Charles Gaba's blog

But actually, he thought as he re-adjusted the Ministry of Plenty’s figures, it was not even forgery. It was merely the substitution of one piece of nonsense for another. Most of the material that you were dealing with had no connexion with anything in the real world, not even the kind of connexion that is contained in a direct lie. Statistics were just as much a fantasy in their original version as in their rectified version. A great deal of the time you were expected to make them up out of your head.

For example, the Ministry of Plenty’s forecast had estimated the output of boots for the quarter at 145 million pairs. The actual output was given as sixty-two millions. Winston, however, in rewriting the forecast, marked the figure down to fifty-seven millions, so as to allow for the usual claim that the quota had been overfulfilled. In any case, sixty-two millions was no nearer the truth than fifty-seven millions, or than 145 millions.

A week or so ago the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a semi-final 2025 ACA Open Enrollment Period report, which noted that 23.6 million Americans had selected 2025 plan year coverage via the various ACA marketplaces since November 1st...as of either January 4th or December 28th, depending on the state.

Those thru dates are important, of course, because the 2025 OEP was still ongoing in every state except Idaho at the time...and in fact it's still going on in several of them, including CA, DC, MA, NJ, NY, RI & VA. In some of these states the final deadline is still up to 2 weeks away.

It was in early 2021 that Congressional Democrats passed & President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), which among other things dramatically expanded & enhanced the original premium subsidy formula of the Affordable Care Act, finally bringing the financial aid sliding income scale up to the level it should have been in the first place over a decade earlier.

In addition to beefing up the subsidies along the entire 100 - 400% Federal Poverty Level (FPL) income scale, the ARPA also eliminated the much-maligned "Subsidy Cliff" at 400% FPL, wherein a household earning even $1 more than that had all premium subsidies cut off immediately, requiring middle-class families to pay full price for individual market health insurance policies.

Here's what the original ACA premium subsidy formula looked like compared to the current, enhanced subsidy formula:

(Yes, I'm aware Elon Musk is a naturalized citizen, but given the Musk/Trump Administration's obsession with demonizing immigrants it seems like an appropriate headline)

via the Wall Street Journal:

Representatives of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency have been working at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, where they have gotten access to key payment and contracting systems, according to people familiar with the matter.

The DOGE representatives have been on site at the agency’s offices this week, the people said, and they are looking at the systems’ technology as well as the spending that flows through them, with a focus on pinpointing what they consider fraud or waste. DOGE representatives are also examining the agency’s organizational design and how it is staffed, the people added.

via Reuters:

Feb 4 (Reuters) - A medical advocacy group on Tuesday sued the main U.S. health agencies over the sudden removal of websites containing public health information in response to an executive order by President Donald Trump targeting what his administration deemed to be "gender ideology extremism."

Doctors for America said in the lawsuit, filed in Washington, D.C. federal court, that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has removed "numerous" longstanding websites since the order.

Those include a page on behavioral health risks among youth, which the lawsuit says is important for understanding health challenges faced by young people, including bullying and vaping; pages with data on the prevalence of HIV and associated risky behaviors; and a page on getting tested for HIV, which the lawsuit called "an important communication tool for physicians."

11/14/24, via Politico:

Trump expected to select Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead HHS

President-elect Donald Trump is expected to nominate former presidential candidate and anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, according to a person with direct knowledge of the selection.

The expected pick, which will roil many public health experts, comes after Trump promised to let Kennedy “go wild” with health and food policy in his administration after Kennedy dropped his own presidential bid to endorse the now-president-elect. It’s also a sign of the opening Trump sees after he scored a decisive electoral victory and Republicans won a comfortable majority in the Senate.

Trump could still select someone else for the post. The Trump transition couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

“He’s going to help make America healthy again. … He wants to do some things, and we’re going to let him get to it,” Trump said in his victory speech. “Go have a good time, Bobby.”

It was in early 2021 that Congressional Democrats passed & President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), which among other things dramatically expanded & enhanced the original premium subsidy formula of the Affordable Care Act, finally bringing the financial aid sliding income scale up to the level it should have been in the first place over a decade earlier.

In addition to beefing up the subsidies along the entire 100 - 400% Federal Poverty Level (FPL) income scale, the ARPA also eliminated the much-maligned "Subsidy Cliff" at 400% FPL, wherein a household earning even $1 more than that had all premium subsidies cut off immediately, requiring middle-class families to pay full price for individual market health insurance policies.

Here's what the original ACA premium subsidy formula looked like compared to the current, enhanced subsidy formula:

Note: All 15 pages can be found here.

As horrific as it is that the Trump/Musk Administration is purging data from federal websites, it's good to know that the Internet Archive has been archiving much of it. However, in addition to the Archive not being able to mirror everything, there's also the problem of not always knowing what pages have been purged in the first place.

With that in mind, I present a full list of and links to the archived versions of all ~7,200 individual HTML pages which were available at CDC.gov as of January 27, 2025. Since the full list is so unwieldy, I've broken it into 15 pages. The links are in alphabetical order by URL hierarchy.

It's important to note that there will still likely be some broken links below due to the Internet Archive not being able to mirror them even prior to the Trump/Musk purge for whatever technical reasons:

Note: All 15 pages can be found here.

As horrific as it is that the Trump/Musk Administration is purging data from federal websites, it's good to know that the Internet Archive has been archiving much of it. However, in addition to the Archive not being able to mirror everything, there's also the problem of not always knowing what pages have been purged in the first place.

With that in mind, I present a full list of and links to the archived versions of all ~7,200 individual HTML pages which were available at CDC.gov as of January 27, 2025. Since the full list is so unwieldy, I've broken it into 15 pages. The links are in alphabetical order by URL hierarchy. Working on the other pages today.

It's important to note that there will still likely be some broken links below due to the Internet Archive not being able to mirror them even prior to the Trump/Musk purge for whatever technical reasons:

Note: All 15 pages can be found here.

As horrific as it is that the Trump/Musk Administration is purging data from federal websites, it's good to know that the Internet Archive has been archiving much of it. However, in addition to the Archive not being able to mirror everything, there's also the problem of not always knowing what pages have been purged in the first place.

With that in mind, I present a full list of and links to the archived versions of all ~7,200 individual HTML pages which were available at CDC.gov as of January 27, 2025. Since the full list is so unwieldy, I've broken it into 15 pages. The links are in alphabetical order by URL hierarchy. Working on the other pages today.

It's important to note that there will still likely be some broken links below due to the Internet Archive not being able to mirror them even prior to the Trump/Musk purge for whatever technical reasons:

Pages

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