Friday, January 7, 2011

"Obamacare" and the Republican House: Re-Arguing Health Care Reform




Republicans, teapartiers, libertarians 
have all made a cottage industry out of 
hating "Obamacare". Know the facts.










  • The Constitution
  • The State of Things
  • GOP will bedevil the details of healthcare reform
  • Individual Mandate was a GOP idea
  • "Job-killing," "Hurts small business"
  • Waivers: "If it's so great, why are Unions seeking waivers?"
  • The Deficit and "Obamacare"
  • States' Rights and "Obamacare"
  • Democrats and Messaging on Healthcare
  • Rep. Stephen Lynch and his anti-healthcare reform 









  • GOP alternative plans to Obamacare
  • GOP arguments
  • Public attitudes toward healthcare reform (polls, damn polls)
  • "If obamacare is so great, why doesn't Congress use it?"
  • Payment Reforms
  • Massachusetts updates
  • Single payer
  • Crazy RW blather on healthcare
  • Abortion and "obamacare"
  • Links I pulled together in 2010


    •
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    The Constitution
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    The State of Things
    • U.S. Health Care Costs: Issue Modules, Background Brief - KaiserEDU.org, Health Policy Education from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation - http://bit.ly/by8F8u
    • RT @LOLGOP: SPOILER: We already pay for others' health care. We're just trying to do it in a less dumb way http://fb.me/1Whyzm1dZ (Ronald Reagan Socialized Medicine in the United States | Eclectablog (Feb 12 2012)- http://goo.gl/YDS6T )
      • Reagan socialized medicine when he signed the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. This law MANDATES that all emergency rooms in all hospitals that take federal money serve anyone who comes to that emergency room, regardless of his or her ability to pay. And it offers no funding to achieve this mandate, which raises the cost of health care for everyone who can pay.
      • Yes. Reagan socialized medicine, in the dumbest possible way. Despite paying more for health care than any democracy on earth, 45,000 people still die each year for a lack of insurance.
      • The smart way to provide health care is to cover everyone. Every industrialized country in the world does this and pays less for health care than we do. But America has the best health care in the world… for the rich. And we always will, because the rich can always pay and benefit from the billions our government spends on research.
      • Soak in the irony. The man who got into politics to fight things like Medicare, socialized medicine.
    • RT @MotherJones: Rick Santorum admits that his private health insurance sucks. http://tmblr.co/Z0-QTyHXK7e0 (3/2012)
    • The bad old days: "Money Won't Buy You Health Ins." (2/2011)
      • repeal proponents must assume that uninsured people do not want to buy it, or are just too cheap or too poor to do so. The truth is that individual health insurance is not easy to get. I found this out the hard way. ..Since my husband had retired a few years earlier, we found ourselves without an employer and thus without health insurance. We were all active and healthy, and I naïvely thought getting health insurance would be simple. 
    • Remember the Uninsured, Ezra Klein, 1/19/11
      • "Most of us would agree that being able to afford to see a doctor isn't a luxury. It's a necessity. Rep. Harris certainly feels that way."
    • Half of Americans under 65 (Medicare age) have pre-existing conditions (WaPo, 1/17/2011)
    • Health Care Inequalities: a doctor speaks out (via Doctors for America) (1/17/2011)
    |TOP|_______________________
    GOP Will Bedevil the Details of Health Care Reform
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    Individual Mandate was a Republican Idea

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    "Job-killing", "Hurts Small Biz"
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    Waivers: "If it's so great, why are Unions seeking waivers?"
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    The Deficit and "Obamacare"

