Health care, insurance, and education are some of the concerns of the members of the Self-Employed Association as the President-elect Donald John Trump will be inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States on January 20 at 11:30 am EST.

Washington, DC (PRWEB) January 20, 2017

The Self-Employed Association (http://self-employed-association.org/personal-benefits/) is a non-partisan group of self-employed people banding together to get the buying power of a big business. With the promise of lower regulations on the horizon, self-employed businesses are showing a cautious optimism. Skyrocketing health insurance and health care costs are major concerns for many of the association's members, and many hope that the Trump presidency will address the issue quickly. Price transparency for different procedures, doctors, and hospitals is also on the wish list of the American small business. Some action to lower the rising cost of college education, and to improve low-cost on-line education systems will really help self-employed America.

"The Self Employed Association is helping American micro-businesses by finding their most pressing needs, and becoming their voice in the Capitol Hill," according to Chris Adams, co-founder of the association and US navy combat veteran.

About the Self Employed Association:
If you are self-employed or thinking about becoming self-employed, you are not alone. Membership to the Self-Employed Association is free, and the benefits (http://self-employed-association.org/business/) are priceless. Self-employed people like us encounter certain obstacles every day, and it can be hard to work through them by ourselves. This is a platform where you can discuss your challenges and learn from others. Big and medium size businesses enjoy lower cost because of their buying power. By banding together as individual members of a larger organization, we can get access to these deals. Join us and learn how you can get up to a 4% discount from Walmart, Macy’s, Dell, and more. Membership also offers services that can better your health, including 24/7 doctor access, annual comprehensive wellness testing, data-driven healing (http://www.teddycanheal.com), discounts on MRIs and X-rays, and over 500 options for lab tests. Last but not least, if your child is in need of math or science enrichment, we can connect you to top experts in those fields who would be happy to help. Reported by PRWeb 21 hours ago.

Reported by SeekingAlpha 18 hours ago.

Writing on Inauguration Day, I find it difficult to divert my attention from what is starting and all that is ending, or at risk of it. Since it’s generally ill advised to write about one thing while thinking about another, I feel compelled to choose a topic in that domain. The assault on the Affordable Care Act, or “Obamacare,” is the obvious choice.

The one problem for me and you alike in this area is the volume of ink (or number of electrons) already directed at it. Are there novel things left to say?

I believe there are, and surprisingly perhaps, at a very fundamental level. The contingent particulars ― the number of lives affected, the dollars in play ― have certainly had ample attention. It’s the first principle issue that has received the least. Namely: is it at all true that some version of “American values” and our free-market inclinations in any way justify the Republican opposition to the ACA? 

The answer is a surprisingly easy and obvious “no,” and there’s a good chance the decisive evidence of that is no further away than your garage. The evidence is your car.

Most of us drive. To do so on public roads requires that we have auto insurance. It’s not optional. If you drive on public roads without auto insurance, you face fines and penalties, and the potential loss of your license. Auto insurance is mandated by every state government.

Where’s the hue and cry? Isn’t this government intrusion un-American? Shouldn’t we be scrambling to dismantle the auto insurance bureaucracy, rather than accepting the unending parade of commercials for Geico, and Liberty Mutual, and eSurance, and the rest?

We all seem to accept that unless use of our cars is limited to the driveway on Sundays, insurance for all makes good sense. Why? Because your use of a car on a public roadway might affect me. If you are both poor and a bad driver, does that mean I should get stuck with the costs of a crash you cause? We all seem inclined to say: no. You should have insurance to cover the costs of any mayhem you might impose on the rest of us- and vice versa, of course. 

In other words, in the area of auto insurance we seem inclined to accept the fundamental role of government in creating fairness, a level playing field, and common rules. We also accept that in this context, free market forces may yet prevail. That they do is just what those competing advertisements for this insurance company versus that tell us. Government establishes the floor for us all, free market forces compete to raise the ceiling.

Health insurance is, or at least should be, viewed in exactly the same way. For one thing, until or unless we develop cars that are both driver-less and passenger-less, the movement of cars along public roads will involve the movement of human bodies, too. How bizarre to require insurance only for the less expensive and eminently more replaceable of the two.

Some form of universal health insurance is the norm throughout the developed countries of the world for good reason. Any alternative is a demonstrably bad idea. We pay for that bad idea in the U.S. in every currency that matters: the needless loss of life from years, the needless loss of years from life, and an absurd number of dollars allocated to medial care producing relatively bad outcomes.

That the ACA is imperfect obviates none of this, nor in fact are its limitations accidental. The ACA was encumbered with flaws from the start by those opposed to it for reasons of ideology they forgot to apply to auto insurance. Consider, for instance, the chaos if some states required auto insurance and others did not. What would happen when an uninsured driver from, say, Rhode Island, hit my car on a Connecticut highway? Gaps and inequities would stress the system, and just such stresses were introduced on purpose into the copious particulars of Obamacare. 

I am reluctant to say what I think this rush to repeal the ACA, whatever the consequences, is really about. I suspect there’s no real need. In the context of an orchestrated effort to erase the Obama legacy, it’s rather self-evident. But I can say what it certainly isn’t about. 

It’s not about saving lives, or money. It’s not about evidence, or sense. It’s certainly not about the lessons of epidemiology.  The one potential surprise in the mix is that it’s not about ideology, either, at least not any ideology applied consistently. If mandating insurance for human bodies is in any way un-American, how can mandating insurance for auto bodies be universally accepted without resistance?

This tendency, by the way, to invoke values or principles or ideology to justify a cause, while overlooking monumental internal inconsistencies, is more norm than exception and redounds accordingly to the deficiencies of our public discourse, and our collective shame. The fuss over medical use of marijuana is a good example. Most of those in the opposition presumably have no clue that medical cocaine has been legal all along; it is used to treat epistaxis, or severe nosebleeds. Many legal drugs are incomparably more dangerous and addictive than marijuana. Opposition is a hollow and inconsistent ideology, signifying no real understanding.

So, too, is the rush to repeal the ACA despite the good it has done, and the far greater good it could do if the sabotage imposed on it at the start were systematically expunged. The drive to dismantle anything like universal health care coverage in America is blithely inattentive to the realities of driving in America, and the government mandated requirements that pertain along the highways and byways of every state, from sea to shining sea.

