Jeannie

There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest. - Elie Wiesel

[Jeannie @ByeByeCUL8R]

Can we all agree that:
I don't want to be pregnant.
&
I don't want a baby.

Are 2 perfectly acceptable reasons for wanting an abortion?

Need we only accept it for sad stories?

It's perfectly fine for a healthy, financially independent woman to have an abortion.

[Mark Cuban @mcuban]

Then I asked for a simplified version of the above :

Here it is in plain English. Denver hired UnitedHealthcare to run its employee health plan. Denver pays the actual medical and drug bills itself — United just processes them. That’s what “self-funded” means. The problem is that Denver can’t see what it’s actually paying for drugs.

1. United buys the drug for one price and charges Denver a different price. It keeps the difference. Say the pharmacy gets paid $40 for a prescription. United bills Denver $100. United keeps $60. Denver never sees the $40. The contract says this out loud in three different places — it’s not hidden, it’s just written in language nobody reads. There’s no cap on how big that gap can be.

2. Drug companies pay rebates. United keeps all of them and hands Denver a flat number instead. United collects rebate checks from drug manufacturers. Instead of passing those through, it promises Denver a fixed amount per brand prescription (about $740 in 2023). If the actual rebate was $1,500, United keeps the extra $760. The contract literally says any rebates above the fixed amount belong to United. Denver has no right to know what the real number was.

3. United decides which drugs are “specialty” — and specialty drugs are where the money is. The contract defines a specialty drug as, essentially, “whatever United’s own specialty pharmacy sells.” United also reserves the right to reclassify drugs whenever it wants. Once a drug is labeled specialty and filled at United’s own pharmacy, it drops out of the normal price guarantees entirely. So the most expensive drugs are the least protected.

4. The most expensive drugs of all — the ones given in a doctor’s office or infusion center — have no price guarantee at all. The contract flatly excludes them. Cancer drugs, infusions, injections administered by a provider. Zero pricing protection.

5. Denver can’t shop around, and it can’t leave without a penalty. Denver isn’t allowed to negotiate directly with any drug manufacturer. It must use United’s mail-order pharmacy exclusively. And if Denver hires an outside vendor that steers employees to cheaper drugs or cheaper pharmacies, United can cancel all the pricing guarantees. If Denver ends the drug program early, United keeps every rebate it owes.

6. Denver can’t audit its way out of this. Denver is allowed one audit a year, capped at 300 prescriptions, using a random sample United has to approve. No auditors paid on commission. No computer-based searches for errors. You cannot find a pricing problem across hundreds of thousands of claims by randomly checking 300 of them. The audit rules exist to make sure nothing gets found.

Is any of it illegal? Almost none of it. It’s a legal contract that Denver signed. The one thing that might cross a line: federal law since 2021 bans “gag clauses” — contract terms that stop an employer from seeing its own cost and claims data. This contract says United may let Denver see its pricing information, at United’s discretion. Federal regulators have said that “only if the vendor allows it” language is exactly what the gag-clause ban prohibits. And Denver has to certify to the government every year that it has no gag clauses in its contracts.

The one thing Denver could actually do about it: Colorado banned this drug markup practice, effective January 2025, and self-funded employers like Denver can opt in. It’s an election, not a lawsuit. Somebody should check whether Denver ever filed it.

The bottom line for an HR person: the drug program looks free. There’s no fee for it anywhere in the contract. That’s the tell. United isn’t working for free — it’s getting paid out of the drug prices, and the contract is built so Denver can’t measure how much.

[Hillary Clinton @HillaryClinton]

Trump's embarrassing rant last night about an election he lost six years ago made two things very clear:

1. He's not focused on making life better for Americans. Not even close.

2. We should act now to counteract any efforts to undermine our elections. https://t.co/L63hCChOn6

[Bloomberg Law @BLaw]

Google LLC’s Nest cameras collect the biometric data of Americans without their consent, according to a class privacy suit filed Thursday in federal court. https://t.co/gPo1wnIBiR

[Clarence Thomas the Tank Engine @TheRealJChubby]

Every single person who votes for this needs to be sent to Guantanamo Bay.

[Leeloo @LeelooJBesson]

Call the special election @GovAndyBeshear

[Aaron Parnas @AaronParnas]

Not enough people are talking about this.

The Trump Administration is impeding the only active criminal investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.

