California's Latest Hustle: Utility Bills Based On Ratepayers' Income

 by Jane L. Johnson via The Mises Institute,

Utility bills - for electricity, natural gas, water, and garbage - have by long-standing tradition been based on customer usage, measured in kilowatt-hours of electricity, therms or Btu of natural gas, hundred cubic feet of water, or number of garbage cans.

Every residence and business has electric, gas, and water meters that measure utility usage.

But changes are afoot in the utility business as federal and state governments urge Americans to convert from fossil fuels to electricity for home heating, appliances, and transportation. From this transition will undoubtedly follow changes in utility rate-setting models.

Fixed Fees Coupled with Usage-Based Electricity Rates

Some electric utilities currently charge customers a flat, fixed fee as well as usage-based charges, both on the same monthly bill. The fixed fees, often called “customer charges” or “meter-reading charges,” are imposed irrespective of energy usage. These fees assure revenue stability and offset the overhead expenses of running electric utilities. Energy usage-based charges, which can vary seasonally, are designed (and regulated) to recover the cost of the electricity sold.

Economists refer to this pricing strategy as a two-part tariff in which the consumer must pay a fixed fee for the right to buy a product or service (energy in the case of electric utilities). This pricing model effectively maximizes revenue for sellers that have some monopoly pricing power in their respective markets because of the way they have structured their businesses. Electric utilities are, of course, regulated monopolies that serve designated geographic areas.

Other Examples of Two-Part Tariff Pricing Strategy

• Disneyland charges high entrance fees to its theme parks, but prices for individual rides are just sufficiently high to cover the marginal cost of operating the rides. A family that has traveled from Kansas to California or Florida Disney venues will likely not balk at paying high admission fees combined with low per-ride ticket prices.

• Popular retailer Costco charges annual membership dues that allow customers to buy large product packages at relatively low unit prices. While Costco isn’t strictly considered a monopoly among warehouse stores, its unique membership and marketing methods effectively give it monopoly status with great cachet.

• Country clubs typically charge high membership fees that offer members the right to buy greens fees and participate in social activities with other like-minded, equally affluent members.

• Bars levy admission cover charges combined with fees per drink once patrons are inside.

The strategy works when sellers can easily identify different buyer groups and prohibit individual buyers from selling to nonmember buyers.

For example, country club members cannot resell greens fees or social activities to nonmembers. Disneyland visitors cannot resell ride tickets to those who have not paid the entrance fee. And electric utility ratepayers cannot resell to others who don’t have accounts with the utility.

Income-Based Fixed Charges

But what if utilities based their fixed fee on customers’ income levels rather than a flat uniform fee for every customer?

California, home to 10 percent of the total US population and often considered a state laboratory where policies begin before adoption across the nation, offers a glimpse into the future of utility rate setting as the two-part tariff pricing model has now taken on a new wrinkle.

In 2022 the supermajority Democrat state legislature passed and the governor signed Assembly Bill 205 (AB 205), which ordered the California Public Utilities Commission to authorize a “fixed charge” on residential electric bills by July 2024. Customers of the three large investor-owned utilities (IOUs)—Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Southern California Edison, and San Diego Gas and Electric—would pay this charge regardless of their electricity usage and in addition to that usage. The basis of the fixed charge is to be determined by each IOU utility, subject to approval by the California Public Utilities Commission.

The legislation also required the utilities to reduce their rates for electricity usage in order to assist low-income customers as electricity prices continue to rise. This represents not only a major shift in the standard rate-setting model from usage orientation to fixed charges but also a new emphasis on income and wealth redistribution from high-income customers to low-income, somewhat akin to a progressive income tax.

There is no precedent for such redistribution in utility rate regulation.

AB 205 was intended to ensure that the IOUs’ new two-part pricing strategy be revenue-neutral - that is, continue to make sufficient revenue to invest in needed infrastructure for long-distance transmission (picture large pylons across the landscape) and distribution (local power lines delivering power to retail customers). The three IOUs own the vast majority of California’s energy infrastructure (poles and wires), construction and maintenance of which are so vital to greater electrification of homes and transportation as California focuses on transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

A further intent of the legislation, moreover, was to raise additional revenue to pay for burying power lines that might otherwise ignite wildfires and constructing facilities to carry solar and wind-generated energy to large urban areas. Higher-income customers would pay a disproportionately high share of these construction and maintenance costs, even if they don’t use more power.

