Mitt Romney: Pretends to care, but no substance behind the rhetoric (Photo credit: tvnewsbadge)

I’ve spent much of today going through the lies Mitt Romney told during the Presidential debate last night. And I’ve discovered that they were so egregious that it’s going to take a few days for the media to go through and dispel all of them.

Anyhow, there was one that stood out that Americans really should pay attention to. Romney amazingly continued his attacks on ‘Obamacare’ during the debate, distorting Obama’s plan and using the ‘Death Panel’ meme started by Sarah Palin back in 2008. Given Romney passed an almost identical plan when he was governor of Massachusetts, the line of attack is a hail Mary that has backfired for much of the campaign so far. But the biggest lie Romney told was the one about his own plan for the nation – and it is a serious one.

Romney told the audience that “Pre-existing conditions are covered under my plan”. This is flat out untrue – a fact even Romney’s top adviser conceded after the debate. Reported Brian Beutler at TPM:

“With respect to pre-existing conditions, what Governor Romney has said is for those with continuous coverage, he would continue to make sure that they receive their coverage,” said Eric Fehrnstrom, referring to existing laws which require insurance companies to sell coverage to people who already have insurance, or within 90 days of losing their employer coverage.

Pressed by TPM’s Evan McMorris-Santoro, Fehrnstrom said those who currently lack coverage because they have pre-existing conditions would need their states to implement their own laws — like Romney’s own Massachusetts health care law — that ban insurance company from discriminating against sick people.

“We’d like to see states do what Massachusetts did,” Fehrnstrom said. “In Massachusetts we have a ban on pre-existing conditions.”

So rather than actually cover people with pre-existing conditions, Romney would like states to cover people with pre-existing conditions – a difference so extreme it is mind blowing he had the temerity to say it on live television.

Romney’s health care plan supposedly has a method of encouraging states to cover pre-existing conditions, and as usual, the Romney camp has been extremely vague on details. Romney has spent a huge amount of time promising to repeal Obamacare, but has yet to articulate a plan for the nation that would, as he stated during the debate, cover everyone with pre=existing conditions. Why? Because he doen’t actually have one.

This is the trick Republicans play when running for office – they say “Sure, we want all the same outcomes as Democrats – universal health care, great schools, a clean environment, no corruption on Wall St etc etc. We just believe the free market and states should come up with ways of doing it”. The result? Just look at George Bush’s record on all of the issues above.

Romney was excellent last night in pretending he cared about issues important to Americans – he genuinely came across as passionate about healthcare, job creation and teachers. But if you look at his proposals to deal with them, his words don’t amount to anything. He can care about covering Americans with pre-exsiting conditions, but if he doesn’t have any specific policies that actually covers them, it’s completely meaningless.

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Romney using any tactic to beat Obama

By Bob Cesca: Somehow, the team of CG animators who work on the Mitt Romney uncanny valley animations that substitute for an actual Republican candidate continue to let this jittery, awkward proto-human speak without a carefully scripted speeches uploaded to his neural network.

Off the top of my head there’s Romney’s spastic “amber waves of grain” joke in which he mused out loud whether Iowa corn can be considered an “amber wave of grain.” There’s his Brick Tamland “I love cars” and “I love trees” series of nonsensically literal observations. Most recently, there’s the Phil-Hartman-as-Frankenstein (and accidentally hilarious) description of a glass of lemonade: “Lemon. Wet. Good.” I’m not making that up. Romney really described lemonade as, “Lemon. Wet. Good.”

But yesterday, in the wake of being booed during an address to the NAACP, Romney popped off with yet another weird diatribe. This time, however, it seemed a little more calculated to those of us who aware of the reoccurring use of the Southern Strategy.

When Romney noted that he would repeal the Affordable Care Act, the NAACP audience understandably booed the remark. I’m reasonably certain that the “repeal Obamacare” line would be booed by nearly everyone who wasn’t a die hard Romney supporter (yes, there are a few die hard Romney drones) since most Americans agree with nearly all of the provisions in the law, including Republicans and independents, and, as a whole, support for the law is evenly split.

So here’s what Romney said after the speech in response to the booing:

“Remind them of this, if they want more free stuff from the government tell them to go vote for the other guy — more free stuff. But don’t forget nothing is really free.”

Yes, he really said that.

Southern Strategy. Stupid. Bad.

It was only a matter of time before Romney engaged in this kind of racist dogwhistle politics that’s intended to fire up the resentful white Republican base. Every election season, the party just can’t help itself: demonize minorities, pump up the angry whites and win. Honestly, I thought Romney would wait until perhaps after the conventions to play this card, but there it is. Blacks want handouts.

