Author: bill

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Health Care Strategies for 2017 – Revisited

Something strange happened this weekend. My health insurance company sent me a letter saying they could continue my grandfathered health insurance plan with them as long as I was happy with a 13% increase in my premium. I threw it out on the counter for my wife to look at. Her gut reaction is to screw them. It is a natural reaction from someone who is still reacting to the misinformation that “you can keep your health care plan if you like it”. Since I did not expect my insurance company to offer my grandfathered health insurance plan in 2017 I had to think.

My previous health care plan for 2017 was based on my presumption that my grandfathered plan would not be available. Despite the craziness of the Affordable Care Act it still makes sense for an insurance company to attempt to keep the perfect customer in the program.  The problem is that for the last five years I endured 12% increases despite never making a claim. Now that I have over $5,000 in my Health Savings Account I can be more aggressive about the  price I would self-insure. The fact that the lowest cost bronze plan from the exchange is much worse than my current plan is not relevant except that it makes me exempt from the individual mandate. The Health Savings Account with an extra $6,500 in my savings account is a very attractive health care strategy. At what price would my grandfathered health insurance plan be attractive?

Did The Affordable Care Act Screw Up The Health Insurance Market?

Medical Care Inflation

Medical Care Inflation

Recently I came across a chart over on the Health Care Blog that summarizes my problem. If my health insurance had increased at the inflation rate for medical care(~3.2% annually since 2011) my health insurance would be well within my boundaries for affordable health insurance. It did not. If my health insurance premium in 2011 was the fair market price then you have to wonder why my health insurance did not increase at a rate closer to 3.2%. Were the 12% annual increases an unintended consequence of the Affordable Care Act meddling with the health insurance market for healthy people?

My Revised Health Care Plan For 2017

Since I was already outside my boundaries for affordable health insurance in 2016 the question is what price would lure me back in for 2017? My plan is to ask my insurance company if they would accept a 0% increase. If they accept my proposal we will continue with our health insurance and putting additional funds in our Health Savings Account. If they reject my proposal we will self-insure.

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Word Cloud For The Final Presidential Debate

I did not watch this debate. Using the transcript from the Washington Post and I broke it into three documents, clinton.txt, trump.txt, and wallace.txt. After cleaning up the data for text mining I came up with these word clouds. Here are the word clouds:

  • The dominant words were “clinton” and “trump”.
  • The words, “economy” and “jobs” did not appear in any cloud.
  • The words, “people” and “country”, were important words for both candidates.

Overall

Word Cloud For Clinton, Trump, and Wallace

Word Cloud For Clinton, Trump, and Wallace

Clinton

Word Cloud For Clinton

Word Cloud For Clinton

Trump

Word Cloud For Trump

Word Cloud For Trump

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Word Cloud For The Second Presidential Debate

By accident I watched this debate. I was drinking a glass of wine when it started and was intrigued by the candidate’s personal attacks. Using the transcript from the Washington Post and I broke it into four documents, clinton.txt, cooper.txt, raddatz.txt, and trump.txt. After cleaning up the data for text mining I came up with these word clouds. Here are the word clouds:

  • The dominant words were “clinton” and “trump”.
  • The words, “economy” and “jobs” did not appear in any cloud.
  • The words, “people” and “country”, were important words for both candidates.

Overall

Word Cloud For Clinton, Cooper, Raddatz, and Trump

Word Cloud For Clinton, Cooper, Raddatz, and Trump

Clinton

Word Cloud For Clinton

Word Cloud For Clinton

Trump

Word Cloud For Trump

Word Cloud For Trump

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My First Android Pay Transaction

Android Pay LogoI installed Android Pay on my phone about a year ago but never used it. I never found a place to use it. Last Friday my phone notified me that Jungle Jim’s accepts Android Pay so I gave it a try. The cashier advised me to hold my phone next to the right side of the card reader. Evidently some customers had better luck with the right side. After fumbling around placing my phone next to the reader I got it to work. I still had to select transaction type, credit or debit, and sign on the pad. It did not save me any time. Maybe I will be faster next time around.

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Why Do I Find More Yard Signs For The County Corner Than Hillary For President?