It all sounded like a win-win for progressives:

Rich people pay more for energy, poor people pay less, and everyone makes progress on global warming.

Until, that is, questions arose on possible fallout from this new rate-setting model:

How to determine ratepayers’ income levels without invading their privacy?

How might higher income-based fixed charges, coupled with lower kilowatt-hours usage rates, reduce financial incentives to conserve energy usage?

How might lower usage rates affect desirable future sales of rooftop solar installation?

Because of these imponderables and because the California Public Utilities Commission has not approved any of several possible methodologies to implement AB 205, one legislator has now introduced Assembly Bill 1999 to repeal the fixed-charge mandate. Another legislator who voted for AB 205 now confesses that the legislation was long and confusing and was called up for a vote very shortly after its text was available to read.

Blame is being passed around.

Is the original AB 205 merely a profit-grab by the three large IOUs? Were legislators remiss in approving it too quickly in their zeal to mandate climate goals? Who originally decided to incorporate the income-based fixed charge into the legislation?

Addressing these questions may be a challenge, something akin to solving an algebraic problem with more variables than equations, which leaves only an indeterminate solution. Too many conditions must be satisfied: revenue neutrality, protecting customer privacy when determining their income levels, energy usage rates low enough to protect low-income customers, usage rates high enough to encourage energy conservation and future installation of rooftop solar, sufficient revenue to invest in infrastructure for wildfire prevention, and additional grid capacity to support electric vehicle recharging stations and home heat pumps.

It is possible to solve such problems using linear programming, maximizing a linear function subject to the various constraints. But it is unlikely that California Public Utilities Commission staff could grapple with such a solution in time to approve income-based electric utility two-part tariffs in time for July 2024 implementation.

Whether this two-part tariff income-based pricing model might migrate to utilities in other states is unclear at this point, but its success or failure in California will probably determine its ultimate fate. In the meantime, perhaps the original legislation AB 205 is so poorly written that it should be repealed outright, consigning another well-intentioned governmental intervention effort to the proverbial dustbin of history.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/californias-latest-hustle-utility-bills-based-ratepayers-income

54% in US Think Biden's Open Borders Aimed At Creating Permanent Dem Majority: Rasmussen

 A new poll from Rasmussen finds that 54% of likely voters believe Joe Biden to be "encouraging" illegal aliens to enter the United States in order to "create a permanent majority" for the Democrats, the National Pulse reports.

According to the poll, 43% "strongly agree" that the border crisis is being facilitated for political advantage, while 14% "somewhat agree." 29% "strongly disagree," while 8% "somewhat disagree."

Hispanic voters, despite having leaned Democrat in every general and midterm election since 1980, are actually more likely to believe Biden is exploiting illegal immigration than any other ethnic group. Forty-eight percent strongly agree this is what the Democrat leader is doing, and 20 percent somewhat agree for a combined 68 percent. This compares to 17 percent who strongly disagree and seven percent who somewhat disagree.

A combined 54 percent of white voters agree Biden is trying to create a permanent majority, and a plurality of 47 percent of black voters agree. -National Pulse

Meanwhile 36% of self-identified moderates believe Biden is trying to create a permanent majority, as do 36% of Democrats.

In February, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas claimed that the Biden administration doesn't bear responsibility for the border crisis, despite, among other things:

• Terminating the National Emergency at the Southwest border
• Revoking a Trump-era Executive Order that was designed to ensure there was meaningful enforcement of U.S. immigration laws.
• Issuing an executive order protecting DACA recipients
• Unveiling the U.S. Citizenship Act, which would provide amnesty to millions of illegal aliens in the U.S., demonstrating intent to reward illegal border crossers with a path to citizenship.
• Announcing a 100-day moratorium on deportations and immigration enforcement, effectively providing amnesty to criminal and other removable aliens

 (It's a really long list...)

And since Biden was sworn in as president in January 2021, there have been at least 10 million illegals who have entered the United States, while the government deals with a backlog of more than 3 million asylum cases in US courts.

