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State insurance commissioners, Democrats and Republicans alike, are searching for ways to help companies cope with the unpredictability so that they stay put for 2018. Their anxiety is especially acute this spring, since the administration’s drumbeat coincides with the time frame in which insurers must make their decisions.
While the White House tries to prod the Senate into speedy passage of health-care legislation, it simultaneously is using each new revelation about the law’s marketplaces — through which more than 12 million Americans signed up for health coverage this year — to amplify its negative message.
Anthem’s withdrawal announcement was immediately highlighted, with White House press secretary Sean Spicer saying it would leave “19,000 Ohioans without any options” — though the state said the move would affect 10,500 consumers.
A short time later, HHS spokeswoman Alleigh Marré called the insurer’s decision “a stark reminder that Obamacare is collapsing.” Less than an hour later, HHS sent a news release touting the request by Minuteman Health in New Hampshire to raise premiums 30 percent next year for its ACA customers.
The vice president has held at least three events since the weekend to spotlight the law’s flaws. On Wednesday, he met on Air Force Two with cancer survivor Traci Lewis, a Houston resident who said that her out-of-pocket costs had become unaffordable under Obamacare.
Administrative actions have been weakening the law for months. Trump signed an executive order within hours of taking office that directed federal agencies to ease regulatory burdens created by the ACA; later, the Internal Revenue Service said it was going to send taxpayers their refunds even if they failed to send proof that they were insured.
Such diminished enforcement, predicted CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield as it filed its rates in Maryland last month, “will have the same impact as repeal” and lead to fewer healthier people enrolling in coverage. “Based on industry and government estimates as well as actuarial judgment, we have projected that this will cause morbidity to increase by an additional 20 percent,” the insurer said.
Experts note that many consumers on the independent insurance market had struggled to find affordable plans long before Trump took office.
Robert Laszewski, president and chief executive of the consulting firm Health Policy and Strategy Associates, said that even the cheapest unsubsidized plan on North Carolina’s exchange costs a family of four in Charlotte $1,414 a month, plus a $14,300 annual deductible.
Some Republicans are urging caution. Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), who chairs the House Appropriations Committee’s subcommittee on labor, health and human services, education and related agencies, said Monday that the administration should continue to provide the subsidies until a new law is in place and there has been sufficient time for a transition.
A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll found that more than three-quarters of Americans say Trump should try to make the existing law work as well as possible. Just 13 percent, by contrast, say the president should try to make it fail as soon as possible.
Though Trump has been vocal in his support for the House GOP’s American Health Care Act, which would rewrite key parts of the ACA, his recent tweets have been more difficult to decipher.
In one, he claimed to have suggested “that we add more dollars to Healthcare” to make it “the best anywhere,” a statement at odds with his administration’s budget proposal for big spending cuts.
A health policy expert close to the administration, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said the president and his aides were still working out how to proceed.
Amy Goldstein contributed to this report.
The Washington Redskins completed their third preseason game on Sunday with a 23-17 win against the Cincinnati Bengals. You already know the result isn’t relevant. Many recognize the third preseason game is the most important of the standard four because it serves as the final test drive for the starters. What’s clear is the Redskins Kirk Cousins-led offense needs a tune-up and quick.
Gloria Estefan once sang, “The rhythm is going to get you.” She clearly didn’t have the Redskins starting offense during the 2017 preseason in mind.
One stat and one possession explain why’s there should be legitimate trepidation with the Cousins-led attack as the Sept. 10 season opener draws closer. With the starting offense on the through three games, Washington went 3-and-out in nine of 15 possessions, including a trio on Sunday. The last one, the Redskins’ first of the second half, came against the Bengals’ backups.
Washington gained one yard on its first three possessions. An illegal shift penalty wiped out a potential first down on the opening series. Pressure on Cousins led to an intentional grounding on third-and-long, ending the second possession. Then, after a Cincinnati turnover came a four-play drive for minus-two yards then ended with a field goal.
