Latest news with #Obamacare
Politico
4 hours ago
- Business
- Politico
White House vows no Medicaid cuts — except to those who don't deserve it
The White House plans to confront resistance to Medicaid cuts from Senate Republicans by arguing that any reductions in coverage would only affect people who didn't deserve it in the first place. A strong bloc of Republicans in the Senate has signaled that they are uncomfortable with Medicaid reductions in the sweeping tax-and-spending bill enacted last month by the House. President Donald Trump's advisers are determined to confront those concerns by claiming that cuts would chiefly target undocumented immigrants and able-bodied people who should not be on Medicaid, according to four administration officials and outside allies granted anonymity to discuss strategy. 'This bill will preserve and protect the programs, the social safety net, but it will make it much more common sense,' Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought said Sunday. 'That's what this bill does. No one will lose coverage as a result.' The megabill would add work requirements to the program and bar undocumented immigrants from getting coverage, among other attempts to tighten eligibility. Those provisions are projected to leave roughly 7.6 million low-income people without health care over the next decade — losses that would amount to hundreds of billions of dollars in cost savings for the program. Contrary to Trump officials' claims, such cuts are widely anticipated to go beyond immigrants and the narrow slice of able-bodied unemployed, according to health experts. The provisions would likely add new layers of paperwork for low-income enrollees, making it more difficult for qualified recipients to stay on the program and pushing otherwise-eligible Americans suddenly out of health coverage. In a POLITICO interview published Sunday, Trump Medicaid chief Mehmet Oz argued the changes would 'future proof' the program, also insisting that 'we're not cutting Medicaid.' 'There's a lot of sensitivity about being accused, accused of not taking care of people who have disabilities or seniors without money or children,' Oz said. Trump officials have aggressively pushed that stance in public and private in recent days, insisting that the administration's plan will shield 'deserving' Medicaid recipients like the elderly and disabled, while targeting those who officials have cast as a drain on the nation's safety net. Many of those people gained coverage over the last decade through Obamacare's expansion of Medicaid. Republicans have been stung before by their efforts to enact health care cuts, most notably facing massive voter blowback in 2017 that cratered Trump's bid to repeal Obamacare and contributed to widespread losses in the following midterms. But Trump officials and allies argue that voters will support these changes to Medicaid, seeing them less as cuts than tweaks meant to ensure resources go to those who truly need it. 'Medicaid does not belong to people who are here illegally, and it does not belong to capable and able-bodied men who refuse to work,' said one of the White House officials. 'So no one is getting cut.' In a statement, White House spokesman Kush Desai said Trump would 'protect and preserve Medicaid' by 'kicking illegal immigrants off of the program and implementing commonsense work requirements,' adding that Americans voted for such policies. The strategy represents a stark messaging shift for a GOP that has long found itself on the defensive in debates over health coverage. And it's an attempt by the White House to mirror the approach Trump has taken on other issues like immigration and trade, casting aside political complexities in favor of portraying them as a simple choice between 'us' and 'them.' Trump has framed his mass deportation campaign as an effort to rid the country of millions of immigrants deemed undeserving of staying in the U.S. He's justified his tariffs as a counter to other countries 'ripping us off' on trade. 'Before, they were taking things away from people,' Thomas Miller, a senior fellow at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, said of the health messaging shift. 'Now, they're saying they're not deserving.' In the Senate, Vought and White House legislative affairs chief James Braid have taken the lead in talks with Republican lawmakers, the White House official said. Trump has also dialed up a handful of senators over the last week, said another White House official granted anonymity to discuss internal strategy, ahead of a sprint in the Senate to pass its version of the megabill in a matter of weeks. The success of that effort could hinge on a handful of GOP senators who are skeptical of any Medicaid policies that could be interpreted as cuts, especially after the House added last-minute health care provisions into its bill that ballooned the predicted coverage losses. Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine have expressed reservations about Medicaid work requirements, while some others have warned more generally about the prospect of cutting the program. