The Romance of the Rose, health policy edition

#Healthpolicyvalentines are a thing on Twitter. So, to aggregate my morning fun:

Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
I logged on Kynect,
And covered you.

        *     *     *

Violets are blue,
Roses are rouge.
Your income is low,
Your subsidy's huge. 

        *     *     *

Red is the rose,
And violet the heather.
We all have to jump
In the risk pool together. 

        *     *     *

Yellow's the daisy,
And white the azalea
I want the health coverage
They get in Westphalia.

        *     *     *

Azaleas are monochrome,
Daylilies, variegated.
My love for y'all
Is community-rated.

        *     *     *

White man: "whaddaya mean, we?"

"Epistemic closure" is by now a tired, not say clunky, phrase. But how else do describe this dead-end thinking, relayed in today's Playbook?

‘Political consultants in Washington are panicking about Hispanics, and their solution is to grant amnesty,’ said a conservative GOP lawmaker … ‘They’re afraid Hispanics hate Republicans, so they want more of them? It doesn’t pass the laugh test. … [M]embers are right to be worried about getting primaried.’ …

The unlaughable strategy, then, is to keep Hispanics out -- and by extension, to work overtime to keep the voting population as white as possible.