Pass protection was spotty. Same for Cousins’ pocket awareness, though that wasn’t a factor on Vontaze Burfict’s 62-yard interception return for a touchdown. Wide receiver Terrelle Pryor had a nice 17-yard catch in traffic, but also dropped an easy attempt and continues showing he’s still learn the position nuances. He wasn’t alone with a drop, but don’t put all that on Cousins’s poor stat line (10 of 19 for 109 yards, interception).
Practice time for the next two weeks becomes crucial with backups set to face Tampa Bay in the preseason finale on Thursday. Any current panic over the passing game could look silly with a strong showing against the Eagles. If that happens, it will occur with zero momentum.
Robert Kelley is the Redskins’ starting running back and will be Week 1 against the Eagles. No, head coach Jay Gruden hasn’t stated that so directly, but that’s been the obvious case all summer. That Kelley had 51 yards on 10 carries including a 21-yard burst against the Bengals’ starters should solidify any doubt creeping in from the outside.
Whether Samaje Perine eventually takes over is another story and one that won't unfold until deeper into the season.
The Bengals opened the game with a 15-play, 87-yard touchdown drive. Let's just say the Redskins defense looked much better from there. Cincinnati's starting offense went fumble, punt, punt on its final three drives of the half. Cornerback Bashaud Breeland and inside linebacker Martrell Spaight were among the defensive standouts.
Nose tackle Phil Taylor, one of the feel-good stories of the summer, exited in the first quarter with a left quad injury and did not return. … Rookie center Chase Roullier started in place of Spencer Long (knee surgery) and held up. There were no obvious snap exchange gaffes with Cousins and the sixth-round pick had positives with run blocking. … Safety Fish Smithson remains a roster long shot, but the undrafted free agent also keeps making plays including an interception in the second half.
President Donald Trump will headline a rally in Wisconsin later this month on the same night as the White House correspondents’ dinner, his campaign announced Tuesday.
In 2017, Trump became the first President to skip the dinner since Ronald Reagan in 1981. Reagan missed that year’s dinner because he was recovering from an assassination attempt — although he delivered remarks by phone.
Tuesday’s announcement came one day after Trump held an economy-themed event in Minnesota, a state he hopes to pick up in 2020.
Trump touted the effects of the 2017 tax cuts he championed, and what he called soaring jobs numbers. He claimed that the economy is at its best point ever, and ticked through Minnesota-specific statistics claiming tax cuts, income growth and “7,500 brand new mining, logging, and construction jobs” in the state.
The event was planned before the latest controversy surrounding Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Democrat representing a neighboring district. On Friday, Trump had tweeted an edited video of the freshman Democrat, who is Muslim, in which images from the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 2001 were interspersed with remarks she made decrying discrimination against Muslims following the attacks.
“These things don’t happen by accident,” he said of economic gains under his presidency. “And it can all go away very quickly. You put the wrong people in office, everything that I’ve done and we’ve done as a group . . . can be undone, and bad, bad things can happen,” Trump said.
The Bluetooth-powered location system that could shake up shopping (and more) forever.
iBeacon is Apple's implementation of Bluetooth low-energy (BLE) wireless technology to create a different way of providing location-based information and services to iPhones and other iOS devices. iBeacon arrived in iOS7, which means it works with iPhone 4s or later, iPad (third generation and onwards) iPad mini and iPod touch (fifth generation or later). It's worth noting the same BLE technology is also compatible with Android 4.3. and above.
The beacons themselvers are small, cheap Bluetooth transmitters. Apps installed on your iPhone listen out for the signal transmitted by these beacons and respond accordingly when the phone comes into range.
For example, if you pass a beacon in a shop, the retailer's app (assuming you have it installed) could display a special offer alert for you. On a visit to a museum, the museum's app would provide information about the closest display, using your distance from beacons placed near exhibits to work out your position. As such iBeacon could be a much better option for in-door mapping - which GPS struggles with.
What real world iBeacon examples are there?
It's early days for iBeacon – Apple has only been testing it since December last year in its US retail stores . Virgin Atlantic is also conducting trial of iBeacon at Heathrow airport , so that passengers heading towards the security checkpoint will find their phone automatically pulling up their mobile boarding pass ready for inspection. In the London area retail giant Tesco has been testing it in a store, as is Waitrose, while Regents Street is working with retailers to test the technology too.
What actually is a beacon?
