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GOP Rep. Proud He Tried to Save Health Insurer a Few Bucks by Not Taking Son With Broken Arm to Hospital Right Away

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United Healthcare Made $11 Billion in Profit Last Year

U.S. Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-MI) is really proud of his attempt to save his health insurance company a few dollars by not taking his son to the hospital right away, delaying the visit until the following day just in case the child’s arm was only sprained and not broken. Congressman Huizenga thinks all parents should exercise this discretion so the insurance companies can make more money.

“My youngest son went racing out the front door on his way to go jump on the trampoline,” Huizenga told MLive, a consortium of Michigan newspapers. “I thought he was going to get injured going to the trampoline,” the Republican representative quipped. 

“He got injured in the driveway on the way to the trampoline, fell, broke his arm, and we weren’t sure what was going on. It was in the evening, so I splinted it up, and we wrapped it up, and the decision was, ‘OK, do we go to the ER?’ We thought it was a sprain but weren’t sure. Took every precaution, and decided to go in the next morning.”

Turns out, his son did have a broken arm, Huizenga admits.

Congressman Huizenga is very concerned about protecting health insurance companies, suggesting parents should practice his sensitivity to costs, delaying treatment until it’s clearly necessary.

“There’s definitely going to be changes in the health care delivery system,” Rep. Huizenga explained to MLive. “We can’t just continue to squeeze providers to say this is how we are going to save money. It’s forcing health care providers … into some very different actions that in most people’s opinion is unhealthy.”

How unhealthy?

Take, for example, United Healthcare, one of the largest health insurance companies in the country. It made $11 billion in profit last year.

“Way too often, people pull out their insurance card and they say, ‘I don’t know the difference or cost between an X-ray or an MRI or CT Scan.’ I might make a little different decision if I did know (what) some of those costs were and those costs came back to me.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCNs4eIvl40 

 

Hat tip: Talking Points Memo

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ANALYSIS

New WSJ Poll Is Devastating for DeSantis and His ‘Anti-Woke’ Policies

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“Florida is where woke goes to die,” according to the Sunshine State’s governor, Republican Ron DeSantis, who has based much of his expected 2024 presidential campaign on being “anti-woke.”

But a new poll from Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal is devastating to many of the policies being promoted and enacted by Governor DeSantis in his “free state of Florida,” calling into question how he and other Republicans who embrace his ideas will fare on the national stage.

“Patriotism, religious faith, having children and other priorities that helped define the national character for generations are receding in importance to Americans,” warns the WSJ, with some on social media pointing to a graphic that purports to capture how much America has changed in the past 25 years.

READ MORE: Trump Team’s Efforts to Rein Him ‘Wilted’ in Waco as He Invoked ‘Retribution and Violence’: Report

The importance of issues of patriotism, religion, having children, and community involvement have dropped dramatically across America. The one that has increased? Money.

One Democratic strategist calls it “eye-popping.”

Money is also the only issue on which Democrats and Republicans both agree.

But the real siren for Republicans comes in answers to so-called “culture war” questions.

The gap between Democrats and Republicans, expectedly, is huge, but DeSantis – should he launch a presidential run – will confront conservative and independent voters (not to mention, of course, Democrats) who aren’t as keen on, say, banning books, as he might like.

Asked, “Which of these concerns you more about schools today?,” a whopping 61% chose “some schools may ban books and censor topics that are educationally important.” Just 36% opted for “some schools may teach books and topics that some students or their parents feel are inappropriate or offensive.”

And more than half the country (56%) say they have some or a great deal of confidence in public schools. Just one-third (33%) said very little or none.

READ MORE: ‘Pits Parents Against Parents’: House Republicans Pass Anti-LGBTQ Florida-Style K-12 ‘Parents’ Bill of Rights’

DeSantis’ attempts to radically reshape the concept of public education in Florida made another dramatic move last week, when the Republican-majority legislature passed a bill the expands the school voucher program to every student. It could decimate enrollment in public schools, which would also reduce the amount of federal funding public schools in the Sunshine State get. Expected to cost billions, it could also lead to expansions of private and faith-based schools.

Monday morning, surrounded by school children, DeSantis signed it into law.

And yet nationally, according to the WSJ poll, a plurality of Americans oppose school vouchers.

“Do you favor, oppose, or neither favor nor oppose states giving parents tax-funded vouchers they can use to help pay for tuition for their children to attend private or religious schools of their choice instead of public schools?”

37% oppose the vouchers.
34% support them.

Democratic strategist and former Hillary Clinton campaign national spokesperson Josh Schwerin lists a “few findings from the new WSJ poll that should scare Republicans relying on ‘woke’ attacks”: “1) Tolerance is as important as money 2) Book banning is far worse than offensive content 3) Majorities think society has been about right or not gone far enough on range of DEI issues.”

For those who look at Trump rallies, watch right-wing news, or listen to GOP politicians or influencers, the idea that another “red wave” is coming next year may seem real, but even the right-wing Wall Street Journal found that a plurality of voters (44%) identify as Democrats – and just 38% identify as Republicans. 18% call themselves independents without leaning one way or another.

Nearly half the country (47%) identifies as moderate.

One issue from the poll DeSantis and the GOP do seem to have support on is diminishing the rights of transgender Americans, who are under attack every day.

Despite increased anti-trans hate crimes, despite the 430 anti-LGBTQ bills filed this year alone (according to the ACLU,) a plurality of Americans (43%) say society has “gone too far” in accepting transgender people. Just one-third say society hasn’t gone far enough.

