“There Won’t Be Any Highs Ahead”: Congress Deserves Public’s Contempt For Its Obsession With Destroying Obamacare
Congress is back—and the House has an ambitious plan for the year ahead. OK, an ambitious plan to cement its place in history as the Do-Nothingest Congress of all time.
The House has scheduled all of 97 days in session before the November elections, with many of them being half days or pro forma ones. And Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s memo to his troops outlining the plan for the year ahead made it clear that there is at most a bare-bones agenda, focused like a laser, yet again, on repealing or further sullying and delegitimizing Obamacare. The only possible good news coming out of that is that the obsessive focus on killing Obamacare may provide the excuse for House leaders to extend the debt ceiling without blackmail this time, by convincing their rank-and-file that it is the best way to avoid distractions and keep the focus on the health insurance law.
The obsession with Obamacare, and the near-universal belief among Republican lawmakers and conservative spinmeisters that the law will collapse spectacularly of its own weight, is fascinating.
Remember that when Sen. Ted Cruz incited the shutdown last year over the demand to defund Obamacare, his argument was that this was the last chance before the law was implemented in January—after which it would be impossible to stop it, because so many Americans would be delighted with its benefits. Cruz told Sean Hannity last July, “If we don’t do it [defund Obamacare] now, in all likelihood, Obamacare will never, ever be repealed. Why is that? Because on January 1, the exchanges kick in, the subsidies kick in; … their plan is to get the American people addicted to the sugar, addicted to the subsidies, and once that happens, in all likelihood, it never gets …”
At which point Hannity agreed, saying, “It’s over—it never gets repealed.”
The awful and bumpy rollout of the plan changed all that; now, for Cruz, Hannity, and everyone else in the right-wing echo chamber, there won’t be any highs ahead, or at least the highs and sugar addictions will be overwhelmed by bad drugs and overdoses.
Which view is right? We don’t know for sure, but there is some interesting evidence in the rollout of the Medicare Part D plan in 2005, via an excellent analysis by Georgetown University’s Center on Health Insurance Reform. The report makes clear that there are many parallels between Part D and Obamacare.
First, both plans passed with substantial partisan tension, which tarnished the initial public views of them. Second, both plans created much confusion in the public, with small proportions of Americans having even a basic understanding of what was in the plans and how they would work. Third, both plans had a lot of time after passage and before they actually took effect to prepare for a massive rollout. Fourth, neither had its website ready to roll when the deadline hit, and both had crashes and long delays to gain access. Fifth, even after the websites became more reliable, other problems persisted, including inadequate call centers and inexperienced navigators at the local level who were unprepared with full or sophisticated answers to questions posed by those trying to sign up. Sixth, supporters of the laws issued cautions when they were first unveiled, warning of glitches ahead and asking the public for understanding and help at ameliorating the problems.
Now for the differences. While Medicare Part D was the subject of serious partisan chicanery—the infamous three-hour vote in the House; the conference committee that barred key Senate Democrats from participating, including Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle; the “bait and switch” that in the end took out all the parts of the bill that had made Ted Kennedy an initial partner of the Bush administration—once it was law, most Democrats worked hard to make the plan accessible and workable for seniors, as did Democratic governors and state legislatures.
Of course, the opposite is true of Obamacare. Despite yeoman efforts to make the bill bipartisan—months and months of negotiation by Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus with Chuck Grassley and other Senate Republicans, starting from a framework devised and endorsed by Grassley—it got not a single GOP vote. But after passage, it has received nothing but yeoman efforts to sabotage it, including from a slew of Republican governors denying insurance to the most needy of their constituents simply to stymie the law’s implementation. And whenever a Republican talks about how to make the law work better, instead of blowing it up (Jack Kingston of Georgia comes to mind), he or she is vilified by partisans and their media acolytes.
