Higher premiums would cancel out some people's tax cuts

Data: The Commonwealth Fund; Chart: Lazaro Gamio / Axios

The Senate's proposed tax overhaul would repeal the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate permanently, and provide individual tax cuts temporarily. Once those tax cuts expire, just about everyone on the individual insurance market will face higher health insurance costs without a tax cut to help pay for it. And even in the short term, some people's tax cuts would effectively be erased by the higher premiums they'd face without the individual mandate. Threat level: As my colleague Caitlin Owens reports this morning, based on an analysis from the Commonwealth Fund, the biggest burden here would fall on people who buy insurance on their own, but don't get subsidies to help cover their premiums. Those subsidies help insulate low-income consumers from premium hikes, but the people who don't get them will be on the hook for all of the added costs that come with repealing the individual mandate — and that would eat up a lot of the extra money they'd be keeping because of the bill's tax cuts. Many families can't afford even moderate deductibles Reproduced from Kaiser Family Foundation analysis of the 2016 Survey of Consumer Finance; Note: Liquid assets include the sum of checking and saving accounts, money market accounts, certificates of deposit, savings bonds, non-retirement mutual funds, stocks and bonds; Chart: Axios Visuals   A lot of low-income families can't afford even a moderate deductible, yet deductibles continue to rise in almost all forms of insurance, Kaiser Family Foundation president Drew Altman writes in his latest Axios column. Roughly 40% of all non-elderly households don't have enough liquid assets to cover a high deductible ($3,000 for an individual or $6,000 for a family). Among families whose income makes them eligible for the ACA's premium subsidies, 60% don't have enough liquid assets to cover a high deductible and 44% couldn't cover the deductible for a mid-range plan ($1,500 for an individual or $3,000 for a family). Why it matters: High deductibles are everywhere, and they're only getting higher. Many ACA plans have relatively big deductibles and Republicans' alternatives would push them higher. They've been getting bigger and bigger in employer plans, too. "For many families, even if they have insurance, any significant illness could wipe out all their savings, making impossible to fix a broken car to get to work, or pay for school, or make a rent or mortgage payment," Altman says. Source:Axios

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LGBT Congressional Staff Associations Hold Observance Of Transgender Day Of Remembrance With 25+ Congressional Staffers

The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Congressional Staff Association (CSA) held an observance of Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) on the Capitol Steps today with more than 25 Congressional staff in attendance. The program included a reading of names in remembrance of the transgender lives lost in 2017, followed by a moment of silence led by Bishop Allyson Abrams, founder and current pastor of Empowerment Liberation Cathedral.

Kory Masen, Racial and Economic Justice Policy Advocate with the National Center for Transgender Equality, attended and spoke about the meaning of TDOR, the importance of standing together, and the small actions everyone can do to support the transgender community. The LGBT CSA was also joined by the GLASS Caucus, the LGBTQ Staff Association for the U.S. Senate, and LC-GLOBE, the official Library of Congress organization for all LGBTQ+ employees and allies.

“The LGBT CSA is proud to stand with the transgender community on and off Capitol Hill today to observe a moment of silence in remembrance of those we’ve lost this past year,” said Todd Sloves, President of the LGBT CSA. “On Transgender Day of Remembrance, we want to demonstrate that there is strong support for the transgender community at the center of our nation’s capital, where the decisions that influence the direction of our nation are made. We can never forget that members of our community continue to be targeted for who they are. Today and every day we stand up to say they will not be forgotten and discriminatory and violent behavior against the most vulnerable within our community will not be accepted. We look forward to making this an annual tradition until there are no names to read.”

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Keri Claussen Khalighi Accuses Russell Simmons of Rape

Twitter users were generally not surprised when Def Jam Recordings mogul Russell Simmons was accused of rape. Model Keri Claussen Khalighi came forward on Sunday, telling the Los Angeles Times Simmons and Brett Ratner allegedly rapped her in 1991 when she was 17 years old. She met up with the powerful duo at a casting call.…

Five Companies Pull Ads From Sean Hannity’s Fox News Show Over Roy Moore Defense

Five major companies have decided to distance themselves from Fox News host Sean Hannity by pulling their advertisements from his show in the wake of his support for Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore and his attacks on the four women who accused Moore of sexual misconduct this week, whom he accused of lying for money.

Media Matters says they have received confirmations from 23andme, ELOQUII, Keurig, Nature’s Bounty, and realtor.com, on their decision to pull ads from Hannity’s Fox News show.

On Thursday, Hannity, who endorsed Moore’s campaign in September, claimed that Moore’s accusers were lying, saying: “Then you have false allegations that are made, and you know — how do you determine? It’s ‘He said, she [said].”

Hannity also claimed that the women making allegations against Moore are only doing it for money: “This goes back to what you said. Do people do it for money, do they do it political reasons? How come — is that more common than people would think?..They will lie to make money.”

He continued:

“Here’s some really fascinating questions. How do you know if it’s true? How do we — what’s true? What’s not true? How do you ascertain the truth? What happens when it’s 38 years later? It’s a serious topic, and — because if it’s true and people act like this, it’s disgusting, it’s despicable, it’s criminal.”