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), perhaps the most outspoken Republican on the issue, said Monday in a post on X that Trump had assured him 'NO MEDICAID BENEFIT CUTS' will be in the bill. But rather than change course on policy, Trump officials and other Hill Republicans have instead signaled a preference for winning votes by redefining what qualifies as a cut. In a midday missive on Monday, the White House touted its push to remove roughly 1.4 million undocumented immigrants as key to strengthening Medicaid benefits 'for whom the program was designed — pregnant women, children, people with disabilities, low-income seniors, and other vulnerable low-income families.' That strident approach has prompted blowback from patient advocates and health industry groups across the spectrum, and even bewildered some Republicans who questioned the wisdom of making any changes to a program as politically delicate as Medicaid, especially in the red states of Trump's base. 'The fact remains that a great many Trump voters are on Medicaid, particularly in rural areas,' said GOP pollster Whit Ayres, adding it's unclear whether voters will buy Republicans' assertion that some cuts shouldn't qualify as actual cuts.'If no one loses coverage, how are you going to cut $500 billion?' Still, Trump aides remain confident they can bring both the Senate and the broader public around to their view. Much of the Medicaid-cautious contingent in the Senate — including Hawley — have already said they're okay with work requirements, drawing the line instead at broader funding cuts that might directly impact health providers and state budgets. The White House in the meantime has salivated over a fight with Democrats over coverage for undocumented immigrants, viewing it as another politically advantageous front in its immigration offensive. As for work requirements, Republicans pointed to polling that has consistently shown most Americans support them in theory — even despite the warnings about how it's likely to play out. 'It's a simple, clear message to say we're only taking away coverage from people who are not working,' said Miller. 'You don't get down to the granular details of, what does that actually mean in practice?'
Forbes
7 hours ago
- Business
- Forbes
Why Do We Care How Much We Spend On Medicaid?
The U.S. has fewer hospital beds per person than Europe does. In evaluating the success of Obamacare in general and Medicaid expansion in particular, reporters and commentators have tended to focus on only one measure: the increase in the number of people with health insurance. At the same time, in evaluating the health consequences of the House Republican reconciliation measure, almost all the focus has been on the number of people who will lose health insurance. The implicit premise in all of this is: more health insurance means more health care and less health insurance means less health care. That has been the premise behind virtually every important piece of health care legislation going all the way back to the creation of Medicare and Medicaid in1965. Yet the premise ignores a fundamental economic principle: no matter what happens to the demand for care, there won't be a change in health care delivered unless there is a change in supply. Under Obamacare, we are certainly spending more money. The annual cost of Medicaid expansion is $130 billion and the cost of exchange subsidies is more than $60 billion. What are we getting in return for all this extra spending? Although there has been a substantial increase in the number of people with health insurance, one study finds that there has been no overall increase in health care. In fact, the nation may be getting less care. In 2023, 13 years after the passage of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), the number of hospital admissions per capita was 19 percent lower and the number of hospital days was18 percent lower than the year the act was passed. In the 9 years following the passage of Obamacare, doctor visits per capita declined by 18%. Further, our health care resources appear to be quite skimpy in comparison to other developed countries. Today, the United States has 2.7 doctors per 1,000 people, while the European average is 4.1. The U.S. has fewer than three hospital beds per 1,000 residents. The EU has more than five. And our country doesn't seem to be getting any healthier. Life expectancy in 2024 was lower than it was ten years earlier. As for Medicaid, numerous studies through the years have produced conflicting results on what difference the program makes for enrollee health. Yet these studies suffer from all the problems that are inherent in making inferences from population statistics. One study was different. The Oregon Health Insurance Experiment was a randomized controlled trial (RCT) that examined the medical condition of real people. Medicaid enrollees were selected by lottery and after two years the investigators compared the medical condition of those who enrolled with those who didn't. The