caulfield12

Jinxed Kopech...

Putnam hasn't been able to stay healthy, and he doesn't have dominant stuff (on the radar gun), so those two factors weigh down his value, along with being RH. Petricka was just another guy. Not being able to dump Shields' contract off on someone hurts mostly in a financial sense. Otoh, Holland and Miguel Gonzalez are intriguing options, and obviously David Robertson. Hopefully Frazier can get his average back in the 240's or 250's, he could bring a nice piece back depending on other 3B on the market, Cabrera will end up mostly a salary dump. In the end, they really need Rodon to come out of this healthy by the time 2019 rolls around, whatever's wrong with him. Anderson needs to look much more dangerous than his bottom 5% OPS would indicate. As for the next few months, even if Jones can't come back, they've still got Swarzak and Kahnle that are increasingly intriguing, not to mention Burdi lurking in AAA. It's not like they have to worry so much about service time with him either, White Sox closers never make it into arbritration years.

Greg, nothing is for FREE. We'd have to pay higher taxes by 10-15%, but the amount of waste would go WAY down. Insurance companies wouldn't be able to extort 15-35% profit margins, and the government would be able to negotiate drug prices down because how much more leverage can you have than representing the financial interests of hundreds of millions of Americans in one pool? In that sense, the argument could be made that the tax increase would be more than offset by the corresponding benefit in not spending much money at all on healthcare insurance (maybe some would buy supplemental policies), rather than the relatively low co-pays for prescription medicine, for example.

70% might identify as Christians (majority), but the percentage of regularly attending churchgoers has gone from around 54% to 43% in the last decade. Their influence is waning, just like labor unions on the Democratic side.

Courtney Hawkins is nearing the end... Kopech 4/2/0/1/5 with 2.05 ERA, chugging along.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/04/opinions/hea...nion/index.html Democrats have opportunity to use "Medicare for all" as the litmus test for candidates and a battering ram against GOP in 2018 and 2020...this vote actually brings America the closest it has eer been to a single payer system instead of "trusting" free market insurance and drug companies to reign in costs. Bernie Sanders just got a huge boost again.

Funny, May got a hit in his first at-bat. En fuego.

Just be happy they didn't go to tOSU, lol.

Just noticed Bregman doesn't have a homer yet. Swanson garbage. Benintendi (unavailable), Judge and Turner (unavailable) were the only difference makers, it seems.

That Davidson homer was Judge-like into the fountain. He might have longest average homer (those with 5+) in the majors.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ May 4, 2017 -> 02:13 PM) A whole lot of people on the left haven't been happy with many aspects of Obama's administration. Republicans will make those things worse. That's pretty straight forward. So apparently letting all the Big Banks and auto makers go bankrupt would have been preferable, lol. Mitt Romney stuff there. And Bush/Paulson enacted the framework for the bailouts (like Washington Mutual getting picked up for a pittance by his buddies) before he left office. Obama should have undone all of that, TARP too, thrown America into complete and utter chaos and 20-25% unemployment. Revisionism.

I'm not so sure we should be praising Wal-Mart insurance...assuming they can actually earn enough hours to be eligible. It's pretty common to be suppressed at 28-33 hours, leaving them out in the cold to control rising costs and competition from Amazon. https://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman/20...e/#64455e753e83

Guess we need to trade Holland now, before he gets hurt again...

Aetna CEO Bertolini says Obamacare's 'biggest problem' is that it's not fully funded by government https://finance.yahoo.com/news/aetna-ceo-be...-204414622.html "I don't think it's a matter of raising premiums on people with pre-existing conditions," said Bertolini, whose company went from selling Obamacare plans in 15 states last year to selling them in just four this year after citing big financial losses on individual health plans. "I think people with pre-existing conditions, people under the age of 26, should get insurance. Anybody who applies should get insurance," he said. "I think the biggest program with the [Affordable Care Act] is how it is funded," Bertolini said. "If it were funded correctly, all these people could get coverage." "If it's just funded on the premium basis without reinsurance, if cost-sharing reductions don't show up after September, none of it works," he said. Most Obamacare customers receive subsidies that lower the cost, often sharply, of their monthly premiums below retail prices, because they have low or moderate incomes. Reinsurance is the subsidization by the government of insurers who find themselves covering customers with high health costs. Obamacare's reinsurance program ran only from 2014 through 2016, and the Republican-controlled Congress has barred the government from paying insurers the entire amount they are owed for another Obamacare cost-reduction program, known as risk corridors.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ May 4, 2017 -> 09:09 AM) Kansas is definitely going to opt out. They are going to be left in the lurch. http://cjonline.com/news/state-government/...k-veto-medicaid Tried to override Brownback, 81-44 vote, needed 3 more for 2/3rd's. Sucks for Kansans.

