“Rooting For Failure”: Hard To Remember A Time When A Major Political Party And Its Media Arm Rooted For Fellow Americans To Lose
I just spent 15 minutes on my local health care exchange and realized that I could save a couple hundred dollars a month on my family’s insurance. Of course, I live in Washington State, which has a very competitive market, a superbly functioning website and no Koch-brothers-sponsored saboteurs trying to discourage people from getting health care.
California is just as good. It’s enrolling more than 2,000 people a day. New York is humming as well. And Kentucky, it’s the gold standard now: More than 56,000 people have signed up for new health care coverage — enough to fill a stadium in Louisville.
This is terrible news, and cannot be allowed to continue. If there’s even a small chance that, say, half of the 50 million or so Americans currently without heath care might get the same thing that every other advanced country offers its citizens, that would be a disaster.
But not to worry. The failure movement is active and very well funded. You probably know about the creepy Uncle Sam character in ads financed by the Koch brothers. Sicko Sam is seen leering over a woman on her back in a hospital exam room, her legs in stirrups. This same guy is now showing up on college campuses, trying to get young people to opt out of health care. On some campuses, he plies students with free booze and pizza — swee-eeet!
The Republican Party started a failure campaign earlier this year, but then the strategy got sidetracked in a coercive government shutdown that cost us all $24 billion or so. With the disastrous rollout of the federal exchange, Republicans now smell blood. A recent memo outlined a far-reaching, multilevel assault on the Affordable Care Act. Horror stories — people losing their lousy health insurance — will be highlighted, and computer snafus celebrated.
Ron Paul, the nuttier of the two political Pauls, recently suggested to a crowd in Virginia that “nullification” of the health care law might be the best way to kill it. I’m not sure what he meant by that, but it sounds illegal.
It’s hard to remember a time when a major political party and its media arm were so actively rooting for fellow Americans to lose. When the first attempt by the United States to launch a satellite into orbit, in 1957, ended in disaster, did Democrats start to cheer, and unify to stop a space program in its infancy? Or, when Medicare got off to a confusing start, did Republicans of the mid-1960s wrap their entire political future around a campaign to deny government-run health care to the elderly?
Of course not. But for the entity of the Obama era, Republicans have consistently been cheerleaders for failure. They rooted for the economic recovery to sputter, for gas prices to spike, the job market to crater, the rescue of the American automobile industry to fall apart.
I get it. This organized schadenfreude goes back to the dawn of Obama’s presidency, when Rush Limbaugh, later joined by Senator Mitch McConnell, said their No. 1 goal was for the president to fail. A CNN poll in 2010 found 61 percent of Republicans hoping Obama would fail (versus only 27 percent among all Americans).
Wish granted, mission accomplished. Obama has failed — that is, if you judge by his tanking poll numbers. But does this collapse in approval have to mean that the last best chance for expanding health care for millions of Americans must fail as well?
Does this mean we throw in the towel, and return to a status quo in which insurance companies routinely cancel policies, deny health care to people with pre-existing conditions and have their own death panel treatment for patients who reach a cap in medical benefits?
The Republican plan would do just that, because they have no plan but to crush the nation’s fledgling experiment. Sometimes they bring up vouchers, or tort reform, or some combination of catchphrases. Here was Sarah Palin, who is to articulate reason what Mr. Magoo is to vision, on the Republican alternative, as she told Matt Lauer:
“The plan is to allow those things that have been proposed over many years to reform a health care system in America that certainly does need more help so that there’s more competition, there’s less tort-reform threat, there’s less trajectory of the cost increases. And those plans have been proposed over and over. And what thwarts those plans? It’s the far left.”
Yes, it is a big and legitimate news story, for a presidency built on technical expertise, that the federal exchange is not working as promised. Ditto Obama’s vow that people could keep their bottom-feeder health care policies.
But where were the news conferences, the Fox News alerts, the parading of people who couldn’t get their lifesaving cancer treatments under the old system? Where was the media attention when thousands of people were routinely dumped once they got sick? When did Republicans in Congress hold an oversight hearing on the leading cause of personal bankruptcy — medical debt?
All of that is what we had before. And all of that is what we will return to if some version of the Affordable Care Act is not made workable. Republicans have a decent chance, in next year’s elections, of killing the dream of progressive presidents going back to Teddy Roosevelt. But they shouldn’t count on it. What’s going against them, or any party invested in failure, is that Americans are inherently optimistic. That alone may be enough to save Obamacare.
