Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Tuesday, September 29, 2009

SCHIP and the Public Option

By Dave Anderson:


I took my daughter to the doctor's yesterday for a well-baby visit. She is doing awesome, and actually made the pediatrician smile as she was laughing and giggling and trying to grab the tongue depressor sticking out of his front pocket the entire examination. Normally the doctor has to handle very upset, uncomfortable and freaked-out babies, so a giggling baby was a treat for him. As I was leaving the office, I grabbed a pamphlet on S-CHIP and a sticker for my daughter.


In Pennsylvania, S-CHIP is pretty damn good. There are three different price points for SCHIP; free, 65% subsidized and full-price. Almost all children are eligible for CHIP. The full-price CHIP must cover the full costs of services. According to the state website, the full cost is $195 per month with $15 to $25 co-pays for office visits and $10 to $18 dollar prescription drug co-pays. That is pretty damn good insurance; it is better than the COBRA insurance that I'll be carrying for my daughter in 2010 at 60% of the monthly marginal total cost.


S-CHIP is a public option for children. The state and the federal government set-up the requirements for a plan and put it out to private insurers to administer. And it works damn well because it provides good coverage with reasonable prices, even excluding the subsidies. With the subsidies, it is golden.


As Steve noted yesterday, five Democrats voted against an aggressive public option that is tied to Medicare rates plus a small sweetner. These five were Sen. Baucus, Conrad, Lincoln, Carper and Nelson of Florida. Three of these five, Baucus, Conrad and Lincoln also voted against the Schumer public-option amendment which would be a public option that is not tied to Medicare rates.


All five of those Democratic Senators voted for cloture on the last SCHIP expansion. All five voted for final passage as well.


The fear seems to be that any public option will create the same option space as SCHIP does --- good insurance, at reasonable prices and minimal hassle that might offer some real competition to private insurers and large donors. Oh no, can't have that.



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