As Republicans rush to vote on their latest ObamaCare repeal-and-replace plan, it appears to still include a waiver exempting members of Congress and their staffs from losing the healthcare bill's popular provisions. House GOP leaders worked Wednesday night to fast-track consideration of their ObamaCare replacement bill without posting the bill text and without a Congressional Budget Office analysis detailing the effects of the latest changes to the legislation. http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/331867-...new-legislation http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/331842-...bamacare-repeal In Senate, GOP pessimism over Obamacare repeal (1/5 odds of passage) GOP senators think it’s unlikely the compromise struck between members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus and moderate Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-N.J.), which allows states to seek a waiver for certain ObamaCare insurance regulations, will pass muster with the Senate parliamentarian. Republicans are using special rules known as budget reconciliation to avoid a Democratic filibuster on an ObamaCare replacement. This would allow them to pass the legislation with 51 votes. The problem is that Senate Democrats are expected to argue that various parts of the House bill will not meet Senate rules governing what can be included in reconciliation. Democrats will argue that those provisions, such as a rule allowing states to seek a waiver for a regulation that requires insurers to offer certain minimum benefits, do not have a straightforward connection to spending, taxes or the deficit — something required under reconciliation. Cornyn said the House bill — if it passes — will have to be revised. “I suspect the bill the House passes will be modified if for no other reason that the reconciliation rules would require it,” he said. “My goal would be if they pass a bill, which I hope they will, it will come over here and we’ll do our best work to cobble together 51 votes.” Another GOP lawmakers said the House bill will have to be changed “a lot.” Some senators argue the push in the House could set up the Senate for blame. “All they care about is getting it out of the House so they can say that the Senate couldn’t pass healthcare reform,” said a second GOP senator who requested anonymity.

So if you were raped, your health insurance costs will now go up as a pre-existing condition. That's absolutely insane.

Amount of money set aside to subsidize those with pre-existing conditions per person: $1700 over the course of the next five years $340 per year Under $30 per month Only $192 billion dollars short over the next decade....

Well, nobody said he's a GREAT player. The first half of the 2014, sure, he looked like he had that ability. The league adjusted, mostly by busting him inside on the hands, keeping him off balance and getting to swing at offspeed stuff off the plate. He's gone from superstar rookie to "earning" his contract (barely) status, to where you'd be very hard pressed to get one Top 75-125 prospect for him in trade. We should be used to it as Sox fans this decade. First, Carlos Quentin in 2008, almost becoming MVP until breaking his hamate in anger late in the season. Gordon Beckham, 2009....Dayan Viciedo, 2012, now Tim Anderson is starting off really slow in his sophomore campaign. It would be MORE shocking if someone had sustained, All-Star level success for a 5+ year period. Moncada's the best shot at that actually happening. Maybe Collins would be second, if he sticks at catcher, but then he's still got the likes of Salvy Perez and Gary Sanchez to overcome.

Twins hold on for 7-4 win, nobody notices, since it's only the A's.

QUOTE (chw42 @ May 3, 2017 -> 04:43 PM) I guess Greg's never been asked to leave this country because of his religion. Nor have neo-nazis on the internet (and real life) blamed his entire religion for everything wrong in the world. But people making fun of his religion? That s***'s persecution. Greg, the Pope has actually reversed a lot of the anti-Catholic damage done around the world in the last 20-30 years. But there's no way you come back from the priest sexual abuse scandal/epidemic without becoming a target of jokes and derision. Even lifetime Catholics are aghast that so many of their contributions that they thought were going for ministering to the poor and sick are actually being used for lawyers' fees and the settling of thousands of lawsuits. I say this as someone who was an altar boy (never saw abuse, but that doesn't mean it wasn't happening) and someone who was forced to go to Sunday mass every weekend until I reached college...and would surely have gone to a Catholic high school were it the 50's or 60's instead of the 1980's.

Well, at least the Royals can "believe" (Nosotros Creemos, to quote Tony Pena) they're still in the hunt and not trade half their team. So there's that. I think I read somewhere where no team that had lost 9 consecutive games in the first month of the season ever made it to the playoffs, except for the 2001 Oakland A's, who had a crazy second half that year.

QUOTE (flavum @ May 3, 2017 -> 08:35 PM) Looks like the Twins will be in 1st after tonight. If they lose tomorrow, the Twins, Sox, Indians, and Tigers will all have started the season 14-12. Indians are also 3 games over .500. Or you mean by percentage points? The crazy thing about the Twins is that Byron Buxton was expected to finally arrive this year, and he and Dansby Swanson are headed to the minors at the rate they're going.

Well, Heads might be right. With Biden as president, you would be able to protect Obamacare for four more years...but that would inevitably lead to another set of losses in the 2018 midterms, with the perpetual campaign against Obama's signature act. You certainly wouldn't have an imbalanced tax "reform" plan. The GOP would have probably fared much better in terms of the budget continuing resolution/government shutdown threat. I do think people on both sides of the aisle are much more politically engaged than ever before. More polarized sure...but maybe that's exactly what the country needs, instead of punting all the big problems down the future (critics would argue those budgets and tax reform plans are doing exactly that, growing the debt more and not addressing the long-term issues with Social Security and Medicare funding mechanisms). There's also no doubt that Biden would have had little more luck than the typical Democrat in terms of being able to control profits of insurance companies OR lowering drug costs.

Abreu's probably not going to win for those Pick To Clickers unless he hits a solo homer for a 1-0 victory. 4 LOB so far...nobody else has more than 1. Btw, Aaron Judge is coming up soon for those bored to death.