Any iOS device that supports sharing data using Bluetooth low energy can beam signals to an iBeacon app. For example, an iPad can both emit and receive an iBeacon signal. But other than this Apple doesn't make the beacons itself - these come from third-party manufacturers – for example the Virgin Atlantic trial is using hardware from Estimote.
Does iBeacon mean I'll be bombarded with ads wherever I go?
That rather depends on how many apps you have. The beacons themselves won't do much unless you have the corresponding app downloaded to your iOS device, so you should be able to browse in relative peace. Also, iOS doesn't deliver region notifications until certain threshold conditions are met – Apple's developer notes state the device has to cross an iBeacon boundary, move away from the boundary by a minimum distance, and remain at that minimum distance for at least 20 seconds before the notifications are reported.
That should reduce the pesting at least a bit. But there is certainly a risk of fatigue if you're being hassled all the way around the mall.
Can I make it stop?
Yes - as Adrian Kingsley-Hughes points out you can opt out by changing permissions under Location Services for the relevant app (accessed via Settings > Privacy > Location Services), by switching off Bluetooth, or by uninstalling that particular app.
Why is iBeacon such a big deal?
The technology could be a big step towards mobile payments, something smartphone makers have been looking at for a long time without getting it right. Running the technology which breaks through and becomes the standard is going to be very lucrative. As such iBeacon is not the only game in town - PayPal is working on its own 'PayPal Beacon' technology - expected next year - which will allow shoppers to 'check-in' and pay for goods from the PayPal account on their phone. Near Field Communications (NFC) is another technology trying to find an niche (right now with limited to success) in mobile payments, plus plenty of others.
Depending on how iBeacon evolves and is adopted it could form an important part of Apple's ecommerce and mobile payments effort. For example, the combination of iBeacon and Passbook could allow you to get sent a coupon while in a store and buy something without ever seeing a member of staff. Equally, shoppers may find the whole thing slightly unnerving and ignore it altogether.
Angel Veloz talks about his work ethic and why he dropped out of college to drive trucks.
Taking out the trash is usually a chore assigned to a parent or teenager in the household. But once that trash hits the curb, it’s someone else’s job to pick it up. And America produces a lot of trash: According to the Environmental Protection Agency, Americans generate 254 million tons of trash a year. That trash is then hauled away by the nearly 120,000 waste workers in the U.S., some of whom make as much as $100,000 a year. Competition for these jobs is fierce in some cities; in places like New York City, the acceptance rate for those applying to become sanitation workers is just 1 percent.
Refuse collection is one of the top five most dangerous jobs in America. Waste workers deal with heavy and dangerous equipment daily, and according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the fatal injury rate for waste collectors is 33 per 100,000—ahead of policemen, construction workers, and miners.
Angel Veloz has been working in the waste and recycling industry for 17 years. He works at Waste Pro, one of the largest of the private companies that handle waste and recycling collection in the Southeast, and has won his company’s safety award several times.
For The Atlantic’s series of interviews with American workers, I spoke with Veloz about what it’s like working in waste collection, and how he handles the dangers of his job. The interview that follows has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Bourree Lam: How did you start working in waste collection, and how long have you been doing it?
Angel Veloz: I’ve always loved trucks, even as a kid. My dad ran Mack trucks and for some reason, I always had it on my mind. I went to college for about two years and I said, "This is not for me." I was studying architecture and I realized that I am not an office person; I need to be outside. I was 18-years-old and that's when I first started driving the truck and said that's it.
I have a brother that lives in Lee County, Florida, who was getting into the trash business. He wanted to get into roll-offs, an elite job in the trash industry where people [pick up big loads], and I wanted to leave California where I was hauling beef. I came here and I started driving for him—it was a hands-on learning experience.
Now, I provide roll-offs for a waste products company. My brother bought one truck, and I worked for him for a year. Then I went into waste management for a company called Florida Recycling. Eventually, my boss moved to a company call Waste Pro, and they brought us over. I've been here [with him] ever since then.
Lam: What's a typical day of work like for you?