*-fin*

David L. Katz

*Director*, Yale University Prevention Research Center; Griffin Hospital

*Immediate Past-President*, American College of Lifestyle Medicine

*Senior Medical Advisor*, Verywell.com

Founder, The True Health Initiative

*Follow at*: LinkedIN; Twitter; Facebook

*Read at*: INfluencer Blog; Huffington Post; US News & World Report; Verywell; Forbes

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 8 hours ago.

Repealing the Affordable Care Act could affect people who get their health insurance through their employers in addition to t -More-  Reported by SmartBrief 13 hours ago.

During a luncheon my company recently co-hosted with national nonprofit Living Beyond Breast Cancer, we asked the audience how many had ever felt insecure about their finances – and almost everyone’s hand shot up. The reasons they volunteered were varied: living longer, being self-employed for a long time (with no health insurance), a spouse’s death, the increasing volatility of the economy and more. It was all part of a discussion on why women should view their overall health from both physical… Reported by bizjournals 12 hours ago.

Like it or not, Donald Trump just officially completed his transformation from billionaire businessman, reality TV star and old man yelling on Twitter to 45th president of the United States. And he didn’t even have to give up his other titles to do it.

There’s a lot to say about how this happened. Was it racism or economic anxiety? Sexism or anti-establishment rage? Out-of-touch liberals or a low-information electorate? An awful miscalculation by Hillary Clinton’s campaign or Russian hacking? The answer to all of these questions is yes.

If history is kind to Trump, however, he may be remembered best as a man who won by flouting political norms. His supporters revered his brash speaking style and off-the-cuff remarks, often mistaking candor for honesty. They said he was “telling it like it is,” even as Trump leaned on countless untruths and outright lies throughout the campaign. In November, one of his surrogates suggested that Trump had triumphed not just in the election but in his all-out war on facts.

“There’s no such thing, unfortunately, anymore as facts,” said Scottie Nell Hughes, responding to baseless conspiracy theories claiming millions of people had illegally cast ballots in the election.

That is, fortunately, total bullshit. Trump may have shaken many people’s confidence in the power of objective truth over deception and ignorance. But facts still exist, and they still matter ― now more than ever.

So as we prepare for the next four (or however many) years, let’s all get a few facts straight. We may not all agree on the best way to deal with the realities below, but we should at least acknowledge they exist and demand the same of President Trump.

1. There has been no proven link between vaccines and autism.

Lots of people, including Trump himself, have expressed concern that routine vaccinations are leading to increased rates of autism in children. There is no factual basis for this belief.

But anti-vaxxers don’t need hard proof. Driven by a potent distrust in institutions, they allege that government agencies have colluded with Big Pharma to suppress evidence that thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative once widely used in vaccines, is harmful to kids. Numerous large-scale scientific studies have found no evidence to support this conspiratorial claim, and have instead concluded that thimerosal is safe.

Much of the anti-vaxxer alarm has been based on a now-debunked 1998 study published by British surgeon Andrew Wakefield in The Lancet, a medical journal. His research purported to have found links between autism and the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine. But Wakefield was later accused of fabricating data after it was revealed that he’d been compensated by attorneys representing families suing MMR vaccine manufacturers. The Lancet retracted his study in 2010, and Britain’s General Medical Council later revoked his medical license.

It’s unclear whether Trump will take a fact-based approach on the issue of vaccines, however. Earlier this month, he met with vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who said that he’d been tapped to lead a new commission on “vaccine safety and scientific integrity.” The Trump campaign later said it hadn’t made any decisions about forming a commission. But Trump’s decision to seek input from Kennedy has already led to fears in the medical community ― and among reasonable people everywhere ― that the incoming president could be willing to ignore settled science and put the health of millions of American children at risk.2. We still haven’t seen Trump’s tax returns, and the public does care.

Trump broke modern precedent by refusing to make this basic financial disclosure during his campaign. At a press conference last week, he suggested he won’t change his mind now that he’s in the White House. Trump has repeatedly pointed to an ongoing IRS audit as the reason he’s avoided releasing his tax documents, while also maintaining we’d find nothing in them if given the chance.

Ethics experts say nothing is preventing him from releasing his tax returns, and the filings could provide essential insight into his business dealings with Russia and other foreign nations, his use of various federal tax loopholes and his actual wealth. Maybe there really is nothing to see there. If that’s the case, many people would find value in at least knowing for sure that their president isn’t compromised in any way. Instead, Trump will face a persistent skepticism that is entirely his own doing.

And contrary to what Trump has claimed, this does bother the American public. Surveys have shown a majority of Americans believe it’s Trump’s responsibility to release his tax returns, though a Pew survey conducted earlier this month found that only 38 percent of Republicans still feel that way.

3. Trump will benefit financially from his company’s success while he serves as president.

Trump has rejected calls to sell his stake in his companies and put the proceeds from the sale into a blind trust for the duration of his presidency. Ethics experts have told HuffPost that this is the one surefire way Trump could address ethics issues surrounding the Trump Organization and its global hotel operations.

By ignoring these concerns, Trump is defying another presidential precedent: All of Trump’s modern predecessors divested from potential conflicts of interest or placed their holdings into the hands of an independent trustee before they assumed the office. Jimmy Carter handed off his peanut farm to an independent manager to avoid even the slightest appearance of a conflict of interest.

At Trump’s press conference earlier this month, his lawyer explained that while Trump wouldn’t separate himself from his business, he would “donate all profits from foreign government payments made to his hotels to the United States Treasury.” Those donations are tax deductible, however, and experts say this arrangement does nothing to guarantee that Trump’s bottom line won’t get a boost from his presidency.

4. Russian aggression has been ramping up, and it’s not a joke.

Golden shower jokes and “shirtless Vladimir Putin” on “Saturday Night Live”  are fun and all, but it’s hard to laugh while watching a U.S. president gleefully prepare to cede ground to an autocrat intent on disrupting U.S. influence in the global arena.

In 2014, Russia invaded Ukraine and seized part of its territory. It continues to support separatist rebels there who are linked to the downing of a commercial airliner that killed almost 300 people. Despite this, Trump promised in an interview last year that Putin is “not going to go into Ukraine.” He later attempted to clarify that he meant that if he became president, he would prevent further Russian incursions into the region. So far, however, Trump has seemed more interested in cozying up to Putin than in policing his actions.

