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Medicare Spent an Average of 27% More on People Who Switched from Medicare Advantage to Traditional Medicare Compared to Those Who Were Only in Traditional Medicare Dec 06, 2024
At the press conference in Riyadh at the conclusion of their four and a half hour talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and with Presidential Foreign Policy advisor Yuri Ushakov, Rubio, Waltz and Witkoff spoke very well. They were very diplomatic, very much in control of the discourse with aggressive, unfriendly journalists from the press. They showed themselves to be loyal, shall we say deferential to the President whose will they were carrying out. They also appeared to be fully up to the task.
From what the American negotiators said and to what Lavrov added in his own remarks to Russian journalists when the talks were over, we understand that the first issue that they addressed was to restore normal staffing and operating procedures at the respective diplomatic missions in Washington and Moscow which had been cut to nearly zero under the Biden administration. This begins with the appointment and confirmation of ambassadors on each side. This is a precondition for successful work to prepare a summit of the national leaders that will address the many separate issues of common interest including peace in Ukraine.
The isolation of Russia, the arms’ distance approach of dealing with a pariah state: that is all finished, kaput.
Evidently the repair work on state-to-state relations will proceed in parallel and not be held up by talks on ending the war, which is now acknowledged as something that will take some time. The U.S. side recognizes that a permanent and broad relationship with Russia is essential to deal with global issues of interest to both nations.
This will bring the relationship to the third phase of talks: about ‘geopolitical’ issues. Here we may expect the U.S. to try to drive a wedge between Russia and China, and to try to agree on what role BRICS will have in the coming multipolar world while not fundamentally threatening U.S. interests.
The cherry on the cake was the press conference later yesterday that Donald Trump held at Mar a Lago. In answer to reporters’ questions on why Zelensky was excluded from the talks, he said that Zelensky had been at the table for three years, with no positive results. As even today’s Financial Times recognizes in its article on the press conference, Trump was wholly dismissive of Zelensky and clearly wants to see him gone, removed by elections that the U.S. wants to be held within the context of the coming peace settlement. Trump remarked that Zelensky’s popularity rating in Ukraine has fallen to 4%. Compare that to the 52% support which the FT mentions with reference to polls by a sociological institute in Kiev.
The negotiating methods that Trump used from inauguration day to present are a perfect example of the alternating feint to the right, feint to the left methods that Mikhail Gorbachev used from early in his presidency to keep his fellow members of the collective Soviet leadership submissive. This is what the panelists in Solovyov’s show understood from their close experience with this at home.
It is high time for Americans and Europeans now to appreciate these consummate political skills within Team Trump, and to wish him well.
Those in the alternative media, just like those in mainstream who try to kick the tires, saying that Trump is motivated by narrow financial interests or other personal considerations that come from his vanity are being small-minded and are intentionally missing the big picture.
Russians comparing Trump to Gorbachev who oversaw a decline in the Soviet Union. Warsaw Pact Europe was a huge albatross around the Soviet Union with their demands for subsidized energy and trade. The US seems to be looking to force the EU to stand on its own while recognizing their economies are in relative decline to the rest of the world.
Medicare Advantage is highly profitable, with gross margins of $2000 per patient, 2-3 times higher than other health insurance sectors. Year after year.
The profitability derives from overcharging, via inflated diagnostic coding and risk selection, among other tactics. The overcharge exceeds $100 billion per year.
Talk about a head fake. After a surge in homebuilding in the final weeks of 2024, new data today shows a sharp pullback in activity.
Why it matters: Few sectors capture the story of the economy in recent years better than housing — Americans' frustration with high prices, elevated borrowing costs, CEO uncertainty, and a supply-demand mismatch (for goods and workers).
Two new economic factors could be added to that list of long-running housing issues: President Trump's trade war and deportation policies.
"ncertainty over the scale and scope of tariffs has builders further concerned about costs," Robert Dietz, chief economist at the National Association of Homebuilders, said Tuesday alongside an index that showed dampened industry sentiment.
The intrigue: High housing costs — made worse by an upswing in mortgage rates — are keeping some would-be buyers sidelined. Trump's policies could have more inflationary consequences than not.
Homebuilders rely heavily on immigrant workers, who could be difficult to find with a crackdown on immigration (though at least one top Fed official has pointed to immigration contributing to higher rents).
Data: Freddie Mac; Chart: Axios Visuals The new data crushes any supply-side optimism from late last year.
The pace of new home construction nationwide plunged by 10% last month, including a slowdown in single-family home construction (-8%) and apartment buildings (-11%), relative to December.
Bad weather held down construction in January, while the strong pace of construction in the prior two months was a bounce back from a hurricane-related slowdown.
Zoom in: Breaking ground on new homes is a leading indicator of supply — a positive development for prospective homebuyers facing a years-long affordability crisis driven by a shortage of homes.
"The overall housing market remains more than 3 million units short," RSM economist Joseph Brusuelas wrote in a recent client note.
New data from US space agency believes that the 2024 YR4 asteroid now has over a 3 per cent chance of hitting the planet in 2032, making it the highest-threat asteroid ever detected.
NASA has released new data that suggests that the 2024 YR4 asteroid would pose a risk to some of the most densely populated regions in the world if it were to hit Earth.
2024 YR4 could likely hit somewhere along a "risk corridor" which NASA has identified as stretching across the eastern Pacific Ocean, northern South America, the Atlantic Ocean, African, the Arabian Sea, and South Asia.
Cities on this trajectory include Bogota in Colombia, whose metropolitan area is home to over 11.6 million people, the Mumbai metropolitan area in India which has a population of 18.4 million and Dhaka in Bangladesh, home to over 23.9 million
Pretty obvious that DOGE's SS spreadsheet is a sham. The number of people actually collecting Social Security is far less than the total number of people in the rows for ages 60-99. In all likelihood, it's due to immigrants and stay-at-home wives who've failed to accumulate enough credits to collect benefits. Social Security pays based on when the Date of Birth occurred during the month. In some case, the beneficiary dies later in the month and has already received a payment. That payment is withdrawn from the bank by Treasury automatically when the death records are updated. It doesn't take more than a month. Some of these improper payments have already been clawed back by the system.
Other people in the spreadsheet may be entitled to receive Survivor's Benefits when their spouse dies. Their Date of Death is not relevant since it goes to the estate if the intended recipient has deceased.
Trump’s Kennedy Center Cancels Pride Concert - A Peacock Among Pigeons That Would Have Featured Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington
The Kennedy Center canceled a concert planned for May 21 that was to feature the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, DC, performing alongside the National Symphony Orchestra. The two groups were planning to collaborate on a piece called “A Peacock Among Pigeons,” with GMCW serving as the orchestra’s guest chorus. No explanation was given.
The Kennedy Center has seen a raft of cancellations since President Trump took over the arts center last week and installed his loyalist Ric Grenell as its interim president and himself as chairman of the board. Trump had complained about drag shows at the complex (which accounted for a fraction of its programming), but as the Wall Street Journal reported recently, Trump told his aides he “ never felt at home at the performing arts center.” Grenell has begun to fire employees at the center, the Journal reports, and it says that Trump hopes to reconfigure the Kennedy Center Honors to reflect his tastes, perhaps honoring Sylvester Stallone and Lee Greenwood.