By: Timothy Egan, Contributing Op-Ed Writer, The New York Times, November 28, 2013
“The Rise Of Obamacare McCarthyism”: Anti-Obamacare Republicans Attack Each Other For Being “Crypto-Supporters” Of Obamacare
We talked yesterday about Rep. Jack Kingston, one of several House Republicans running for the U.S. Senate in Georgia, who infuriated the right. His transgression? The congressman pushed a bill to add a conservative provision to the Affordable Care Act.
Conservatives were livid, not because of the idea itself, but because House Republicans aren’t supposed to try to “fix” the health care law. To take even a modest step towards moving the law to the right, some conservatives said, is to “surrender on Obamacare.”
We’re seeing a similar situation play out in Wyoming.
A conservative nonprofit group is set to launch a TV attack ad Monday intimating that Republican Sen. Mike Enzi is less than pure in his opposition to Obamacare.
Americans for Job Security highlights the incumbent’s support for exchanges during the 2010 debate over Obamacare…. “I like the exchanges,” Enzi says in a brief clip. “These exchanges can be good.”
The ad is incredulous, as if the senator’s 2010 comments are ridiculous are on their face. It doesn’t matter if Enzi has repeatedly fought to destroy the Affordable Care Act and voted to repeal it; what matters now is that he once said it’s possible that marketplaces with competing private insurance plans are “good.”
And in 2013, that’s apparently a bridge too far.
What’s emerging is an expansive list of litmus tests – it’s not enough to hate “Obamacare,” Republicans must also hate everything within the law, including the Republican ideas.
In this case, the Wyoming attack ad concludes, “Tell Mike Enzi we don’t like these liberal, Big Government Obamacare exchanges.”
Got that? If private insurers compete for consumers’ business in a marketplace originally touted by the Heritage Foundation, it’s “liberal, big government.”
It’s hard to believe in the most gullible GOP primary voter would find this persuasive, but the takeaway here is the attack itself. We’ve reached the point at which a far-right Republican is being condemned for having described the single most capitalistic, free-market aspect of the health care law as “good.”
Josh Marshall described this as an example of “Obamacare McCarthyism,” in which “different anti-Obamacare Republicans attack each other for either being crypto-supporters of Obamacare, being Obamacare-curious or even just having earlier periods of Obamacare confusion.”
Ed Kilgore added this is “likely to be a continuing weapon against any Republican who doesn’t favor the most radical tactics available at any given moment to bring down the Great White Whale of the Affordable Care Act.”
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, November 27, 2013
“Are The Obamacare Clouds Breaking?”: Love It Or Hate It, Obamacare Is Here To Stay
This morning, I was listening to NPR—because yeah, I’m an effete pointy-headed liberal and that’s how I roll—and I heard a story about people in California who got insurance cancellation notices, but then wound up getting better coverage and couldn’t be happier about it. And the other day there was this story in The Washington Post about droves of poor people in rural Kentucky getting insurance for the first time in their lives—free, through Medicaid—because of the Affordable Care Act. In other words, after spending weeks telling the tales of people losing their health coverage (who in truth could get other health coverage), the media are finally putting at least some attention on the people who are benefiting from the ACA.
And encouraging news seems to be breaking out all over. Ezra Klein and Evan Soltas ask, “Is Obamacare Turning the Corner?”, noting that Healthcare.gov seems to be working pretty well, at least on the front end. States with well-functioning web sites like New York and California are meeting or exceeding their enrollment targets. Steve Benen concurs on the corner-turning interpretation. Kevin Drum argues that “Getting Obamacare to the end zone wasn’t easy, and Obama almost fumbled the ball at the one-yard line, but he’s finally won. There’s nothing left for conservatives to do. Love it or hate it, Obamacare is here to stay.”
That isn’t to say that there aren’t lots of problems left to be sorted out. Nor is it to say that the media are done with Obamacare “horror” stories. For instance, last night, NBC News aired this story about employers moving to more modest plans to avoid the “Cadillac tax” on high-cost health plans, complete with disgruntled employees. The piece didn’t bother to explore why an employer might choose a plan for 2014 based on a tax that doesn’t take effect until 2018, other than including a quote from a health-industry consultant claiming that employers “are going to have to get ready for it now,” which makes no sense at all. Think there might be a story there about companies making a decision to scale back benefits and save money but just blaming it on Obamacare? Maybe?