We're sure Congressional Republicans will have all sort of nice things to say about immigration when we get to the amnesty phase of the operation.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/54-americans-think-bidens-open-borders-aimed-creating-permanent-democrat-majority

China’s Factories Moving to America?

 Treasury Secretary Yellen recently took an airplane to China.

To our everlasting astonishment the aerial machine arrived intact.

It was — after all — “constructed” by Boeing.

In China the American potentate read her hosts a severe lesson… and wagged a lecturing finger in their stern faces.

She bellyached and moaned about Chinese economic “overcapacity.”

China — in Ms. Yellen’s telling — is overproducing and underconsuming.

This condition represents a dreadful menace to the United States. Thus the lady mumbled that:

I am particularly worried about… China’s enduring macroeconomic imbalances—namely its weak household consumption and business overinvestment…

China has long had excess savings, but investment in the real estate sector and government-funded infrastructure had absorbed much of it. Now we are seeing an increase in business investment in a number of “new” industries targeted by the PRC’s industrial policy. That includes electric vehicles, lithium-ion batteries and solar.

China is now simply too large for the rest of the world to absorb this enormous capacity… When the global market is flooded by artificially cheap Chinese products, the viability of American and other foreign firms is put into question.

What Yellen Really Said

Last week we placed within our stable Mr. Andrew Zatlin — “The Moneyball Economist.”

Here he strips the preceding mummery to its nuts, to its bolts, to its washers and screws:

China has built a massive manufacturing base and they continue to build out the factories.

It’s reminiscent of what Japan did in the ’70s and ’80s, which was to rapidly industrialize and get rich quick.

The Chinese government is taking a page out of that playbook. Basically, you make a lot of stuff, you sell that stuff to other people.

Janet Yellen said she’s particularly worried about how China is enduring macroeconomic imbalances. What does that mean?

It means China’s making a lot of money and saving it, resulting in weak household consumption. We want China to have a consumer economy… and to stop building factories that are making cheap products that are overwhelming us.

Quite frankly, it’s all about jobs. If the U.S. is flooded with cheap Chinese products, U.S. companies go out of business and we lose jobs.

And that’s the message from Janet Yellen to China: You’re doing the same thing that Japan did, and we’re going to stop it.

Will Chinese Factories Move to the U.S.?

How did the United States stop Japan??

In the 1980s, Reagan starts pushing hard on Japan. Just like with China, they wanted Japan to boost consumer spending and stop flooding us with their cheap goods.

You know what happened? Japan moved their manufacturing over to the U.S. Honda and Toyota opened production lines here. By 1996 there were three factories that Toyota was running building cars.

Thus Andrew expects China to pursue the Japanese example.

Chinese factories will take ship at Shanghai and offload at the Port of Los Angeles… where they will board trains for the American interior.

Upon arrival American laborers will empty into them.

With these factories comes investment opportunity, says Andrew:

So what’s the investment play here? Power generation. More U.S. factories mean a higher demand for reliable electric generation. I like infrastructure.

Go here for his entire commentary.

The “Evils” of Excess Savings

Treasury Secretary Yellen refers to “excess savings.”

“Excess savings” is a devilish condition that — happily — your editor has never endured.

He can scarcely conceive its terrors.

He would be reduced to purchasing all his goods and services with money in his actual possession.

A credit card would be an unknown. As would monthly interest payments at 23%.

Thus he would shatter the central pillar of American economic life — debt-based consumption.

Pity the forsaken land of excess savings, unblessed by debt. Its debt-to-GDP ratio is not merely zero. It is negative.

Contrast this hell with the debt-blessed American paradise.

United States national debt runs to $34.6 trillion. United States total debt — both public and private — runs to a divine $98 trillion.

And the nation’s debt-to-GDP ratio scales 120%.

Gloria in excelsis Deo!

Then you have those poor Chinese…

Say’s Law

Chinese households, alas, are afflicted with the plague of excess savings. Their owners fail to appreciate the infinite wonders of debt.

They are evidently slaves to Say’s Law — that production must precede consumption.

That is, a man must produce before he can consume.

The government Ms. Yellen represents has long revolted against Mr. Say’s iron law.

It goes along under a sort of Keynesian anti-Say’s law — that consumption precedes production.

She herself rises in active revolt against Mr. Say and his universal law. She does not believe in it.

