“A Dog’s Life Can Be Dizzying”: The Obamacare Opposition Has Finally Caught Its Own Tail
It’s time to pop the champagne and blow the kazoos: the war on Obamacare has officially reached its point of reductio ad absurdum. Two of the opposition’s favored fevered conspiracy theories about the law have clashed, like two asteroids headed for the planet that smash into each other before they can do any damage below.
First, there was the opposition’s demand that members of Congress and their staff be subjected to Obamacare—that they be forced to give up their coverage in the health plans for federal employees and join the new insurance exchanges on the theory that “if Congress was going to impose Obamacare upon the country, it should have to experience what it is imposing firsthand.” This never really made sense from the outset since the exchanges, at least for the foreseeable future, are meant only for people without employer coverage and for small businesses buying coverage for their workers. That is, most of “the country” is not going to have anything to do with the exchanges—they are just going to keep being covered by their employers.
Forcing the incongruous requirement that Hill employees enter the exchanges resulted, inevitably, in a snafu: the exchanges are not designed for employers and employees to share the cost of plans that are selected by workers, since the exchanges are meant for people buying coverage on their own. Congress, like most large employers, covers the lion’s share of their workers’ premiums, but wasn’t going to be able to do so as the law was written, leaving Hill workers with thousands more dollars a year in premium costs than they now pay. To fix this problem—which was never intended even by the members of Congress who wanted Hill staff to share in the burdens of Obamacare—the administration and Congress agreed on a tweak that would maintain the requirement for congressional staff to enter the exchanges, while allowing for the federal government to pick up its share of the costs. Conservatives decried this as an “exemption” from Obamacare, which was flatly untrue: in fact, the Hill is being included in Obamacare to an extent beyond what the law was built to allow for. For a pithy dismissal of the “exemption” trope, see the recent letter to the editor in the Wall Street Journal by the gentleman from Verona.
Meanwhile, opponents of the law have since the early days of its drafting been busy fanning flames on another front as well: charging that the law would allow for federal funding of abortions, which has been barred for years. This line almost managed to stop the legislation in its tracks before supporters settled on a highly unwieldy compromise—plans on the exchanges can cover abortions (as many insurance plans now do) but the abortion coverage must be offered in a supplemental plan, purchased separately from the main coverage, and without the help of the federal subsidies many people will receive to help them buy the plans. This is such a messy arrangement that abortion rights supporters fear that precious few plans on the exchanges will even bother to include abortion coverage. And the law also allows states to pass laws banning abortion coverage, period, from plans in their exchanges, as many states have already done.
Do you see where this is headed? The law forces Congress and its staffers into the exchanges…the law, in theory, allows for plans with abortion coverage to be sold on the exchanges…and, voila, the crash in the skies above. Take it away, Associated Press:
The politics of the abortion debate are always tricky for lawmakers. They may soon get personal. An attempt to fix a problem with the national health care law has created a situation in which members of Congress and their staffers could gain access to abortion coverage. That’s a benefit currently denied to them and to all federal employees who get health insurance through the government’s plan…
Abortion opponents say the regulation would circumvent a longstanding law that bars the use of taxpayer funds for “administrative expenses in connection with any health plan under the federal employees health benefits program which provides any benefits or coverage for abortions.” Unlike many private corporate plans, federal employee plans only cover abortions in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother.
“Under this scheme, (the government) will be paying the administrative costs,” said Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., author of the abortion funding ban for federal employee plans. “It’s a radical deviation and departure from current federal law, and it’s not for all federal employees, but for a subset: Congress. Us.” Smith is calling on the Obama administration to specify that lawmakers and staffers must choose a plan that does not cover abortions. The funding ban, in place since the 1980s, is known as the Smith amendment.
This framing is actually off the mark. It’s not “an attempt to fix a problem” with the law that has created this situation. It was the original demand by Republicans (Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley led the way) that members of Congress and their staff be forced into the exchanges. The administration is downplaying the whole matter, noting that, technically, Hill members and staffers who buy a plan on the exchanges that comes with the abortion coverage will be paying for that part of the coverage out of their own pocket. But yes, in theory, a member of Congress and his or her staff may now be able to have abortion coverage, which was not the case previously. The horror! After all, we know that some members of Congress have a messy track record with abortions—like, say, demanding that their mistresses get one.
So, tiger, how does that tail of yours taste?
By: Alec MacGillis, Senior Editor, The New Republic, August 20, 2013
“First Do No Harm”: It’s Time To Rethink The Oath Of Office For People We Vote To Represent Us
First do no harm. That’s a tenet of medical ethics that future doctors worldwide are taught in medical school.
