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By Paul Meekin

One man can be a crucial ingredient on a team, but one man cannot make a team. Kareem Abdul Jabbar

Mark Cuban tends to be my kind of Billionaire. Hes a tech pioneer, sports fan, intelligent, has a jaw-line you can set you watch too, and tends to advocate for some of the libertarian agenda.

Also Shark Tank is pretty awesome.

But is Mark Cubana libertarian? Well, no. In recent comments made at a South By Southwest Festival Panel, Cuban stated hes a libertarian at heart, but believes some healthcare should be federally provided, and there are some protections the government should provide its citizens.

At heart Im a libertarian, he said. In 2015 he elaborated on the thought Id like to be libertarian, The Business Insider reported. When I think libertarian, its as small of a government as we can get, right now you just cut right through it and you make it [smaller] right now.

Thats not real. Theres got to be a process. Theres got to be a transition. As a country, we make decisions. We make decisions that were going to provide healthcare, right? We dont just let people die on the street. You can go into any hospital and they have to treat you.The Business Insiderreported.

He continued: You cant cure every ill with a government program. I literally would rather write a check: Takewhatever money is in a given department in the government, take 25% off the top, put it back in the taxpayers pockets, and then just give cash to people, right? Because itll be more effective in how its used and help the economy at the same time,

I can get behind that. I am of the mind that providing people healthcare, only to rip it away a few years later is cruel and unusual. But I also understand the Obamacare system is topsy turvey and unsustainable.

Based on his comments about healthcare, you might say Mark Cuban is a fauxlibertarian, and thats fine. I say hes an ally. He wants what libertarianswant, but has serious questions and serious concerns about how to get there. Concerns which should not be mocked, they shouldbe addressed.

Keep in mind it is the methodology of the regressive left to exclude and shame you if youre not lock-step with their platform.

I would hope Libertarians are a bit moreevolved, or open minded. Or at least happy to take the mans money if we get the right presidential candidate.The last thing libertariansneeds is an insular ideology. We should accept help and support from anywhere we can. Cuban disagrees with most libertarians on healthcare? Thats fine. Libertarians disagree with Bernie Sanders on everything, but I would hope wed be willing to work with him regarding lowering the cost of prescription medication.

Libertarians have their feet in two worlds and thus have a hard time making friends and an easier time making enemies. Ripping healthcare away from millions of Americans isnt a fun topic at lefty parties. The libertarian ideal of letting any two people get marriage benefits (or having them at all) probably isnt a fun discussion to have at CPAC.Hell get 7 libertarians in a room and ask them about abortion and see what happens.

My point is- just because someone isnt totally onboard with the beliefs of your party, doesnt make them a fake or a phony or somehow an enemy. Will Mark Cuban ever wear a taxation is theft t-shirt? Probably not.

Will Mark Cuban vote for a man or woman who wears one? Based on his history? Stranger things have happened.

cpacHealthcarelibertarianmark cubanObamacareSXSW

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In Support Of Mark Cuban's Libertarian Leanings. - The Libertarian Republic

The Republican House proposed healthcare legislationis a substantially more free-market approach to health care than exists in any industrialized nation. It would greatly reduce regulation of health care in America, and also considerably increase the choices that consumers would have in their health care.

Another way of putting this is: it would considerably decrease the requirements that are placed upon health care insurers and providers. It would be as close to extreme free-market health care as can be achieved except for a system in which anyone can legally sell anything and call it health insurance or call it medical care. In other words, it would be more like anarchy in these fields.

(3)PLAN PARTICIPATION.A State shall not restrict or otherwise limit the ability of a healthinsurance plan to participate in, and offer health insurance coverage through, the State Exchange, so long asthe health insurance issuers involved are duly licensed under State insurance laws applicable to all healthinsurance issuers in the State and otherwise comply with the requirements of this title.

(4)PREMIUMS.[That means that theres nothing there; that anything goes, as regardsPREMIUMS.]

(A)AMOUNT.A State shall not determine premium or cost sharing amounts for healthinsurance coverage offered through the State Exchange.

(B)COLLECTION METHOD.A State shall ensure the existence of an effective and efficientmethod for the collection of premiums for health insurance coverage offered through the StateExchange.

In other words: Whatever any state has duly licensed under State insurance laws applicable to all health insurance issuers and otherwise comply with the requirements of this title will be allowed to be sold in that state. This appears in TITLE IISTATE-BASED HEALTH CARE EXCHANGES of the bill. In that title, appears one major requirement:

(4)LIMITATION ON PRE-EXISTING CONDITION EXCLUSIONS.The State Exchange shall ensure thathealth insurance coverage offered through the Exchange meets the requirements of section 9801 of the InternalRevenue Code of 1986 in the same manner as if such coverage was a group health plan.