This bromance could lead to wide-ranging policy changes in the coming months. Some will have immediate consequences. Trump must decide how to act in Syria, where Putin has aligned with President Bashar Assad in a bloody response to a peaceful uprising that has led to hundreds of thousands of deaths. If Trump dismisses the war crimes accusations lofted at Assad as an acceptable consequence of Syria and Russia’s fight against the so-called Islamic State group, the ongoing humanitarian crisis will likely continue and Syria will become even more fertile ground for terrorist recruitment.

Trump has also repeatedly criticized NATO, suggesting member nations bordering Russia need to “pay up” (which many of them already do) in order to get the assurances the treaty affords. A diminished U.S. commitment to NATO would leave Russia with a greater ability to bully former Soviet Union nations. While many in those countries favor closer cooperation with the West, Putin wants to keep them in Russia’s historic sphere of influence.

Trump and his Cabinet nominees have also refused to rule out rolling back the economic sanctions President Barack Obama recently announced in retaliation for Russian hacking surrounding the presidential election. Many people are uncomfortable with the idea that Trump would consider rewarding the regime that deliberately interfered in a U.S. election with the goal of helping him get elected.5. The crime rate is still near historic lows.

Trump campaigned on a promise to bring “law and order” to the nation, which he said was being afflicted by rampant crime and violence. Recent crime data suggests the story isn’t so simple.

Murders and violent crime did rise substantially in a number of the largest U.S. cities last year, according to a study published in December, and those increases likely pushed an uptick in national rates for the second straight year. This growth comes after a decades-long downturn, during which the murder rate reached a low point in 2014. Furthermore, almost half of the 14 percent increase in murders in cities last year was attributable to Chicago alone, where more than 750 people were killed in 2016, up from 478 in 2015.

These preliminary figures are troubling, especially if the trajectory of the past two years continues. But it’s important to keep in mind that violent crime still remains near the bottom of the nation’s 30-year downward trend. The overall crime rate of major U.S. cities also tells a different story, with an increase of just 0.3 percent last year. 

6. Immigrants are not to blame for our problems.

Trump launched his presidential campaign with a riff about Mexico supposedly “sending” illegal immigrants across the border to bring crime, drugs and rape to the U.S. It was an effective dog whistle, but a strange claim considering net migration from Mexico has remained below zero for several years, meaning more people have been crossing back into Mexico than into the U.S. illegally. The data also show that illegal border crossings have been at or near historic lows in the past few years, though crises in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala have sparked a wave of migration, with Border Patrol reporting apprehensions of hundreds of thousands of families and unaccompanied children seeking asylum in the U.S.

But there’s a broader anti-immigrant tone to rhetoric like Trump’s. Many of his supporters have accused undocumented immigrants ― and in many cases, immigrants in general ― of committing crimes and taking jobs from Americans, while simultaneously branding them as a net drain on society.

Trump helped push this narrative during the election by campaigning with the families of victims of crimes committed by undocumented immigrants. He’s followed up with a vow to deport 2 million to 3 million undocumented “criminals,” despite the fact that the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute estimates the total number of undocumented immigrants with criminal records at only 820,000 ― a figure that includes crimes as petty as traffic violations.

The tragedies among these cases appear to be outliers. Studies have shown that new immigrants — including those who are undocumented — are less or equally likely to commit crimes than their natural-born counterparts.

A separate report published last year found that immigrants had “little to no negative effects on overall wages and employment of native-born workers in the longer term.” It also concluded that while first-generation immigrants may initially cost governments more in services than they contribute in taxes, they make huge positive financial contributions by the second and third generation.

7. The unemployment rate is as low as it’s been in the past nine years.

The jobless rate dropped to 4.6 percent in November, reaching a nine-year low, before ticking up slightly to 4.7 percent in December. Other metrics suggest the job market is less robust ― for instance, the overall workforce participation rate is still below pre-recession levels. But the headline unemployment rate is pretty close to what economists consider “full employment,” the lowest level possible without triggering price inflation. Although many of Trump’s supporters have stressed that jobs should be his top priority, it may be difficult for him to deliver measurable progress on this metric.

Fortunately for Trump, he’s shown little regard for official unemployment numbers in the past, going so far as to create an alternate reality in which the jobless rate is actually above 40 percent. This strategy served him well during the campaign, when he sought to portray the U.S. economy as a disaster in need of fixing. Maybe he’ll take a different approach now that he’s inheriting a strong economy that has, by many indicators, largely recovered from the morass of the Great Recession. Or maybe he won’t. He’ll likely end up going with whichever one makes him look best.

8. Climate change is real.

This story dropped on Wednesday, two days before Trump’s inauguration. Although Trump has dismissed climate change in the past as a Chinese-led hoax ― a claim he’s since slightly walked back ― neither he nor his Cabinet picks appear intent on championing the effort to cut carbon emissions and expand renewable energy sources. The officials preparing to take roles in Trump’s administration include literal oil barons, climate change skeptics and outright deniers who have maintained that the science isn’t clear on these issues or their causes.

2016 marked the 40th consecutive year of above-average global temperatures in more than a century of record keeping. The planet keeps getting hotter, Arctic sea ice keeps melting, glaciers keep retreating, oceans keep getting warmer and more acidic, sea levels keep rising and extreme weather events keep growing more common.

The scientific consensus on the cause of these changes is overwhelming: 97 percent of the scientists who have published articles on climate attribute it primarily to humans, who have pumped a truly astonishing amount of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. They also agree that world leaders need to take drastic steps to cut back on emissions and begin addressing this near-constant rise in global temperature before it’s too late.

9. The Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, has given health insurance to 20 million Americans.

Health care reform was a signature achievement of Obama’s presidency, and while the controversial law has had its fair share of detractors, it’s also produced tangible results. The ranks of the uninsured have dropped by 20 million since 2010, according to a report published by the Department of Health and Human Services last year, and the national uninsured rate is now the lowest ever recorded.

Obamacare isn’t perfect. Insurance premiums have risen for many Americans, in some cases substantially. Millions of others remain uninsured due to various gaps in coverage, made worse by Republican governors who have refused to expand Medicaid under Obamacare.