[MP Arizona☀️🏳️‍🌈💙🌵🐕🐕‍🦺🫂💦🏜🐟🌴🎙🌎🌻♍️🌊 @AzPetrich]

Seems like a good time to remind everyone that the United States Women's National Soccer Team has won 4 World Cups.

[Mike Nellis @MikeNellis]

Every DOGE worker should be fully investigated and prosecuted for this disaster, especially all the people who stole our Social Security numbers

Including Musk

[scary lawyerguy @scarylawyerguy]

It turns out the great egg price increase that helped topple Joe Biden's presidency was <checks notes> due to an alleged conspiracy among egg producers to artificially increase prices and the coverage of that fact is a blink-and-you-miss-it story on the NYT website 🙃

[I'MYOURHUCKLEBERRY @PLSgetserious]

Someone is leaking the SCOTUS decisions to the WH before they're released to the public.

There's a reason we have the Postmaster General suddenly talking about post marks and how mail might be delayed before it's post marked.

You mark my words. We are going to see mail held up and not post marked, until after the election in key races. They have already worked out how to cheat this decision.

Do not drop your vote in a pickup box. Take it into the post office wait in line and make them post mark it in front of you.

[Judd Legum @JuddLegum]

"An opaque White House office staffed largely by veterans of Musk’s DOGE has quietly rebuilt some of the federal government’s most sensitive websites – for passport applications, voter registration, prescription-drug pricing and children’s savings – in ways critics say appear to violate federal law"

[Jackie Singh @HackingButLegal]

Everyone needs to watch this video.

[MW4Liberty @MW4Liberty]

Hear me out:

24/7 public livestreams of the homes of politicians who vote for mass surveillance.

Just need neighbors to let us put up and point a camera. Nothing to hide, nothing to fear! Right? 💁‍♂️

[Jaime Harrison @harrisonjaime]

I say this with no ill will or animosity: if you hate the Democratic Party, then please don’t run for our nomination.

Don’t use our resources. Don’t rely on our volunteers. Don’t use our infrastructure. Don’t ask Democrats to invest their time, money, and energy in your campaign.

Focus on building the party you actually support.

Political parties aren’t perfect, but they’re built by millions of people who knock doors, make calls, organize meetings, and fight for the values they believe in. If you don’t believe in the party, then don’t ask its members to carry you across the finish line.

[Joe Wrote @joewrote]

The anti-ICE protestors persecuted by the government just received their sentences. These are the first prosecutions under Trump's directive that Antifa is a domestic terrorist organization.

For the crime of moving a box of leftist magazines, Daniel Sanchez-Estrada was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

For the crime of attending a protest outside an ICE facility, Zachary Evetts, Autumn Hill, Savanna Batten, Elizabeth Soto, and Meagan Morris were sentenced to 50 years in prison.

For the crime of attending the demonstration and asking her husband (Sanchez-Estrada) to move the magazines, Maricela Rueda was sentenced to 70 years in prison.

For the crime of defending himself with a legal firearm, only firing after a cop raised his gun, a fact that was hidden during the trial, Benjamin Song was sentenced to 100 years in prison.

Americans are being given de-facto life sentences for protesting their government, exercising their freedom of speech, and defending themselves. The fascism you worried about is here.

[Hannah Riley Fernandez @hannahcrileyy]

people who showed up to a protest outside an ICE facility and left when things got chaotic are getting HALF CENTURY sentences in federal court right now, my god

[Hannah Riley Fernandez @hannahcrileyy]

sentencing is happening now and 5 of the defendants have received 50 year sentences. chilling and should be a huge story

[The real is back🤷🏾‍♀️. @ItsMimaMonopoly]

*TRIGGER WARNING* I’m only posting this because I really need a update on what happened to this little girl, & wanna know if she’s been removed from this home. And is her mother and this big funky ass nigga who was chasing her to drag her off camera being investigated / arrested.

[Alan Feuer @alanfeuer]

👀An ICE protester says that agents shackled him to a hospital bed in Minnesota for four days without even charging him w/a crime.
After the NYT spent days asking questions, DOJ dismissed the case and is going to investigate misconduct.

https://t.co/6Nd98TAKgD

[David J. Bier @David_J_Bier]

If you want to see inside the 4th amendment training that ICE agents get, check this supervisory agent's testimony out. They are clearly getting training not on the 4th amendment but on how to evade the 4th amendment.