What does Ms. Yellen believe in?

Ms. Yellen believes in the theory that consumer spending represents 70% of the United States economy.

Let us now proceed to a central assault upon the consumption theory itself — the nearly universal theory that consumer consumption constitutes 70% of the United States economy.

It likely constitutes far less.

Consumption In Only 30% of GDP

Official calculations of the gross domestic product neglect tremendous piles of economic goings-on.

These goings-on include business investment and spending on “intermediate” goods.

These are inputs required for the production of final goods — hence they are intermediate goods.

The steel in the automobile, the sugar in the candy, the wood in the furniture… these are intermediate goods… for example.

Yet their purchase does not classify as consumer spending — else they would be double-counted in the ledgers.

Explains economist Mark Skousen:

GDP only measures the value of final output. It deliberately leaves out a big chunk of the economy – intermediate production or goods-in-process at the commodity, manufacturing and wholesale stages – to avoid double counting.

Now mix in expenditures on intermediate goods. What do we find?

We find that consumer consumption merely constitutes perhaps 30% of GDP. Skousen:

I calculated total spending (sales or receipts) in the economy at all stages to be more than double GDP… By this measure — which I have dubbed gross domestic expenditures, or GDE – consumption represents only about 30% of the economy, while business investment (including intermediate output) represents over 50%.

To emphasize: Consumption represents a mere 30% of the gross domestic product. Not the commonly accepted 70%.

We therefore incline toward the business investment gauge of economic vigor.

And business investment — over 50% of the gross domestic product — has been steadily shedding steam.

Thus we harbor a hearty suspicion about the lovely economic reports in current circulation.

We do not believe them. More tomorrow…

Brian Maher is the Daily Reckoning's Managing Editor. Before signing on to Agora Financial, he was an independent researcher and writer who covered economics, politics and international affairs. His work has appeared in the Asia Times and other news outlets around the world. He holds a Master’s degree in Defense & Strategic Studies.

https://dailyreckoning.com/chinas-factories-moving-to-america/

Dems Commit Vastly More Dark Money Than GOP For 2024

 Democratic dark money groups, megadonors, and unions are funding a massive spending effort aimed at reelecting President Joe Biden and advancing the Democratic Party’s power in Washington.

So far, nine major outside spending groups say they will together spend nearly $800 million to support the reelection of President Biden. This is in addition to the massive financial resources the Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) will likely pour into the rematch of the 2020 election.

The progressive organizations—American Bridge 21st Century, Campaign for a Family Friendly Economy, Climate Power, League of Conservation Voters, MoveOn, Republican Voters Against Trump, Service Employees International Union, Unite the Country, and VoteVets— have pledged to spend a total of $792 million on the 2024 election to boost President Biden and the Democratic Party.

Former President Donald Trump, who is supported by the Republican National Committee (RNC) and its affiliates, is not seeing nearly as many commitments.

Groups pledging to back President Trump’s campaign or to hinder President Biden add up to less than a quarter of the amount pledged by the Democrat money powerhouse.

All told, about $160 million has been formally pledged to explicitly help President Trump’s campaign, and Republicans in general. One major group has said it will spend “eight figures” to go against President Biden.

An Epoch Times analysis of the financial records of the various groups shows many are a combination of federally regulated political action committees (PACs) and 501(c)(4) or 501(c)(3) nonprofits.

Under federal law, PACs must report regularly to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), disclose their donors, and declare their overall finances.

The nonprofits, which are classified as charitable organizations and social welfare organizations by the IRS, report much less often and aren’t required to name their donors. For this reason, 501s are frequently called dark money groups.

PACs that do share donor information are getting money from some of the most prolific donors and organizations in the United States.

American Bridge

American Bridge 21st Century, a group specializing in researching and publicizing negative information about opponents of the Democratic Party candidates, said it will spend $200 million on the 2024 election.

When American Bridge made its announcement in January, it said $85 million was already raised and committed.

(L–R) Former President Barack Obama, President Joe Biden, and former President Bill Clinton attend a campaign fundraising event at Radio City Music Hall in New York City on March 28, 2024. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

American Bridge’s release said $140 million of its 2024 expenditure will go toward television, digital and streaming ads, radio, and direct mail placements in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. It could extend its effort to North Carolina.