Trump and congressional Republicans have said the best way forward is to repeal the Affordable Care Act and pass a replacement, while keeping some elements of the coverage expansion in place for as long as four years. Although Trump vowed this month that the GOP would come up with a plan to provide “insurance for everybody,” neither he nor Republicans appear interested in actually pursuing that promise. The Congressional Budget Office painted a much more dire scenario of the likely consequences of the GOP’s plan, predicting that the first year of repeal would lead to 18 million people getting kicked off their health insurance as premiums increase dramatically.

A survey published this month also found that Obamacare is more popular now than it’s ever been. For the first time since the health care law’s passage, more Americans said they believe the measure is a good idea than a bad one.

10. Trump did not win the popular vote.

According to the final vote tally, 65,844,610 people cast ballots for Clinton, compared with 62,979,636 for Trump. Clinton’s popular vote win is purely symbolic, as Trump won the Electoral College vote 304-227. Clinton finished with the largest margin of victory in raw numbers for any presidential candidate who went on to lose the election. Contrary to Trump’s claims, there is no evidence that widespread voter fraud affected the vote totals.

Trump’s weaker performance in the popular vote doesn’t make him an illegitimate president, as some of his critics have suggested. But on the heels of the most divisive presidential campaign in modern history, it’s clear that Trump has his work cut out for him. Nearly 66 million people voted for Trump’s opponent, and many of them cast ballots not only in favor of Clinton but explicitly against Trump’s candidacy, which they saw as empowering racism, sexism and intolerance.

If Trump truly wants to be a president for all Americans, he’s going to have to take the concerns of his opponents into consideration. He cannot expect his opponents to simply shut up and blindly fall in line behind their new president just because he won.11. Trump has the lowest approval rating of any modern president on Inauguration Day.

The president’s approval rating has trended downward since Election Day, and a poll released this week showed that 48 percent ― nearly half ― of Americans had a negative view of Trump as he prepared for his inauguration. Just 38 percent of Americans viewed him positively. Additionally, 52 percent said they disapproved of the way the president-elect handled his transition, compared with just 44 percent who approved. Other polls showed even lower approval ratings.

Those numbers are unprecedented in the modern era. The same poll, taken in early 2009, showed Obama with a 71 percent approval rating in the run-up to his first inauguration. Obama’s approval rating upon leaving office also hovered above Trump’s, in the mid-50s.

Watching Trump’s presidential honeymoon end before the actual nuptials may be cause for schadenfreude, but that’s not the point. These polls should remind Trump that he’s accountable to the American public and that his actions as president will have serious, often immediate, consequences. Instead, he’s chosen to reject the premise of approval polls entirely.


The same people who did the phony election polls, and were so wrong, are now doing approval rating polls. They are rigged just like before.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 17, 2017

Although pollsters have admitted the deficiencies in polling around the 2016 presidential election, the biggest flaws appeared at the state level. National polling on issues like presidential approval tends to be more accurate than pre-election polls, because pollsters don’t have to deal with the challenge of identifying likely voters. And even if these recent approval polls were off by a few points, Trump is still beginning his presidency underwater.

If Trump refuses to heed public opinion and accept that it reflects the nation’s support for him as a leader, we’re going to have a rough couple of years ahead.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 12 hours ago.

Denise Gonick thinks health care is the biggest bipartisan issue facing the country heading into the presidency of Donald Trump. Gonick, the president and CEO of MVP Health Care, said the Affordable Care Act has been mostly positive for MVP’s growth, but there are concerns about affordability. “Health insurance is expensive because health care is expensive,” Gonick said on a panel discussion Friday. Today, just a few hours before the inauguration, the Albany Business Review hosted a Power… Reported by bizjournals 9 hours ago.

Submitted via the Opinion Section of the Wall Street Journal

Donald J. Trump takes the oath of office on Friday facing unprecedented opposition but also an extraordinary opportunity. He confronts the paradox of a *country skeptical that he has the personal traits for the Presidency but still hopeful he can fulfill his promise to shake up a government that is increasingly powerful even as it fails to work.*

In this respect he is the opposite of *President Obama, whom Americans admire personally but see as a failure in delivering on his promises*. Mr. Trump begins his Presidency without a reservoir of personal goodwill, so more than most Commanders in Chief he will have to win over Americans with results.

***

He will have to do this, moreover, against a *political opposition that is blunt and relentless in wanting him to fail*. Inaugurations are typically moments of political unity and appeals to larger national purpose, but Mr. Trump will get no honeymoon.

*Democratic leaders are calling his election illegitimate, and most of the media wants Mr. Trump to implode*—for reasons of partisanship, ideology or simply to vindicate their view during the campaign that he couldn’t and shouldn’t win. *No President since Nixon will face a more hostile resistance in the press and permanent bureaucracy.*

Yet rather than rage against this hostility, Mr. Trump should view it as an opportunity. So many elites expect him to fail that even small early successes will confound them. So many on the left are predicting the rise of fascism that he can make them look foolish by working well with Congress. So many in the media will portray him as the leader of a gang of billionaires that he can turn the tables with an up-from-poverty and education choice campaign.

Mr. Trump owes his narrow election victory to center-right and independent voters who decided he was a risk worth taking. Notably, they seem to be reserving judgment. In the new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, Mr. Trump’s personal popularity rating is 10 points underwater, 38% positive, 48% negative—the lowest of any modern President at inauguration.

But as notably, the public is better disposed to Mr. Trump’s agenda than to his character and temperament. Tax reform, a faster campaign against Islamic State, improving roads and bridges, and fixing health care enjoy widespread support. If voters are ambivalent about Mr. Trump personally, he has a policy opening to earn their support.

***

Mr. Trump’s main—and essential—mandate is to raise middle-class incomes that have stagnated in the Obama era by lifting the economy out of its 1%-2% growth rut. The White House should scrub every policy choice, first and foremost, against its impact on growth. *Mr. Obama put his social and political preoccupations above growth, and the country and his Presidency suffered for it.* The opening for Mr. Trump is that by removing Mr. Obama’s barriers to growth, he can unleash the business investment that has been so weak in this expansion.

If Mr. Trump eases the burden of regulation, reforms the tax code, unlocks U.S. energy production and returns markets to health insurance, then capital will get off the sidelines and animal spirits will revive to create new ventures and make pent-up deals. His impulses to restrict trade will have to be contained enough that they don’t undermine his pro-growth agenda. A Trump growth revival is the best way to persuade the skeptical.

