Wow News From States
My British Airways Munich flight just arrived at Heathrow/London, and I’m reading about SCOTUS having just given a Constitutional pass to Affordable Health Care…whoo-whoo! And while we’re at it, WTF? Really wasn’t expecting this. Like, at all. I’m imagining Justice Scalia baring his fangs and going “Aaarrrgghhhh!” How did it happen? I’m about to start my reading but first…another security check line!
It’s the worst way to “win” the case, that’s what happened.
1. The Commerce Clause got smacked down. No more using that as a justification for “whatever we want” bills in the future.
2. It’s only constitutional as a tax. The same bill that President Obama swore up and down for years wasn’t a tax is only possible as a tax. Every Democrat now has to run in November endorsing the most unpopular bill in America that’s responsible for the single largest tax increase in American history.
3. As a tax, Congress can repeal it under reconciliation, i.e. only 51 votes are needed, no filibuster will be possible.
“Pyrrhic” is the most charitable definition of this one. May all your “victories” be like this.
Ray gives a good summary – this is not a great victory for Team Obama. I think it actually strengthens Romney’s hand – the majority of voters are against this thing, and Romney will campaign against Obama as the “biggest tax raiser since FDR” or something along those lines.
Rather interesting opinion. Very narrow. Not hard to see how CNN came to their “Dewey Defeats Truman” moment this morning.
Every liberal I know, including Jeff (who I don’t know), wanted the Congress to kill this bill because they thought it was so terrible. Now the Supreme Court (by a 5-4 margin) rules that it isn’t unconstitutional and they’re acting like they won the fucking Super Bowl.
That’s a long way down there boy. It goes to show that the only thing liberals/Democrats care about really is beating Republicans.
” the majority of voters are against this thing”
Yeah, I’d hate to have Obama alienate those brilliant voters who are poor as hell, have no health insurance, and think that Mitt “What more can I do today to help the 1% get richer?” Romney is the answer to all of their troubles.
A tax to live. Obama helping corporations like no one has ever before.
Health insurance companies seemed to get a lot of concessions before they would drop their full opposition to the ACA. In fact, there were so many sellouts in the bill that it’s still not clear if it really was a net improvement to the status quo in the eyes of progressives.
But then the Republicans hated it SO MUCH. So it must be kinda good, right? Or was their opposition based solely on the fact that they automatically oppose everything the President tries to accomplish? No, now it seems it was all a trick to weaken the Commerce Clause, thereby limiting the ability of Congress to regulate business. The age of the trusts and robber barons was already beginning to bud, and now it can flower fully.
“Gotcha”??
Elected officials may be beholden to their corporate donors, but at least they still have to be, you know, elected. Why knock down one bill when you can weaken the whole legislative branch all at once?
This bill needs to be dragged out back and killed. It’s a huge step in the wrong direction (yay for more government control in our lives!!??). Poor people can already get health insurance through state-funded programs specifically for low-income people. What’s the point of this then?
“” the majority of voters are against this thing”
Yeah, I’d hate to have Obama alienate those brilliant voters who are poor as hell, have no health insurance, and think that Mitt “What more can I do today to help the 1% get richer?” Romney is the answer to all of their troubles.”
You’d hate it if alienating those voters meant President Obama lost the election, no?
Nose, face, spite.
Jesus. You people are nuts.
First, I gotta spike the football a bit, since this is exactly the point I made in the last ACA thread earlier this week with my good friend Duluoz Gray — this is a tax, and as such is constitutional. The commerce clause is a non-factor, and as such, the ACA would likely be upheld with Roberts and/or Kennedy joining the 4 Justices on the left.
As for the tax issue itself: have health insurance already? Great, your taxes won’t go up. The only people who are complaining about having to pay the tax… are the same ones who will get expensive emergency room care when bad things invariably happen to them health-wise, then go bankrupt because they can’t pay the bills. To whit: deadbeat Tea Partier Mary Brown and her husband. And for middle-class folks who will have a hard time paying for insurance? Guess what: you’ll get help from the government to be able to afford it.
Meanwhile, the Republicans have now changed “Repeal and Replace” to just “Repeal,” with absolutely ZERO alternatives for coverage. So now they get to run on:
- making sure people with pre-existing conditions can be denied insurance, or dropped if they rack up too much care
- lifetime caps on benefits
- under 26-year-olds getting kicked off their parents’ plans
…and on and on.