“These ads will feature the true stories of women voters and their families living in these key swing states and will use their voices to expose the truth about Trump’s agenda,” the release said.

American Bridge is registered with the FEC as AB PAC, a hybrid PAC. According to its latest financial statement filed with the FEC, it had about $5.9 million in cash on hand at the end of February.

Between January 2023 and the end of February 2024, AB PAC received numerous donations of more than $1 million.

The most prominent supporter was the super PAC, Democracy PAC, an entity largely financed by George Soros. Between January 2023 and February 2024, Democracy PAC gave about $4 million to AB PAC.

According to data collected by the watchdog organization OpenSecrets, Mr. Soros was the biggest spender in the 2021 to 2022 election cycle, spending about $178.8 million. Mr. Soros, the founder of the Open Society Foundations, is a prolific donor to Democratic and progressive causes.

In 2023, according to FEC records, Democracy PAC had only one donor: George Soros. In 2021 and 2022, according to FEC records, DemocracyPAC had two donors: Mr. Soros and the Fund For Policy Reform.

Fund For Policy Reform sent DemocracyPAC $25 million. Alexander Soros, George Soros’s son and the chair of Open Society Foundations, is a director of the Fund, according to its tax documents.

Additionally, Michael Moritz, a longtime partner at venture capital firm Sequoia Capital and now a senior advisor at Sequoia Heritage, gave AB PAC $2 million in June 2023, according to FEC records.

(Left) Billionaire George Soros attends a discussion with Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker and Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi and a group of American business leaders at the Blair House in Washington on May 20, 2015. (Right) Alexander Soros, founder of the Alexander Soros Foundation, speaks onstage during a climate event at the Ford Foundation in New York City on April 21, 2016. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images, Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images for Ford Foundation)

According to donor records maintained by OpenSecrets, Mr. Mortiz has sent $8 million to AB PAC between 2019 and 2023.

Two other Democratic Party megadonors are bankrolling American Bridge. FEC records indicate Reid Hoffman and Deborah Simon both sent $1 million or more to the hybrid PAC.

Ms. Simon, an heir to the Simon family real estate fortune, sent $2.5 million in 2023. Mr. Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn Corp., sent AB PAC $1 million in 2023.

OpenSecrets ranked Mr. Hoffman and Ms. Simon among the top 25 largest spenders on the 2021–2022 election cycle. Together, they sent $35.7 million to liberal causes in that period.

American Bridge is also tied to the 501(c)(4) nonprofit American Bridge 21st Century Foundation. According to its most recently filed tax returns, the Foundation had about $1.3 million in net assets at the end of 2022.

Representatives of American Bridge didn’t respond to a request for comment from The Epoch Times.

Service Employees International Union

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) represents 2 million workers in the United States and Canada, according to the union. Its membership is primarily employed in health care, public services, and property services.

In a March 13 announcement, the union said it will spend $200 million—its most extensive campaign ever—to reach as many as 6 million voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

“The union will engage multiracial working-class voters who are less likely to vote or have never voted at all through field programs, relational organizing, earned media, and paid media, partnering with community groups who are trusted messengers in their communities,” an SEIU release said.

A woman casts her ballot in the state's primary election in Green Bay, Wis., on April 2, 2024. (Thos Robinson/Getty Images for The Democratic National Committee, Scott Olson/Getty Images)

The SEIU operates a labor organization political action committee—Service Employees International Union Committee on Political Education (SEIU COPE)—and is linked to the super PAC United We Can.

According to Federal Election Commission records, both of the groups are financed by SEIU members and the SEIU’s local unions.

The two funds, led by SEIU COPE, collectively retained about $35.3 million in cash on hand at the end of February, according to their latest FEC disclosures.

In the 2020 election cycle, covering 2019 and 2020, together, the funds raised about $78.5 million. Those funds, according to the FEC, spent about $7.7 million to support President Biden.

Representatives of the SEIU didn’t respond to a request for comment from The Epoch Times.

League of Conservation Voters

On March 19, the League of Conservation Voters (LCV), an environmental group that typically promotes liberal candidates for federal office, announced its plans to spend $120 million on reelecting President Biden.