Section 9801 of the IRS Code is shownhere. Its section-title is 26 U.S. Code 9801 Increased portability throughlimitation on preexisting condition exclusions. That, in turn, is part of SUBTITLE K Group Health Plan Requirements ( 9801 to 9834). It places minimal requirements, in order for an insurance company to qualify to be taxed as supplying a Group Health Plan. Its a tax-requirement not a healthcare requirement.

In other words: the Republican bill adds nothing there, on top of what the IRS has already required since 1986. That means its bare-minimum regulation, very stripped-down, to totally a taxation-matter for insurance companies.

The degree of freedom that the Republican bill would provide to suppliers is enormous especially in states that already are anti-regulation. The only regulation in this matter, that goes beyond the U.S. tax code, would be whatever regulations the state itself imposes.

Consequently, there also would be vastly wider choices for consumers to make. However, in true free-market, or unregulated, fashion, suppliers would also be far freer than they now are, to hide, not disclose to consumers, details of insurance policies that would need to be considered by an individual consumer in order for that person to be able intelligently to compare competing policies except on the basis of cost (and a few other fundamentals).

In that situation, the fine print differences between competing insurance policies can be gamed by suppliers so as to achieve a competitive edge while at the same time reducing its own cost of providing a given policy. There would then be a great boost in business for services to consumers, that would for a fee professionally assist consumers to compare apples versus oranges versus grapes versus chicken versus beef etc., to use a foods-analogy. But these comparisons, if theyre to be done correctly, will need to be deeply informed about the relevant laws, and case-laws or courtroom outcomes (and thats lots more complex than is the basic literature on nutrition). Reading the fine print without knowing what itreallymeans, is virtually like not reading it at all.

Consequently, for example, Jon Reid at Morning Consult headlined on March 14th,GOP Bill Would Make Comparing HealthPlan Prices More Difficultand reported that,

The GOP bill, dubbed the American Health Care Act, would repeal the AffordableCare Actsactuarial value requirements, which let consumers know what percentageof health costs an insurer should cover. Under the ACA, individual health care plans generally fit into four tiers, starting at 60percent insurer coverage for bronze plans and going as high as 90 percent forplatinum plans. Repealing the AV requirements while retaining Obamacares essentialbenefits would make it harder for consumers to make educated decisions about whichhealth plan to pick.

The GOP bill consequently would intensify the game thats played between shoppers and sellers, between consumers and producers, between individuals and corporations, and so enable corporations that are selling insurance, to hide the details that they are planning to be the key drivers behind the profits theyll be earning from any given policy they market.

This is the libertarian objective: to increase choice and to decrease the consumers information, so as to maximize profits. There can be consumer-advisors for a fee, of course but the more choices and less standardization there is, the more that consumers (except the very rich who wont be so much bothered by hiring professional advisors in order to make a purchasing decision) will virtually be required to rely more on gut guesses and less on adequately informed calculations, when choosing what policy to buy.

And these are some of the reasons why the United States, which already has a more free-market healthcare system than any other OECD nation, has (by about a factor of two as compared to the average) by far the highest cost (in absolute terms and also as a percentage of GDP) health care, and also near the bottom health care in terms of life-expectancy. We already have the costliest and nearly the worst, but the Republican proposal would drive it even farther into that direction.

The fundamental marketing-idea for Republican policies is the free market, which is the idea that its good, and so the total lack of it, or communism, is bad; so that, the more free-market a system is, the better it necessarily will be.

However, this is like saying that if the lack of vitamins can kill a person, then the more vitamins a person takes, the healthier hell become. Its not really true. (If vitamins are good, a person still can kill himself by taking too much.) But the U.S. public believes (or feels) that its true, and thats why there are more Republicans than Democrats in Congress. But even Democrats in America are more libertarian than most Europeans are about health care. Its a matter of faith, and one might even say that the free market is the biggest faith there is in America.

Its so big that even some Democrats believe wholeheartedly in it: its the American way. And so challenging it has a stench to American nostrils. Whereas in Europe and many countries elsewhere, socialism is taken for granted as a democratic reality there, the U.S. isnt like that, and socialism here is automatically equated more with its dictatorial form, communism, like a holdover from the Cold War that just will not stop, because its a very profitable myth, for those who sell it. So those sellers keep selling it. But its false. Its taken only on faith. There is no other basis for it, than that. Libertarianism is faith-based. Pure and simple. But so was communism. Even a faith can end. But if its just replaced by another faith (not by truth), then thats like going from one frying-pan into another no real change at all.

