http://www.texastribune.org/texas-r...texas-political-maps-dont-protect-minority-v/ Texas lawmakers didn’t comply with the Voting Rights Act when they drew new maps for congressional, state Senate and state House districts, a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., ruled Tuesday. “We conclude that Texas has failed to show that any of the redistricting plans merits preclearance,” the court said. Attorney General Greg Abbott immediately said — via Twitter — that the state will appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. The court wasn’t ruling on interim maps drawn by federal judges — the maps in use for the current election — but on those drawn by state lawmakers last year. Lawyers are still looking through the opinions for anything that might disrupt the current elections. “We conclude that Texas has not met its burden to show that the U.S. Congressional and State House Plans will not have a retrogressive effect, and that the U.S. Congressional and State Senate Plans were not enacted with discriminatory purpose,” the judges said in their opinion. “Accordingly, we deny Texas declaratory relief. Texas has failed to carry its burden that Plans C185, S148, and H283 do not have the purpose or effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race, color, or membership in a language minority group under section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.” That section of the voting law is designed to keep new maps from eroding the ability of minority voters to elect candidates of their choice. The court singled out problems in congressional districts 23 and 27 and in several state House districts.
The GOP Court should probably take care of that for the conservatives If they don't do so, it might affect their ability to maintain their voting block on the Court.
The insurance companies wanted the bill. It is their golden goose and last chance to makes trillions as middle man in a failing health care system. I am sure they got to him. Also Roberts has to maintain the guise of not being purely a judicial activist at times. If he does is 100% of the time even moderates will snap to it.
a single payer system without a corporate profit component would be cheaper and more efficient, it is proven to work and no one would stop anyone for paying more for more services if they choose
from the Transom, email newsletter: --- FEEDING THE HEALTH CARE BEHEMOTH: In the Wall Street Journal, a report from the other end of the monopolization of health care services—what happens when a hospital buys out your specialist. http://vlt.tc/fzm “After David Hubbard underwent a routine echocardiogram at his cardiologist's office last year, he was surprised to learn that the heart scan cost his insurer $1,605. That was more than four times the $373 it paid when the 61-year-old optometrist from Reno, Nev., had the same procedure at the same office just six months earlier. "Nothing had changed, it was the same equipment, the same room," said Dr. Hubbard, who has a high-deductible health plan and had to pay about $1,000 of the larger bill out of his own pocket. "I was very upset." But something had changed: his cardiologist's practice had been bought by Renown Health, a local hospital system. Dr. Hubbard was caught up in a structural shift that is sweeping through health care in the U.S.—hospitals are increasingly acquiring private physician practices. Hospitals say the acquisitions will make health care more efficient. But the phenomenon, in some cases, also is having another effect: higher prices. As physicians are subsumed into hospital systems, they can get paid for services at the systems' rates, which are typically more generous than what insurers pay independent doctors. What's more, some services that physicians previously performed at independent facilities, such as imaging scans, may start to be billed as hospital outpatient procedures, sometimes more than doubling the cost.” These cost increases should surprise no one, because they’re consistent with everything we see from those who believe in treating consumers—patients—as pieces of meat. http://vlt.tc/fqv It’s the logical outcome of Atul Gawande’s Cheesecake Factory approach, which is also, unfortunately, the end goal of the liberal wonkosphere: http://vlt.tc/fzl “The immediate danger of the Orszag-Gawande-Obama vision is that layer on layer of new regulation will lock in less-than-best practices. This makes the status quo worse, because too-big-to-fail oligopolists have less incentive to innovate to reduce costs and improve quality. The longer-run danger is that Mr. Orszag's cost board starts to decide what types of care "work" for society at large and thus what individual patients are allowed to receive. One way or another, health costs must come down. And if Mr. Ryan's market proposal is rejected, then government a la Orszag will do it by brute political force. A murderer's row of liberal health-care gurus—Zeke Emanuel, Neera Tanden, Don Berwick, David Cutler, Uwe Reinhardt, Steve Shortell, Mr. Orszag, many others—recently acknowledged as much in the New England Journal of Medicine. They conceded that "health costs remain a major challenge" despite ObamaCare. That would have been nice to know in, oh, 2009 or 2010.” Gawande’s fallacy is that he believes efficiency is the only answer to health care cost problems, creating massive behemoth systems which need to be fed. http://vlt.tc/71u Yet this ignores the truth about the health care marketplace: as long as government remains the primary payer, not the individual, health care will never look be as efficient as Wal-Mart or the Cheesecake Factory under such an approach. Instead, it will run into the limits of what the government will pay and beyond—forcing exactly the kinds of price controls we see in Massachusetts as a result of Romneycare’s unintended consequences. Back to the WSJ: “Anyhow, their big idea is the very old idea of price controls that are "binding on all payers and providers," much as post-RomneyCare Massachusetts is already doing. When that strategy fails as it always has, and the public denies further tax increases, the Orszag payment board will then start to ration or prohibit access to medical resources that it decides aren't worth the expense. These political choices will be unpopular and even deadly, which is why Mr. Orszag worked so hard to insulate his payment board from oversight or accountability.” And not just the bureaucrats—this approach will only further insulate the entire health care sector from economic realities. http://vlt.tc/fzn Doubling down on monopolization as the key to bending the cost curve is fool’s gold. It has not produced better outcomes in Britain, nor will it produce them here. Instead it will result inevitably in rationed care and drive hospital centers to take over as much of the marketplace as they can. The end result is a pay to play, crony capitalist health care system, where the only way to survive in the long term is to join the hospital system and become too big to fail. And you know how that works: the systems will survive, but only on the backs of the taxpayer. http://thetransom.org
So according to texxx logic, a federal appeals court just b****slapped Perry into next week. AMIRITE?
A basso thread about Texas voting districts turned into a healthcare thread in record time. More at 11.
Again... http://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/323522-federal-court-texas-house-districts-must-be-redrawn
Not enough districts drawn to contain majority black or hispanic voters, to ensure election of black or hispanic representatives? I guess Texas has a large and Southern enough delegation that they'll always be a suit magnet.
Congress drawing their own voting districts is a conflict of interest. Nobody ever asked me to write my own criteria for a job/promotion/raise. Let the courts draw the voting districts. End of story.
Yes. Hell, let the Supreme Court and the Circuit Courts get together and choose a panel, then leave them alone. Yes.
