Sex work vs. the soul, instant upstate NY health crisis and other commentary

Culture critic: Sex Work vs. the Soul
The new documentary “I Slept with 100 Men in One Day” “interrogates sex work” and shows that “selling the body means leaving it, if you want to survive,” argues The Free Press’ River Page. “In an internet awash in pornography,” it “takes novelty to stand out,” so OnlyFans star Lily Phillips planned “to have sex with 100 dudes in a single day” (the doc’s main subject). “After the 101 deeds are done — yes, one more than her original goal — Lily emerges from the shower, teary-eyed and exhausted. She shows the filmmakers the room. The cameraman gags from the smell. At first, she assures them that everything has gone well, but the facade quickly crumbles.” “What Lily Phillips just put herself through is not labor. It’s self-abuse.”
Eye on Albany: Instant Upstate Health Crisis
“A billion-dollar Medicare windfall for upstate hospitals has turned into a crisis for upstate health insurers that’s threatening to disrupt coverage for millions of New Yorkers,” fumes the Empire Center’s Bill Hammond. The problem: A 20%-plus hike in the Medicare Wage Index for upstate New York “generated an extra billion dollars in revenue” for hospitals but “created a financial crunch for Medicare Advantage plans,” which got no offsetting increase in federal funding. Absent more funds, each plan “will have to consider scaling back its Medicare Advantage plans, narrowing its provider networks, reducing or eliminating optional benefits.” And upstate Medicare Advantage customers “will face the likelihood of fewer choices and higher costs” owing to a “rate boost for hospitals that officials approved without thinking through the consequences.”
Libertarian: ProPublica’s Botched Journalism
A ProPublica reporter “contacted the West Point public affairs office to inquire about [Defense Secretary-designate Pete] Hegseth’s claim that he was accepted there” and was told, “in no uncertain terms, that Hegseth had never even applied there,” notes Reason’s Robby Soave. But after Hegseth “set the record straight by publishing his letter of acceptance” on X, ProPublica simply decided to drop the matter. Huh? “Why not publish the story anyway?” Soave asks — the real story, about how “West Point lied (or was at least mistaken) about Hegseth not getting into West Point.” “If bureaucratic mouthpieces were held responsible by the media,” then “perhaps they would feel more incentivized to tell the truth.”
Conservative: Biden Freed Monsters
Among the sentences President Biden commuted last week, National Review’s Jim Geraghty flags some horrors. Albany scammer Timothy McGinn and his partner defrauded 841 victims of $30 million. Pennsylvania Judge Michael Conahan took $2.1 million in kickbacks “to send kids to for-profit juvenile prisons with sentences disproportionate to their crimes, and one of the kids killed himself.” As Dixon, Ill., town comptroller, Rita Crundwell embezzled $53 million. Eric Bloom bilked investors out of $665 million in the biggest financial fraud case ever tried in Chicago. Leon Benzer’s schemes involving Las Vegas homeowners associations victimized thousands of homeowners — many of them frail, elderly and now destitute. Christopher Swartz of Watertown, NY, defrauded over 150 people out of about $21 million. “Biden has a real soft spot in his heart for fraudsters, swindlers, and embezzlers, huh? I guess game respects game.”
From the right: Repeal Joe’s Climate Pork
“President Biden’s signature climate law — the misleadingly named Inflation Reduction Act — must be Republicans’ top target for repeal in the upcoming legislative session,” argue Travis Fisher and Adam N. Michel at The Hill: The law’s “energy and environment subsidies will cost taxpayers about $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years and potentially $4 trillion by 2050.” Notably, “Politically connected corporations like NextEra Energy and First Solar, Inc. will receive billions,” and “$1 billion of Biden subsidies” go “to Trina Solar, China’s largest solar manufacturer. This is corporate welfare disguised as climate policy.” And “by one estimate, each new Inflation Reduction Act job ‘created’ costs taxpayers between $2 million and $7 million.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board