Now, do people hate the ACA? Sure, mainly because they don’t know its specifics. They’ve heard “government takeover of healthcare!” and “death panels!” (ha) and that’s all the thought they put into it. But note that when you poll the actual provisions, they all get majority support… EVEN FROM REPUBLICANS.
And this “strengthn’s Romney’s hand”??!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
You are aware, JR, that the ACA is almost EXACTLY “Romneycare”? To the point that several of Romney’s advisors helped to craft “Obamacare”? Here’s how Romney has been speaking out against the ACA — that it’s unconstitutional. Well, guess what, Mitt? Again, you are wrong. And what every other Republican candidate said in the primaries — that Mitt was the WORST possible representative to fight the ACA — will quickly become clear. And when asked what alternatives Mitt has in mind? Uh… [crickets]
Mitt was ALWAYS for having a mandate — even in the 2008 election when he lost to McCain. It’s only this election that he’s had to lie about that. But everyone will be aware of this, very soon, if they aren’t already.
Now that mandates, under penalty of a tax, are legal, what else can corporations and government force the people to do?
Might as well make military service compulsory again.
Any conservative bemoaning the individual mandate should strafe the Heritage Foundation, which posited it in 1989. It was part of Republican legislative dogma from 1993-2010, when Obamacare went into effect and the Tea Party went wild. The truth hurts: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/06/25/120625fa_fact_klein
jlc,
it wasn’t just CNN. Drudge had up ‘Mandate gone’ as the headline for the 3-4 minutes when noone knew what the heck was going on.
Mr. F,
Candy and Unicorns poll really well too. But when you include the $1.5 trillion price tax (and oh by the way, it’s a tax now), people are going to hate it irregardless of whether some of the marshmellow bits inside are tasty.
Liberals may love this thing now, but they’ve set some serious precedents in getting there (Congress can tax inactivity, The President can hand out waivers to anyone he chooses, The Excecutive Branch can override people’s religious beliefs) that I’m not sure they’d be willing to live with were Congress and/or the President from a different party.
20 years ago, these policies were on the edge of what could be realistically considered possible by right-wing economists. Today, the political conversation has moved so far to the right, these exact same policies are considered centrist. Or, at the very least, they represent the best that Democrats can hope to get. But why should today’s Repulicans be happy with that, when they can now fight for bills that would have been completely unrealistic to dream of just a generation ago.
Save Ferris: “irregardless”? Back to school, Bueller.
“It’s shit, but Republicans proposed it before, so that makes it okay.”
“the majority of voters are against this thing”
They’re opposed to it as “Obamacare.” Every time someone starts breaking down the individual components of the plan, the popularity of the whole thing skyrockets. It’s opposed because people don’t know what’s in it.
Hell, I had someone mocking me when I said that it was already helping my friends. This guy was, haw haw, stupid liberals, they don’t even know when a law has been “in acted.” I had to show this guy all the stuff that’s been implemented already, like PCIP.
“It’s shit, but Republicans proposed it before, so that makes it okay.”
Okay, so while you’re putting words into mouths, let’s try your argument:
“We’re better off having taxpayers pick up the tab for the uninsured to get free emergency room care.”
“I’m imagining Justice Scalia baring his fangs and going ‘Aaarrrgghhhh!’”
Did you read his Arizona 1070 dissent? He did just that. Must have been spent.
That’s not putting words in your mouth.What was the point in even mentioning Republicans proposed something similar, other than to justify it? The merits of the mandate have nothing to do with who came up with it first.
“Might as well make military service compulsory again.”
If it means drafting Rashad and DeeZee, then I’m all for it.
“Really wasn’t expecting this. Like, at all. I’m imagining Justice Scalia baring his fangs and going “Aaarrrgghhhh!” How did it happen?”
Did you see Scalia’s meltdown earlier in the week Jeff. Now we know exactly what he was thinking.
As Mr. F. said, Romney now has no way of pivoting to more nuanced “repeal & replace” language that he probably had a speech written for today if the mandate had been overturned.
Oh by the way, O’Reilly needs to apologize on his show for being an idiot like he promised, right after Hannity gets waterboarded.
