, so even for beagles they were getting up there. One was a runt we got from a breeder as a Christmas gift, and the other was a severely abused and malnourished rescue dog we got after the local paper did a story about our town’s animal shelter and he was on the front page, cowering in the back of his cage.

This Easter, the beagles weren’t doing too well. Both were over 15 years old. They had been loyal companions but were sick – the rescue, Gramps, had had a tumor on his neck growing at a terrible pace since around Christmas. It was nearing the end for him, and my parents had planned on taking him to be “put down” the following week, as he had begun showing signs of suffering and couldn’t hold down food or water, and his breathing was so impaired that he hadn’t slept in days.

So my parents and I, three nonbelievers, sat down to a little informal Easter breakfast this year, and our Gramps came barreling downstairs into the dining room just as we began to eat our eggs. He was wobbly, like a drunk on his way out of the pub. We were all confused and startled, but Gramps stumbled into the room and fell in a heap under our dining room table. He breathed heavily several times, wagged him tail a bit, and expired as we all knelt at the edges of the table, still in shock to see him moving so quickly. He was gone, just like that.

I am the first to have a laugh at the silly, cheaply sentimental things of our culture. And I think the notion that “everything happens for a reason” is absurd. But that experience made me consider that perhaps these animals have something to teach us, even if they don’t know it. I firmly believe Gramps used the last ounce of strength he had in him to be near us in his final moments.

Another:

We had to put our 15-year-old lab to sleep last year because of internal bleeding. She was so tired she could barely walk. I looked in her eyes and just knew it was time. You will too. I have found that the best way to remember them is to eventually adopt another dog. It takes a while to find a suitable dog, but rescue is the best! These sweet dogs always remember that you saved them … or maybe they save you.

(Top photo from a reader: “One late esteemed hound and his successor”)

A reader asks a “simple question”:

Is it more humane to let the detainees starve to death?

Obviously, in a perfect world, the situation would resolve itself, GTMO would close, and we would all live happily ever after. Sadly, we don’t live in that world. We live in a much more complicated world where there isn’t a simple or elegant solution to this issue. I’ve been to GTMO as a Judge Advocate working on the military commissions. I, too, would like it to close. I really would. But in the meantime, how many men do you let starve to death?

All who wish to do so. If they believe it is the only way to end their torment, what right do we have to prevent them? One reader’s answer:

Perhaps some fellow Dishheads can shed some light on what the pains are associated with long-term starvation, but I have to assume that’s not exactly a pretty picture. What all of this does for me is just crystallize the giant clusterfuck that is Gitmo. We have a number of humans who are being indefinitely detained with no end in sight, which in and of itself is horrible. And the choices appear to be for us to inflict further pain by forcing them to eat, or for us to let them inflict pain on themselves, possibly to the point of a slow horrible death.

When you frame it this way, I would lean slightly toward saying that in the current circumstances, force-feeding is the better choice of two bad options.

Another:

I have followed this thread with some interest and can’t help but point out: this treatment does not meet the dictionary definition of torture.

Torture, as it is commonly defined, is “the act of inflicting excruciating pain, as punishment or revenge, as a means of getting a confession or information, or for sheer cruelty.” That the procedure is deeply unpleasant I have no doubt in my mind, but let’s be clear: I doubt even the soldiers who perform it enjoy seeing the pain and discomfort in the eyes of these prisoners. Nor is it being done to extract information or as a way to “punish” them.

Plenty of acts done by the U.S. government in the past should be labeled torture, including waterboarding, but force-feeding simply does not meet the definition. It is being done for one simple purpose: to keep them alive – hardly a cruel intention.

And as your readers have pointed out, this is a common medical procedure for people with medical problems or people with mental illnesses. Had your thread been titled, “Is force-feeding just in these circumstances?”, I might refrain from speaking, but you’ve put it in such broad terms I can’t help but find your arguments ludicrous.

Supposing these were genuine al-Qaeda members, and they refused to eat until a fellow murdered was freed: would you still label force-feeding them torture? Would you still think it cruel that instead of quietly sitting on their hands as some men starved in front of them – to stand as martyrs for some horrible cause – they saved their lives by intervening?

They have a right to their own bodies. If they do not even have that right, they are slaves, not prisoners.

One of countless complaints from the in-tray:

I am surprised and disappointed by your dismissiveness of the apparently widespread concern among the Dish community about the scrotum-shot as it relates to workplace propriety.  The nannyism of corporate America is clearly not the issue and your mention of it effectively neutralized the “I’m sorry” that preceded it. The potential employment termination of your subscribers, of which I am one, is a very significant concern that I believe you should properly acknowledge.  Otherwise, your characterization of the Dish as a “community” would appear to be fraudulent.

But my point was that it was the nannyism that creates the risk of being fired. I was sympathizing with the victims of this new corporate Puritanism, not dismissing it. Not acquiescing to that kind of censorship is one reason the blogosphere came into existence. But clearly, since this blog is primarily read by people at work, and people’s jobs may be at stake, censorship wins. Another quotes me:

“If bloody corpses are kosher, why not a simple and abstracted view of the human anatomy?” That’s a terrific question that my boss and coworkers are completely uninterested in considering.

Another:

Yes, this is different than pictures of bloody corpses.

Pictures of bloody corpses are a conversation that needs to be elevated. It needs to be discussed, the pictures printed to bring the event to the public’s attention, whether it happens in a remote corner of a far off land or at the finish line of a Boston marathon. It’s uncomfortable, but it needs addressing. We need to know about it to be able to do something about it.

The evolution of the scrotum just doesn’t have the same heft. It’s interesting, but not at all critical. And it doesn’t need the attached photo.

I went into blogging because of the freedom to write and post anything I wanted. But I didn’t go into blogging to get my readers fired. I’m somewhat unsure about the limits of this censorship. Are we allowed to post any pictures of humans in a state of undress? Lots could be erotic or sexual to some. Could this still from a YouTube, for example, get someone fired? Or this photo? Or this one? A lot is in the eye of the beholder, and I’m not sure the office police will make distinctions between photos that “add heft” and those that merely illustrate or, God save us, amuse. But in deference to the readers, this blog will henceforth censor itself in one area: no more non-pornographic, non-sexual depictions of any faintly naughty bits of the actual human body.

We are all Barbie and Ken now.

(Photo: Models dressed the same way as different Ken dolls pose during the press preview day of the International Toy Fair Nuernberg on February 2, 2011 in Nuremberg, Germany. Mattel celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Ken doll. 2,683 exhibitors will present their new toy products until February 8, 2011. By Miguel Villagran/Getty Images.)