Then Hannity invoked the Bible’s Ten Commandments:

“We do have Ten Commandments. One of the commandments is ‘thou shalt not bear false witness.’ We know human beings break, with regularity, the other nine commandments. Did they break this one?”

Media Matters notes:

In August, Media Matters called on Hannity’s advertisers to stop financially supporting his lies and extremism and warned that Hannity’s volatility made him a business risk. The companies who spoke out this week join Cadillac and E-Trade among other brands that no longer wish to be associated with the Fox host.

Hannity’s advertiser losses from the late summer are part of the reason Fox’s revenue has begun to drop precipitously.

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Donna Brazile: ' my friends are mad at me

'My Democratic friends are mad at me': Donna Brazile explains herself in deep-left San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO — After publishing an unfettered memoir critiquing Hillary Clinton's failed presidential bid, former Democratic Party leader Donna Brazile on Thursday doubled down on her criticism of the nominee before a receptive audience in deepest-left California.

Mueller Probe 'Has Penetrated The White House

Ex-FBI Official: Mueller Probe 'Has Penetrated The White House'

Last night, Chris Hayes spoke to ex-FBI official Frank Figluzzi, who served under then-FBI Director Robert Mueller. "What do you make of the actions Monday in terms of what you understand his strategy to be here?" Hayes said. Figluzzi said there's "clearly a pathway that he's got planned out." "One of the things that I think…

Obama Congratulates Winners In Democratic Tsunami Wave

The Associated Press reports:

Former President Barack Obama is congratulating the two Democrats who won gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey. In a Wednesday morning tweet, Obama said: “This is what happens when the people vote.”

Democrat Ralph Northam beat Republican Ed Gillespie in the race for Virginia governor. In New Jersey, Democrat Phil Murphy trounced Republican Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, who served under the term-limited, deeply unpopular GOP Gov. Chris Christie.

Barack Obama 

✔@BarackObama

This is what happens when the people vote. Congrats @RalphNortham and @PhilMurphyNJ . And congratulations to all the victors in state legislative, county and mayors' races. Every office in a democracy counts!

8:25 AM - Nov 8, 2017

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•  18,58318,583 Retweets
 
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Republicans across the country take a shellacking

How big of an Election Night did Democrats have on Tuesday? And how rough was it for Republicans one year after Donald Trump’s surprising victory in 2016? Consider all of these results across the country:

• In the marquee gubernatorial contest in Virginia, Ralph Northam defeated Republican Ed Gillespie by 9 points, 54 percent to 45 percent, marking Democrats’ biggest gubernatorial win in the state since 1985;
• Also in Virginia, Democrats swept the statewide races for lieutenant governor and attorney general, and they have a shot at winning control of the House of Delegates, which was unthinkable going into last night;
• In New Jersey, Democrat Phil Murphy bested Republican Kim Guadagno by 13 points in that state’s gubernatorial race, 56 percent to 43 percent;
• In Washington state, it appears Democrats won control of the state Senate;
• In New Hampshire, Democrat Joyce Craig defeated incumbent Republican Ted Gatsas to become Manchester mayor, per New Hampshire political reporter Paul Steinhauser.
• In Georgia, Democrats picked up two state legislative seats in special elections;
• And in Maine, a ballot initiative to expand Medicaid in the state easily passed.

Add it all up, and you can clearly see that the political winds are at Democrats’ backs right now, on the same day when two more House Republicans announced their retirements.

And while off-off year elections are hardly a guarantee to predict what will happen in the following midterms, remember that 1993 (when Republicans George Allen, Christine Todd Whitman and Rudy Giuliani won big) told us a lot about how 1994 would play out, and ditto 2009 (when Republicans Bob McDonnell and Chris Christie won) for the 2010 midterms.

What was extraordinary about last night was that it featured generic Democrats and Republicans — Northam vs. Gillespie in Virginia, Murphy vs. Guadagno in New Jersey, Medicaid expansion vs. not to expand it — and Democrats came out on top.

So last night was more than Virginia’s increasingly blue tint, or the power of the Northern Virginia suburbs. It was a drubbing across the entire country.

Source NBC.com

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Wibur Ross is not the only one in Trump Administration with offshore accounts

• Aside from Ross, other members of the Trump administration were found to have been involved with offshore accounts. They include chief economic adviser Gary Cohn, secretary of state Rex Tillerson, and Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin.

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GOP using Clinton to unite party

Trump tweets every few days about how she's the real Russian scandal.

Congressional Republicans and the Wall Street Journal editorial page pile on with calls for investigations.

Her campaign and the DNC are busted paying for the salacious and partly discredited Trump dossier.

A former campaign official says HRC alumni have a strong sense of camaraderie and call around to coordinate and commiserate with each new wave: "It never ceases to amaze all of us how this campaign that's a year old continues to extend into the future."
Be smart: As Democrats try to figure out 2020, it's bad enough that they keep re-litigating the Clinton-Trump general election. But top Dems think it's horrendous that the party is now re-litigating the Clinton-Sanders primary.

• Clinton's former high command says none of this breaks through in real America. But party insiders know that if they're going to take back the House, Senate or White House, they need to look forward, not backward.

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