“That’s not putting words in your mouth.What was the point in even mentioning Republicans proposed something similar, other than to justify it?”
Uh… because it’s emphasizing their utter dishonesty on the issue?
Republicans were FOR the mandate — in fact, it was their idea — until the day Obama said he supported it. At that point, they flipped the switch and said “We’re against the mandate! It’s unconstitutional!”
Apparently intellectual consistency is not something you’re familiar with.
“As a tax, Congress can repeal it under reconciliation, i.e. only 51 votes are needed, no filibuster will be possible.”
Incorrect. The mandate stands because the enforcement mechanism for it is a tax. Thus, reconciliation might be able to remove the tax penalty, but then there would just be the mandate (and the rest of the ACA) with no enforcement mechanism.
And, btw, the GOP’s corporate overlords won’t let a naked mandate that could result in an insurance death spiral happen.
Right now we have a system where servicemembers are being redeployed 3-4 times just so Rashad can see JOHN CARTER 3-4 times.
“Right now we have a system where servicemembers are being redeployed 3-4 times just so Rashad can see JOHN CARTER 3-4 times.”
The servicemembers are better off. I mean, have you *seen* JOHN CARTER?
This pretty much nails the Obama/Republican dynamic:
http://www.comedycentral.com/video-clips/tnawa2/key-and-peele-obama-s-meeting-with-republicans
I dunno if I was expecting it, but I’m not really surprised. Obamacare doesn’t actually hurt the insurance companies, as much as reward them with a legalized ponzi scheme. So the conservanazis on the bench were, of course, obliged to let their corporate masters continue to fuck over the American public.
We’re still the only industrialized country that does not have a national health plan, and as flawed as other systems might be, believe me, none of those other countries would want to exchange their health plans for ours.
The ACA is flawed, but it’s better than the chaos we have now, and the Republicans obviously have no idea at all how to fix our health care system, except to diss the ACA.
I see the main problem being the Democrats’ inability to sell a plan that is obviously going to benefit the vast majority of Americans. They have ceded the discussion to the reactionaries.
So it was possible to read the tea leaves….
Before today, Justice Scalia freaked out over the immigration law and came across as unnecessarily angry. He knew what was coming.
A week before that Justice Ginsburg kept her cool and simply said one side will disagree. But she seemed calm. She knew what was coming.
“It’s opposed because people don’t know what’s in it.”
… like the people who wrote it. “It’s a tax?!? Huh, imagine that…”
This whole tax thing is a red herring. A red herring I fully expect the right to run into the ground (as evidenced by those in this very forum), but a red herring nonetheless. The only part of the Act that Roberts referred to as a tax, is the individual mandate. As Mr. F said, if you already have health insurance, you don’t have to pay this “tax.” In fact, President Obama himself has much more accurately called it a fine. You don’t have health insurance, but you can afford it – guess what? You’re going to have to buy it now! Boohoo, your freedom is being eroded…yada yada yada. We all end up paying when dumb people don’t insure themselves and then get sick.
PS – I’m so sick and tired of all the right wing yahoos running around talking about buying more guns for the upcoming “revolution.” You fat fucks can’t stop eating McDonald’s and watching Dancinf with the Stars long enough to mount a beer run, so go fuck yourselves. “Don’t Tread On Me” doesn’t mean what you think it means. If indeed you think at all.
Ghost: “We all end up paying when dumb people don’t insure themselves and then get sick.”
Yeah, not when people who get cancer are denied coverage for treatment, but are still forced to pay into the system personally and through taxes. You sure people who continue to drink the kool-aid that this is the “most progressive” bill in a century aren’t the real dumb ones?
Anyway, the economy’s still gonna suck for the next four months, so that ruling’s not going to mean shit for the average voter.
Woo hoo 30 more million people now inducted into a shitty system controlled by the insurance industry!
DZ, who cares if it is the most progressive bill in a century? You have to start somewhere and the healthcare system is a mess. Also, can you provide some facts to back up your anecdotal example? The ACA has specific provisions that prevent people from being denied treatment after 2014, even if they have a pre-existing condition.
Ghost: “DZ, who cares if it is the most progressive bill in a century?”
Everyone who voted for him expecting him to come up with a progressive bill?
“The ACA has specific provisions that prevent people from being denied treatment after 2014, even if they have a pre-existing condition.”