But the Republican health plan would be a change, toward increased faith.

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, ofTheyre Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010,and ofCHRISTS VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

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The Republican Healthcare Bill Is Very Free-Market, Libertarian - Center for Research on Globalization

Ad will collapse in seconds CLOSE /health care March 15, 2017 03/15/2017 5:40 a.m. By Margaret Hartmann

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The Congressional Budget Offices estimate that 24 million people will lose health coverage by 2026 under the Republican health-care plan has kicked off a new phase in the effort to repeal and replace Obamacare: the hunt for a scapegoat. Vice-President Mike Pence and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price spent Tuesday on Capitol Hill trying to rally support for the health-care bill, but more and more Republicans are coming out against the current version of the legislation and pointing fingers at each other.

The most obvious target is the man behind the bill, which fails to achieve the Republicans contradictory goals for the health-care system. Breitbarts escalating attacks on House Speaker Paul Ryan have added fuel to suspicions that chief strategist Steve Bannon hasnt given up on his goal of ending Ryans career.

But as the Washington Post notes, Breitbart is far from the only conservative outlet bashing Ryancare. Newsmax chief executive Christopher Ruddy even published a piece urging President Trump to abandon the current bill on Tuesday (though he went with the less catchy moniker Ryan Plan II).

Trump figures things out pretty quickly, and I think hes figuring out this situation, how the House Republicans did him a disservice, said Ruddy, a longtime friend of Trumps. President Trump is a big-picture, pragmatic Republican, and unfortunately the Ryan Republican plan doesnt capture his worldview.

Even Republicans who dont consider Ryan the enemy have expressed alarm about the American Health Care Act. The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that at least a dozen Senate Republicans, including some who had previously kept a low profile in the health debate, have expressed serious doubts about the legislation making its way through the House. The report poured cold water on the theory that passage in the House would build enough momentum to get the AHCA though the Senate. Republicans cant afford to lose more than two Senate votes.

Since the senators objections range from concerns about depriving millions of affordable health insurance to claims that the bills tax credits amount to a Republican welfare entitlement, it seems modifying the legislation would only alienate another GOP faction.

According to the Huffington Post, Republicans may already be giving up on getting AHCA passed in the Senate.

The focus of House leadership has been more about getting a bill out of the House that is unchanged and in keeping with the Better Way plan, instead of truly seeing to potential roadblocks that exist in the House and Senate, said a Republican House member.

The Trump administration is said to be considering moving the bill to the right to appease the Freedom Caucus. The thinking is that moderates may be willing to get on board if they think AHCA will fail in the Senate anyway. Their vote would be merely another declaration of their opposition to Obamacare, and the Senate would be accused of dropping the ball.

One senior House aide was already calling out senators who claim to oppose the AHCA from the right, saying theyre actually opposed to the bill because Obamacare worked in their states.

The question people should be looking at is whether Republican senators like Tom Cotton and Rand Paul are actually interested in repealing Obamacare, or whether theyre sabotaging this to preserve the Medicaid expansion in their states, said the aide. These senators masquerading with conservative objections are too afraid to admit they want to keep Obamacare.

Of course, as President Trump has stated several times, the Republicans preferred Plan B is to keep blaming Senate Democrats. As the Huffington Post notes, theres a major flaw in that strategy:

In that scenario, voters fail to recognize that Republicans have the power to pass this bill without a single Democratic vote, and the ire over Obamacare doesnt dissipate even though voters have seen the GOP alternative.

Will voters remember that Trump promised an Obamacare replacement thats going to be better health care for more people at a lesser cost, then failed to put much energy into crafting that plan? Maybe, but blaming other people for his mistakes happens to be one of his strong suits.

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That would effectively double the number of U.S. troops in the country.

Auto execs asked Trump to review the rules and hes giving them what they want.

Seventeen House Republicans many from areas already suffering the consequences of climate change have signed onto a call for action.

Sometimes the world hears alarming things when America doesnt speak.

VIDEO: If he says great things about me, Im going to say great things about him.

There are no easy answers for the rise of right-wing populism. But attacking the GOPs grotesquely unpopular economic agenda may be the best we have.

The blizzard may have disappointed, but it was enough to handicap the MTA.

Wall Street sees Deputy Treasury Secretary nominee Jim Donovan as a check on Steve Bannons economic nationalism.