The new President will also have to reform a government that too few Americans trust, not least because of its indiscriminate intrusion into ever more of American life. This means fixing public services that people can see, such as an Internal Revenue Service that answers taxpayer questions, a veterans service that doesn’t kill veterans, and health insurance with more choices and lower premiums.

We disagree with Mr. Trump’s immigration priorities, but one reason border politics are so dyspeptic is that illegal immigration contributes to a sense of lawlessness and disorder. Meanwhile, speeding up permitting for new public projects should also be a high priority. As with Wollman Rink in New York City, the President’s business drive could make more of government work again.

Mr. Trump needs partners in Washington who can move his agenda, and he should recognize that Republicans in Congress are a source of expertise and counsel. *If he uses them as allies and forms common cause, he can make his first two years the most significant since Reagan’s first term.* If he goes to war with them for reasons of pique, or over marginal policy differences, Democrats will be eager to inherit the wreckage—and drive him out of office after four years, if not earlier.

***

The biggest wild card of this Presidency is foreign affairs, where Mr. Trump has instincts but no experience and his penchant for impulsive comments can be unnerving. Mr. Obama worried U.S. friends because he was intent on courting adversaries at their expense. Mr. Trump needs to reassure allies who fear that his “America first” slogan is merely different political cover for a similar U.S. retreat. At least his defense buildup will impress friends and foes, assuming he doesn’t abandon it for budget reasons.

*Foreign policy is where his shoot-from-the-lip tendencies create the most trouble.* His slap this week at German Chancellor Angela Merkel is the kind of comment that rankles without purpose. If Mr. Trump pursues his own “reset” with Russia without Europe on board, he’ll achieve Vladimir Putin’s goal of dividing the U.S. from Germany and never get the NATO spending increases Mr. Trump wants.

He should also ease up on Mexico, lest his trade bullying push that neighbor to the anti-American left and end decades of economic progress. *If he thinks illegal immigration is a problem now, wait until the election of a left-wing Mexican populist.*

***

*Mr. Trump promised to disrupt the status quo, and to succeed he will have to.* How he goes about it will be an adventure—not least in a White House that appears to have at least six major power centers. Management by “chaos” can be messy. Then again, *Mr. Trump’s cabinet choices are better than those of the last two Presidents, and in some cases (James Mattis) they are inspired.*

The Never Trump opposition will be fierce, but the public will await the results. President Trump’s success will depend above all on delivering on his promises of prosperity at home and greater respect for America abroad. Reported by Zero Hedge 8 hours ago.

Forget, just for a moment, about the quality of the prose in President Donald Trump’s inaugural address. Don’t get caught up in the idealism, or lack thereof. And put aside whether its dark portrait of “American carnage” resembles the reality of America today.

Focus instead on some of the promises Trump made to the American people ― to smash the business and political establishments, to rebuild America’s manufacturing economy, to fix schools, to stop crime and even to fight poverty.

“Today we are not merely transferring power from one administration to another or from one party to another,” Trump said. “We are transferring power from Washington, D.C., and giving it back to you, the American people.”

There are many reasons to be skeptical that’s how Trump will actually govern.

Some of the best ones were right up there on the stage with him.

One was GOP mega-donor Sheldon Adelson, who had a prime seat near the front row and the Trump family. After the ceremony, Adelson joined members of Congress and other dignitaries for the Capitol Hill luncheon ― which left reporters scratching their heads, trying to remember if a political financier had attended the exclusive event before.


It's my 5th inaugural luncheon - I don't ever recall a mega donor being in this lunch. But there's Sheldon Adelson at Table 23 with Boehner.

— Paul Kane (@pkcapitol) January 20, 2017

In his speech, Trump warned, “For too long, a small group in our nation’s capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost.” But Adelson’s presence was a reminder that the self-interested elite will carry plenty of influence in Trump’s Washington.

Trump himself has seen to it by filling his administration with moguls, donors and representatives of the very Wall Street firm, Goldman Sachs, that he vilified on the campaign trail. The new president wants to turn the Education Department over to Betsy DeVos, who appears unfamiliar with some basic education policy issues but just happens to be among the GOP’s biggest donors. He wants to hand the Commerce Department over to Wilbur Ross, an investor who specializes in corporate restructuring and was also a major GOP donor.

And that’s to say nothing of Trump’s own conflicts of interest now that he’s decided to maintain ownership of his business empire ― a decision that has drawn public condemnation from the Office of Government Ethics, among others.

Another reason to doubt that Trump can deliver on his promises were a group of people sitting right near Adelson at the inauguration: House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other Republican leaders from Congress.

They’re already hard at work on an agenda that will feature massive tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, coupled with the slashing of social programs that benefit the poor and the middle class. Congress is starting with repeal of the Affordable Care Act, through which something like 20 million people get health insurance.

What these initiatives have in common is that they would tend to concentrate wealth at the top, among the elite, rather than distributing it more broadly ― in short, the opposite of what Trump promised in his speech.

Of course, Trump didn’t mention those congressional efforts in his inaugural address, preferring to focus on the importance of enacting a new infrastructure program ― an idea that, properly constructed, could genuinely lift wages and, over the long term, improve productivity.  

But unlike congressional Democrats, who would happily support such an initiative, Ryan, McConnell and the rest of the Republican leadership have been conspicuously less enthusiastic. Meanwhile, many of the conservative groups these GOP leaders heed have been downright hostile.

It’s always possible that appearances are misleading, that over the next four years Trump will actually deliver the policies and changes he promised from the stage on Friday.  But the odds seem long.

Either way, the challenge for the next four years will be keeping those promises in mind ― and holding Trump accountable for them.

How will Trump’s first 100 days impact you? Sign up for our weekly newsletter to find out.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 6 hours ago.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order late Friday giving federal agencies broad powers to unwind regulations created under the Affordable Care Act, including enforcement of the penalty for people who fail to carry the health insurance that the law requires of most Americans.

The executive... Reported by dailypress.com 2 hours ago.

President Donald Trump, hours after taking office, instructed the agency overseeing Obamacare to interpret some of the law’s regulations loosely ― in ways that could undermine it even before Congress gets around to repealing it.

The executive order, which Trump signed in the Oval Office shortly after viewing the inaugural parade on Friday, was one of his first acts of president.

It’s the kind of step many health policy watchers expected Trump’s administration to take. It comes at a time when Republicans in Congress, who share Trump’s commitment to repealing the Affordable Care Act, are suddenly struggling with questions of exactly when and how to accomplish that ― and what kind of system should take its place.