What provisions are those, and what’ll they do until then?
Purge baby Purge!
Ghost: Ok, fair enough:
They’ll still be able to price-gouge the fuck out of you, though. And again, people will still die of cancer in that time-span. Not to mention that they can still hypothetically cite reasons other than a clinical trial for denying you coverage, such as bullshit argument that the meds you need are “experimental”.
RIGHT WING LOGIC: requiring Mexicans to prove their citizenship on the whim of any police officer?. A-Ok. Denying Gay people the right to get married? A-Ok. Requiring people who can afford to buy health insurance? AN ASSAULT ON FREEDOM AND SLIPPERY SLOPE TO COMMUNISM AND SLAVERY!!!!
lbeale: yes, we’re the only industrialized country without the coverage you’re talking about. We so have more immigration, legal and illegal, than all of them. That needs to be factored in. As a hardcore liberal, I’m all for the idea of universal care, but I’m not surprised that making it happen here has been so difficult.
And yeah, how is that law actually enforced? Are there any actual immediate penalties if they deny coverage, or can the HMOs just drag it in court like they did with these poor women?
Lazarus, you’re going to have to provide some hard proof for that “we have more immigrants, legal and illegal” claim.
Will people who would not otherwise not have been able to go to the doctor and get treatment and medication now be able to do so? Yes. Will they all “deserve” treatment and medication? Not for you or I to say. Will other people who are not sick have to help pay for this? Yes. Welcome to society. What I’m sick of is the selfish whiners who complain that THEIR money is going to help OTHER PEOPLE!? Imagine that! Welcome to being a human being.
How to lose weight fast.
http://www.fastfatburningprogram.com
Ghost: “DZ, who cares if it is the most progressive bill in a century?”
Everyone who voted for him expecting him to come up with a progressive bill?
“The ACA has specific provisions that prevent people from being denied treatment after 2014, even if they have a pre-existing condition.”
What provisions are those, and what’ll they do until then?
VicLaz, I’m assuming, of course, but based on size alone I can’t imagine that’s uncorrect. And like, who the hell would want to move to Russia now?
But since you asked, here’s first link that came up:
http://www.livescience.com/6358-country-immigrants.html
It’s from 2 years ago, but key thing here is “by a wide margin”.
Ok, I actually found that link as well… but most immigrants come here, work and pay taxes, EVEN ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS so they would be contributors, not just consumers of universal healthcare.
“They’ll still be able to price-gouge the fuck out of you, though.”
No, they won’t. The community ratings provisions of the ACA means that insurers can only vary premium costs for family size, age, geographic location, and tobacco use, and prohibit the use of previous healthcare claims or health status as a factor in premium determination, and premiums for older Americans can be no more than three times that for younger Americans.
The whole point of the bill was to bend the cost curve downward. With the mandate of hospitals needing to provide care even with no insurance coverage the ACTUAL cost of care is much higher than the billed insurance premiums. Requiring that people be insured will put everyone under the same umbrella, such as young people that don’t normally have insurance, and you will lower the rate of increase in health care costs.
It’s either this or single payer. There truly isn’t a choice. Not with our Congress.
T.J.: “The community ratings provisions of the ACA means that insurers can only vary premium costs for family size, age, geographic location, and tobacco use, and prohibit the use of previous healthcare claims or health status as a factor in premium determination, and premiums for older Americans can be no more than three times that for younger Americans.”
And you don’t think their accountants aren’t already on top of that, by coming up with bullshit “expenses” which take those societal factors into account? Again, unless insurance companies are actually held accountable, they will screw consumers.
Nanook: “Requiring that people be insured will put everyone under the same umbrella, such as young people that don’t normally have insurance, and you will lower the rate of increase in health care costs.”
I don’t buy that for a damned second. How many people subscribe to HBO, and they’re still wringing costs out of consumers? And oil companies are another good example. Corporations will charge whatever they can get away with charging, regardless of demand, because they can, and therefore, will continue to do so.
I mean, seriously, I can’t believe how many people on the left are still buying into this capitalist theology that the costs of a product have anything to do with low demand, when these companies are already raking in billions from millions of Americans contributing to their bottom line.
