“Everyone Just Chill Out”: Memo To Democratic Chicken Littles, The Sky Is Not Falling
Ah, now this is what politics is supposed to be like: Ruthless Republicans, gleeful at the prospect that they might increase the net total of human suffering. Timorous Democrats, panicking at the first hint of political difficulty and rushing to assemble a circular firing squad. And the news media bringing out the “Dems In Disarray!” headlines they keep in storage for just this purpose.
The problems of the last couple weeks “could threaten Democratic priorities for years,” says Ron Brownstein. It’s just like Hurricane Katrina, says The New York Times (minus the 1,500 dead people, I guess they mean, though they don’t say so). “On the broader question of whether Obama can rebuild an effective presidency after this debacle,” says Dana Milbank, “it’s starting to look as if it may be game over.” Ruth Marcus also declares this presidency all but dead: “Can he recover? I’m sorry to say: I’m not at all confident.”
Oh please. Everyone just chill out.
It’s incredible how often reporters and pundits proclaim that what’s happening this week is the most important political development in years, and the balance of political advantage today will remain just as it is indefinitely into the future. Then a few weeks or months later things change, and they forget about what they said before, declaring once again that today’s situation is how things will be forevermore. Not long ago, people were saying that the fact that Obama couldn’t get a congressional vote authorizing a bombing campaign in Syria had crippled his presidency. Then the Republicans shut down the government, and people were saying they wouldn’t win another election in our lifetimes. That’s just in the last few months. And now people are saying that Obama’s second term, which has three years left to go, is an unrecoverable disaster.
So let’s try to see things from a less panicky perspective. The rollout has been a mess, but it’s important to remember that this period is all a preparation for the actual implementation of the law. Nothing that’s happening now is permanent. People have gotten cancellation notices, but no one has lost their coverage. The website sucked when it debuted, it sucks slightly less now, but there’s still lots of time for people to sign up for plans that take effect next year. And if things aren’t working properly by December, they’ll probably extend the open enrollment period to a point at which everything’s working. That’s a hassle, sure. But you can’t call the Affordable Care Act a failure until it takes effect and does or does not achieve its goals. That would be like calling your team’s season a failure because they lost a couple of pre-season games.
A few Democrats will probably vote today for the Republican bill that purports to address the problem of cancellations but it’s an attempt to gut the entire ACA. That’s because they’re cowards and fools, who think that they can protect themselves from a momentary political headwind by rushing into the Republicans’ arms. And you know what will happen? Nothing. You can just add this vote to the 47 prior ones repealing the law; it’ll have the same impact. It won’t ever get to the Senate, and even if it did it wouldn’t ever be signed by the President. It isn’t even worth paying attention to.
Here’s what’s going to happen. The administrative fix Obama announced yesterday will temporarily staunch the political bleeding. But it will have very little effect on the actual insurance market, which is a good thing. In some states, insurance commissioners won’t let the insurance companies continue to sell the junk plans we’ve been talking about. In others, insurers won’t want to go back and re-offer the plans they cancelled. Some of the people with the junk plans will end up keeping them, but most of them will end up going to the exchanges. Many will find that they can get subsidies, or even without them find an affordable plan. Some may find that they’re paying more for a plan that offers real insurance. Those in the latter group will grumble, but it won’t be front-page news anymore, because the media are extraordinarily fickle, and they’ve already told that story.
Over the next year, the rest of the law will be implemented. There may be problems here and there, but overall it will probably go reasonably well. There will be plenty of things Democrats can point to in order to convince people that it was a good idea, like the fact that now nobody can be denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition, or the fact that millions of people who couldn’t afford coverage or were denied before now have it. There will also be things Republicans will say to try to convince people it was a terrible idea, like the fact that premiums didn’t plummet, and health care is still expensive, and Obamacare didn’t give every little girl a pony.
And what else will happen in the next year? Other things. The economy may get worse, or it may get better. There may be a foreign crisis. Controversies we can’t yet anticipate will emerge, explode, then disappear. A young singer may move her posterior about in a suggestive manner, causing a nation to drop everything and talk about nothing else for a week. We might start talking about immigration reform again. There’s going to be another budget battle. In other words, all sorts of things could affect the next election, and the election after that.