results: enrollees had less financial stress and were less likely to be depressed, but there was no difference in their physical health. One of the Oregon investigators, MIT economist Amy Finkelstein, helps us understand those results. People without health insurance, she notes, still get about 80 percent of the health care that Medicaid enrollees get. And when they are confronted with high medical bills, they actually pay only a small portion of them. You might suppose that Medicaid enrollees are less likely to rely on hospital emergency rooms. The reverse is true. Once they enroll, Medicaid patients increase their trips to the emergency room by 40 percent. This may explain why Medicaid enrollees place a very low value on enrollment. If you were to offer to buy their Medicaid insurance coverage, it appears that the average enrollee would sell her insurance for as little as 20 cents on the dollar. Moreover, among the lottery winners who were offered enrollment in Oregon, more than half turned the offer down! By implication, these folks placed no value on the opportunity to enroll. These findings have convinced Finkelstein (certainly no right-winger) that rather than giving low-income families more Medicaid, we should give them cash instead. Here is one way to do that. Private companies managing Medicaid (or the state itself) should be able to make deposits to Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) that would cover, say, all primary care. Enrollees would be restricted to using the money for health care during an insurance year. With these funds, they would be able to pay market prices (instead of Medicaid fees) at doctor's offices, walk-in clinics and urgent care centers – allowing them to buy medical care the way they buy food with food stamps. This would allow low-income families to have the same health care opportunities that middle-income families have. At the end of the insurance period, they could withdraw any unspent funds for any purpose. If there were no taxes or penalties for non-medical withdrawals, health care and non-health care would be trading against each other on a level playing field under the tax law. People wouldn't spend a dollar on health care unless they got a dollar's worth of value. An early study by the RAND Corporation suggests that these accounts could reduce Medicaid spending by 30 percent. Excluding payments for the disabled and nursing home care, the savings would amount to almost $1 trillion over ten years. This saving would be shared by the beneficiaries and the taxpayers who fund Medicaid. This is one way to resolve the impasse in the Senate over the House reconciliation bill. HSAs for Medicaid are a way to make the program better for enrollees and cut spending at the same time.
Yahoo
21 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
White House insists Medicaid policy won't cut people who deserve it
The White House plans to confront resistance to Medicaid cuts from Senate Republicans by arguing that any reductions in coverage would only affect people who didn't deserve it in the first place. A strong bloc of Republicans in the Senate has signaled that they are uncomfortable with Medicaid reductions in the sweeping tax-and-spending bill enacted last month by the House. President Donald Trump's advisers are determined to confront those concerns by claiming that cuts would chiefly target undocumented immigrants and able-bodied people who should not be on Medicaid, according to four administration officials and outside allies granted anonymity to discuss strategy. 'This bill will preserve and protect the programs, the social safety net, but it will make it much more common sense,' Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought said Sunday. 'That's what this bill does. No one will lose coverage as a result.' The megabill would add work requirements to the program and bar undocumented immigrants from getting coverage, among other attempts to tighten eligibility. Those provisions are projected to leave roughly 7.6 million low-income people without health care over the next decade — losses that would amount to hundreds of billions of dollars in cost savings for the program. Contrary to Trump officials' claims, such cuts are widely anticipated to go beyond immigrants and the narrow slice of able-bodied unemployed, according to health experts. The provisions would likely add new layers of paperwork for low-income enrollees, making it more difficult for qualified recipients to stay on the program and pushing otherwise-eligible Americans suddenly out of health coverage. In a POLITICO interview published Sunday, Trump Medicaid chief Mehmet Oz argued the changes would 'future proof' the program, also insisting that "we're not cutting Medicaid." 