WILL BLUE-COLLAR WHITES CHANGE THEIR MINDS ABOUT OBAMACARE?

TOP OF THE NEWS:

- Will Blue-Collar Whites Change Their Minds About Obamacare? (Atlantic) "In polling by the non-partisan Kaiser Family Foundation, as few as one in eight whites without a college degree have said they believe the law has helped their own families. Far more of those working-class whites have said they believe the law benefits the uninsured and the poor. Most blue-collar whites, in other words, have seen Obamacare less as a universal program, like Social Security or Medicare, that provides a benefit they consider earned, and more like food stamps or welfare that transfers their tax dollars to recipients they tend to consider undeserving. Many college-educated whites have also held that view, though by less emphatic margins. And yet, for all this skepticism, in practice millions of blue-collar whites have gained coverage under the law, particularly in states critical to the Republican electoral map. Using census data, the Urban Institute recently calculated that from 2010 through 2015, more non-college-educated whites gained coverage than college-educated whites and minorities combined in all five of the key Rustbelt states that flipped from Obama in 2012 to Trump in 2016: Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Whites without a college degree also represented a majority of those gaining coverage under the law in core Trump states like Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. That doesn’t mean all of the blue-collar whites covered under the law—or, for that matter, beneficiaries from any other demographic group—are satisfied with it. The principal complaint about the ACA from recipients has been that it costs too much, both in premiums and out-of-pocket costs. Yet the alternatives congressional Republicans have floated seem more likely to compound than resolve those concerns, particularly for blue-collar whites."

- With Obamacare, GOP faces the ‘Pottery Barn rule’: You break it, you own it (WaPo) "Emerging from their final huddle with President Obama, congressional Democrats said their plan is essentially to leave it to the GOP to replace Obamacare. And they’re getting an unintended assist from Republicans, who to date have no full plan, only a vague timeline and very few details on how they intend to do it. 'They’re going to own it and all the problems in the health-care system,' Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said at a news conference after a 90-minute meeting with the president in the Capitol basement on Wednesday. Republicans will discover quickly, Schumer said, that implementing their preferred market-based alternatives will be virtually impossible without a large source of revenue, which would probably require Democratic votes for approval. It is possible that, after several years of terribly explaining the health law to voters, Democrats are finally in position to make it a political success. 'It’s one thing to say to people this is what we can get,' Pelosi said. 'It’s another thing to say this is what will be taken away from you. And that is a different case, and that is a case that we will make.'"

- Republicans offer no plan to repeal Obamacare as more party members express concern (LA Times) "Neither President-elect Donald Trump nor Vice President-elect Mike Pence, who met with House and Senate Republicans at the Capitol, offered lawmakers details about their repeal plan — a centerpiece of their winning campaign — short of vague promises that Trump would take executive action after he assumes office in just over two weeks."

BUSINESS/INVESTING:

- How to Raise Money-Smart Kids (Kiplinger) "In other words, the financial actions our children observe—good or bad—could impact them for life. Further, what our kids see is a lot more important than what we say. For parents, this revelation may be both exciting and frightening. If we're able to show our kids positive money habits and skills early, the study shows, we may set them up for a lifetime of success. But if we don't teach our children early—or they pick up negative ideas about money elsewhere—it might be harder to teach financial literacy later down the line."

- 2016’s Winning Investors Talk About 2017, and Donald Trump (NYT)

NEWS:

- Taking Aim at Trump, Leaders Strongly Affirm Findings on Russian Hacking (NYT) "'There’s a difference between skepticism and disparagement,' James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, said at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee on the Russian hacks. He added that 'our assessment now is even more resolute' that the Russians carried out the attack on the election. The Senate hearing was the prelude to an extraordinary meeting scheduled for Friday, when Mr. Clapper and other intelligence chiefs will repeat for Mr. Trump the same detailed, highly classified briefing on the Russian attack that President Obama received on Thursday. In effect, they will be telling the president-elect that the spy agencies believe he won with an assist from President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia."

- Donald Trump’s Alarmingly Trumpian Transition (New Yorker) "If there were people expecting that Trump would use the lengthy interregnum between Election Day and Inauguration Day to offer reassurances about what lies ahead, he has gone out of his way to disabuse them. For the past two months, he has spent his time publicly congratulating himself on his victory (while greatly exaggerating its scale) and taunting those he defeated; putting together a Cabinet of conservative ideologues, billionaires, and generals; blithely dismissing calls for him to divest his business interests; and—this almost every day—running his mouth on Twitter. In short, it has been a distinctly Trumpian transition. Trump, then, is sui generis. He has no experience in elected office—in these demented times, that was part of his popular appeal. His reputation as a hugely successful businessman has little basis in fact, as does his claim of being worth ten billion dollars. Until he launched his Presidential campaign, in which he showed some genuine skill as a rabble-rouser, his talents had lain in attracting other people’s money, promoting himself in the media, and playing a role on reality television—the role of Donald Trump, the great dealmaker. Trump’s history of denigrating minorities, inciting racial fears, promoting birtherism, and boasting about sexually assaulting women surely doesn’t need recounting, but one lesser-known incident is perhaps worth recalling. In 2000, after some family members went to court and challenged his father’s will, Trump cut off health coverage to a nephew’s young son who was suffering from a chronic neurological disorder that caused violent seizures and brain damage. Asked by the Times why he took this action, he said, 'I was angry because they sued.'"

- What if Trump is playing Russia like he played the media? (WaPo)

POLITICS:

- How nostalgia for white Christian America drove so many Americans to vote for Trump (WaPo) "Seventy-four percent of white evangelicals believe American culture has mostly changed for the worse since the 1950s — more than any other group of Americans — compared with 56 percent of all whites, according to a 2016 survey by the Public Religion Research Institute. In sharp contrast, 62 percent of African Americans and 57 percent of Hispanic Americans think the culture has changed for the better, the survey said. With his promise to 'Make America Great Again,' Trump appealed directly to this sense of dispossession, and 81 percent of white evangelicals voted for him, according to exit polls."

SCIENCE:

- The Congressional Attack on Science (Ozy) "The representatives who use these subpoenas argue they help uphold the First Amendment and that taxpayer dollars are well spent. But those on the receiving end see it as ideologically driven harassment. The FOIA requests that Mann faced are still prevalent for fetal-tissue, climate and genetic-modification researchers. Lauren Kurtz of the CSLDF, which has helped represent more than 100 climate scientists in FOIA cases, says such requests don’t require motive or any legal standard, other than citizenship. “You can ask for whatever you want, and they can be quite burdensome,” she says. Granted, FOIA requests are useful for a wide array of investigations, but they are easily abused, offering private correspondence — wrested from context — that could provide the kind of specious evidence needed to justify a measure currently in vogue: subpoenas."

TECHNOLOGY:

- Cyberwar for Sale (NYT)

BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:

- How an Obsessive Movie-Goer Reinvented the Theater's Favorite Food (Entrepreneur) "'You know what we need? A lid.'"

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