Second, the mainstream media reported on the glitches in the Medicare Part D plan but did not jump all over them with front-page or highlighted stories, or repeated and lengthy inquests on Sunday talk shows. The opposite has been true of Obamacare, with an added twist that reflects the new economic and political realities for media, as reported in a piece by Maggie Mahar at healthinsurance.org. Mahar investigated a ballyhooed article in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram titled “Obamacare Stirs Anxiety for Thousands.” The cases of those who were purportedly shafted by Obamacare proved to be false or exaggerated, and three of the four cases cited were tea-party adherents who strongly opposed the law, two of whom had never even checked for prices on the exchanges. After a lengthy stonewall by the paper’s editors, it became clear that no one had fact-checked the piece, which was written by a reporter with no expertise in health policy, under a tight time frame, assigned by an editor who only wanted bad news, not any stories of those who had been helped by the new law. This is more a case of underresourced news outlets eager to report bad news than bias, but it reflects the tougher climate for a law that affects far more people in far more ways than Part D did.
Eight years after its rocky rollout and deep public skepticism, the Medicare Part D plan is widely popular. I have no idea if that will be the case with Obamacare—and if achieving popularity takes any length of time, the political damage, in this November election and maybe even in 2016, will already have been done. What I do know is that there are going to be a whole lot of winners under the Affordable Care Act, and a smaller number, but still a significant one, of losers or those caught up in the inevitable upheaval to the health care system.
And I know if your only legislative or policy plan for 2014, in the face of a sluggish economy, a crisis of long-term unemployment, and a host of other short and long-term problems facing the country, is to bet on the spectacular failure of the health care plan, you deserve the public contempt your Congress is receiving.
By: Norm Ornstein, The National Journal, January 8, 2014
“Job One, Helping The Jobless”: Can Congress Pass An Unemployment Insurance Extension?
When extended Unemployment Insurance benefits expired late last month, 1.3 million jobless Americans immediately lost that bit of safety net; if Congress fails to act, another 3.6 million Americans will lose this support by the end of 2014. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid recently said that on Monday the Senate will take up a temporary extension. Getting it done would not only be smart economics but it’s also simply the right thing to do.
Many on the right oppose extending benefits under the deeply dubious theory that too much unemployment compensation makes the social safety net a comfy hammock, to borrow Paul Ryan’s evocative simile. Why would people work, the theory goes, when they can get paid to not work? So people like Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul paint opposition to extended benefits as being rooted in concern for the jobless who suffer under the seductive yolk of big government’s helping hand – never mind that the study he cites doesn’t say what he says it says. And never mind that in order to receive jobless benefits, you have to be actively seeking a job, meaning that cutting benefits could actually discourage people from continuing to look for work. And never mind the paltry nature of support. As I wrote in my column last month:
The National Employment Law Project notes that “while the average American family spends $1,407 per month on housing alone, the average monthly extension benefit is only $1,166.” Still the modest sums help: According to the Council of Economic Advisers, in 2012 alone unemployment insurance benefits “lifted an estimated 2.5 million people out of poverty.” Further, the National Employment Law Project estimates, 446,000 of those people were children.
If members of Congress (and for that matter the yammering class) need any further evidence of the importance of extending benefits, the state of North Carolina has been unkind enough to conduct an experiment in punishing the unemployed. Last February the state enacted a law which not only slashed the duration (from 26 weeks to 12-20 weeks) and amount (from a maximum of $535 to $350 per week) of unemployment benefits, but also managed to run afoul of the federal jobless program, disqualifying North Carolinians from receiving those benefits.
So what happened when the lazy parasites were forced to stop suckling at the governmental teet? BloombergBusinessweek’s Joshua Green has a good piece today answering that question:
At first glance, the effect appears to be positive. North Carolina’s unemployment rate dropped dramatically, from 8.8 percent to 7.4 percent between July and November. By comparison, the national unemployment rate fell by 0.6 percent over the same period. A closer look, however, suggests that North Carolina’s unemployment numbers have fallen not because the long-term jobless have found work but because they’ve quit looking altogether. As a result, the state no longer counts them as unemployed.