'There's a lot of sensitivity about being accused, accused of not taking care of people who have disabilities or seniors without money or children,' Oz said. Trump officials have aggressively pushed that stance in public and private in recent days, insisting that the administration's plan will shield 'deserving' Medicaid recipients like the elderly and disabled, while targeting those who officials have cast as a drain on the nation's safety net. Many of those people gained coverage over the last decade through Obamacare's expansion of Medicaid. Republicans have been stung before by their efforts to enact health care cuts, most notably facing massive voter blowback in 2017 that cratered Trump's bid to repeal Obamacare and contributed to widespread losses in the following midterms. But Trump officials and allies argue that voters will support these changes to Medicaid, seeing them less as cuts than tweaks meant to ensure resources go to those who truly need it. 'Medicaid does not belong to people who are here illegally, and it does not belong to capable and able-bodied men who refuse to work,' said one of the White House officials. 'So no one is getting cut.' In a statement, White House spokesman Kush Desai said Trump would "protect and preserve Medicaid" by "kicking illegal immigrants off of the program and implementing commonsense work requirements," adding that Americans voted for such policies. The strategy represents a stark messaging shift for a GOP that has long found itself on the defensive in debates over health coverage. And it's an attempt by the White House to mirror the approach Trump has taken on other issues like immigration and trade, casting aside political complexities in favor of portraying them as a simple choice between 'us' and 'them.' Trump has framed his mass deportation campaign as an effort to rid the country of millions of immigrants deemed undeserving of staying in the U.S. He's justified his tariffs as a counter to other countries 'ripping us off' on trade. 'Before, they were taking things away from people,' Thomas Miller, a senior fellow at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, said of the health messaging shift. 'Now, they're saying they're not deserving.' In the Senate, Vought and White House legislative affairs chief James Braid have taken the lead in talks with Republican lawmakers, the White House official said. Trump has also dialed up a handful of senators over the last week, said another White House official granted anonymity to discuss internal strategy, ahead of a sprint in the Senate to pass its version of the megabill in a matter of weeks. The success of that effort could hinge on a handful of GOP senators who are skeptical of any Medicaid policies that could be interpreted as cuts, especially after the House added last-minute health care provisions into its bill that ballooned the predicted coverage losses. Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine have expressed reservations about Medicaid work requirements, while some others have warned more generally about the prospect of cutting the program. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), perhaps the most outspoken Republican on the issue, said Monday in a post on X that Trump had assured him 'NO MEDICAID BENEFIT CUTS' will be in the bill. But rather than change course on policy, Trump officials and other Hill Republicans have instead signaled a preference for winning votes by redefining what qualifies as a cut. In a midday missive on Monday, the White House touted its push to remove roughly 1.4 million undocumented immigrants as key to strengthening Medicaid benefits 'for whom the program was designed — pregnant women, children, people with disabilities, low-income seniors, and other vulnerable low-income families.' That strident approach has prompted blowback from patient advocates and health industry groups across the spectrum, and even bewildered some Republicans who questioned the wisdom of making any changes to a program as politically delicate as Medicaid, especially in the red states of Trump's base. 'The fact remains that a great many Trump voters are on Medicaid, particularly in rural areas,' said GOP pollster Whit Ayres, adding it's unclear whether voters will buy Republicans' assertion that some cuts shouldn't qualify as actual cuts.'If no one loses coverage, how are you going to cut $500 billion?' Still, Trump aides remain confident they can bring both the Senate and the broader public around to their view. Much of the Medicaid-cautious contingent in the Senate — including Hawley — have already said they're okay with work requirements, drawing the line instead at broader funding cuts that might directly impact health providers and state budgets. The White House in the meantime has salivated over a fight with Democrats over coverage for undocumented immigrants, viewing it as another politically advantageous front in its immigration offensive. As for work requirements, Republicans pointed to polling that has consistently shown most Americans support them in theory — even despite the warnings about how it's likely to play out. 'It's a simple, clear message to say we're only taking away coverage from people who are not working,' said Miller. 'You don't get down to the granular details of, what does that actually mean in practice?' Megan Messerly and Ben Leonard contributed to this report.