Whether or not this was prepared ahead of time doesn’t really matter — although it seemed spontaneous. Romney totally dunked his bulbous noggin into the repulsive “welfare queens” meme by deciding that the best way to respond to being booed by African Americans is to suggest they’re only interested in voting for the candidate who will give them free stuff. It’s the most insidious brand of Republican politics — the assumption that blacks are lazy and shiftless, sucking off the government teat instead of working hard and earning a living without the immoral use of food stamps, welfare and, clearly, Obamacare.

All of this coming from a candidate who exploits massive tax loopholes and off shore accounts to enhance his income. Romney’s friends in corporate America are actually far more guilty of receiving free stuff. The following numbers are a few years old, but just as telling:

About $59 billion is spent on traditional social welfare programs. $92 billion is spent on corporate subsidies. So, the government spent 50% more on corporate welfare than it did on food stamps and housing assistance in 2006.

When you see a spiffy white guy in the tailored suit (sort of like Mitt Romney) talking into his douchey Bluetooth Deep Space Nine earpiece, it’s very likely he’s the welfare queen on his way to cast a ballot for a Republican sugar daddy. Most of the corporations that receive handouts from the government, like Big Oil, are earning record profits and don’t even need the money. In fact, a couple months ago, Senate Republicans blocked the elimination of $20 billion in oil subsidies to obviously starving corporations like BP, Exxon-Mobil and Chevron. The top five biggest welfare queens in this sector earned over a trillion dollars in profits during 2011. And yet they need your money.

The NAACP crowd weren’t clamoring for free stuff. They, like most of us, want to live in a nation where getting sick or injured won’t bankrupt them. They booed Mitt Romney because he insisted upon repealing a law that helps Americans to get medical treatment without going broke — a law that’s very similar to the law that Romney himself signed in Massachusetts. So they booed shitty policy and a hypocritical, lying Republican who predictably reacted by leaning on the Southern Strategy switch. Romney deserved it — and a lot more.

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James Kwak provides an enlightening analysis of the GOP argument that the individual mandate is an oppressive tax on the middle class. His conclusion:

In short: Very few people are even theoretically subject to the tax, and most of them are made much better off by the law, since they are transfer beneficiaries.

How can this be? How can a law make everyone better off? Well, it doesn’t. There is a tax-and-transfer element to the Affordable Care Act. The main people who are paying more are the rich (because of a Medicare payroll tax surcharge) and those with good health plans (because of the excise tax on “Cadillac plans”). In addition, the new spending is financed in part by reductions in Medicare spending; those reductions may or may not result in reduced availability of care for Medicare beneficiaries.

The Affordable Care Act is not painless, and there are definitely taxes involved. But the individual mandate “tax” is not one of them.

Of course, Romneycare wasn’t an oppressive tax on the middle class because the definition of ‘mandate’ is apparently different in Massachusetts….

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Does the Tea Party really want another civil war?

By Ben Cohen: According to the Mississippi Tea Party, the implementation of Obamacare is tantamount to treason, and the chairman is advocating an armed uprising to get rid of the ‘criminal invaders’ residing in the White House. On their official website chairman Roy Nicholson made the following statement:

When a gang of criminals subvert legitimate government offices and seize all power to themselves without the real consent of the governed their every act and edict is of itself illegal and is outside the bounds of the Rule of Law. In such cases submission is treason. Treason against the Constitution and the valid legitimate government of the nation to which we have pledged our allegiance for years. To resist by all means that are right in the eyes of God is not rebellion or insurrection, it is patriotic resistance to invasion.

May all of us fall on our faces before the Heavenly Judge, repent of our sins, and humbly cry out to Him for mercy on our country. And, may godly courageous leaders rise up in His wisdom and power to lead us in displacing the criminal invaders from their seats and restore our constitutional republic.

This is of course the rantings of a deeply unhappy, middle aged white guy who has clearly spent far too much time reading civil war novels and hating black people. While no one should pay any attention to this nonsense, it is worth bearing in mind that the Mississippi chapter of the Tea Party could technically be guilty of treason itself. As Think Progress notes:

Despite Nicholson’s repeated charge that the Obama administration is guilty of high crimes, the only treason in play here is the suggestion of an open revolt against the federal government.

Article three of the US constitution defines treason in the following language:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.

And Nicholson’s language is clear – the words ‘rise up’ and ‘displacing criminal invaders’ is a call to arms and a declaration of war against the democratically elected government of the United States of America. And given the major elements of ‘Obamacare’, including the mandate, were deemed constitutional by the Supreme Court, Nicholsons charges are not only false but treasonous and punishable by the ultimate penalty. In 1790, the Congress of the United States enacted that:

If any person or persons, owing allegiance to the United States of America, shall levy war against them, or shall adhere to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States, or elsewhere, and shall be thereof convicted on confession in open Court, or on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act of the treason whereof he or they shall stand indicted, such person or persons shall be adjudged guilty of treason against the United States, and SHALL SUFFER DEATH

It may come as a surprise to the militant Right that they could be found guilty of treason, particularly because they believe in an inherent monopoly on patriotism, but they are subject to the law as any other group of militants regardless of where they are on the political spectrum.

