Tag: Obamacare

Republicans, a Rock, a Hard Place and Obamacare

Jon Ponder

screenshot-obamacare-free-birth-control

The Republican gambit of demonizing Obamacare is starting to backfire — as well it should. The strategy is based on a lie.

In 2009, Pres. Obama opted to use the individual mandate model as the basis of health-insurance reform — rather than the single-payer, Medicare-for-all approach his supporters preferred — in part because he hoped to strike a deal with Republicans. His quest for bipartisanship seems ridiculous now (as it did then to many people), but it was, in fact, grounded in reality.

[…]

GOP Now Fears Backlash from ‘Sad Sack Stories’ about People Dying If Supreme Court Kills Obamacare Subsidies

Jon Ponder

The Supreme Court will rule as early as June on a Republican lawsuit seeking to revoke subsidies provided by the Affordable Care Act to cover the cost of health-insurance premiums for low-income workers. If the court rules in the Republicans’ favor in King v. Burwell, more than 7 million Americans will be forced to cancel private health insurance coverage paid for, in part or in whole, with government subsidies.

SEN. RON JOHNSON: [Pres. Obama will] have the ads all racked up with the individuals that have benefited from Obamacare on the backs of the American taxpayer. He’ll have all those examples as well so…

RADIO HOST JAY WEBER: And the sad sack stories about who’s dying from what and why they can’t get their coverage.

JOHNSON: Right.

The suit is based on a line of poorly constructed language in the ACA that suggests subsidies are only available from state-run insurance exchanges. The problem is that in 2010 — as a partisan gambit to hobble the Obamacare rollout — about 30 governors, mostly Republicans, opted not to stand up state exchanges thereby forcing their constituents to purchase insurance from federal exchanges. Because their subsidies do not come from state exchanges, it’s these low-income, mostly red-state workers, who will lose their insurance if Republicans prevail in King v. Burwell.

A few Republicans in Congress seem to be waking up to the fact that they could face unintended consequences if the Supreme Court rules in their favor. Sen. Ron Johnson, a tea partyist from Wisconsin who is up for reelection next year, may have spoken for many of his co-ideologues during an interview with right-wing radio host Jay Weber in Milwaukee last week:

[…]

And Marco’s Not One of Them

Trish

80

Number of people who have signed up for Florida Health Choices, the Obamacare alternative health insurance plan devised by Sen. Marco Rubio (R) back in 2008 but only rolled out last year. “Obamacare, which Rubio wants to repeal, covers 1.6 million in Florida alone,” according to Politico, which adds that Rubio doesn’t mention his plan as part of his presidential platform.

GOP Governors Take Obamacare Dollars While Publicly Condemning the Program

Buck Banks

$352 million

Amount that governors Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Chris Christie of New Jersey, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and former Texas Governor Rick Perry — all staunch opponents of President Barack Obama’s 2010 Affordable Care Act — have collectively applied for and won through grant programs set up by the law, federal records show, Reuters reports.“The action is at odds with the public stance of all four potential candidates, who have blasted the law as an unprecedented expansion of government and called for its repeal.”

PensitoWire

Pensito Editors

Obama: ACA Was the GOP’s Plan ‘Based on Conservative, Market-Based Principles Developed by the Heritage Foundation’

Jon Ponder

chart-uninsured-rate-drops

Five years after passage of the Affordable Care Act, the metrics point to success: the percentage of Americans who are uninsured has fallen dramatically, the runaway growth of healthcare costs has slowed, family budgets are more secure and, most importantly, lives are being saved. At an event on Wednesday marking the ACA’s fifth anniversary, Pres. Obama addressed these and the ACA’s other successes — and even pointed out the fundamental paradox of the GOP’s contrived opposition to it: The ACA was based on their own plan.

photo-obama-aca-fifth“[The] Affordable Care Act pretty much was their plan before I adopted it,” the president said, “based on conservative, market-based principles developed by the Heritage Foundation and supported by Republicans in Congress, and deployed by a guy named Mitt Romney in Massachusetts to great effect. If they want to take credit for this law, they can. I’m happy to share it.”

[…]

Why You Felt Good About Things Before You Listened to the Pundits

Trish
Indicators
Figures from the Conference Board, which measures consumer confidence

There’s a new standard for judging the success of Pres. Obama’s initiatives: Every single last soul in America must be doing great before we can claim progress.

Don’t believe it? Can you count the number of times you’ve heard news reported this way?

Pundit: “Well yes, Freemont, unemployment continues to fall, month in and month out, but if you’re a person who is still looking for a job and can’t find one, then you’re not feeling any improvement.”

Duh.

Let me correct that. Big, super-irrelevant duh.

Facts are facts, and numbers are numbers. Whether “you’re the person” for whom things aren’t getting better doesn’t change the fact that THINGS ARE GETTING BETTER.

This Republican and tea party tactic of dismissing Pres. Obama’s proven successes by noting the exceptions has gone mainstream.

[…]

PensitoWire

Pensito Editors