Veloz: The night before, I'll call dispatch and say, "Look, tell me what I've got for tomorrow's schedule." I'll get loaded—putting the roll-off container with garbage on the truck—for my first load of the day or my second load of the day. That way, if there's any kind of bad situation first thing in the morning—a truck breaks or things go bad—you're loaded. If you don't fall behind, you can finish dumping the loads at a very good time. Then, as the day goes on, I've got about seven to nine customers a day. My shift runs about 12 hours.
Lam: Who are you picking up trash from?
Veloz: Usually, I handle commercial accounts. My main customer is the Regional Southwest airport here in Fort Myers. I handle all the waste at the airport: from international flight dumpsters, to regular trash, to trash that comes out of the planes, or from their food court. I also pick up dumpsters from regular companies around the airport.
Lam: Is it surprising how much trash an airport produces?
Veloz: Oh my gosh, yes. Especially in the busy season in Florida—which is from Halloween until Easter [when people visit to escape the cold]. It would shock you. It goes through the roof. You get very busy because there are more people flying into the airport, and bringing trash. It's unreal.
During the off-season, loads average between two and three tons and [I handle] eight loads per day on average. That’s about 24 tons. [...] From October to April, it goes way up because people come to Florida to get away from the snow.
Lam: Do you see yourself in the trash business for the foreseeable future?
Veloz: I do. I'm very comfortable with it, but remember, I do roll offs. Roll offs is an elite job in the trash industry. The people that go to do the residential stuff—it's a lot harder work. All I do is put a roll-off cable on a box, put it up on the truck, dump it, and then take it back to the customer. I don't have to do a lot of manual labor. I see myself retiring in this business.
Lam: Is there a hierarchy in the trash business?
Veloz: Yeah, you start off at residential and work your way up. You do that by coming in as a helper, and getting your [waste removal] license. Then, become a driver and work yourself up the ladder. That's how it usually works.
I never did that. I became a professional in the roll-off business. I perfected it and did my own thing for different companies. The first people that employed me said, "Look. We'll give you a job for three months and if you're any good, the people that are buying the contract for recycling will give you a brand new truck. They'll give you more money and a uniform." I said, "Great. I got this. I know what I'm doing." I took it from there. Then again, it takes talent, and you have to be on what you're doing everyday. You can't slack off. Slackers don't make it in life.
Lam: Do you feel like you still need to be careful, even though you’re doing the same task every day?
Veloz: Absolutely. Every time you get out of the truck and go to the [trash] box: Don't become complacent. In this business, if you become complacent, you're looking for death. It's very dangerous because the cable bringing up the box is like a slingshot. If you make one mistake, and break the cable, it'll come through the window behind you and it's not going to be a good situation. You've got wires overhead, you've got trees you could hit that could fall on the truck. I take every load like it's my first time. We also get safety bonus $10,000 every three years, which I’ve won.
Lam: Would you say that your work at Waste Pro is an important part of your life and your identity?
Veloz: I would say yes. I've been in a truck for 33 years. I would be a fool to think that trucking is not a part of my life. However, I do have other parts of my life. My family is really important to me.
Being a professional trucker for many years makes you think twice about everything once you get behind the wheel. Once you turn your truck on, it's show time. You're in a big machine and you have to respect other drivers. Just because you're in a machine, doesn't mean you can take advantage of it. You have to be prudent and you have to give other people space so they can make a mistake and you won't hurt them. Basically, this is an office with a view and wheels.
Lam: Do you see any challenges facing people who work in the waste and recycling industry?
Veloz: Some challenges I see in the new generation are turnover rates, lack of integrity, and people expecting to start off at the top without having to work for it. My generation had to earn it and you didn't expect anything. If you had it, then you would slowly climb up the ladder and be a success. But now, people don't think that way and I see that as a problem.
It worries me because you have to put your time in to be good at anything. It takes time to perfect; it's part of learning. There’s a learning curve, and there's going to be mistakes but it can't bring you down. You've got to say, "You know what, I won't do that again. It happens to everyone." But some people don't take it lightly, and think that I was born behind the wheel and it's not true. I've had my share of mistakes, and I've learned from them.
Lam: Are there any misconceptions about your job?
