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In today’s edition:
WpGet the full experience.Choose your planArrowRight- Health care vanishes too easily. So might the filibuster.
- NATO countries must cut the bickering and up the defense spending
- A tale of two (failing) Katies
An EOB abracadabra
Wanna see a trick? You’ve assembled a crack team of a primary care physician, orthopedist, gynecologist and physical therapist whom you like and trust. Then your insurer waves its wand and — presto, shortchange-o — they disappear from your network.
“One of the most unfair aspects of medical insurance, in a system that often seems designed for frustration, is this,” writes health journalist Elisabeth Rosenthal: “Patients can change insurance only during [very limited windows]. But insurers’ contracts with doctors, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies … can change abruptly at any time.”
Her op-ed is full of disconcerting stories of patients priced out of agreeable care situations not because they lost their insurance but because of “warfare,” Rosenthal writes, between providers and insurers. And this sort of dispute is increasingly common.
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It’s an inconvenience at the best of times. But imagine you’re in the middle of, say, cancer treatment when your insurer pulls this sleight of hand. You’re no longer just the miffed audience member at the world’s worst magic show; you feel like the one trying to wriggle out of restraints. Rosenthal says there’s a simple way to help fix all this: require insurers to make contract changes only during the windows when customers can tinker, too.
What else is at risk of mysteriously vanishing? The Senate filibuster, writes Jason Willick: “Though neither party is advertising its intention to break the legislative filibuster, either one could try if it sweeps Congress and the White House.”
Jason writes that many of the guardrails for this … guardrail … are leaving the Senate — Mitch McConnell, Joe Manchin, Mitt Romney, Kyrsten Sinema. Other guardrails could pop up, of course, but there’s no guarantee.
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The prospect worries Jason. “Divided government can be dysfunctional,” he says, but, in a Senate with no filibuster to temper majority rule, “the alternative might increasingly be a cycle of partisan excess.”
Chaser: Partisan “excess” is a stretch, when in effect the filibuster has paralyzed any partisan action at all. In 2019, Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) argued that abolishing the filibuster would finally produce outcomes that reflect the will of the voters.
From Polish President Andrzej Duda’s op-ed arguing that the decade-old expectation that NATO states spend at least 2 percent of their money on defense is no longer sufficient in a world threatened by Russia’s “imperialistic ambitions and aggressive revisionism.” This week in Washington, he will push to raise the pledge to 3 percent.
And Poland is in a position to push; it pours nearly 4 percent of its GDP into defense.
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“A return to the status quo ante is not possible,” Duda writes, urging European partners to join him over the 3 percent threshold. “What the alliance needs today is unity, unity and more unity.”
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Unfortunately, what Europe has at the moment is bickering, bickering and more bickering, Lee Hockstader reports from Paris. His column recounts the recent ways “German, French and British officials took turns skewering each other for ill-considered comments” regarding European defense.
The sniping over policy differences obscures the fact that these states are, for the most part, in the same boat. As Lee puts it, “In Europe’s most militarily formidable countries, the gaps are enormous between the peril they perceive and the preparations they are making.”
Chaser: Max Boot writes that Donald Trump — who might soon reclaim the biggest seat at NATO’s table — isn’t just pro-Russia; he’s also anti-Ukraine.
More politics
It’s not a great day to be a Katie.
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Set aside the beleaguered Princess of Wales — more on that tomorrow — and America’s politics alone still attach plenty of infelicity to the name.
First there’s Republican Sen. Katie Boyd Britt (Ala.), whose varyingly voluble State of the Union response humor columnist Alexandra Petri sent up in her own excellent impersonation: “I am delivering these remarks in a WAY that makes you think this isn’t ACTUALLY my kitchen and I’m not SUPPOSED to BE here, but no one has dared REMOVE me because I am SPEAKING in a TONE that makes the PROSPECT of interrupting me TOO FRIGHTENING!”
Karen Tumulty writes that the whole episode “says a lot about why the GOP struggles to connect with suburban women.” Have we really not moved past the ploy of sticking a female politician in her kitchen to talk about health care? Even when Republicans already risk being seen, Karen writes, as wanting to “send women backward in time”?
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Meanwhile, Rep. Katie Porter lost her bid in the open primary for California’s open Senate seat, falling short of Rep. Adam Schiff. Jen Rubin writes that the former whiteboard whiz’s whiff holds a lesson for Democrats: In this party, politics is a team sport, and public service is not a performance.
Chaser: Britt took criticism for implying in her speech that a decades-old sex-trafficking episode occurred under President Biden. Ruth Marcus shames her for trying to deflect that criticism by playing the gender card.
Smartest, fastest
- Leana Wen reviews a new landmark study that she says offers hope to people with long covid.
- A new authoritarian security law shows Hong Kong doubling down on repression, the Editorial Board writes.
- Despite Biden’s efforts, working-class voters still don’t trust Democrats, Eduardo Porter analyzes.