But on other issues of equality, as Schwerin mentioned, nearly half the country (48%) say society has not gone far enough in promoting equality between men and women. And pluralities also say society has not gone far enough in accepting people who are gay, lesbian, or bisexual (37%), and businesses taking steps to promote racial and ethnic diversity (39%).

There’s another statistic that also flies directly in the face of DeSantis and his “where woke goes to die” motto.

Two-thirds of the country say society has either not gone far enough has been “about right” on “Schools and universities taking steps to promote racial and ethnic diversity.”

Just three in ten Americans (30%) say society has gone too far.

See the video and graphics above or at this link.

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CRIME

Jan. 6 Grand Jury Witnesses Are Being Asked What ‘National Security Levers’ Trump Was Trying to Pull

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CBS News revealed a smidgen of news nested in a shocking episode of “Face the Nation,” in which Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) blamed Democrats for Donald Trump celebrating Jan. 6 attackers at his Waco, Texas rally over the weekend.

After, however, reporter Robert Costa noted that special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Donald Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 attacks had taken a turn.

“Based on our reporting, the special counsel is tightening his investigation around former President Trump when it comes to January 6, now compelling some of his top aides and allies to testify under oath about their private conversations with Trump,” he explained. “That means there’s no privilege, no executive privilege they can cite to try to block any kind of testimony on those issues.”

This has been a losing battle for a number of officials that attempted to assert executive privilege during the House Select Committee’s investigation into the insurrection and the attempt to overthrow the 2020 election. Ultimately, Congress voted to hold a few of those subpoenaed in contempt of Congress and those proceedings are moving forward despite the House changing hands to the GOP.

“We know the special counsel is looking into a possible conspiracy case against Trump and people around him about trying to block the congressional proceedings on January 6,” Costa continued. “We’re going to potentially hear now from Mark Meadows. Robert O’Brien, the former national security adviser, John Ratcliffe, the former director of national intelligence.”

Costa went on to say that witnesses brought to the grand jury are being asked about the kind of “national security levers Trump was asking about in those final days.”

Some of the militia members had said over chats that it was important that they riot so that it would give Trump what he needed to declare the Insurrection Act of 1807 or declare martial law. That would then allow him to deploy the military, seize voting machines, and ultimately allow him to stay in office. Trump had toyed with the idea during the summer of 2020 during the protests of the slaying of George Floyd.

Costa also brought up the document theft case, which is also being investigated by the special counsel. He noted that it’s extremely rarefor a judge to call in a defendant’s lawyer to testify. As legal analysts explained this week, it only happens if there is enough evidence that a crime was committed. It means that a judge believes that’s exactly what happened.

“Evan Corcoran, Trump’s lawyer in this case, [is] now being told to come in, and he did come in for hours on Friday,” Costa said. “And he didn’t just talk about his broad view. He had to share audio files, notes, details about all of his conversations with Trump about how Trump handled those federal requests about classified documents. Think back to the Mar-a-Lago FBI search last summer. Corcoran was pressed about what was Trump doing at that intense time. And that really gives the prosecutors a prism into what really happened.”

Costa later added more details on Twitter about the information he’s gathered.

“Sources directly familiar with witnesses and questions tell me it’s clear Special Counsel is now ‘tightening’ the Jan. 6 probe around Trump and his inner circle, with focus on infamous 12/18/20 Oval [Office meeting], and efforts to push national security, DOJ official,” he tweeted. “Witnesses have been pressed in recent weeks about [Rudy] Giuliani, [Sidney] Powell and others who sought to use levers of government to stop the certification of the election… and sources directly involved believe a case on conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding could be in the works.”

See the segment in the video below or at the link here.

 

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'DEHUMANIZING AND DANGEROUS'

Trump Team’s Efforts to Rein Him ‘Wilted’ in Waco as He Invoked ‘Retribution and Violence’: Report

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Any hope that Donald Trump’s new re-election team may have had that they could steer him into running a more conventional campaign appears to have been swept aside as he used his first major rally to whip up the crowd with a litany of grievances and personal attacks.

According to the Guardian’s David Smith, during Trump’s appearance in Waco late Saturday, the former president used his speech to “invoke retribution and violence” at his perceived enemies, with attacks on Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) who might possibly challenge him for the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nomination.

As Smith wrote, “Efforts by Trump’s team to steer a more conventional, disciplined candidacy have wilted in recent days as the 76-year-old unleashed words and images that – even by his provocative standards – are unusually dehumanising, menacing and dangerous,” before adding nothing the past week Trump used “increasingly racist rhetoric as he launched ever more personal attacks against Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, raising fears that supporters could try to lash out on his behalf. Trump even shared an image of himself holding a baseball bat next to a picture of Bragg.”

RELATED: Trump is giving his ‘violent followers’ time to get organized: former FBI official

According to the Guardian report, “Wearing a dark jacket, white shirt and no tie, he said: ‘I got bad publicity and my poll numbers have gone through the roof – would you explain this to me … It gets so much publicity that the case actually gets adjudicated in the press and people see it’s bullshit.'”

The former president also, once again, called his 2024 run the “final battle.”

“Our opponents have done everything they can to crush our spirit and to break our will. But they failed. They’ve only made us stronger. And 2024 is the final battle, it’s going to be the big one. You put me back in the White House, their reign will be over and America will be a free nation once again,” he told the crowd.

You can read more here.

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