So yes, this is a difficult period for President Obama, and for the Affordable Care Act. But everyone needs to take a deep breath and remember that things will change. They always do.
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, November 15, 2015
“The Burdens Of A Contradictory Message”: Is The Republican Position, “We’d Prefer To Leave You Behind With Nothing”?
On the surface, the Republican strategy on health care is proving to be more effective than they probably could have hoped. After waging a three-year sabotage campaign, the rollout of the Affordable Care Act has gone poorly; Democrats are divided; President Obama’s poll numbers are falling; the media is in a frenzy; the website still doesn’t work; and no one seems to remember the time Republicans shut down the federal government – just last month.
If RNC officials had written a script, it would look something like this.
And in the short term, at least as far as the politics are concerned, it’s quite possible that nothing else will matter. But at some point, I wonder if the political world will pause to consider the Republican message with a little more depth.
A few weeks ago, Matt Miller raised an important point: “What conservative officials, pundits and advocates are screaming is closer to the following: How dare you totally screw up something that we think shouldn’t exist!” Indeed, as we talked about as oversight hearings got underway a few weeks ago, conservatives are complaining about the functionality of a website that they’d just as soon destroy. They’re furious Americans are struggling to sign up for benefits that Republicans don’t want them to have. They’re demanding better performance of a system they’ve spent years deliberately trying to gut, and have no intention of trying to help fix.
The contradiction was more acutely obvious yesterday, with the release of October enrollment numbers: 106,185 consumers signed up for health insurance through an exchange, another 396,261 Americans have gained coverage through Medicaid expansion, and another million consumers were deemed eligible for coverage but have not selected a plan. GOP lawmakers considered this hilarious, noting a variety of sports venues that hold more than 106,185 attendees.
And that’s fine. Indeed, it’s predictable. About 500,000 Americans signed up for health care coverage last month, but because that number was far below the Obama administration’s original projections for the exchange marketplaces, critics of “Obamacare” want to take this opportunity to strut and gloat.
But that was yesterday. Today, I’d love to hear some of those same critics answer a couple of simple questions. First, for those mocking October enrollment numbers, do you wish that number was bigger or smaller? Because at this point, the answer appears to be “both,” which doesn’t make any sense. The Republican line currently seems to be, “We’re outraged that the number was so small, and we wish the totals were zero.”
That plainly doesn’t make any sense.
Second, for the 106,185 Americans who signed up for coverage through an exchange, and the 396,261 Americans who are now insured under Medicaid, is the Republican position, “We’d prefer to leave you behind with nothing?” What about those who sign up for coverage in November? And December?
By: Steve Benen, The Maoow Blog, November 14, 2013
“It’s My New Heart”: Dick Cheney, An Even Bigger Monster Than You Thought
You’ve probably heard that Dick Cheney agrees with Bill Clinton about letting people who are losing private insurance keep their old plans, as President Obama repeatedly seemed to promise they could. That’s not surprising: Cheney is a troll who maligns the president whenever he can, and piling on with Clinton is a special kind of fun. Yes, it’s outrageous that a man who has enjoyed many millions of dollars of taxpayer-funded medical care doesn’t give a damn about the uninsured in our society, but that’s Dick Cheney.
Still, I was a little startled to hear the former vice president express total indifference to questions about his heart donor in a revealing interview with Larry King (it airs Thursday night; here’s a clip). It’s a window into his utter entitlement and self-absorption, and he comes off as an even bigger monster than I’d thought. Most people would at least feign interest in the donor; Cheney can’t manage it.
When King asks if he knows the identity of the person whose heart keeps him alive, Cheney, who is promoting a book about his transplant experience, says no, and adds, “it hadn’t been a priority for me.” Then he goes on:
When I came out from under the anesthetic after the transplant, I was euphoric. I’d had–I’d been given the gift of additional lives, additional years of life. For the family of the donor, they’d just been [through] some terrible tragedy, they’d lost a family member. Can’t tell why, obviously, when you don’t know the details, but the way I think of it from a psychological standpoint is that it’s my new heart, not someone else’s old heart. And I always thank the donor, generically thank donors for the gift that I’ve been given, but I don’t spend time wondering who had it, what they’d done, what kind of person.