We are three weeks away from election day and the yard signs are out for every political candidate except for Ms. Clinton. I saw signs for Trump, our local state representatives, county commissioners, and even the county corner. Conspicuously absent was even a single yard sign of support for Ms. Clinton. I have not seen a single bumper sticker for Ms. Clinton. Hmm…

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Fettuccine With Asparagus And Smoked Salmon

Fettuccine With Asparagus And Smoked SalmonThis recipe from the NY Times is very similar to one of my favorite recipes from America’s Test Kitchen, Tagliatelle with Prosciutto and Peas. Instead of prosciutto and peas you substitute smoked salmon, asparagus, and home made fettuccine. Here is the ingredient list:

INGREDIENTS

  • ½ pound fresh asparagus, medium thickness
  • Salt
  • 1 tablespoon butter
  • ½ tablespoon minced shallots
  • 1 cup heavy cream
  • 4 ounces smoked salmon sliced 1/4-inch thick
  • Freshly ground black pepper
  • 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
  • 9 to 10 ounces fresh green fettuccine noodles
  • 2 tablespoons minced fresh dill

 

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Tidbits I Learned From The Latest Trump Rally

IMG_20161013_195654Last night I went to the Trump rally at the US Bank Arena with my wife. She is a passionate Trump supporter and was afraid we would not get a good seat if we did not get there a hour and a half early. I rolled my eyes and acquiesced to her request. I was surprised with some of tidbits I observed.

Tidbits

  1. At 6 pm there had to be at least 7,000 people in their seats. I hate to admit it but my wife was right.
  2. The lower half of the arena seating was full and the upper part of the arena seating was about half full. Since the arena’s capacity is 17,000 I am guessing that when you count the people on the floor of the arena that at least 17,000 people showed up for the rally.
  3. A lot of women were at the rally. The row I was seated on was entirely women except for a young boy and me. I am guessing that something like 40% of the crowd were women. Considering Mr. Trump’s comments on the video tape the number of women who showed up was pretty amazing.
  4. I messaged my son in Europe that we were at a Trump rally. He said, “Really? What do you think of the leaked recording?” I replied, “Unacceptable but not a threat to national security”.
  5. Every age group was equally represented.
  6. Very few people of color were there.
  7. The crowd was loud. At least the three women seated directly behind me were very loud. I think they accidentally bopped me on the head with their signs several times. I felt like I was at a basketball game or a rock concert.
  8. Mr. Trump gave a polished stump speech and looked like a man who is very comfortable with the role he is playing. As an example he hung around the stage for several minutes after his speech soaking up the atmosphere. When my wife and I got home that evening we compared Mr. Trump to an actor who is living the part of a Presidential candidate while Ms. Clinton appears to be an actress stiffly reading memorized lines.
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My Two Policy Questions For Both Presidential Candidates

Two weeks ago I posted my top question for both Presidential candidates so I decided to expand on that question and post my second question.

If we have a recession in your first term, what will you as President do differently with economic policies than was done in 2008?

The reason for this question is that the economy is weak and the chance for a recession is increasing.

  •  Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan said in June that the chance of a recession in the next twelve months is between 36% and 60%.
  • The 1% GDP growth for the first two quarters of 2016 is sufficiently weak that a slight miss can easily drive the GDP negative and unemployment up.
  • Health Services Grew Almost 12 Times Faster Than Non-Health GDP.  Since 2015 the increase in health care spending has resulted in flat retail sales. This health care driven economy is different than the consumer driven economy we have experience with. The health care driven economy has very narrow benefits to the overall economy compared to the consumer driven economy. Based on the GDP numbers over the last year and a half, it looks like we can have either a health care driven economy or a consumer driven economy but not both.
  • I think after 8 years of zero interest rates the wealth given to the banks did not trickle down to the American people.

The crucial distinction between a recession in 2008 and 2017 is that there are few if any policy options left.

  • With interest rates between 0% or 0.25% there is almost no benefit from lowering rates.
  • Weakening the dollar to increase exports is a risky policy, too. It could cause capital flight and increased interest rates.
  • It has been a Chinese goal to replace the dollar with the SDR as the reserve currency. To achieve that objective China will trade in a portion of its dollar debt for SDR based debt. This will probably cause increased interest rates.
  • Can the Federal Reserve continue to expand its balance sheet in a rising interest rate environment without international repercussions?
  • Can we learn anything about potential policies addressing a 2017 recession from Mr. Trump’s casino problems in Atlantic City?