This order is basically Trump doing what he can, on his own, to get the process underway.

“While this executive order doesn’t directly make any changes to the ACA, it directs federal agencies to start unwinding the health law in a variety ways without waiting for Congress,” Larry Levitt, senior vice president at the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, told The Huffington Post.

Obamacare, which became law in 2010 and took full effect in 2014, has helped something like 20 million Americans to get health insurance, while extending new consumer protections to millions more. Today, the number of people without health insurance is the lowest government agencies have ever recorded.

But in the process, the law has also caused some people to pay higher premiums or bear greater out-of-pocket costs than they did before, helping fuel a political backlash that has been building since President Barack Obama signed the measure into law.

Obamacare established new rules for private health insurance that carriers sell directly to individuals, and it set parameters for how states design their expanded Medicaid programs. But, like most such laws, it gives the Department of Health and Human Services a lot of discretion over how to interpret those rules and, then, how to enforce them.

One of rules on private insurance is the part of Obamacare that Republicans may despise the most ― the “individual mandate,” which requires people to pay a financial penalty if they could afford to buy insurance but don’t. The purpose of the mandate is to make sure healthy people, and not just those with serious medical conditions, buy coverage.

Obamacare’s guidelines for Medicaid have also drawn Republican ire, because, as Republicans see it, the guidelines don’t give states enough flexibility over how to design their programs.

Trump’s executive order formally instructs HHS to use what authority it can to scale back the rules ― by granting hardship exemptions to the individual mandate more widely, for example, or allowing states to require Medicaid beneficiaries pay new fees.

The announcement is not terribly surprising. Trump’s nominee for HHS secretary, Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), had already signaled that he intended to interpret Obamacare regulations loosely. Trump’s pick for director of Medicare and Medicaid Services, Seema Verma, helped several states craft Medicaid programs that pushed the boundaries of what HHS would allow.

But changing the individual mandate could further spook insurers already worried they were not attracting as many healthy customers as they thought. The insurers could respond by raising premiums even higher, or by exiting markets altogether.

In addition, some changes to Medicaid that states have sought threaten to reduce the number of people who can get on the program or stay on it, reducing their access to medical care.

“Potentially the biggest step implied by this order would be granting wide-scale hardship exemptions from the individual mandate, which could create significant uncertainty for insurers and chaos in the individual insurance market,” Levitt said. “This is also an invitation for states to start crafting waivers from the all sorts of provisions in the health law.”

Timothy Jost, a law professor at Washington and Lee University, told The Huffington Post that the order mentions complying with the Administrative Procedures Act, which establishes a lengthy, drawn-out procedure for changing existing Obamacare regulations.

“Not much will probably happen, until Price, Verma, and the IRS commissioner are in place,” Jost said. “But then we will likely start seeing new proposed regulations and guidance that will interpret the ACA rather differently than the Obama administration did.” 

Although the order appears to signal that Trump remains very serious about repealing the law, it could also give Congress a little more time to think about next steps, Jost said. “One interesting question is whether this will reduce the pressure on Congress to come up with an immediate repeal-and-replace plan, since they can now say that Trump is dealing with the problems the ACA caused,” Jost said.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 1 hour ago.

Philanthropist and businessman Tey Por Yee (Larry) took part in the global initiative to empower 500 women in Ghana with Microcredit Loans, as part of the Gomif Partners’ Socialpreneurship corporate social responsibility (CSR) program.

New York (PRWEB) January 21, 2017

Philanthropist and businessman Tey Por Yee (Larry) took part in the global initiative to empower 500 women in Ghana with Microcredit Loans, as part of the Gomif Partners’ Socialpreneurship corporate social responsibility (CSR) program.

Self-Help International has been battling hunger in Ghana since 1989. Empowering mothers is the key to ending hunger. Women reinvest 90% of profits into the family to feed, clothe, and educate their children. By offering even illiterate women the opportunity to learn basic business skills and the financing to put their skills into action, they are able to start up small businesses, increase family income, and achieve self-sufficiency.

“By funding this project, according to Self-Help, we have witnessed the transformation in families and communities as women are first able to feed their children each day, then pay their school fees to ensure their sons and daughters alike get the education their mothers never had, and even build new homes. This project will extend that opportunity to 450 more women living in rural Ghana”, commented Larry.

“This project is about more than economic development: it's about advancing human dignity. Women take pride in being able to send their children to bed well-fed, in a decent home each night, and then off to school clothed in proper school uniforms each morning. Yes, we help them register for health insurance so one illness won't bankrupt them anymore. Yes, we help them open savings accounts at commercial banks so they can join the formal economy. But most of all, we create role models & leaders”, according to Self-Help project leader, Nora Tobin, Waverly, IA, United States.

The program is organized by Self-help International (http:/​/​http://www.selfhelpinternational.org) & GlobalGiving. Learn more about the program at https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/ghana-microcredit/

Gomif Partners, co-lead by venture capitalist Tey Por Yee (Larry), shows the tech savvy startups on New York Cyber Workshop, how easy to contribute to society by using the Internet, besides making profit from business. Gomif will pick up an equity stake in qualified startups as part of the program. Interested candidates can visit http://www.gomif.com and submit business plans online.
 
About Gomif Partners

Gomif Partners (GP) is an early stage investment advisory network joint lead by socialpreneur Larry Tey Por Yee and several private venture partners. GP’s investors invest in and work with information technology companies at any stage but they are primarily focused on seed and early stage investments. GP is interested in socially responsible business models, especially renewable, retail, manufacturing, software, and services surrounding this concept. Visit http://www.gomif.com Reported by PRWeb 21 hours ago.

Healthy young adults weren't properly incentivized to get health insurance, dooming the Affordable Care Act to failure. Reported by Motley Fool 16 hours ago.

The day after the election I wrote that Republicans would find it hard to repeal Obamacare—but not so hard to vandalize it. 

In his first official action after being sworn in as President, Donald Trump applied the first smear of graffiti to a law that today brings health coverage to more than 20... Reported by L.A. Times 12 hours ago.

It's time for some frank talk about Obamacare.

The only way a replacement, if it ever comes, can make the cost of health insurance cheaper for some — not all — of us is if we decide that not everyone should have a chance to buy coverage.

