Day: August 16, 2017

CBO: Premiums would jump 20 percent next year if Trump cuts off Obamacare funds

CBO: Premiums would jump 20 percent next year if Trump cuts off Obamacare funds

(Worthy News) – Obamacare’s gross premiums would rise by an average of 20 percent next year and 25 percent by 2020 if President Trump cuts off payments to insurers, according to an analysis released Tuesday by the Congressional Budget Office.

The number of people who are uninsured would increase next year by 1 million, as insurers leave the exchanges, but then beginning in 2020 the number would be about 1 million lower than under current law because more people would qualify for another kind of federal subsidy, which pays for premiums, and would therefore be more likely to buy coverage, said the analysis by the CBO and Joint Committee on Taxation.

Trump has said he would consider cutting off the payments, called cost-sharing reduction subsidies, as a way to bring Democrats and Republicans together to negotiate a healthcare deal. After failing to pass a bill that would repeal and replace portions of Obamacare, a handful of senators said they believed the funds should be appropriated through Congress and that they should move to do so when they return from their August recess. [ Source (Read More…) ]

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani: We could restart ‘advanced’ nuke program ‘within hours’

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani: We could restart ‘advanced’ nuke program ‘within hours’

(Worthy News) – Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told President Trump not to impose sanctions on the regime, warning the Iranians could restart their nuclear program “within hours” in retaliation.

“If they are inclined to get back to those experiences, Iran would certainly return in a short time — not a week or a month but within hours — to a situation more advanced than before the start of negotiations,” Rouhani told Iranian parliament, per a semi-official domestic media outlet.

That threat likely will be tested as Trump implements a new sanctions law recently passed by Congress in response to Iranian aggression beyond the nuclear weapons program. Rouhani accused the United States of breaking the nuclear pact and portrayed Trump as an unreliable and belligerent leader. [ Source (Read More…) ]

Op-Ed: Antifa and the Alt-Right, Growing in Opposition to One Another

Op-Ed: Antifa and the Alt-Right, Growing in Opposition to One Another

(Worthy News) – There is a cancer in the body politic. We must cut it out, or be destroyed.

On the one side, a racist, identity-politics Left dedicated to the proposition that white people are innate beneficiaries of privilege and therefore must be excised from political power; on the other side, a reactionary, racist, identity-politics alt-right dedicated to the proposition that white people are innate victims of the social-justice class and therefore must regain political power through race-group solidarity.

None of this is new, of course. The Left has engaged in identity politics since the 1960s and engaged in heavy violence in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The white-supremacist movement has been with us since the founding of the republic. But both movements had been steadily shrinking until the last few years.

Now they’re growing. And they’re largely growing in opposition to one another. In fact, the growth of each side reinforces the growth of the other: The mainstream Left, convinced that the enemies of social-justice warriors are all alt-right Nazis, winks and nods at left-wing violence; the right, convinced that its SJW enemies are focused on racial polarization, embraces the alt-right as a form of resistance. Antifa becomes merely a radical adjunct to traditional Democratic-party politics; the alt-right becomes merely a useful tool for scurrilous Republican politicians and media figures. [ Source (Read More…) ]