If Republicans are unable to resolve their problem over repealing and replacing Obamacare, their timetable for the rest of the year is in big trouble.

After the dismal CBO estimate, more Republicans are turning against AHCA and each other.

Senator Whitehouse says the FBI director suggested hed give them a clearer explanation of the bureaus activities by March 15.

Without the alternative minimum tax, which Trump wants to eliminate, he could have paid a rate of less than 4 percent.

Hey, America waited this long. Whats another 20 minutes?

His campaign is suffering, but, so far, he has refused to drop out of the race.

No flexibility for them. And they arent happy about it.

Republican Joe Barton of Texas made a request, and it was not honored.

The threat of a record-setting snowstorm became a slushy mess of about seven inches in Manhattan.

After helping make his state the target of boycotts over discrimination, Pat McCrory says hes facing a political purge.

In the 12 weeks after Trumps election, U.S. applications for Kiwi citizenship were up 70 percent.

They were rounded up after quite the chase, and a little help from the NYPD.

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Republicans Search for Someone to Blame for Trumpcare - New York Magazine

WASHINGTON U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan said on Wednesday the major elements of the Republican healthcare overhaul plan backed by President Donald Trump will remain intact despite conservative opposition to a bill whose prospects remain up in the air.

The White House and Ryan struggled to shore up support among Republican lawmakers for the legislation ahead of a key hurdle in the House Budget Committee on Thursday. Vice President Mike Pence was set to met with conservative House lawmakers and then the entire Republican House membership.

Ryan, who unveiled the legislation last week and is its main champion in Congress, said he was open to making "improvements and refinements," especially after an assessment on Monday by the Congressional Budget Office, which said millions of Americans would soon lose their health insurance under the plan.

Ryan indicated no appetite for wholesale changes, even as conservatives demanded major shifts relating to tax credits and the Medicaid health insurance program for the poor.

"Obviously, the major components are staying intact because this is something we wrote with President Trump. This is something we wrote with the Senate committees," Ryan told the Fox Business Network.

Senate Republicans voiced rising unease.

"As written, the House bill would not pass the Senate. But I believe we can fix it," Texas Senator Ted Cruz, a prominent conservative critic of the legislation, told reporters.

"It is mortally wounded," Republican Senator Lindsey Graham added on NBC's "Today" show, saying the bill was not good right now and that his party needed to "slow down" to get it right.

Ryan's comments follow Trump's promise on Monday of "a big, fat, beautiful negotiation" over the plan, the first major legislative initiative of his presidency.

Republicans control both Congress and the White House for the first time in a decade. But the bill, the Republicans' first major piece of legislation under Trump, remains in peril.

Democrats are unified against it, major medical providers have condemned it and conservatives oppose key elements.

The legislation guts key provisions of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, Democratic former President Barack Obama's signature legislative achievement popularly known as Obamacare. Obamacare enabled about 20 million previously uninsured Americans to obtain medical insurance.

Many conservatives call parts of the measure too similar to the law it is supposed to replace, want a quicker end to Obamacare's expansion of the Medicaid insurance program for the poor, and call the plan's age-based tax credits to help people buy private insurance on the open market an unwise new government entitlement.

Two House committees last week approved the bill's provisions with no changes, and the Budget Committee on Thursday will try to unify the plan into a single bill that would be sent to the House floor. Republicans cannot afford to lose more than three from their ranks on the committee for the measure to pass. Three committee Republicans are members of the hardline conservative House Freedom Caucus.

'LEGISLATIVE QUICKSAND'

Representative John Yarmuth, the committee's top Democrat, said the legislation "is in legislative quicksand."

"It is sinking of its own weight, and every time the Republicans try to move one way or another, it is sinking faster," Yarmuth said.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released data showing that enrollment in the individual insurance plans created under Obamacare have declined to 12.2 million Americans.

The CBO, a nonpartisan congressional agency, forecast on Monday that the Republican plan would increase the number of Americans without health insurance by 24 million by 2026, while cutting $337 billion off federal budget deficits over the same period.

As of the end of January, enrollment in individual insurance plans created under Obamacare was down by about 500,000 people from 2016, it said. It is about 1.6 million people short of Obama's goal for 2017 sign-ups, the government said.

The data included people who selected or were automatically enrolled in an insurance plan between Nov. 1 last year and Jan. 31 either through the federal HealthCare.gov website or one of the state-based insurance exchanges. About one-third of the enrollees were new to the market.