As John Quinterno of the economic research firm South by North Strategies tells Green, while the number of unemployed in the state fell by nearly 102,000 year over year, 95,000 of those people aren’t counted as jobless not because they found jobs but because they stopped looking. Meanwhile, North Carolina’s food banks are getting overwhelmed, reports Bloomberg’s Evan Soltas, who quotes one food bank director who oversees seven counties and 230 organizations as saying that “some of our member agencies have been able to meet that need, but many have not.”
So what are the odds of Congress doing the right thing? As with many prominent issues these days, Democrats have the public on their side – according to a poll by the Democratic firm Hart Research, 55 percent of voters want the benefits extended. In order to pass an extension through the Senate, Reid will need to peel off at least a handful of Republicans (he already has one – Nevada Sen. Dean Heller, who is co-sponsoring the three month extension Reid is pushing). The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent has a good run-down of Republicans from either blue or purple states or from high unemployment red states who might vote with Reid. But, Sargent concludes:
The campaign to pressure Republicans into agreeing to extend UI has essentially amounted to an effort to shame them into it, by highlighting the huge numbers of their own constituents who stand to lose lifelines if they don’t act. Local press coverage has dramatically spotlighted the issue within states, as press compilations by Dems show.
But this doesn’t appear to be working with too many Republicans.
And even if the Senate passes the bill, odds remain long that House Republicans – who refused to include an extension when they cleared last year’s budget deal – will suddenly do the right thing.
If the GOP does block the extension, 2014 is off to a grim start for millions of Americans.
By: Robert Schlesinger, U. S. News and World Report, January 2, 2013
“Thank A Postal Worker”: The Assault On This Constitutionally-Mandated Service Service Must End
Postal workers are giving it their all this holiday season, as cards and packages and returns must be collected and delivered amidst ice storms, snowstorms and wild temperature drops.
They deserve our thanks in 2013.
And our support in 2014.
Postal workers are still under assault from political slackers in Washington—like House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Darrell Issa, R-California, and the wrecking crew he has assembled to diminish the United States Postal Service to such an extent that it can be bartered off to the highest bidder.
That assault has made this holiday season even tougher. Under pressure from USPS executives and privatization-prone members of Congress, the service has implemented closures and forced reductions in hours. That’s led to delays in some regions. “Much of the delayed mail is in areas where plants and post offices have been consolidated or closed or where hours at post offices have been reduced,” explains Debby Szeredy, the executive vice president of the American Postal Workers Union.
True, the Postal Service had a significantly better Holiday season than FedEx and UPS, both of which were on the naughty list amid reports on how “packages that were supposed to be delivered in time for Christmas didn’t make it to their destinations.”
But the Postal Service can’t maintain universal, high quality service if closures, consolidations and cuts continue.
The assault on this Constitutionally-mandated service service must end in 2014.
It is true that the Postal Service faces challenges. But is wrong—and, frankly, absurd—to suggest that the only fix is downsizing. That’s precisely the wrong route. Schemes to cut services and sell off parts of the service begin with the false premise that its current financial challenges are evidence of fundamental flaws.
In fact, the Postal Service reported an operating profit of $600 million for the 2013 fiscal year.
Unfortunately, despite the operating profit, the Postal Service balance sheet showed a $5 billion “loss” for the 2013 fiscal year.
Why? “Only because of an unprecedented and onerous requirement imposed by Congress that it pre-fund 75 years of future retiree health benefits in just 10 years,” as Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders notes. “No other business or government agency is burdened with this mandate.”
Ending the mandate and requiring the Postal Service to operate along the lines of the most responsible private businesses would make the USPS viable.
Indeed, the service could thrive if members of the House and Senate were to embrace the proposals of Sanders and Congressman Peter DeFazio, D-Oregon.
Sanders recognizes what the rest of Congress should: “The way to save the Postal Service is not to dismantle it piece by piece, but to allow it to generate more revenue by offering new and innovative products and services that the American people want.”
Those reforms embrace many of the proposals advanced by National Association of Letter Carriers President Fredric Rolando in a July letter to Congressman Elijah Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the Government Oversight and Reform Committee. In it, Rolando writes that comprehensive postal reform must:
1. Stabilize the Postal Service’s finances by reforming or eliminating unwise and unfair pension and retiree health financing policies that have crippled the Postal Service’s finances since 2006.