That will not, however, make the cost of U.S. health care... Reported by dailypress.com 6 hours ago.

The United States has a new President — and for many, not only in America (in the extreme version) — the totally unacceptable Donald J. Trump.

In a precise ceremony in front of the Congress, Trump gave his oath and delivered his first speech as head of state. And for everybody who is not biased or has not become a prisoner of prejudices, he announced a complete turn in regard to  US policy. This turn can be detected in a couple of key messages which are, admittedly, populist, but not without a deeper political contents.

First of all, Trump confirmed that he is a convinced enemy of political elites, accusing them of prospering while ordinary Americans suffered. To the “forgotten men and women” of America he promised: “You are not forgotten any more and you will never be forgotten again”, adding that the day of his inauguration marks not the transfer of power from one political party to another, but from Washington DC to the people.

Then, using – historically speaking – the slogan of American isolationists, he stressed that from this day in deliberating on any decision only one principle will be applied and that is: America first! (accepting that every state in the world has the right to put its interests above everything else).

After that, more clearly than ever before, he repeated what he said for the first time accepting the nomination of the Republican party as presidential candidate. Last summer, namely, he announced that the US will stop imposing regimes. In his first presidential address he was even more precise: America will not impose her way of life on anybody. It is worth noting that the “American way of life” was until now sort of a sacred cow in the vocabulary of American politicians. Trump added that the US will be a shining example and the others will follow (if they want, of course).

And finally he said something that European neo-fascists — who (wrongly) think of him as “one of them” — would never understand: “If you open your heart to patriotism, there is no place for prejudices.”

Had he said nothing more, this speech should be remembered. Therefore it is absolutely wrong when the reporter of the German public TV (ARD) says this was not a presidential speech at all, but only a continuation of the election campaign.

By the way it would be interesting to hear what would the so-called liberals said had he after the inauguration changed his rhetoric and contents. They would lament about hypocrisy and not-consistency. But, as Trump remained consistent, they wrote him off as somebody who did not grasp at all that he is the President and is just continuing his campaign.

But, objectively speaking, the messages we mentioned has – for anybody willing to hear — marked as the beginning of what Trump described as the necessity to turn form empty words to deeds.

The core of his economic policy can be detected from the short slogan “buy American and hire American”. And only after being 30 minutes in office he put into question the multilateral trade agreements for American continent and Pacific region, confirming what he announced during the campaign, namely that he prefers a net of bilateral trade agreements instead of  multilateral ones.

He did not mention any of the concrete problems he will confront as President, such as relations with Russia or the health insurance system in the US. But, it was a programmatic speech, based on crucial messages and principles. He did, however, mention radical Islamism (not Islam, but radical Islamism), promising that he would eradicate it from the face of the Earth, for which he will without any doubt need cooperation from Russia.

Trump repeated that he will create new jobs in America, he spoke again about the decline of former US industrial centers (“inspiring” the German television to say that this is simply not true, but forgetting how many times we have seen the empty fabric hales in Detroit and empty streets in the now declining and many years ago prosperous American cities). And he promised, once again, that he will change this situation, that he will build new highways, new bridges, new railroads.

Some objected immediately that he did not say: how. It would have been almost a miracle had he done so in a situation when many of his planned members of the US government still lack the Congressional approval and when even some of them voice opinions quite different in regard to his own.

Be it, as it is, Trump has his vision of the future and he outlined the cornerstones on which he intends to build his vision, despite his critics who were not hesitating to say that he does not understand today’s world.

Some analysts heard in his words the echo of the inaugural speeches of the most famous American president of the 20th Century, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and some said they had the impression that Bernie Sanders, the “apostle” of the democratic socialism in America is speaking through Trump’s mouth.

We would dare to go even one step further. If we put aside Trump’s person and the fact that he is extremely rich, and if we forget his repeated mentioning of God at the end of his speech, we can come to only one conclusion: What was said by Donald Trump should be embraced by every liberal leftist in the world. Caring for the ordinary, forgotten people, wealth for everyone, equality between all people (“we can be black, brown or yellow, but we all have the same red blood”), transformation of a system which benefited the politicians, while the middle class suffered, starting of new production, the transfer of power, it is worth repeating, not from one political party to another, but from the Washington elite to the people.

All of this can be seen, let us not deny this, as a populist, if not even a nationalist approach. But, at the same time it is closer to the left side of the political scene, than to the right one.

These are the first impressions based on Trump’s inaugural speech.

But, let us make one thing crystal clear. This is not a noncritical look at Donald Trump, who has many minuses – from the total lack of political experience, the unnecessary and potentially dangerous antagonizing of the People’s Republic of China to the very dubious hints about his energy policy or his standpoints about the global warning phenomena.

But, at the same time it is a call for much needed and long overdue change of American policy which made the world unstable and insecure and which made the global terrorism a real threat for everybody and everywhere by accepting the protagonists of this terrorism as allies in its projects of toppling the regimes in the Middle East.

Yes, such a change, even if it would be Trump’s turn, would be mostly welcome. Of course, if he delivers on what he has promised it stops here and it stops now. In only a few months we will know if he will be able to transform into reality his vision of America and its new role in the world. Not more: just a few months. After that we will know if Trump’s turn can become a success, or not. And his voters will know if he was right, when he promised them on the Inauguration day, “I will never let you down”.

*Author, born 1943., is a Croatian journalist – TV and press, specialized in covering the international relations. He was foreign policy advisor to the second President of the Republic of Croatia, Mr. Stjepan Mesić Reported by Eurasia Review 2 hours ago.

New York governor Andrew Cuomo said Saturday said he was requiring health insurance companies to cover medically necessary abortions and most forms of contraception at no cost to women, a move that further protects and safeguards coverage under the federal Affordable Care Act. Reported by FOXNews.com 2 hours ago.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Saturday that he was requiring health insurance companies to cover medically necessary abortions and most forms of contraception at no cost to women. Reported by FOXNews.com 16 hours ago.

To the editor: President Trump and his fellow Republicans seem to be having such a good time seeing who can be the first and best to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare. I wonder how they would feel with no health insurance. (“The hidden costs of... Reported by L.A. Times 11 hours ago.