If only the people we elect to represent us were required to take such an oath when they’re sworn into office.
Because they aren’t, folks in Florida are facing having to pay far more for health insurance over the next two years than necessary. And health insurance executives will be laughing all the way to the bank.
Florida state lawmakers, in their ongoing efforts to block the implementation of Obamacare in the Sunshine State, recently passed a law that will allow health insurance companies to gouge Floridians more than any corporate boss dreamed was possible.
And if that weren’t bad enough, insurers will actually be required by law to mislead their Florida customers about why they’re hiking their premiums.
Republicans, who control the governor’s office as well as both houses of the Florida legislature, were confident the U.S. Supreme Court would declare the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional. Not only did they vote to prohibit the state from spending money to implement a law they just knew would be overturned by the high court, they refused to accept money from the federal government that would have enabled the state’s department of insurance to do a better job of regulating health insurers and enforcing new consumer protections in the law.
When the Supreme Court shocked Obamacare opponents last year by upholding the law, Florida lawmakers were in a pickle.
Their response? They passed a bill that prohibits the state’s Office of Insurance Regulation from protecting consumers from unreasonable rate increases for two years.
I learned about what is essentially a “first do as much harm as possible” bill in a letter the nine Democrats in the Florida congressional delegation sent to U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius earlier this month pleading with her to step in to protect Floridians by taking an active role in regulating rate increases in the state.
The lawmakers said intervention by HHS was urgently needed because of a law signed in May by Gov. Rick Scott that specifically prohibits Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty from doing his job of reviewing rate increases and rejecting those he and his staff determine are unjustifiably high.
Until the passage of SB 1842, McCarty had the power to do that. Florida state lawmakers who voted for the bill, including a few Democrats who seemed to think HHS has more authority than it does, took the position that since the federal government was requiring insurance companies to be more consumer friendly, the federal government should assume the responsibility of enforcing the new consumer protections in Obamacare. The problem is that Congress gave the federal government no such additional powers. As a consequence, HHS really can’t take over what is still a state responsibility. And since Florida turned down the federal money that McCarty would have used to do his job, Floridians appear to be out of luck.
Last month, McCarty’s office said insurance premiums for individuals in Florida would be significantly higher than they are now. In their letter to Sebelius, the state’s congressional Democrats wrote that those increases are “not a coincidence, but rather the product of a cynical and intentional effort by Gov. Scott and the Florida legislature to undermine the Affordable Care Act and make health insurance premiums on the Florida Health Insurance Marketplace more expensive by refusing to allow the insurance commissioner to negotiate lower rates with companies or refuse rates that are too high.”
As PolitiFact noted in a recent analysis of the charges made by the Democrats in their letter (which PolitiFact ruled are true), the states that have authority to approve or disapprove rates were “able to extract significant reductions.” PolitiFact cited a Palm Beach Post story which noted that Maryland’s insurance department had used its regulatory powers “to push rates for next year’s premiums down by as much as a third.”
As Florida CHAIN, a state advocacy group, pointed out when Scott signed SB 1842, the law not only blocks McCarty’s office from protecting consumers, a provision in the law actually requires insurers to send deceptive and misleading notices about rate increases to consumers — and to blame Obamacare for them.
“The only ’public education’ of any sort authorized by the Legislature related to the ACA (Affordable Care Act) is a requirement … that insurers send extremely biased and incomplete notices this fall about the ACA and its effect on policyholders’ rates,” Florida CHAIN said in a statement.
“The sole purpose of the requirement is to create ‘sticker shock’ that can be blamed on the ACA. There will be no mention of the many uncertainties or any other relevant factors, such as past rate increases or how actual rates will be reduced for many by the availability of premium tax credits (to low and middle income earners.)”
So not only will many Floridians be harmed by SB 1842, they will, by law, be misled about who caused the harm.
Maybe it’s time to rethink the oath of office for people we vote to represent us.
By: Wendell Potter, The Center for Public Integrity, August 19, 2013
“The GOP In Fantasyland”: Unhinged, Uncontrollable And Fully Capable Of Knocking Themselves Out
The make-believe crusade by publicity-hound Republicans to somehow stop Obamacare is one of the most cynical political exercises we’ve seen in many years. And that, my friends, is saying something.
Charlatans are peddling the fantasy that somehow they can prevent the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act from becoming what it already is: the law of the land. Congress passed it, President Obama signed it, the Supreme Court upheld it, many of its provisions are already in force, and others will soon take effect.