“It’s my new heart, not someone else’s old heart.” Consider the complete self-centeredness of that statement, and the utter lack of empathy. I shouldn’t be surprised at that — war criminals and torture-promoters aren’t known for their empathy — but I was. Cheney’s so absorbed in his great good luck that he can’t help sharing: “My cardiologist told me at one point, ‘You know, Dick, the transplant is a spiritual experience, not just for the patient, but also for the team.’” What a generous guy, sharing that “spiritual experience” with his cardiology team! So: Cheney is happy to have a new heart, but doesn’t bother to “spend time wondering who had it, what they’d done, what kind of person.”
And his statement that it wasn’t a “priority” to learn about his heart donor revealingly echoes his explanation for getting five deferments from the Vietnam War: The notorious war hawk famously told the Washington Post: “I had other priorities in the ’60s than military service.” Now he has other priorities than learning about his heart donor.
It’s certainly not compulsory to find out about the person who died so that you could live – who gave what Cheney called “the gift of life itself.” There may be valid psychological reasons not to. I don’t judge that decision. But I can’t get over the coldness required to express complete indifference to knowing about that person, and their family’s suffering.
Or could it be compassion? For a lot of people, the tragedy of a family member dying would be compounded, not lessened, by learning that their heart went to Cheney. Nah, there’s neither compassion nor self-awareness in the way Cheney talks about receiving “the gift of life,” from American taxpayers or from his mystery heart donor.
By: Joan Walsh, Editor at Large, Salon, November 14, 2013
“What A Shocker”: Obamacare Is Working Best In States That Aren’t Trying To Sabotage It
The disappointing Affordable Care Act (ACA) numbers the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released on Wednesday revealed that the law is working best in the states that are — shockingly — implementing the law as it was designed.
Of the 106,185 people who have completed an application for health insurance, nearly 75 percent came from 14 states and the District of Columbia that both set up their own exchanges and expanded Medicaid.
Unsurprisingly, California and New York combined for the bulk of the enrollments, 51,769. But the most promising news from the Golden State wasn’t even included in this report.
Peter Lee, the executive director of Covered California, reported Wednesday that as of Tuesday, 60,000 Californians had signed up for insurance. Signups have increased to a rate of almost 2,500 enrollees per day in November. At that pace, the state could be expected to enroll 402,500 people by March 31 but Lee says that he expects to hit a goal of 500,000 to 700,000 people by then, which means he expects the pace to pick up by at least 640 people a day to over 3,000 enrollees.
Lee’s optimism is linked to more than the enrollment numbers. It seems California’s consumers are happy with the state’s website.
“Overall, nearly 70 percent of consumers who completed the survey found the application process easy to complete, and 88 percent of customers visiting CoveredCA.com found the information needed to choose a health plan that was right for them,” Covered California reported in a statement released Wednesday, giving Republicans another reason to hope that California isn’t a bellwether for the rest of the nation.
Red Kentucky is the only state in the union that voted for Mitt Romney and set up its own exchange, thanks in large part to Democratic governor Steve Beshear. The state’s site signed up a total of 32,485 Kentuckians, with 5,586 enrolling in private plans, in its first month of operation. This reduces the state’s uninsured population —estimated at 640,000 — by just over 5 percent.
Of course, it’s not hard for the states to look impressive next to the federal number that is anemically low. And not all the states that set up their own exchanges have succeeded. Oregon’s marketplace is so flawed, they didn’t even have numbers to report for October.
Implementing health care reform was never supposed to be easy.
“It’s like fixing an airplane while it’s in flight, if there is something terribly wrong with the plane,” said Timothy Jost, a health law professor at Washington & Lee University and an expert on the ACA.