Throughout the campaign and the transition period leading up to the Inauguration, whenever Donald Trump was caught lying or tweeting something outrageous we were told by his acolytes that we should ignore his words and instead pay attention to his deeds. Kellyanne Conway, Trump's Queen of Bull, who has moved from campaign manager to White House counselor, actually has argued that what he says should not be taken literally, even telling CNN's Chris Cuomo, "You always want to go with what's come out of his mouth rather than look at what's in his heart."

Well, we're journalists, not cardiologists but okay, by that standard, President Trump's inaugural address was of a piece, much of it appealing to his core constituency -- white workers and the middle class angry that they've been left out of the good times, as indeed they have been. But the speech was hollow rhetoric when compared to all the things Trump and his fledgling administration actually have done in just the last few weeks and hours.

"Today, we are not merely transferring power from one administration to another or from one party to another," Trump declared. "But we are transferring power from Washington, DC, and giving it back to you, the people... The establishment protected itself but not the citizens of our country. Their victories have not been your victories. Their triumphs have not been your triumphs."

Fine, we'll do as Kellyanne Conway recommends. Rather than heed the rhetoric we'll look at his deeds and try to plumb the depths of his tiny heart. Truth is, Donald Trump has surrounded himself with many of the very elitists responsible for the plight of those everyday people he promised never to forget. The establishment he decried in his speech is front and center; six Goldman Sachs alumni alone already are in his administration, including Treasury Secretary-designate Steve Mnuchin, the man who parked a hundred million dollars in an offshore account and forgot to tell the Senate about it (we're not making this up).

Trump bragged Thursday night about the collective high IQ of his Cabinet but the real number that's troubling, as the website Quartz noted last month, is that the first 17 people he named to the Cabinet or Cabinet-ranking posts "have well over $9.5 billion in combined wealth... This collection of wealth is greater than that of the 43 million least wealthy American households combined."

Let that sink in. Those first 17 people plucked by Trump to help him govern have more wealth "than over one-third of the 126 million households total in the US. Affluence of this magnitude in a US presidential Cabinet is unprecedented."

How about billionaire Wilbur Ross firing an undocumented household staff member to avoid being embarrassed when Trump picked Ross as secretary of commerce? Could it be he suddenly developed an interest in immigration policy?

Or Labor Secretary-designate Andrew Puzder, CEO of Carl's Jr. and Hardee's restaurants, his profits built on cutting corners and paying workers the lowest wages possible. Unless he has suddenly developed the common touch, it's not likely he'll be a robust advocate for blue- and white-collar workers.

Or Education Secretary-designate Betsy DeVos, whose confirmation hearings this past week revealed she knows almost nothing about public education -- which, by the way, she doesn't believe in -- but whose lack of credentials pale in importance beside the more than $20 million she and her family have given to Republican candidates at the federal level, including many of the senators who will vote for her confirmation.

And how about Trump himself -- stopping his inaugural parade to get out of his limousine in front of his DC hotel, of course -- but so far failing to keep his promise last week that by Jan. 20 he would transfer complete control of his businesses? According to Pro Publica's Derek Kravitz and Al Shaw, none of the required documents have been filed.

No time for that, apparently, but plenty of time during his first hours in office to eliminate a climate change page on the White House website and replace it with attacks on the "burdensome" regulation of the energy industry -- exactly what the global warming giants of fossil fuel sought to achieve with their campaign contributions. The new president already has forgotten those ordinary people out there experiencing the erratic weather brought on by climate change, many of them watching the waters rise around their homes and small businesses. Perhaps Trump plans to build them an ark.

Speaking of everyday people: If you're one of the homeowners struggling to make ends meet, some of the people Trump pledged in his inaugural address to defend, consider this as well: One of his first executive orders Friday suspended his predecessor's plan to decrease insurance premiums on Federal Housing Administration mortgages, a move Obama intended to help stabilize the housing market. Congratulations -- if you're one of those mortgage holders, you've been Trumped!

"A punch in the gut to middle-class buyers" -- that's how it was described by Sarah Edelman, director of housing policy at the Center for American Progress. "...With mortgage interest rates already on the rise, reversing the FHA's move to cut insurance premiums in fact puts the dream of homeownership farther out of reach for millions of hardworking Americans."

Contrast that cheapskate move with the money being spent on Trump's big inaugural weekend. Nicholas Fandos at The New York Times reported last week that, "All told, the group planning the inaugural festivities says it has raised more than $100 million, which would be nearly double the record for an inauguration, with much of it coming in six- and seven-figure checks from America's corporate suites." That includes a million bucks from Boeing and half a million from Chevron. A small price to pay for the kind of influence and thinly veiled bribery that are sure to characterize the Trump years.

"We will make America wealthy again," Trump bellowed in his speech -- he just didn't say that the wealth won't be shared. Fact is, "the forgotten men and women of our country" whom Trump addressed in the speech don't have a chance against the army of influence peddlers with whom the new president already has surrounded himself.

For example, it was announced on Thursday that 13 -- yes, 13 -- lawyers from the high-powered law firm of Jones Day will be moving to top positions in the administration, seven of them at the White House alone. It's s "a ton of top jobs" for one Washington firm, as David Lat of the website Above the Law put it: "This is very good news for Jones Day and the lawyers remaining at the firm. It's great for the firm's prestige, and it also means that JD lawyers will be eagerly sought after by clients with issues pending before their former colleagues." (italics added).

This must be what they mean by "draining the swamp" -- they just divert it over to the White House.

A pall of contradiction hung over the whole ceremony Friday -- between the rhetoric aimed at those millions of working people and middle-class Americans to whom Trump said he was talking and the fabulous wealth concentrated in his personal and official circles. Not once did he mention the words democracy, or equality, or even the Constitution. And while the clergy who offered prayers frequently invoked the names of God and Jesus, no one disturbed the official piety by reminding the privileged and powerful gathered around the new president that Jesus told his followers, "... I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me."

Or had said to a certain rich young man: "You lack one thing. Sell what you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

Or had admonished his followers: "When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind."

It wasn't that kind of affair, of course. Instead, a few hours after the swearing-in, President Trump, in another of his first official acts, signed an executive order moving forward the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, which could ultimately remove 18 to 32 million people from health insurance. Many of them presumably voted for Trump. Not a few may now need a miracle to survive.

By the way, according to Darren Samuelsohn at Politico, the end of the ACA would personally save our billionaire president "at least $6.7 million" in Medicare taxes.

Let us pray. After we march.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 11 hours ago.