2. Strengthen and protect the Postal Service’s invaluable first-mile and last-mile networks that together comprise a crucial part of the nation’s infrastructure.
3. Overhaul the basic governance structure of the agency to attract first-class executive talent and a private-sector style board of directors with the demonstrated business expertise needed to implement a strategy that will allow the Postal Service to innovate and take advantage of growth opportunities even as it adjusts to declining traditional mail volume.
4. Free the Postal Service to meet the evolving needs of the American economy and to set its prices in a way that reflects the cost structure of the delivery industry while assuring affordable universal service and protecting against anti-competitive abuses.
There is a future for the United States Postal Service. And for the letter carriers and other postal workers who are hustling to deliver cards and packages this week.
In this holiday season, thank a postal worker. In 2014, tell Congress that it is not just possible but necessary for the United States to have a strong Postal Service.
By: John Nichols, The Nation, December 27, 2013
“So Say The American People, And History”: Confirmed, This Is The Worst Congress Ever
Though millions of Americans received Christmas gifts Wednesday, none got the one thing just about everybody wanted. No, not a new iPhone: A new Congress.
Two-thirds of Americans in a CNN poll released Thursday said the current Congress was the worst one in their lifetimes. And it wasn’t just one party or demographic who felt that way.
“That sentiment exists among all demographic and political subgroups. Men, women, rich, poor, young, old — all think this year’s Congress has been the worst they can remember,” CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said.
Three cheers for bipartisanship!
Meanwhile, three-fourths of respondents said lawmakers had “done nothing to address the country’s problems” through the first year of the 113th Congress. That gets at what’s primarily to blame for Congress’ horrible image: Lawmakers didn’t do much of anything this year, and the few things they did do were spectacularly infuriating. Heck, one of Congress’ most notable actions was failing to pass a bill to fund the government and, as a result, shuttering Washington for two weeks.
It’s not just a skewed, subjective view of congressional inaction either. The 113th Congress is statistically on track to be one of the least productive in history.
The 113th Congress passed only 66 laws in its first year, according to GovTrack. That was the lowest tally in four decades, or as far back as GovTrack has reliable data. Worse, only 58 of those bills became law, and many of them did nothing more than name post offices.
Meanwhile, many enormously popular bills fizzled. Nine in ten Americans supported tougher background checks for gun purchases, though Congress spiked gun control legislation. Two-thirds of Americans supported the Senate’s bipartisan immigration bill, but the House refused to take it up this year.
So yes, people aren’t too thrilled with how Congress has been functioning, a sentiment that’s been made clear throughout the year. Polls have found Congress less popular than dog turds and cockroaches, and in November, Congress’ approval rating fell to an all-time low of nine percent, according to Gallup.
Don’t count on that trend turning around any time soon either. Sure, Congress just passed a bipartisan budget agreement before fleeing Washington for the holidays, but that compromise was relatively tiny, and there are other major showdowns looming, including yet another one over the debt ceiling. Oh, and 2014 is a midterm election year, which should make lawmakers even more tepid toward major action.
In other words, the 113th Congress is already one of the most unpopular and least-productive in history, and it’s probably only going to get worse.
By: Jon Terbush, The Week, December 26, 2013
“What We Left Behind In 2013”: Americans Shouldn’t Accept The Low Standards Of Congress’s New Normal
I think we all breathed a sigh of relief this week when Congress finally did what it was supposed to do and passed a basic budget. Although the budget left many behind, this time there were no shutdowns, no debt ceiling scares, no fears of economic catastrophe. They just got down to work and passed a budget that allows our government to run.
I felt similarly relieved when the Senate changed its rules to put an end to the GOP obstruction that had kept seats on our courts across the country vacant out of misplaced political spite and pure obstructionism. Although Republicans are still doing everything they can to hold up the process, some long-blocked nominees are finally getting confirmed.
