A Mile Wide, An Inch Deep

This week we’re on red alert in response to reports that Republican leadership is gearing up for a vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and gut Medicaid the week of September 25 , with a sham hearing possible before then. Now is the time to call, write, and rally to urge the Senate to reject this new threat and support a bipartisan package instead. The bill, known as Graham-Cassidy-Heller-Johnson for its sponsors Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Dean Heller (R-NV), and Ron Johnson (R-WI), is being sold as a “compromise” and “non-partisan” solution—even though no Democrats support it. But not only is Graham-Cassidy not a compromise, it is the most radical proposal yet. And like the proposals that preceded it, the bill goes far beyond Republicans’ campaign pledge to repeal the ACA; it also attacks long-standing traditional Medicaid. Republicans only have two weeks to ram through repeal with just 50 senators and Vice President Mike Pence because on Sept...

Taking two full trash bags of supplies to the school on orientation day. The bags represented just part of each child's list. Every year our school supply list is 80% standard business supplies like copy paper, dry erase markers, paper towels, hand sanitizer, and one year, even toilet paper! There's no need to label most of the items we send because they won't belong to any individual child, but rather to the class or grade as a whole. These are the kinds of general operating supplies most employers are expected to simply provide. I've worked in for-profit, non-profit, public, and private sectors and I've never been asked to bring in my own copy paper, dry erase markers, or other basic business supplies. Maryland is the wealthiest state in the union (as measured by median household income, 3rd wealthiest by per capita income) so the only conclusion I can draw from these lists is that despite lofty rhetoric from politicians about children being the future...

Wondering what’s next after the Republican effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was dramatically stopped in its tracks last week ? This week has brought a new round of legislative threats and another promise from a petulant president to actively sabotage the law at the expense of millions of Americans who rely on it for their care. Radical bill from "moderate" senators This week, Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), and Dean Heller (R-NV) announced that they are working on yet another extreme GOP-only bill with the House Freedom Caucus to gut the ACA. The bill would repeal the ACA’s Medicaid expansion and its financial assistance to help low- and moderate-income households purchase private insurance. In their place, the bill would give states a block grant worth less than what the federal government would contribute under current law. Furthermore, the states that expanded Medicaid would be cut deeply while the 19 states that have refused to e...

My husband says I’m a contrarian who disagrees just to disagree. To which I say, “No, I’m not. You’re wrong!” A friend shared this blog column on Facebook and I basically disagreed with every word. First and foremost — and viscerally — I disagree with policing what other people post on Facebook and shaming them for failing to follow someone else’s arbitrary standard. It’s an authoritarian impulse that I understand — dear Lord if I could prevent all sports-related posts, I would! I would! — but let's call it what it is and not cloak it in some kind of moral high ground. We can have our personal pet peeves without dressing them up as proof of society's decline.   And to be clear, these are arbitrary standards we're talking about. I’ve written before about the social media conundrum that if you only post positive things about your life and happy-smiling pictures, you’re criticized for image-branding. But if you post honest comments about depression or divo...

I almost always enjoy finding out that someone reads my posts. We are social creatures and it's not enough to just call out into the darkness; part of the pleasure comes in knowing someone out there has understood and answered back. I write about my experiences with anxiety and mental health care -- including medication -- because I am living them. But also because I believe strongly that we can't de-stigmatize mental health issues if no one who has them is ever willing to out herself.  I write about my experiences as a parent -- and a child. I write about my experiences with race, gender, economic class, status, religion, hierarchy, and social norms because it is only through thinking and writing about the world that I ever understand even a small slice of it -- and my relationship to it. I write about politics and policy because these are the intellectual pursuits that fire me. If there's one moment to sum up my adult life it's of my 21-year-old self wandering...

“In writing this message, Jesse Christopherson displays just the kind of cronyism that has led to the developmental and racial segregation (gentrification) that he is actually promoting. … Perhaps it is his own inferiority or a sense of cronyism that has led him down the destructive and divisive tone that his endorsement of my opponent takes.” -- Charnette Robinson, candidate for Mount Rainier City Council 2015 writing to the Mount Rainier community listserv in response to this (pretty innocuous) endorsement of Tracy Loh, candidate for the same seat A previously-unforeseen downside of having my husband called a promoter of "racial segregation" on the community listserv is that it thoroughly enraged my very petite Indian American neighbor, a woman in her 60s who can nevertheless be absolutely terrifying (per her seasoned career as an educator) and who was extremely passionate this morning in Jesse’s defense.  Very, very early this morning. I shared her disgust and appreci...

For the first time in over a decade I am experiencing a federal election more like a member of the general public than a congressional staffer. Long-time friends of this page know that by now I should have been bombarding them with my (in)famously long posts on policy positions or political shenanigans. Instead I'm all carpenter bee photos and mental health introspection. Maybe I'm tapped out. By 2006, I was already a Hill staffer and Jesse too. We volunteered on Jim Webb's successful campaign to take down George "macacca" Allen. Then I flew to Utah for the final weeks of my then-boss's similarly successful reelection campaign. I hate retail politicking but we all sensed it was going to be a wave year and being so involved -- for my home state, no less! -- was exciting. With the door-knocking help of my kid brother, Democrats took back the U.S. Congress. In 2008, I was the financial services staffer working for my current boss, breathlessly listening on the ph...