LCV is a complex organization composed of nonprofits and FEC-registered PACs. Its two federal PACs—LCV Victory Fund and LCV Voters Action Fund—had about $14.7 million on hand at the end of February, according to the groups’ FEC filings.

LCV also includes the League of Conservation Voters Education Fund, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and the League of Conservation Voters Inc., a 501(c)(4) nonprofit.

According to the FEC, most of the money raised by the PACs between January 2023 and February 2024 came from the League of Conservation Voters Inc. It sent LCV Victory Fund about $12.7 million during that period.

LCV has received funding from multiple organizations tied to Arabella Advisors. In 2020, the Sixteen Thirty Fund, one of the most politically active accounts, sent LCV about $3.5 million, according to its IRS records.

Representatives of LCV didn’t respond to a request for comment from The Epoch Times.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/democrats-commit-vastly-more-dark-money-republicans-2024

Released Israeli hostage alleges that isn’t wasn’t Hamas that abducted her, but the ‘civilians’ of Gaza

 As if you needed any more proof that “Palestinian civilians” are all too often de facto terrorists, here it is, from an article at the Jewish News Syndicate:

Freed Israeli hostage: ‘Gazan civilians sold me to Hamas’

Nili Margalit, 42, on a tour of Europe to raise awareness of the 133 Israeli hostages still in captivity, told France’s Le Point magazine on Monday that it was Palestinian Arab civilians, not Hamas, who abducted her from her home in Nir Oz on Oct. 7.

‘They negotiated with Hamas to sell me. When they were paid, I was taken straight into a tunnel,’ she said.

First of all, using the word civilian implies civility—and there’s nothing civil about kidnapping children, women, and grandparents, and then selling them to a terrorist group to be used as sex slaves, bargaining chips, and human shields.

But apart from that, when the referendum on political leadership you don’t like becomes electing a terrorist group to “govern” instead, I’d say at that point, you’re just as guilty as the crimes committed by the regime you helped install. Cough, Democrat voters, cough cough. For context, here’s how The Washington Post reported on the political turmoil of Gaza between Fatah and Hamas:

In 2006, the Palestinian political entity operating in the West Bank and Gaza staged elections.

The election yielded a shock victory for Hamas, which won the most seats with some 44 percent of the vote

‘Mostly, they were voting for opposition and voting against Fatah...’ Mustafa Barghouti, an outspoken, independent Palestinian politician then and now, told CNN at the time.

Okay so apparently, these Hamas voters didn’t necessarily agree with the slaughter of Christians and Jews (jihad) promised by Hamas in their foundational 1988 Hamas Covenant, but because they hated the other guy (Mahmoud Abbas) that much, they’d put their vote behind literal terrorists continuously waging war against Israeli civilians. Sounds about right for useful idiots—again, cough, Democrat voters, cough cough. (This isn’t to conflate Donald Trump with Abbas but to point out that terrorist enablers often resort to the same justifications as to why they support evil regimes.)

As an online commenter pointed out, “Palestinian civilians” have a long history of acting just like the terrorists:

The Dawson’s Field Hijackings in 1970? Palestinians.

The Munich Olympic Massacre in 1972? Palestinians.

The Ma’alot Massacre in 1974? Palestinians.

The Air France Flight 139 Hijacking / Entebbe Hostage Situation in 1976? Palestinians.

The TWA Flight 847 Hijacking in 1985? Palestinians.

The Achille Lauro Hijacking / Leon Klinghoffer Murder in 1985? Palestinians.

That’s just a FEW of the atrocities committed by PALESTINIANS before Hamas was formed. There have been a great many more, both before and since Hamas took over.

I have no sympathy for a population that is terroristic by nature, or design.

Palestinians are NOT innocent. Hamas is doing exactly what the population wants them to do.

Perhaps you remember this? “Palestinian civilians” celebrating the 9/11 attack?

 

 

Just the other day, Amnesty International posthumously remembered another “Palestinian civilian,” a “writer” who died while in Israeli custody—that man was… Walid Daqqa.

Hamas by any other name is still… Hamas.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/04/released_israeli_hostage_alleges_that_isn_t_wasn_t_hamas_that_abducted_her_but_the_civilians_of_gaza.html 

Joe Biden is coming for your Medicare Advantage

 By Monica Showalter

Joe Biden's re-election campaign is repeating the naked lie, over and over again, that President Trump wants to cut elderly people's Social Security and Medicare.