No matter how contemptuous they may be about Obamacare, opponents have only two viable options: Repeal it or get over it.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) the Canadian American who appears to be running for president, has grabbed headlines and air time by being the loudest advocate of an alleged third option: Congress could refuse to fund Obamacare, thereby starving it and effectively killing it. This is a ridiculous fantasy, as Cruz, who has brains beneath all that bombast, surely knows.
Congress needs to pass a continuing resolution to fund the government beyond Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year. The idea, if you can call it one, is that Republicans can refuse to pass any funding bill that contains money for implementing Obamacare.
Theoretically, Republicans could pull this off in the House, where they hold the majority. But the chance that a bill stripped of money for the Affordable Care Act could make it through the Senate, where Democrats hold power, is precisely zero. The chance that a House-Senate conference would starve Obamacare to death while Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) remains the majority leader is also zero.
And if by some miracle such a bill were to make it to Obama’s desk, the chance he would sign it is way less than zero. To swallow the snake oil that Cruz and some other hard-right conservatives are peddling, you have to believe Obama is willing to nullify the biggest legislative accomplishment of his presidency.
So with the bill vetoed and no authorization to spend money, much of the government would have to shut down.
This gambit damaged the Republican Party back when Newt Gingrich tried it. In today’s toxic political climate, with approval ratings for Congress sinking toward single digits, it could be catastrophic. As things stand, Democrats have an uphill struggle next year to win the 17 House seats they need to regain the majority in that chamber. If the GOP forces a shutdown, however, Democrats’ chances might get better.
The basic elements of Obamacare — including the mandate that compels individuals to buy health insurance or pay a fine — originated in conservative think tanks, including the Heritage Foundation. So it is beyond ironic that Heritage — under its new leader, former senator Jim DeMint — is pushing hard for the defund-Obamacare suicide leap.
DeMint has gone so far as to make a campaign swing through the South and the Midwest, whipping up support among the GOP base. Asked by an audience member in Arkansas why Congress should pass a bill starving Obamacare when everyone knows Obama would never sign it, DeMint replied, “Well, we don’t know that, do we?”
Come on. We know.
And we also know that painting Obamacare as the end of America as we know it is an effective way for DeMint to rebrand Heritage , moving it away from mainstream Republican orthodoxy into tea party la-la land. Noisemaking and fundraising go hand in hand; this crazy exercise promises to be very bad for the GOP, but it might end up being very good for the Heritage Foundation’s coffers.
Similarly, Cruz gets to preen before a national audience and demonstrate the fervor of his opposition to Obama and all that he stands for. “If you have an impasse, you know, one side or the other has to blink,” he said recently. “How do we win this fight? Don’t blink.”
The GOP establishment is blinking like crazy. Trying to defund Obamacare has little support among Republicans in the Senate. “I’m for stopping Obamacare, but shutting down the government will not stop Obamacare,” Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) said recently, demonstrating a grasp of reality.
The Republican majority in the House, though, is . . . what’s the word? Unpredictable? Uncontrollable? Unhinged? They pay little attention to wise political advice and less attention to their leader, Speaker John Boehner of Ohio. And while they can’t lay a glove on Obamacare, they’re fully capable of knocking themselves out.
By: Eugene Robinson, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, August 22, 2013
“A Calculated Risk Making For An Ugly Fall”: The Scary Reason Republicans Want A Debt Ceiling Fight
Washington Monthly’s Ed Kilgore notes with appropriate alarm the won’t-go-away talk among House Republicans about substituting a threat of government shutdown if Obamacare isn’t defunded with a refusal to raise the debt ceiling. This is a terrifically stupid idea, he notes, because, as Ezra Klein says, a government shutdown would be an “inconvenience” while a debt default “is a global financial crisis.”
So what, Kilgore asks, are Republicans thinking? He suggests movement conservatives are ensorcelled by the Green Lantern/”Nike existentialism” (“Just do it!”) theory of politics, which holds that the only thing standing between a movement and victory is a lack of will. And I think there’s something to that.
But I think there’s another dimension more grounded in reality (and so arguably scarier) why Republican leaders might see a debt ceiling fight as better ground than a government shutdown showdown. First, we’ve seen both of these movies before. Revisionist conservatives aside, Republicans took a beating during the government shutdowns of the mid-1990s, while they managed to extract concessions from President Obama during the last debt ceiling fight. From that point of view, if you have to have a fight, it might as well be the one that – from a cold political perspective – turned out better than the other.