It’s a goodbye. It’s a haiku. It’s … The Bye-Ku.
Box of benefits
Insurer lowers its saw
Poof! Severed network
***
Have your own newsy haiku? Email it to me, along with any questions/comments/ambiguities. See you tomorrow!
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You’re reading the Today’s Opinions newsletter. Sign up to get it in your inbox.
In today’s edition:
Wanna see a trick? You’ve assembled a crack team of a primary care physician, orthopedist, gynecologist and physical therapist whom you like and trust. Then your insurer waves its wand and — presto, shortchange-o — they disappear from your network.
“One of the most unfair aspects of medical insurance, in a system that often seems designed for frustration, is this,” writes health journalist Elisabeth Rosenthal: “Patients can change insurance only during [very limited windows]. But insurers’ contracts with doctors, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies … can change abruptly at any time.”
Her op-ed is full of disconcerting stories of patients priced out of agreeable care situations not because they lost their insurance but because of “warfare,” Rosenthal writes, between providers and insurers. And this sort of dispute is increasingly common.
It’s an inconvenience at the best of times. But imagine you’re in the middle of, say, cancer treatment when your insurer pulls this sleight of hand. You’re no longer just the miffed audience member at the world’s worst magic show; you feel like the one trying to wriggle out of restraints. Rosenthal says there’s a simple way to help fix all this: require insurers to make contract changes only during the windows when customers can tinker, too.
What else is at risk of mysteriously vanishing? The Senate filibuster, writes Jason Willick: “Though neither party is advertising its intention to break the legislative filibuster, either one could try if it sweeps Congress and the White House.”
Jason writes that many of the guardrails for this … guardrail … are leaving the Senate — Mitch McConnell, Joe Manchin, Mitt Romney, Kyrsten Sinema. Other guardrails could pop up, of course, but there’s no guarantee.
The prospect worries Jason. “Divided government can be dysfunctional,” he says, but, in a Senate with no filibuster to temper majority rule, “the alternative might increasingly be a cycle of partisan excess.”
Chaser: Partisan “excess” is a stretch, when in effect the filibuster has paralyzed any partisan action at all. In 2019, Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) argued that abolishing the filibuster would finally produce outcomes that reflect the will of the voters.
From Polish President Andrzej Duda’s op-ed arguing that the decade-old expectation that NATO states spend at least 2 percent of their money on defense is no longer sufficient in a world threatened by Russia’s “imperialistic ambitions and aggressive revisionism.” This week in Washington, he will push to raise the pledge to 3 percent.
And Poland is in a position to push; it pours nearly 4 percent of its GDP into defense.
“A return to the status quo ante is not possible,” Duda writes, urging European partners to join him over the 3 percent threshold. “What the alliance needs today is unity, unity and more unity.”
Unfortunately, what Europe has at the moment is bickering, bickering and more bickering, Lee Hockstader reports from Paris. His column recounts the recent ways “German, French and British officials took turns skewering each other for ill-considered comments” regarding European defense.
The sniping over policy differences obscures the fact that these states are, for the most part, in the same boat. As Lee puts it, “In Europe’s most militarily formidable countries, the gaps are enormous between the peril they perceive and the preparations they are making.”
Chaser: Max Boot writes that Donald Trump — who might soon reclaim the biggest seat at NATO’s table — isn’t just pro-Russia; he’s also anti-Ukraine.
It’s not a great day to be a Katie.
Set aside the beleaguered Princess of Wales — more on that tomorrow — and America’s politics alone still attach plenty of infelicity to the name.
First there’s Republican Sen. Katie Boyd Britt (Ala.), whose varyingly voluble State of the Union response humor columnist Alexandra Petri sent up in her own excellent impersonation: “I am delivering these remarks in a WAY that makes you think this isn’t ACTUALLY my kitchen and I’m not SUPPOSED to BE here, but no one has dared REMOVE me because I am SPEAKING in a TONE that makes the PROSPECT of interrupting me TOO FRIGHTENING!”
Karen Tumulty writes that the whole episode “says a lot about why the GOP struggles to connect with suburban women.” Have we really not moved past the ploy of sticking a female politician in her kitchen to talk about health care? Even when Republicans already risk being seen, Karen writes, as wanting to “send women backward in time”?
Meanwhile, Rep. Katie Porter lost her bid in the open primary for California’s open Senate seat, falling short of Rep. Adam Schiff. Jen Rubin writes that the former whiteboard whiz’s whiff holds a lesson for Democrats: In this party, politics is a team sport, and public service is not a performance.
Chaser: Britt took criticism for implying in her speech that a decades-old sex-trafficking episode occurred under President Biden. Ruth Marcus shames her for trying to deflect that criticism by playing the gender card.
It’s a goodbye. It’s a haiku. It’s … The Bye-Ku.
Box of benefits
Insurer lowers its saw
Poof! Severed network
***
Have your own newsy haiku? Email it to me, along with any questions/comments/ambiguities. See you tomorrow!
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