Kakihara: Exactly. which is why the only entity that can be trusted to provide health care is the federal government. It already does it with the VA – one of the largest health care provider systems in the country. Would veterans be better off if it was privatized? I doubt anyone thinks so… Shouldn’t all the conservatives be dismantling the VA if they truly believe that government should stay out of health care? Funny – I’ve never heard a peep about it…
“And you don’t think their accountants aren’t already on top of that, by coming up with bullshit “expenses” which take those societal factors into account?”
Look, the law says what they can charge. Why don’t you read it, which I know is a lot more difficult than being paranoid.
TJ: “Look, the law says what they can charge.”
And the insurance companies had a hand in writing the law. So I’m sure they’ll totally not come up with loopholes which allow them to dodge any obligations they have to the law.
Of course Pjm, veterans are employees, and not typical citizens.
You’d have a better argument, if you said the near 100 million people on Medicare and Medicaid. Although the financial stability of those two programs are questionable, to say the least.
At this point I’m just wondering how I can lose weight fast.
Oh, and Occupy’s two cents.
I wish that single payer was possible. It’s not. I don’t like this any more than most liberals, but this is an incremental step. With the government covering more people they can institute more cost controls. Best option we have under these circumstances.
I’m not talking about Rahm Emmanuel giving away the public option 2 years ago. This is the best we’ve got now, and if it had gone away, it would have bankrupted the country.
And DZ, HBO is a terrible analogy. Not that I’d mind the government providing a subsidy for it, mind you.
GOP developed it. Democrats pushed it into law. The media defined it as the most progressive bill ever. Liberal and Conservative justices supported it.
Rush Limbaugh limps away… stops limping, lights cigarette and gets into a car with Pete Postlethwaite.
Look, HMOS will do anything they can to fuck people over. How much so? That they even tried to sue a celeb who’s more than good for it-who makes enough money that he’s got no reason to file a false claim-Robert DeNiro.
Even better than the CNN/Fox screw ups:
Rep Jean Schmidt goes from orgasmic joy to sputtering denial in 46 seconds: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XsiiGqgjjs
-shakinghisheadingermany-
You americans are funny people.
Gotta hand it to mr. F-
He damn well called it the other day,
Over the last three years my insurance premiums have doubled. My office visit copay have doubled as well. Now I’m going to get hit with a tax, and I’ll bet you all a nickle my out of pocket will continue to rise.
I’m glad you are all excited.
I am stunned how many right wing crack pots are commenting on this left wing film blog, There is some stupid right winger fear mongering. The world changed, the country changed. Deal with it.
Do you think Mitt – Swiss Account – Romney is the answer? Do you think this guy really cares about your co-pay? Do you think it is better without ACA? Do you like paying for your obese uninsured neighbors to go to the hospital 200 times a year – well you are, that is why your costs are so high. That is the point of the mandate. This is simple math, but repubs cannot grasp it.
“Over the last three years my insurance premiums have doubled. My office visit copay have doubled as well. Now I’m going to get hit with a tax…”
Someone’s been listening to Rush again. You said you already carry insurance. How exactly will you be “hit with a tax”?!
THIS is the best evidence of all why people are against “Obamacare,” yet want everything it has to offer. Thank you!
Whenever confronted with logic, knowledge, common sense or legal victory they always knock it down into a deeper level of stupid. Like Rand Paul saying that a couple of judges said it is legal, but it is really not. The level of GOP stupid is unprecedentedly stunning, more like religious snake handling fervor. What country do they think this is now anyway? It is like they are imagining life on Leave it to Beaver Way – it is over.
Mr. F: Even if he isn’t taxed, he’s still wondering when he’s going to get the “affordable” insurance he was apparently promised under Obama, as are a lot of people.
brad – You feel better now, getting that all out of your system? LOL.
Great !!! I support it, haha
“Even if he isn’t taxed, he’s still wondering when he’s going to get the “affordable” insurance he was apparently promised under Obama, as are a lot of people.”
Well, since he no longer needs to remain on the insurance plan picked by his employer… I’d guess by using the exchange to look for cheaper insurance and signing up for that plan instead?
Also, given that any preventive tests (colonoscopy, etc.) are now required to be covered — i.e., no co-pay allowed — I’m also guessing that’ll make things easier as well.
Mr. F: Yeah, but the exchanges don’t exist yet.