Politico
21 hours ago
- Health
- Politico
White House insists Medicaid policy won't cut people who deserve it
The White House plans to confront resistance to Medicaid cuts from Senate Republicans by arguing that any reductions in coverage would only affect people who didn't deserve it in the first place. A strong bloc of Republicans in the Senate has signaled that they are uncomfortable with Medicaid reductions in the sweeping tax-and-spending bill enacted last month by the House. President Donald Trump's advisers are determined to confront those concerns by claiming that cuts would chiefly target undocumented immigrants and able-bodied people who should not be on Medicaid, according to four administration officials and outside allies granted anonymity to discuss strategy. 'This bill will preserve and protect the programs, the social safety net, but it will make it much more common sense,' Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought said Sunday. 'That's what this bill does. No one will lose coverage as a result.' The megabill would add work requirements to the program and bar undocumented immigrants from getting coverage, among other attempts to tighten eligibility. Those provisions are projected to leave roughly 7.6 million low-income people without health care over the next decade — losses that would amount to hundreds of billions of dollars in cost savings for the program. Contrary to Trump officials' claims, such cuts are widely anticipated to go beyond immigrants and the narrow slice of able-bodied unemployed, according to health experts. The provisions would likely add new layers of paperwork for low-income enrollees, making it more difficult for qualified recipients to stay on the program and pushing otherwise-eligible Americans suddenly out of health coverage. In a POLITICO interview published Sunday, Trump Medicaid chief Mehmet Oz argued the changes would 'future proof' the program, also insisting that 'we're not cutting Medicaid.' 'There's a lot of sensitivity about being accused, accused of not taking care of people who have disabilities or seniors without money or children,' Oz said. Trump officials have aggressively pushed that stance in public and private in recent days, insisting that the administration's plan will shield 'deserving' Medicaid recipients like the elderly and disabled, while targeting those who officials have cast as a drain on the nation's safety net. Many of those people gained coverage over the last decade through Obamacare's expansion of Medicaid. Republicans have been stung before by their efforts to enact health care cuts, most notably facing massive voter blowback in 2017 that cratered Trump's bid to repeal Obamacare and contributed to widespread losses in the following midterms. But Trump officials and allies argue that voters will support these changes to Medicaid, seeing them less as cuts than tweaks meant to ensure resources go to those who truly need it. 'Medicaid does not belong to people who are here illegally, and it does not belong to capable and able-bodied men who refuse to work,' said one of the White House officials. 'So no one is getting cut.' In a statement, White House spokesman Kush Desai said Trump would 'protect and preserve Medicaid' by 'kicking illegal immigrants off of the program and implementing commonsense work requirements,' adding that Americans voted for such policies. The strategy represents a stark messaging shift for a GOP that has long found itself on the defensive in debates over health coverage. And it's an attempt by the White House to mirror the approach Trump has taken on other issues like immigration and trade, casting aside political complexities in favor of portraying them as a simple choice between 'us' and 'them.' Trump has framed his mass deportation campaign as an effort to rid the country of millions of immigrants deemed undeserving of staying in the U.S. He's justified his tariffs as a counter to other countries 'ripping us off' on trade. 'Before, they were taking things away from people,' Thomas Miller, a senior fellow at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, said of the health messaging shift. 'Now, they're saying they're not deserving.' In the Senate, Vought and White House legislative affairs chief James Braid have taken the lead in talks with Republican lawmakers, the White House official said. Trump has also dialed up a handful of senators over the last week, said another White House official granted anonymity to discuss internal strategy, ahead of a sprint in the Senate to pass its version of the megabill in a matter of weeks. The success of that effort could hinge on a handful of GOP senators who are skeptical of any Medicaid policies that could be interpreted as cuts, especially after the House added last-minute health care provisions into its bill that ballooned the predicted coverage losses. Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine have expressed reservations about Medicaid work requirements, while some others have warned more generally about the prospect of cutting the program. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), perhaps the most outspoken Republican on the issue, said Monday in a post on X that Trump had assured him 'NO MEDICAID BENEFIT CUTS' will be in the bill. But rather than change course on policy, Trump officials and other Hill Republicans have instead signaled a preference for winning votes by redefining what qualifies as a cut. In a midday missive on Monday, the White House touted its push to remove roughly 1.4 million undocumented immigrants as key to strengthening Medicaid benefits 'for whom the program was designed — pregnant women, children, people with disabilities, low-income seniors, and other vulnerable low-income families.' That strident approach has prompted blowback from patient advocates and health industry groups across the spectrum, and even bewildered some Republicans who questioned the wisdom of making any changes to a program as politically delicate as Medicaid, especially in the red states of Trump's base. 