Yes, things are getting better. But that’s not saying much. Republicans have lowered the standards of Congress so much that the completion of a basic task like passing a budget or confirming a non-controversial judge is now cause for celebration. Americans shouldn’t accept the low standards of this new normal.
It’s like the relief of having a tooth pulled. The ache that’s been with you for so long is gone, the sharp pain of having it pulled is over. But there’s something missing.
As we look forward to the year ahead, let’s remember the tasks we left behind in the rancorous, bitter 2013. Relief is not enough. Progressives must redouble our efforts not only to make up lost ground but to make positive progress in the coming year.
Relief For Low-Income Americans. It was good news that Congress passed a budget. But that budget left some important programs behind. Last month, 47 million low-income Americans saw their SNAP (food stamp) benefits cut, leaving them with even less money to buy food for their families. Three days after Christmas, 1.3 million Americans will see their emergency unemployment insurance dry up, leaving many of the long-term unemployed with little to keep themselves afloat, and hurting the economy as a whole. Next year, Congress must work to boost our economy in a way that doesn’t leave behind those who are out of work or underemployed.
Employment Non-Discrimination Act. Gay-rights supporters rejoiced last month when the Senate passed a bill banning employment discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, a measure that garnered unexpected support from a number of Republicans. But Speaker Boehner shows no desire to bring the bill to the House floor. Progressives need to make sure House Republicans pay a political price if they kill a nondiscrimination bill supported by 70 percent of Americans.
Ending the Judicial Vacancy Crisis. A minority of Senate Republicans can no longer block all of the president’s judicial nominees from getting confirmation votes, but there’s plenty of lost ground to make up. One in ten seats on the federal courts is now or will soon be vacant, and there’s a growing number of urgent “judicial emergencies.” And now Republicans are stepping up their obstruction in other ways, even indicating that they will send 55 nominees back to the president at the end of the year, forcing the White House and the Senate to start the nominations process all over again. The 41-vote filibuster may be dead, but the fight to put good judges on the courts is just as important.
Updating our Immigration Laws. There was a rare bit of bipartisan hope this year when the Senate’s bipartisan “Gang of 8” hammered out an agreement for a much-needed update to our immigration laws, including a roadmap to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. The bill provoked a Tea Party uproar and got stuck in the House, but with enough pressure from the public, next year presents an opportunity to create a chance for thousands of immigrant families.
Protecting Voting Rights. As soon as the Supreme Court struck down the key enforcement provision of the Voting Rights Act, states across the South started instituting restrictive new voting laws designed to keep people of color, low-income people, and the young from voting. This was an undeniable setback, but we now have an opportunity to update VRA’s protections…if reasonable members of Congress will work together to get it done.
Defending Choice in the States. Congress may have been at a standstill last year, but many state legislatures weren’t. On top of a barrage of voting restrictions, Republican state legislatures continued the recent flood of anti-choice laws making it harder for women to access birth control and abortions. In just the first half of the year, states adopted 43 restrictions on abortion. But there were also positive trends as state legislators across the country worked toward positive, pro-woman policies. The War on Women is far from over, but we have the chance to achieve positive women’s rights victories in the states.
Fighting the Influx of Big Money in Politics. The 2010 Citizens United decision was bad enough, opening the door to unlimited corporate spending in elections. But this year saw the Supreme Court considering another major campaign finance case, McCutcheon v. FEC, that could allow the wealthiest donors to flood our political system with even more money. Luckily, 2013 also made clear that “We the People” have had enough. The movement to reclaim our democracy from special interests has never been stronger. To date, 16 states and more than 500 cities and towns have passed resolutions or ballot initiatives calling on Congress to pass an amendment overturning Citizens United and putting the power of our democracy back in the hands of everyday Americans. And 145 members of the House and Senate are now on record as co-sponsors of an amendment.
Barely functioning is not enough. We have a lot of work to do. Here’s to higher standards in 2014!
By: Michael B. Keegan, President, People For the American Way, The Huffington Post Blog, December 20, 2013
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