I mean, what is with these clueless idiots who think the average American can just wait two years for their insurance rates to (hypothetically) drop. Or that enough of them have jobs to pay the premiums in the first place? Talk about cart before horse thinking here.
Why would prices even go down? The insurance companies now have a steady stream of customers, who are forced to pay, while demand will skyrocket. You will see the same consistent rises in prices, that you see with college tuition.
This is a good day for the country. Somewhere in the range of 30 million more Americans will be insured. Young adults, 26 and under will be able to stay on their parents insurance. Insurance companies will have to cover individuals with pre-existing conditions.
The balance will shift a little more to the middle class for once.
It’s an imperfect market solution to a major human and economic catastrophe. What gets lost in all the vitriol over Obamacare, is what a national disaster the current system is.
Americans are much more likely to suffer horrible physical or economic calamity due to health care related issues (bankruptcy, preventable diseases) than any sort of 9/11, Katrina, violent crime, or most any other nightmare scenario or political bugaboo that you can think of. Statistically, this is the real killer.
The health care status quo in this country is simply one of the greatest shames of our time. ANYTHING, that works to correct this problem deserves our support.
It is sadly clear that the professional right will not be a part of any reasonable solution. It is also clear that the left is horrible at seeing who its friends are – at recognizing actual real progress because it’s too devoted to some alternate reality best case scenario fantasy land.
Rashad, it works like auto-insurance. When healthy young people buy insurance and by and large don’t use it for serious issues, the client pool expands, revenue increase without premium hikes, risk is lower, those who need expensive procedures can be taken care of without increasing premiums. WHY IS THIS SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND.
And to DZ, what do you want?
Health insurance is asked to do a lot more. Auto-insurance isn’t used for tuneups, or tire changes. What is hard to understand about corporations continuing to raise prices? It’s still a for profit business, and the plan doesn’t actually lower the cost. “Young” people still will be covered by their parents’ plan until 26. How much you think they’re going to contribute to offset the millions that will very expensive care? The naivete of the supporters of this bill, are worse than the actual bill.
*need very …
Vic: Except your analogy about auto insurance isn’t true, as the companies in Cali kept screwing consumers for so long that the state had to put a clamp-down on their “rate adjustments”. They recently tried to repeal that law, too, by suckering voters into supporting aproposition which would do just that.
You’re right, Rashad. The status quo is much better. The bill, and the corrosive naivete of its supporters are so much worse than the current health system.
Let’s not list all the things that are worse than the actual bill. That will be a long, bumpy road.
Since the ACA passed two years ago, 2.5 million more “young” (why did you put that in quotes?) people have health insurance. i call them young as they are between 19-25.
The simple elegant fact is that millions of lives are already being improved by this bill. And millions of poor people will gain coverage under the Medicaid expansion.
You think insurance prices will rise indefinitely? Explain to me how that will be. Insurance providers are now required to spend 80% of consumer’s premiums on medical care, not overhead, etc. Let me tell you, that provision was not popular with the insurance lobby.
The right calls it socialism, too much of the left calls it a corporate give away.
But the rest of us have the cold hard facts on our side.
Now, back to your nonsense.
You think insurance prices will rise indefinitely? Explain to me how that will be. Insurance providers are now required to spend 80% of consumer’s premiums on medical care, not overhead, etc.
Explain to me how they’re going to recoup that lost money, if not by raising the cost?
Again, this is still a for profit system. Otherwise why would they even be in the game? It really shows how backwards America is, when “everyone gets healthcare” they force you to buy it from a private company. Corporations always win; they helped write the bill. They’re not dummies.
Somehow FoxNews website comments seem to have been redirected to Hollywood-Elsewhere. Leeroy you are trying to talk common sense ideas to people who have made a life practice of obviating ideas whenever they do not gel with their polital-religio world view, which has nothing to do with our American reality. I live in Texas where we are near top of the states in uninsured children and high poverty, the ACA would help our people a lot. Does the GOP leg or Governor care? Actually they have agressively fought it and now promise to slow track it. There is your Christian Conservative at work – hurting the little ones and poor that Jesus talked about helping.
Ok, Fox and CNN, don’t fuck up next time. And Fox moved away from the story pretty quick, which is no surprise. The word you will get sick of hearing for the rest of the year: Repeal.