'The fact remains that a great many Trump voters are on Medicaid, particularly in rural areas,' said GOP pollster Whit Ayres, adding it's unclear whether voters will buy Republicans' assertion that some cuts shouldn't qualify as actual cuts.'If no one loses coverage, how are you going to cut $500 billion?' Still, Trump aides remain confident they can bring both the Senate and the broader public around to their view. Much of the Medicaid-cautious contingent in the Senate — including Hawley — have already said they're okay with work requirements, drawing the line instead at broader funding cuts that might directly impact health providers and state budgets. The White House in the meantime has salivated over a fight with Democrats over coverage for undocumented immigrants, viewing it as another politically advantageous front in its immigration offensive. As for work requirements, Republicans pointed to polling that has consistently shown most Americans support them in theory — even despite the warnings about how it's likely to play out. 'It's a simple, clear message to say we're only taking away coverage from people who are not working,' said Miller. 'You don't get down to the granular details of, what does that actually mean in practice?' Megan Messerly and Ben Leonard contributed to this report.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Kristi Noem Cowed By Sheriffs Into Retreating From Latest Anti-Immigrant Broadside
Last week, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it didn't take too kindly to the immigration policies of hundreds of municipalities across the country. It posted a list of 'sanctuary cities,' jurisdictions that allegedly limit information-sharing and other forms of cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Unfortunately for the administration, the list, off the bat, sparked more confusion than fear. Several locations were in deeply Republican areas; some local officials disputed that they could meet any reasonable definition of 'sanctuary city.' But the death blow to the list came over the weekend, when the National Sheriffs' Association put out a jeremiad demanding that the list be removed and that Secretary Kristi Noem issue 'an apology to the Sheriffs and the American people.' The sheriffs knew how to ensure that the issue hit close to home for for the DHS secretary. Sure, the list 'violated the core principles of trust, cooperation, and partnership with fellow law enforcement.' But let's be serious about what really matters: 'DHS has done a terrible disservice to President Trump and the Sheriffs of this country,' the statement reads. By Sunday, the list was no longer active. Noem does not appear to have issued an apology. She did tell Fox News host Maria Bartiromo that 'some of the cities have pushed back' after Bartiromo asked why she could not see the list anymore. — Josh Kovensky We have been covering the ways in which the cuts to Medicaid included in the House-passed reconciliation package would kick millions off their health care coverage, leaving many completely uninsured. Many of the changes House Republicans shoved into the bill directly target the Medicaid expansion population — the group that received eligibility for health care coverage under the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion. Despite Republicans' well-worn rhetoric around addressing 'waste, fraud and abuse,' the changes add up to a back handed GOP effort to repeal Obamacare as we know it — a goal congressional Republicans loudly tried and failed at dozens of times before, including during the first Trump administration. Since then, the repeal efforts have been more quiet, and even though House Republicans are not saying they are repealing the ACA, the cuts they are implementing will deal a substantial blow to it. The Congressional Budget Office is estimating that if the House bill becomes law, 7.6 million fewer people would be enrolled in Medicaid and 3.1 million fewer would be enrolled in plans offered on the Obamacare marketplaces in the next decade. At the same time, private insurers and state officials are warning of chaos in the insurance markets due to changes and Medicaid cuts included in the House GOP bill, according to Politico. The changes could lead to higher premiums for people who shop for coverage in the marketplaces, and leave brokers and state officials with very little time between when the law could be enacted and when open enrollment starts in fall to adapt to the new regime. — Emine Yücel Also in Noem-related news, a victory for the Secretary of Homeland Security. A candidate with the MAGA stamp of approval, right-wing historian Karol Nawrocki, narrowly won a runoff in Poland's presidential election Sunday. Noem had visited Poland last month for the country's first CPAC and endorsed Nawrocki, a highly unusual move for a Cabinet official. (Noted 2020 election-theft co-architect John Eastman also spoke at the event.) The Polish president doesn't have many powers, but can veto legislation, setting him up to impede the agenda of the more pro-Europe and pro-Ukraine Prime Minister, Donald Tusk. — John Light 'The Federal Government Is Gone': Under Trump, The Fight Against Extremist Violence Is Left Up To The States Pro-Trump Candidate Wins Poland's Presidential Election—A Bad Omen For The EU, Ukraine And Women Appeals Court Tries To Get To The Bottom Of A 4th Wrongful Deportation Democrats' Hamlet Moment Isn't the Start of a Solution But the Heart of the Problem The Law Firms That Appeased Trump—and Angered Their Clients — Erin Mulvaney, Emily Glazer, C. Ryan Barber, Josh Dawsey, the Wall Street Journal Exclusive: US veterans agency orders scientists not to publish in journals without clearance — Aaron Glantz A 23-Year-Old Crypto Bro Is Now Vetoing NSF Grants While Staring At His Water Bottle — TechDirt, Mike Masnick