Shares of hospitals traded broadly higher on Wednesday, with Community Health Systems rising 2.2 percent. Health insurer shares also gained, with Anthem up 2.8 percent after the insurer also backed its full-year profit forecast. After the release of the enrollment data, Leerink Partners analyst Ana Gupte said in a research note that: "While attrition is likely through the course of the year, the final enrollment points to a stable volume and bad debt outlook at least in 2017."

(Additional reporting by David Morgan, Lewis Krauskopf, Caroline Humer; Writing by Will Dunham; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Alistair Bell)

WASHINGTON A key Republican congressman said on Wednesday he has seen no evidence that the Obama administration wiretapped Trump Tower during the 2016 presidential campaign, adding pressure to FBI Director James Comey to provide evidence supporting or debunking Republican President Donald Trump's claim.

WASHINGTON Leaders of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee said on Wednesday they do not believe Trump Tower was tapped during the 2016 presidential campaign and that FBI and NSA directors will testify at a hearing next week about that claim and any Russian meddling in the U.S. election.

WASHINGTON The U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to confirm former Republican senator Dan Coats to be President Donald Trump's director of national intelligence and to approve Army Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster's transfer to become his national security adviser.

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Ryan foresees no major changes in Republican healthcare plan - Reuters

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 15, 2017, 10:05 A.M.

Seventeen conservative Republican members of Congress 10 of them in their first or second terms are bucking longtime party positions and the new occupant of the White House. They announced on Wednesday that theyre supporting a clear statement about the risks associated with climate change, as well as principles for how best to fight it.

Called the Republican Climate Resolution by supporters, the statement by House members takes about 450 words to mention conservative thought on environmentalism, support for climate science, feared impacts, and a call for economically viable policy. They pledge in general terms to support study and mitigation measures, using our tradition of American ingenuity, innovation, and exceptionalism.

Its essentially the same thing that was introduced in September 2015 by then-Rep. Chris Gibson of New York. Whats changed since then is that almost 200 nations agreed to work to bring climate change under control while America elected a Republican president Donald Trump, who seems determined not to and the challenge itself grows continuously worse.

With 17 co-sponsors, the resolution is oceans away from the number of votes it needs to pass the Republican-controlled House. But Republican climate bills are noteworthy not because one is likely to pass anytime soon, but because massive external forces markets, other governments, and climate change itself may eventually force it into the foreground.

The resolution is spearheaded by three Republican members of Congress: Elise Stefanik of New York, Carlos Curbelo of Florida, and Ryan Costello of Pennsylvania.

The bills co-sponsors hail from parts of the country on the front lines of climate change; three represent southern Florida. Others comes from northern Nevada and central Utah, where mountain snowpack has declined in recent decades. And the district of Rep. Mark Sanford, in eastern South Carolina, is seeing the rising sea level rise slowly eat away at its coastline.

Our Founding Fathers set up a political system that was to be reason-based, Sanford said on Tuesday. They didnt believe in alternative facts.

Curbelo represents Monroe County, which includes the Florida Keys, and part of Miami-Dade County. A leader in shaping the new resolution, hes also co-founder of the House Climate Solutions Caucus, a bipartisan group. The caucus, which has new members admitted in pairs, one Republican and one Democrat, was set up to explore climate policy. Eleven of its 13 Republican members are co-sponsors of the new resolution (six representatives are co-sponsors but do not belong to the caucus, according to a roster maintained by the nonprofit Citizens Climate Lobby).

Curbelo said in a conference call that the most critical participants in climate discussions-including major oil companies-are all moving in the right direction.

Congress, specifically the House Republican Conference, has to catch up to all of them, Curbelo said. Thats what were trying to do here.

The bill is this months contribution to Washingtons constant climate background hum. It follows Februarys splashy carbon tax-and-rebate announcement, developed by a group called Climate Leadership Council and endorsed by three former Republican U.S. Treasury secretaries. That initiative, like todays, is premised on the idea that, as CLC founder Ted Halstead, put it, There is no issue in America today where there is a bigger gap between the GOP base and the GOP leadership.

Sanford, who served as South Carolinas governor from 2003 to 2011, suggested that the future of climate resolutions or policies is up to voters. Theres been a level of energy that Ive never seen before in my time in politics, he said.

If that energy broadens beyond the dismantling of the Affordable Care Act, issues such as climate change might rise to greater prominence. In the meantime, Sanford said theres enough science and enough resonant anecdotal evidence. I think its dangerous, he said.

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17 Republicans break ranks, pledging to fight climate change - The Spokesman-Review