Funny that the Right constantly bleats about the perils of Big Government when it’s actually Big Business that has driven this country into the ground and hosed the middle class.
Despite what the Right is screaming now — “It’s a tax!” has replaced “It’s not constitutional!” — whenever Mitt makes that argument, someone will just replay this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HymUU7OADbU&feature=player_embedded
He’s also boxed himself into a corner, because in yesterday’s statement he said that the “good” parts of the ACA — no discriminating against those with pre-existing conditions, no lifetime caps, children can stay on parents’ insurance until 26 — were all good and would be kept. Well, guess what? Only way to do that is with a mandate… a fee… a penalty… a fine… a tax… WHATEVER you want to call it, where everyone pays into the system. So… good luck disowning YOUR OWN IDEA, Mitt.
Bottom line: this helps MILLIONS of people. It was the right thing to do.
Mr. F: Well, the right thing to do would’ve been implement a public option. This is just the convenient thing to do to make it look like the Dems didn’t waste two years of their supermajority status, even though they pretty much did.
Even the California Insurance Commissioner is saying the same fucking thing. From his e-mail:
I don’t have to explain to you, Rashad, how insurance companies will recoup their money. It is really not my concern, and I suggest you spend less time fretting over their balance sheets.
We didn’t shy away from imposing higher fuel standards on auto makers because it would hurt their bottom line and somehow bite us in the ass.
Who knows what Anthem Blue Cross will do? Maybe, like the Washington Post, they’ll buy a for profit college (Kaplan) and make more money from that than their original business. I don’t care.
But we can’t not take action just because they’ll try to pass on the cost. Doing nothing, as opposed to doing something imperfect but good, will lead to nihilism.
Sure, the public option would be better – but where were the fucking votes? There weren’t enough democrats who would vote for it, even when they had the majority. A world in which the dems had enough votes for single payer is total fantasy, and a world where they could pass public option is at the very least an alternate reality.
In actual reality, this real bill which passed by a razor thing margin, will help millions of real, actual people.
It’s an imperfect bill, but so were the huge transformative bills that FDR passed. They had to be tweaked and improved over time.
The left is just so good at self sabatoge, so good at throwing their hands up in despair when reality doesn’t jibe with the Aaron Sorkin movie in their heads.
leeroy: “We didn’t shy away from imposing higher fuel standards on auto makers because it would hurt their bottom line and somehow bite us in the ass. ”
Actually, we did. See Who Killed The Electric Car?
“Doing nothing, as opposed to doing something imperfect but good, will lead to nihilism.”
Maybe, but not fixing the problem will just lead to the same end-game.
“Sure, the public option would be better – but where were the fucking votes? ”
Um, there was a majority of Senators who was for it, and only six Dems who stalled on it. Could’ve been passed through budget reconciliation. Sick of this lie.
“It’s an imperfect bill, but so were the huge transformative bills that FDR passed. They had to be tweaked and improved over time. ”
The bills FDR passed went at the heart of the problem. Obamacare does not.
“Actually, we did. See Who Killed The Electric Car?”
Since that movie came out, Obama announced new fuel efficiency standards raising the standard to 54.5 miles per gallon from 27 mpg.
“The bills FDR passed went at the heart of the problem. Obamacare does not.”
Not a fact.
“Um, there was a majority of Senators who was for it, and only six Dems who stalled on it. Could’ve been passed through budget reconciliation. Sick of this lie.”
Nope. Reid, Harkin, etc thought that a reconciliation public option push would have led to a collapse in support for the entire bill. They needed too many blue dog (red state) Dems to support the bill. They couldn’t pass the entire bill through reconciliation. The pros counted, and came up short.
leeroy: “Since that movie came out, Obama announced new fuel efficiency standards raising the standard to 54.5 miles per gallon from 27 mpg.”
In about five years.
“Not a fact.”
So how did he win four terms again?
“Nope. Reid, Harkin, etc thought that a reconciliation public option push would have led to a collapse in support for the entire bill. ”
That’s ‘cus they’re spineless assholes. Still would’ve gone through.
“They couldn’t pass the entire bill through reconciliation. ”
They could’ve passed enough through it.
In the meantime, deep in the bowels of the WH…
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-J9yNn7m2xfY/T-zwbamWyFI/AAAAAAAAFGE/9oTscPtO24k/s640/Accomplishments.gif