And that’s without the unprecedented campaign of sabotage the right has waged. But the obstruction that has threatened the law most has been the combination of a mostly unforced error — Healthcare.gov’s disastrous launch — and Republican states refusing to launch their own exchanges. While the right is thrilled they’ve assisted in this catastrophe, it was the ancillary result of another sabotage strategy that was either masterminded or enthusiastically encouraged by Michael Cannon.
Who?
“Cannon is a health care policy expert at the libertarian Cato Institute,” reports The New Republic‘s Alec MacGillis. “He is also an avowed opponent of the Affordable Care Act, and has for several years now been embarked on a legal crusade that, while a ways from triumphing, may have inadvertently played an outsized role in suppressing the number of states setting up their own exchanges, thereby greatly confounding the law’s implementation.”
Cannon believes he has found a loophole in the law that could end up undoing it in any state that didn’t set up an exchange. With that in mind, he helped successfully convince every state with a Republican governor to reject their right to build their own site.
By opting out, states made the success of the president’s signature legislative accomplishment dependent on one single portal that needed to reach its tentacles into three dozen complex insurance markets at one time.
That — it turns out — is a lot more complicated than the administration expected it to be.
The best state numbers show that the ACA can be implemented with participation rates that are in at least in the same ballpark as Massachusetts’ Romneycare or Medicare Part D.
And there were some other numbers in the HHS report that bode well for reform.
HHS reports that 26,876,527 different users accessed the site and 3,158,436 calls were made to its center. A total of 1,477,853 applications processed to the point of where eligibility could be determined. This shows that the demand for what the marketplace is offering definitely exists.
Clearly and undeniably, the fate of the law now depends most on one thing.
“The October report is clearly disappointing,” Timothy Jost wrote in his blog. ”But the really important reports will be the December report, which will tell us how many will be enrolled for coverage that begins in January, and the March report, which will tell us how many will be enrolled for 2014. If healthcare.gov is up and running by December, there is every reason to believe those reports will be much more promising.”
By: Jason Sattler, The National Memo, November 14, 2013
“Darrell Issa’s Credibility Collapses”: Feeding Bogus Stories To Unsuspecting Journalists
House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has a favorite trick: his staff puts together a partial transcript of closed-door testimony, they edit it in a misleading way to advance a far-right narrative, and then they look for a news organization who’ll fall for the scam.
This week, the trick involved Henry Chao, HealthCare.gov’s chief project manager at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and an alleged memo involving security risks. CBS News fell victim to Issa’s swindle, and as was first reported right here on Maddow Blog, the story was quickly proven fraudulent.
At an Oversight Committee hearing yesterday, Rep. Gerald Connolly (D-Va.) questioned Chao on this point directly, made clear that the CBS report was wrong, and saw Chao explain that his words had been “rearranged” by the partial transcript Issa released.
But wait, there’s more.
Issa also insisted this week that the White House directed the CMS to disable the so-called “anonymous shopper” function of the Affordable Care Act’s website in order to prevent “sticker shock.” How’d that work out?
Three weeks ago, Issa alleged that the White House ordered contractors to disable the “anonymous shopper” function that would allow people to compare plans. “The White House was telling them they needed these changes,” he told CBS News. Why? He told Fox News that the administration “buried the information about the high cost of Obamacare” so that consumers wouldn’t get “sticker shock.”
In testimony Wednesday, however, an administration IT expert testified that he ordered the “shopper” function disabled until defects could be repaired and that there had been no political interference.
“So when Chairman Issa stated on national television that the White House ordered you . . . to disable the shopper function in September for political reasons, to avoid consumer sticker shock, that’s not true, is it?” asked Rep. John Tierney (D-Mass.).
Issa immediately objected, but it was too late – Issa’s lie (which is to say, his latest in a series of lies) had been exposed. The Republican said Tierney was mischaracterizing his claims, so Tierney read Issa’s discredited arguments out loud. (See the video http://youtu.be/oNSQn2zVdSU.)
I’m sure Issa and his office will continue to feed bogus stories to unsuspecting journalists. I’m less sure why anyone would keep falling for the same nonsense from someone lacking all credibility.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, November 14, 2013
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