My second question is what will you as President do differently concerning health care policies than was done in the Affordable Care Act?

The reason for this question is that if the ACA cannot continue in its present form so how do we address a sustainable reform?

  • The health exchanges of the Affordable Care Act are probably in a death spiral.
  • President Obama, Mr. Gruber, and other Affordable Care Act supporters have a trust problem with the middle class. The lies they told the middle class about the Affordable Care Act may be forgiven but they are not forgotten. Lying has consequences.
  • We have two separate health care problems, a spending problem on high cost chronic care customers and an insurance problem with the healthy customers.
  • The big idea for the Affordable Care Act was to dump high cost chronic care patients on the smallest health insurance market. A smarter idea would be move to high cost chronic care patients to either Medicaid or Medicare and let the health exchange work like a free market for healthy customers. If society has a moral obligation to provide affordable health care to high cost patients than it makes sense to spread these costs across a much broader base. Making a small group of healthy customers pay society’s cost for the high cost patients is the recipe for a death spiral.
  • We have an extremely complex way of subsidizing health insurance.. The Affordable Care Act prepays health insurance subsidies to insurance companies for low income people and uses the IRS to check compliance. If we are concerned about making a more efficient health care system than a simple re-design would avoid the money spent by the IRS on compliance.
  • As a person who started work in 1976 I have always had the option of affordable health insurance. As a recently as 2011 health insurance cost me $311 a month. By 2016 my grandfathered plan had increased 76% over my 2011 premium of $311 to $547. This increase is much greater than the increase in inflation and is an extravagant increase for a person who has not filed an insurance in over 16 years. The situation in the exchanges is unfortunately much worse. The lowest cost 2016 bronze plan would cost me $1,025 a month. This is 87% higher than my 2016 grandfathered plan and far higher than the 8.05% the IRS had declared as affordable.  Despite being the perfect insurance customer I can no longer find affordable health insurance. In 2017 I will go without health insurance.
  • According to a study from the Mercatus Center the states that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act have seen enrollment higher than expected and the cost of individual enrollees has been more expensive than projected.
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Vice Presidential Debate Word Cloud

Since I did the hard work of figuring out how to create a word cloud of the first presidential debate I decided to use my new found knowledge on the Vice Presidential debate. Once again I used the transcript from the Washington Post and I broke it into three documents, kaine.txt, pence.txt, and quijano.txt. This time I not only cleaned up the data for text mining but consolidated terms. As an example Senator and Senator Kaine became Kaine. I did not consolidate terms in the Quijano word cloud. You can see in the word cloud that she referred to Senator Kaine primarily as Senator and Govenor Pence as Govenor. The interesting tidbits that I see in the word clouds are:

  • The dominant words were “american” and “people”.
  • The word, “jobs”, did not appear in any cloud and the word, “economy”, just barely made the overall list.
  • Governor Pence’s word cloud looks like it is a little more issue oriented than Senator Kaine’s word cloud. He talked a lot about “american” and “people”.

Overall

Kaine, Pence, and Quijano Combined Word Cloud

Kaine, Pence, and Quijano Combined Word Cloud

Kaine

Kaine Word Cloud

Kaine Word Cloud

Pence

Pence Word Cloud

Pence Word Cloud

Quijano

Quijano Word Cloud

Quijano Word Cloud

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Wordclouds For The First Presidential Debate

I was inspired by the post, Analyzing the first Presidential Debate, to take a stab at creating some word clouds of the first presidential debate. Using the same transcript from the Washington Post and I broke it into three documents, clinton.txt, holt.txt, and trump.txt. After cleaning up the data for text mining I came up with these word clouds. The interesting tidbits that I see in the word clouds are:

  • The dominant words were “think” and “people”.
  • The word, “economy”, did not appear in any cloud and the word, “jobs”, just barely made the overall list.
  • The only issue word for Ms. Clinton was “donald”.
  • “Country” was a bigger issue word for Mr. Trump than “clinton”.

Overall

Clinton, Holt, and Trump

Clinton, Holt, and Trump Combined Word Cloud

Clinton

Clinton Word Cloud

Clinton Word Cloud

Trump

Trump Word Cloud

Trump Word Cloud

Holt

Holt Word Cloud

Holt Word Cloud