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    States' Rights and Obamacare
    • Wyden/Brown bill to speed up the "let states innovate" clause of ACA (ie, it's ALREADY IN THERE-- the bill would move up the date for implementation( E Klein, Nov 2010
      • "Wyden, with the help of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), was able to build a version of this exemption into the original health-care reform bill, but for various reasons, was forced to accept a starting date of 2017 -- three years after the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act goes into effect. The Wyden/Brown legislation would allow states to propose their alternatives now and start implementing them in 2014, rather than wasting time and money setting up a federal structure that they don’t plan to use." 
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    Democrats and Messaging on Health Care
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    Rep. Stephen Lynch and his Anti-Health-CareReform Vote
    Rally on Boston Common for Health Care Reform. My sign is in front.
    My friend Marianne Rutter stands under the "Doctors for America" sign (with sunglasses). 2009
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    GOP Alternative Plans to "obamacare"
    Their propaganda against oBamacare, ongoing
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    GOP Arguments
    • 1/23/2012: David Orentlicher: No right to be a freeloader | The Indianapolis Star | indystar.com (contra the GOP arguments)
      • Hypocrisy is no stranger to politics, but Republican officials seem unusually willing to abandon core principles these days. While the GOP traditionally has stressed the importance of personal responsibility, it has recently become the party of the free rider.Consider two cases in point: right to work legislation for Indiana and health-care reform for the country.
    • Harold Pollack And Vivek Murthy: No, Doctors Don't Hate Obamacare | The New Republic (1/20/2012)
    • Stuck in the Middle: Bad GOP Arguments (3/26) 
      • There are good arguments against the PPACA. There are good arguments for smaller government. Apparently, the GOP can't find them.
    • Senator Johnson’s odd dislike of the PPACA | The Incidental Economist (3/2011) 
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    Public Attitudes Toward Health Care Reform (polls damn polls)
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    "If Obamacare is so great, why doesn't Congress use it?"
    • Actually, Congress's plan IS like "Obamacare" (AFLCIO)
    • ThinkProgress interviews w/ GOP congressmen who won't be turning down their "obamacare" healthcare: (1/11/11)
      • Updates: Rep Posey doesn't know he's a fed employee 2/7/11
    • "The federal system [which Congressmen use for health insurance] mirrors the reforms enacted by Democrats and President Obama, which end health insurance abuses by regulating coverage through an exchange, while offering subsidies to individuals and small businesses to make coverage more affordable." --ThinkProgress, 1/18/11
    • Public Opinion says those who campaigned against "Obamacare" should give up their own insurance (2/2011)--also:
      • If they are worried about the deficit they also should be working to repeal the coverage all federal workers get because that would reduce the deficit by $15 billion. Knowing that will never happen though, they could just focus on their own caucus. There is no need to argue $2.4 million spent covering Republicans is a drop in the bucket, because if that were a reasonable excuse nowadays they would not care so much about wanting to reduce the deficit by $16.5 billion by banning earmarks. They also would not care so much about finding ways to pay for $4.5 billion to pay black farmers and Native Americans in settlement claims nor would they want to find ways to pay for $12.5 billion to continue unemployment benefits for the middle class 
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    Payment Reforms
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     Massachusetts Updates
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    Single Payer
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     Crazy RW Blather on Health Care
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    | TOP 
    |Abortion and "Obamacare"
    • "Obamacare" does not use fed funds for abortions (WH release 3/24/2010)
    • Needed improvements in law re: Abortion (from: Five Ways Health Care Reform Helps Women (1 year anniv, Ctr for American Progress, 3/2011) )
      • Abortion should be included in health insurance plans without legal or administrative hurdles. Denying access to abortion coverage in health insurance affects women’s health and restricts their ability to plan and raise healthy families. Yet the Affordable Care Act imposes special rules on the purchase of plans that include abortion coverage. And many states have already moved to ban abortion coverage in private insurance policies to be sold in their insurance exchanges. These policies unfairly target women who receive federal subsidies for their health care and prevent them from having access to safe abortion care. 
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    Links I pulled together back in 2010 on my facebook page

    Forbes Magazine (!): Health care reform beginning to work! (Jan. 6, 2011)  This is worth a read:
    The first statistics are coming in and, to the surprise of a great many, Obamacare might just be working to bring health care to working Americans precisely as promised. The major health insurance companies around the country are reporting a significant increase in small businesses offering health care benefits to their employees. Why? 
    Because the tax cut created in the new health care reform law providing small businesses with an incentive to give health benefits to employees is working.
    We certainly did not expect to see this in this economy,” said Gary Claxton, who oversees an annual survey of employer health plans for the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation. “It’s surprising.”
    Via Los Angeles Times
    ...“One of the biggest problems in the small-group market is affordability,” said Ron Rowe, who oversees small-group sales for the Kansas City operation for Blue Cross Blue Shied. “We looked at the tax credit and said, ‘this is perfect.”
    Rowe went on to say that 38% of the businesses it is signing up had not offered health benefits before.
    Whatever your particular ideology, there is simply no denying that these statistics are incredibly heartening. However, for those of you who cannot get past your opposition, even for a moment of universal good news, let’s break it down.
    The primary, most enduring complaint of the opponents of the ACA has been that the law is deathly bad for small business. Apparently, small businesses, and their employees, do not agree.
    The next argument has been that the PPACA is a job killer. If these small businesses found the new law to be so onerous, why have so many of them voluntarily taken advantage of the benefits provided in the law to give their employees these benefits? They were not mandated to do so. And to the extent that the coming mandate obligations might figure into their thinking, would you not imagine they would wait until 2014 to make a move as the rules do not go into effect until that time?
    Of course, there is the nagging banter as to how Obamacare is leading us down the road to socialism.
    Let it go, folks.
    Private market insurance companies are experiencing significant growth because of a tax break provided by the PPACA. I may have missed the day this was discussed in economics class, but I’m pretty sure this is not a socialistic result of federal legislation.
    When data like this appears, we have the opportunity to really find out who is talking smack for political benefit and who actually cares about getting affordable and available health care to America’s workers. Certainly, there will be elements of the new law that will not work out exactly as planned. That’s simply reality when it comes to any new piece of landmark legislation
    But if you cannot celebrate what appears to be an important early success, you really should give some thought as to where your true interests and intents lie.
    If you’re all about beating up on President Obama, you can conveniently forget this bit of data as if it never really happened. However, if your interest is to make health care available to more Americans, this should be a happy day for you – no matter what your ideological beliefs.
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    Back in 1990, Heritage wrote:
    The second central element-in the Heritage proposal is a two-way commitment between government and citizen. ...government would require, by law every head of household to acquire at least a basic health plan for his or her family.Thus there would be mandated coverage under the Heritage proposal, but the mandate would apply to the family head, [instead of Employer mandate]
    This bibliography of "Stuart M.'s" pieces for Heritage offers a fascinating reflection on a recent past that everyone has forgotten.  The Republicans were for Obamacare before they were against it.
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