Veloz: People think that most truckers are not very nice people, and for some reason, full of tattoos. I'm a church-going man; I’ve been married to the same woman for 30 years. I've raised my family and I'm a man of integrity. There are people like me out there, but people have misconceptions. When people ask what I do for a living, I’ll say I’m a trucker. Then they’ll say, “What do you really do?” I really do that. I've done it all my life. I like going home every night and sleeping in my bed.
Lam: It sounds like the work that you do everyday is pretty similar. What motivates you to come to work everyday?
Veloz: I look at the truck that I drive, I check it out and I crank it up. Once I crank it up, it really makes my day because I know what I’m doing. Once I get inside the cab, I'm home. I love going to work. I've been doing the same thing all my life. It's just part of me.
I am a refugee, believe it or not. I was born in Cuba, but I'm American. We came over back in 1966, my father said, "Look, we're in America now and we will make this work. This is our home." The immigrant work ethic was passed to me like white on rice. I am not kidding you. I am a workaholic. There is no stone left unturned while doing my job. I take it personal.
You have to want the success, be a role model, and be part of something good to show the next generation, say, "Look at me, you can do this too.” My children have a work ethic second to none; my wife as well. As I get older in life now, sometimes I worry I made them a little too strong. But it doesn't work both ways: You're either a doormat or you call the shots. That's the American way. This is what made this country. Everywhere else, you're either poor or rich. Nothing is perfect, but you have to give America a chance. You can't get disenchanted. We have to make this work one way or another.
This interview is a part of a series about the lives and experiences of members of the American workforce, which includes conversations with a firefighter, a truck driver, and a paramedic.
Chris Hughes and Sean Eldridge have always been entitled brats. And now the media has finally noticed.
Just three years ago, Chris Hughes and Sean Eldridge were the toast of the liberal establishment. The Facebook co-founder and his politically ambitious husband embodied all the attributes of a bona fide “gay power couple.” In 2012, Hughes bought The New Republic, rescuing the flagship liberal magazine from financial peril and establishing himself as a player in Washington. At the same time, Eldridge was quietly preparing to run for Congress in upstate New York.
Young, handsome, Ivy League-pedigreed, rich (“the wealthiest openly gay men under 30” according to The Advocate, a stretch considering that the fortune belongs to Hughes), and espousing predictably liberal political views, the Hughes-Eldridge partnership was destined to work wonders for America.
How swiftly things change. In just the past two months, one half of this pair managed to single-handedly destroy a storied journalistic institution, while the other suffered a crushing electoral defeat in New York’s 19th Congressional District. Last week, the 31-year-old Hughes forced the resignations of both the editor and literary editor of The New Republic, whose 100th anniversary he presided over last month at a star-studded gala in Washington, D.C.
In protest of the magazine’s newly ensconced CEO’s plan to transform TNR into a “vertically integrated digital media company,” the majority of the magazine’s senior and contributing editors resigned.
Weeks before the implosion at TNR, 28-year-old Eldridge lost his congressional bid by a stunning 30 points, despite having outspent his opponent nearly 3-to-1 in a district President Obama won by 6 percentage points. The couple had purchased a $2 million home in the district expressly so that Eldridge could run there, their purchase of a $5 million mansion in the adjoining 18th having come to naught after that seat was won by another gay Democrat in 2012.
When Hughes bought The New Republic for an undisclosed sum less than three years ago, members of the media tripped over themselves to flatter the young Harvard graduate and his husband (Full disclosure: I was on the editorial staff of TNR from 2007 to 2009, and a contributing editor from 2010 until last year, dropped from the masthead before it was cool). “It’s difficult not to get swept up in Hughes’s sincerity, his life-of-the-mind swagger,” swooned New York’s Carl Swanson, who penned the most reverential of many notices (no mean feat).
A New York Times profile, meanwhile, set the scene at a Paris Review fundraiser hosted by the couple at Cipriani (the 42nd Street location, not the Wall Street one, where they celebrated their wedding with 400 of their closest friends). In it, a series of Manhattan literary and media bigwigs prostrated themselves before the two like nobles at a royal court.