Anyhow, it does appear that we’re starting to edge toward a more balanced media discussion of the successes and failures of this law. I’ll stick to the prediction I’ve made for some time, that the law will be fine. When that December 1 deadline for fixing the website comes, reporters will find that it’s not perfect, but it’s pretty good. In the medium term, the law will do a lot of good for a lot of people, but it won’t transform America into a health care paradise, nor will it drag us into a nightmare of communist oppression. It will have problems, most of which will get sorted out. And the political impact? That will probably be something of a wash as well. Republicans will still be able to go to their conservative constituents and say, “I fought against Obamacare!” as proof of their right-wing bona fides. Democrats will still be able to go to their constituents and say they made it so nobody would get rejected for insurance because of a pre-existing condition. Eventually, Republicans will find something else to shout about.
And who knows, maybe these kinds of problems getting fixed will create a new narrative of success around the ACA: Despite terrible obstacles and mistakes, the administration found its way and delivered for the American people, redeeming liberalism in the process! Weirder things have happened.
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, November 26, 2013
“California, Here We Come?”: If Obamacare Can Work For 38 Million People In California, It Can Work For America
It goes without saying that the rollout of Obamacare was an epic disaster. But what kind of disaster was it? Was it a failure of management, messing up the initial implementation of a fundamentally sound policy? Or was it a demonstration that the Affordable Care Act is inherently unworkable?
We know what each side of the partisan divide wants you to believe. The Obama administration is telling the public that everything will eventually be fixed, and urging Congressional Democrats to keep their nerve. Republicans, on the other hand, are declaring the program an irredeemable failure, which must be scrapped and replaced with … well, they don’t really want to replace it with anything.
At a time like this, you really want a controlled experiment. What would happen if we unveiled a program that looked like Obamacare, in a place that looked like America, but with competent project management that produced a working website?
Well, your wish is granted. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you California.
Now, California isn’t the only place where Obamacare is looking pretty good. A number of states that are running their own online health exchanges instead of relying on HealthCare.gov are doing well. Kentucky’s Kynect is a huge success; so is Access Health CT in Connecticut. New York is doing O.K. And we shouldn’t forget that Massachusetts has had an Obamacare-like program since 2006, put into effect by a guy named Mitt Romney.
California is, however, an especially useful test case. First of all, it’s huge: if a system can work for 38 million people, it can work for America as a whole. Also, it’s hard to argue that California has had any special advantages other than that of having a government that actually wants to help the uninsured. When Massachusetts put Romneycare into effect, it already had a relatively low number of uninsured residents. California, however, came into health reform with 22 percent of its nonelderly population uninsured, compared with a national average of 18 percent.
Finally, the California authorities have been especially forthcoming with data tracking the progress of enrollment. And the numbers are increasingly encouraging.
For one thing, enrollment is surging. At this point, more than 10,000 applications are being completed per day, putting the state well on track to meet its overall targets for 2014 coverage. Just imagine, by the way, how different press coverage would be right now if Obama officials had produced a comparable success, and around 100,000 people a day were signing up nationwide.
Equally important is the information on who is enrolling. To work as planned, health reform has to produce a balanced risk pool — that is, it must sign up young, healthy Americans as well as their older, less healthy compatriots. And so far, so good: in October, 22.5 percent of California enrollees were between the ages of 18 and 34, slightly above that group’s share of the population.
What we have in California, then, is a proof of concept. Yes, Obamacare is workable — in fact, done right, it works just fine.
The bad news, of course, is that most Americans aren’t lucky enough to live in states in which Obamacare has, in fact, been done right. They’re stuck either with HealthCare.gov or with one of the state exchanges, like Oregon’s, that have similar or worse problems. Will they ever get to experience successful health reform?
The answer is, probably yes. There won’t be a moment when the clouds suddenly lift, but the exchanges are gradually getting better — a point inadvertently illustrated a few days ago by John Boehner, the speaker of the House. Mr. Boehner staged a publicity stunt in which he tried to sign up on the D.C. health exchange, then triumphantly posted an entry on his blog declaring that he had been unsuccessful. At the bottom of his post, however, is a postscript admitting that the health exchange had called back “a few hours later,” and that he is now enrolled.