Ultimately Republicans suspect that (per Politico today) Democrats actually want a government shutdown, that they see it as a way to reset midterm congressional elections stacked heavily in the GOP’s favor. Add to that the fact that everyone knows Obama is desperate to avoid a debt default (for the same rational reasons every president – Democrat and Republican alike – has been desperate to avoid one) and the fact that conservatives have a deep-seated belief that Obama is inclined to cave (see also the certitude among the ludicrous right that he’ll sign a defunding bill at all).
What you have is a formula where the debt default (which he’s desperate to avoid) is a better fight than the shutdown (which, they believe, he wants anyway).
As I said, that analysis makes a default fight even scarier because it’s not just being pushed by the Republican rank-and-file, but could be a calculated risk by the leadership.
It could be an ugly fall indeed.
By: Robert Schlesinger, U. S. News and World Report, August 22, 2013
“The Conservative Dilemma In A Nutshell”: Carrying A Message Deliberately Designed To Line Their Pockets
Jim DeMint, the former firebrand senator from South Carolina who now heads The Heritage Foundation, has been on the speaking junket of late calling for the replacement of any Republican who has the good sense to oppose a purely symbolic and unwinnable vote on repealing ObamaCare. DeMint is an absolutist, and is revealing a sad truth about too many spokespeople for conservative causes these days: They play to an audience that does not understand (or does not care about) the demographic realities of electoral politics, and offer a message designed to line their own pockets rather than improve the party. This has to change if our party is to rise again.
Take DeMint. GOPers who are against the symbolic move to replace ObamaCare “should be replaced,” he says. DeMint also says he’s “not as interested in the political futures of folks who think they might lose a showdown with the president.” These remarks highlight two of the most fundamental obstacles to the GOP’s return to viability as a ruling party in this country.
Large swaths of the conservative base have come to believe that all conservatives in all states should be fire breathers like DeMint. But even if it would be good or desirable to run candidates like DeMint as the nominee in every race in America, the demographics of modern America make such a policy politically suicidal. Democratic elections mean that people tend to elect leaders that hold views that approximately resemble their own. The very qualities that make a DeMint clone wildly desirable in a dark red southern state like South Carolina make the identical person totally and completely unelectable in Connecticut, Delaware, or Nevada. And if you think my choice of those last three states was a coincidence, it was not, since the GOP has thrown away two slam-dunk Senate wins and one potential Senate win in recent cycles in those states by nominating a fire breather rather than a more “moderate” candidate in the general election.
This is basic politics. Almost any objective observer can look at the numbers and demographic realities and recognize the problem. That raises this question: Jim DeMint may hold some pretty extreme political views, but he’s no idiot, so why does he continue to spout this nonsense? The answer, as with so many things, becomes quickly apparent when we think about who he works for and what he is trying to do.
DeMint does not work for the Republican Party. He does not have the best interests of the GOP in mind when he goes on tour. Instead, DeMint is paid something close to $1 million a year to run the Heritage Foundation. The reason that Heritage is paying the former senator so much cash is because they expect him to raise a lot of it, as think tanks rarely generate revenue and therefore must raise money to survive. So make no mistake, in his present position, DeMint is concerned foremost not with the betterment of the GOP’s national position or the good of America, but the bottom line of the Heritage Foundation.
This leads us to a final question: What kind of person is apt to give money to a partisan think tank like Heritage? Your answer: Hyper-enthusiastic rich conservatives. And what these donors like to hear is their own beliefs echoed on television. They are less concerned with, you know, reality… or whether the GOP takes a Senate seat in Connecticut.
This last incentives problem is one that pervades the GOP. Right now, too many people are making too much money by being conservatives. Rush Limbaugh is a bright enough guy and he is an exceptional entertainer, but he knows that his core audience is hyper conservative and he plays to that audience exceptionally well. Same with Fox News: Their core viewers are über-conservative, Fox is in business to make money, and that means catering to the audience’s beliefs.
Sadly, the two problems play off of one another. Perhaps if DeMint and Limbaugh were not so busy looking our for #1 (and the organizations they represent), they might talk to their fans about what is and isn’t possible. In all likelihood, many of the true believers would embrace a compromise if it meant more conservatives rather than less. But to do so, Limbaugh and DeMint and Fox News would have to risk alienating some of their biggest fans, customers, or donors for the betterment of the party and, as we are so often reminded, they just don’t work for the party.
By: Jeb Golinkin, The week, August 21, 2013
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