Powerful indeed. At their 4,000-square-foot, $5 million SoHo loft, Hughes and Eldridge hosted fundraisers for Nancy Pelosi and Andrew Cuomo, and raised money for worthy causes like gay marriage. All the while they racked up favorable coverage in the mainstream press, and even more sycophantic mentions in the gay press. In 2011, Hughes and Eldridge graced the cover of The Advocate’s “40 under 40” issue, and the following year Hughes came in at No. 28 on OUT’s “Power List.” Nearly every profile remarked upon the young men’s precocity. They possessed “wisdom beyond their years,” observed The Advocate. “The youngest old man any of us knows,” an unnamed friend of Atlantic Publisher David Bradley said of Hughes.
Contrary to the popular narrative, TNR did not “die” last week. Its demise as a thoughtful journal of liberal (in the classical sense of the word) thought was foreordained the day Hughes purchased the magazine. And the signs that he would destroy The New Republic as we knew it were clear for anyone willing to take off their ideological blinders. For behind the seemingly accomplished, smart, and creative prodigy that supposedly is Chris Hughes lies a deeply insecure man with few accomplishments to his name and a heavy burden to prove his self, not to mention net, worth. Hughes’s wealth and status owe little to his ingenuity as a supposed Facebook “co-founder” but rather his luck at being in the right place at the right time.
Unlike Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz, with whom he roomed at Harvard, Hughes had no special programming or coding abilities. But there was a silver lining in this lack of technical expertise, in that, as the only member of this tech geek crew with passable social skills, he could take up the public-relations portfolio. “He is fortunate he found himself in the same room,” David Kirkpatrick, author of a book about the website, told the Times. “He is more socially adjusted than the rest of them.” By his own admission, Hughes’ main job for Facebook was “customer service.” $700 million, the rough amount that Hughes earned when he cashed out of the company in 2007, is a pretty good take for a glorified call-center operator.
Knowing how little he had done to earn such ill-gotten gains, Hughes set about trying to prove that he was on par with the Steve Jobses and Warren Buffetts of the world. He joined the Obama 2008 campaign’s social-media team, but was hardly “The kid who made Obama president,” as Fast Company claimed in 2009. After the election, Hughes helped launch a “cause-oriented social network” called Jumo, but it failed after less than a year in operation.
Listless and with a burning desire to show his mettle, Hughes was ready when the opportunity to purchase The New Republic fell into his lap in 2012. Without so much as a single byline to his name in a reputable journalistic outlet, never mind The Harvard Crimson (though he was, to be fair, news editor of the Andover Phillipian), Hughes appointed himself editor-in-chief of the magazine. Within months, after having promised the staff editorial independence, he fired editor Richard Just, who had approached him about purchasing TNR in the first place.
Soon, for the first time since its 1914 founding, the magazine stopped publishing unsigned editorials. Last year, after promising the acclaimed journalist Steve Brill that a 24,000-word piece he had written about the American health-care system would appear on the cover of the re-launched magazine, Hughes delayed its publication in favor of a predictably obsequious sit-down interview he conducted with his former boss, the president of the United States. Brill went on to publish his piece in Time, where it won a National Magazine Award.
But to Hughes, wining and dining this media star was more important than protecting the integrity of the institution whose reputation he claims to care so much about. Hughes’s alleged fiddling with the seating plan for the centenary dinner, at which he relegated the magazine’s staff to the back of the room, brought to mind the pathetic memory of Jimmy Carter managing the schedule of the White House tennis court.
Eldridge’s path to fame is even more accidental. In 2010, he dropped out of law school to take up a job as communications director for a gay-rights organization, an appointment soon followed by his husband’s donation of a quarter-million dollars to the group. Nine months after Hughes told New York magazine, “He’s 26. He’s going to do all kinds of things in politics, but I don’t think there’s any rush,” to run for office, Eldridge announced his congressional candidacy.
Eldridge retained SKDKnickerbocker, a heavy-hitting Democratic political consulting firm, which also happened to be doing public-relations work for his investment fund. “Candidates who employ people in the districts they’re running in enjoy some advantages. What’s so unusual about this situation is that he’s being so transparent about it,” Paul Herrnson, executive director of the University of Connecticut’s Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, told Politico. Lacking any sense of irony, Eldridge made campaign-finance reform a signature plank.