Day: December 5, 2011
‘Unconventional’ Just Another Name for ‘Losing’ Campaign
There’s another name for ‘an unconventional campaign’ and that’s ‘a losing campaign.’ There are reasons we call things ‘conventional’ — because they work.
— Former Rep. Vin Weber (R-MN), quoted by the New York Times, in reference to Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign.
Begala: It’s a Piss-Pour GOP Field
Let’s face it: this is a weak field. A seemingly endless string of polls and debates have produced a series of frontrunners who, as LBJ said of the Republicans of his day, couldn’t pour pee out of a boot if the instructions were on the heel.
— Paul Begala, writing in the Daily Beast.
Republicans Twisted Up in Hypocritical Knots – Rank and File Defy Leaders, Insist on Raising Taxes on Middle Class
Steve Benen sums it up:
The political world has come to accept a basic truism: the Republican Party is, above all else, an anti-tax party. GOP officials always want to cut taxes, regardless of merit or circumstances.
The maxim is incomplete — Republicans love tax cuts, but their affection is limited to cuts for the very wealthy. An extension of the payroll break largely benefits the middle class, and that immediately gives the GOP pause.
Indeed, the very debate has tied Republicans in knots. They want to cut taxes, except for these taxes. They don’t believe tax cuts should be paid for, except these tax cuts must be paid for. They believe tax breaks always work to benefit the economy, except these tax breaks don’t do much of anything, no matter what economists say. They believe letting tax cuts expire counts as a tax increase, except these tax cuts, which don’t.
Big Component of ‘Obamacare’ Comes Online – Insurers Now Required to Spend 80% of Premiums on Medical Care
On Friday, the federal government launched an element of the Affordable Care Act that is likely to have far-reaching consequences on the cost of health care in the United States in the form of new regulatory controls on how private health insurance companies spend the money they collect in premiums. Rick Ungar,a left-leaning specialist on health care policy who writes for the corporatist site, Forbes.com, explains:
That would be the provision of the law, called the medical loss ratio, that requires health insurance companies to spend 80 percent of the consumers’ premium dollars they collect—85 percent for large group insurers—on actual medical care rather than overhead, marketing expenses and profit. Failure on the part of insurers to meet this requirement will result in the insurers having to send their customers a rebate check representing the amount in which they underspend on actual medical care.
This is the true ‘bomb’ contained in Obamacare and the one item that will have more impact on the future of how medical care is paid for in this country than anything we’ve seen in quite some time. […]