Some of those elderly voters believe him, as recent polling has shown.

But he's already played Mr. Slasher on Medicare Advantage, the immensely popular supplemental health insurance program favored by more than half of seniors, and he plans to cut it more. Democrats hate this program because it allows its buyers choice in what kind of coverage they would like to have on their policies.

According to an important op-ed on RedState from the Heartland Institute:

In fact, Biden didn’t merely propose Medicare Advantage (MA) reforms a dozen years in the future. He cut rates from a projected 2.44 percent to 2.33 percent, despite industry predictions of a 4 to 6 percent growth rate. Medicare Advantage is often targeted by single-payer advocates because it offers choices to consumers. Rather than the one-size-fits-all Soviet model of health care favored by liberals, MA allows seniors to choose what they want included in their health care coverage. So, for Biden’s single-payer base, this cut is a good thing. But what about the seniors in Arizona, Florida, Nevada, and Wisconsin?

That raises the rates seniors shell out by nearly $400 a year, and that's seniors on fixed incomes. And he's already done it, which puts paid to the lie that Trump wants to cut Medicare and Social Security. He's already doing it himself, not for illegals, but for those who have paid taxes all their lives.

Of all the things to cut in his monster bloated budgets, he chose to cut this, sneaking it into his budget and publicizing it.

It's like the Democrats' 2012 ad targeting Rep. Paul Ryan, back when he was a vice presidential candidate, throwing granny off the cliff.

Had enough? One hopes the Trump campaign and all good conservatives publicize this targeting of seniors by Democrats to ensure they don't vote for this nasty, mendacious, old fraud.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/04/joe_biden_is_coming_for_your_medicare_advantage.html

AVITA Medical Updates Expected First Quarter 2024 Revenue

 AVITA Medical, Inc. (NASDAQ: RCEL, ASX: AVH), a commercial-stage regenerative medicine company focused on first-in-class devices for wound care management and skin restoration, today announced an update to its expected commercial revenue for the first quarter of 2024 and reaffirmed expectations for full-year 2024 revenue at the lower end of the previously provided guidance of US$78.5 million to US$84.5 million.

For the quarter ended March 31, 2024, AVITA Medical now expects commercial revenue to be in the range of US$11.0 million to US$11.3 million. This range is below the previously provided revenue guidance of US$14.8 million to US$15.6 million. The revision in guidance is attributable to a slower-than-expected conversion rate of new accounts for our expanded label of full-thickness skin defects.

Since the launch of the full-thickness skin defects expanded label in June 2023 through the quarter ended March 31, 2024, AVITA Medical has added 73 new accounts, including 22 new accounts in the first quarter. In addition to the new accounts, there are 71 submissions in the evaluation or decision stage of the value analysis committee (VAC) process as of March 31, 2024. However, the projected approval rate was 15 new accounts per month, for an expected total of 135 new accounts by March 31, 2024. The slower-than-expected conversion rate is attributable to the complexity of closing a new account for a product that is approved for multiple indications. Despite this, the number of submissions active in the VAC process and robust prospecting pipeline continue to reflect significant potential for new account approvals, albeit at a slower approval pace than originally anticipated.

"In light of the challenges encountered in the first quarter of 2024, we are intensifying our efforts to drive growth," said Jim Corbett, Chief Executive Officer of AVITA Medical. "While our account conversion rate impacted our quarterly revenue, we remain optimistic for the full year. With the recent launch of PermeaDerm in March and the upcoming launch of RECELL GO, along with our deeper understanding of the VAC processes and timelines, we believe that we will meet the lower end of our previously provided annual revenue guidance range of US$78.5 million to US$84.5 million. We remain committed to delivering value and making a positive impact on the lives of our patients."

AVITA Medical plans to report its financial results for the first quarter 2024 after the close of the U.S. financial markets on Monday, May 13, 2024. A conference call and webcast are scheduled for that day at 1:30 p.m. Pacific Time (Tuesday, May 14, 2024, at 6:30 a.m. Australian Eastern Standard Time) to discuss its results in further detail.

https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2024/04/10/2861150/0/en/AVITA-Medical-Updates-Expected-First-Quarter-2024-Revenue.html