And maybe the transaction would have proceeded faster if Mr. Boehner’s office hadn’t, according to the D.C. exchange, put its agent — who was calling to help finish the enrollment — on hold for 35 minutes, listening to “lots of patriotic hold music.”
There will also probably be growing use of workarounds — for example, encouraging people to go directly to insurers. This will temporarily defeat one of the purposes of the exchanges, which was to make price comparisons easy, but it will be good enough as a short-term patch. And one shouldn’t forget that the insurance industry has a big financial stake in the success of Obamacare, and will soon be pitching in with big efforts to sign people up.
Again, Obamacare’s rollout was a disaster. But in California we can see what health reform will look like, beyond the glitches. And it’s going to work.
By: Paul Krugman, Op-Ed Columnist, The New York Times, November 24, 2013
“Republicans Cry Foul Over Presidential Multi-Tasking”: No, The Iran Deal Is Not A Manufactured Distraction From ObamaCare
Critics of the nuclear accord struck between Iran, the United States, and five other global superpowers are deeply skeptical about the deal’s terms, fearing it is too weak and relies too much on placing trust in a secretive state.
Some Republicans, meanwhile, think the deal is a farce for another reason.
John Cornyn on Twitter: Amazing what WH will do to distract attention from O-care
10:15 PM – 23 Nov 2013 from Austin, TX, United States
Cornyn isn’t just any random Republican either. He’s the Minority Whip, the second-ranking GOPer in the Senate, so his opinion carries more weight than if someone akin to, say, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) unloaded on the administration with a factually-light claim.
The argument gained some credibility Sunday when Bob Schieffer repeated it in question form on Face the Nation to House Majority Whip Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) McCarthy, for his part, offered only a semi-dismissal: “I know they need some other type of news, but that would be the biggest mistake any administration could do. I would hope that would never be the case.”
As “distraction” murmurs intensified, Cornyn doubled down on the claim. And come Monday, Fox News’ morning hosts were opining on how Secretary of State John Kerry, amid the ObamaCare debacle, magically “pulls a rabbit out of his hat and changes the subject.”
There’s one huge problem with the augment: The deal was reportedly in the works for at least eight months — or well before ObamaCare went live and exposed glaring problems with the health care website.
Administration and Iranian officials met in Oman back in March for the first of at least five secret meetings, according to the Associated Press. The AP learned of the first meeting soon after it happened, the news agency said, but could not confirm the details and so sat on the story until now.
Going back even further, Secretary of State John Kerry, while still in the Senate in 2011, began forging ties with the Omanis that may have laid the groundwork for the nuclear negotiations.
Certainly, President Obama would like to talk about something other than his administration’s poor handling of the ObamaCare rollout. And indeed, the White House is quietly pushing Democratic lawmakers to shift their focus to the economy.
Yet assuming a historic deal was really a calculated gambit to shift the conversation in Washington from domestic to foreign affairs is, given the many months and rounds of negotiations that resulted in the deal, quite a stretch. You could argue that the administration, anticipating the ObamaCare implosion, started preparing an Iranian smokescreen earlier this year, just in case. But to truly believe that you would have to view the news in a complete vacuum, and be a pretty big cynic to boot.
And as far as distractions go, a nuclear deal with a country a plurality of Americans believe is an “enemy” is not exactly the best shiny object to reach for. So far, the reaction to the deal has been mixed, with even some prominent Democrats panning the accord as too friendly to Iran. So though the deal shifted the news cycle, it did not do so in a way uniformly beneficial to the White House.
Plus, the nuclear pact is only the latest piece of news Republicans have claimed is a manufactured ObamaCare distraction. When Democratic senators last week scrapped centuries-old rules governing filibusters, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) accused them of “cook[ing] up some fake fight.”
“I’d probably be looking for an exit, too, if I had supported this law,” he said, “I’d be looking to change the subject, just as Senate Democrats have been doing with their threats of going nuclear and changing the Senate rules on nominations.”
Yes, the Senate changed the conversation from ObamaCare to arcane debate rules last week. But McConnell, as with Cornyn, had no proof it was a deliberate, politically motivated calculation.
The administration has so far refused to respond to the allegations. And that may be a good idea: Were they to respond, someone would probably accuse them of again trying to distract from ObamaCare.
By: Jon Terbush, The Week, November 25, 2013
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