Thankfully the Obama administration is composed of grown ups who won’t take the time to react to Nicholson and his Tea Party chapter. They’ll most likely be ignored unless they do anything silly (like coming armed to a rally near the White House), and left to their own devices in Mississippi where they are about as nationally relevant as French existentialism is in neighboring Alabama.

Should they choose to make good on their promise to remove the foreign invader in the White House, it would be worth bearing in mind what the last civil war entailed. As Bob Cesca wrote earlier this week:

The last time civil war occurred on American soil, more than 620,000 Americans were killed and the rebellious South was destroyed and humiliated. The former Confederacy lost 18 percent of its white male population aged 13-43. Three percent of the total American population was killed or wounded. Individual income in the South dropped by 40 percent. And they lost. All of those lives were sacrificed for nothing. These are just a few of a thousand reasons why the notion of an armed rebellion over something like the Affordable Care Act shouldn’t be casually tossed around.

A serious Tea Party rebellion is about as likely as Newt Gingrich coming back into the Presidential race, but their threats should not be dismissed completely. With the economy still stuttering, this type of militant language is becoming commonplace, and the more it is accepted as normal, the greater the actual risk becomes.

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By Ben Cohen: Watching Mitt Romney desperately try to capitalize on conservative anger and public fear over ‘Obamacare’ is a lesson in the art of modern marketing. PR firms and advertisers are hired to the majority of the work on Presidential campaigns these days because the public’s perception of politicians is almost exclusively based on images and soundbytes  coming from TV. And as any good marketer will tell you, it doesn’t matter whether the product is any good, it matters whether you can sell it or not.

Romney has a real problem – he’s not charismatic, not believable and not particularly likeable. In other words, he’s a marketers nightmare, especially when he’s competing against one of the most marketable candidates in political history. He’s also trying to sell the public on the idea that Obamacare will bring on the demise of America – a tricky business for a number of reasons.

The team behind Romney have obviously decided on a strategy to counter Romney’s problems; bash Obama at every opportunity and appeal to people’s fear. They’re essentially saying ‘Our product isn’t that great, but the other one is actively dangerous’. The healthcare debate provides the perfect testing ground for this strategy because it is so unpopular with a large percentage of the country.

The problem is as everyone knows, Romney passed an almost identical health care plan in Massachusetts.

And how is this problem solved? Easy. Team Romney simply ignores it.

Hilariously, Romney has been contradicting literally everything he did and said in Massachusetts, even going as far as claiming mandates aren’t a tax in Massachusetts but are on a federal level. Some of his team have been trying to maintain a semblance of continuity, but team Romney has clearly decided that lying is the best way forward. Check out this remarkable piece of logical gymnastics in an interview with CBS News:

Mitt Romney: Well, the Supreme Court has the final word. And their final word is that Obamacare is a tax. So it’s a tax. It’s – they decided it was constitutional. So it is a tax and it’s constitutional. That’s – that’s the final word. That’s what it is. Now, I agreed with the dissent. I would have taken a different course. But the dissent wasn’t the majority. The majority has ruled. And their rule is final.

Jan Crawford: But does that mean that the – the mandate in the state of Massachusetts under your health care law also is a tax –

Romney: Actually –

Crawford: – and that you raised taxes as governor?

Romney: Actually, the – chief justice, in his opinion, made it very clear that, at the state level – states have the power to put in place mandates. They don’t need to require them to be called taxes in order for them to be constitutional. And – and as a result, Massachusetts’ mandate was a mandate, was a penalty, was described that way by the legislature and by me. And so it stays as it was.

This is like saying killing your daughter for no reason is murder in America, but not in Saudi Arabia because they don’t call it murder. None of this seems to bother Romney, and for that reason he is able to press on with the PR strategy and bash Obama for a policy he actually advocates.

It’s hard to tell how this plays out over the election. Obama will hammer Romney on this over and over again in an attempt to portray him as a flip flopping flake, and Romney will keep to the script and claim Obamacare is an illegal tax and a danger to the freedom of all Americans.

Just as soft drinks companies spend millions of dollars to convince people that their mixture of sugar, water and artificial flavors are inherently superior to others, Presidential candidates spend similar amounts amplifying minute differences in policy to do the same (and in Romney’s case, there actually are no differences).

At the end of the day, the battle doesn’t really come down to the facts, it comes down to which camp can effectively pump their message out to the greatest number of people. Romney is banking on the fear factor – he repeats over and over again that Obamacare is a tax and un-American and hopes that enough people get scared and vote for him. Sadly, with enough money he may even be able to make it work.

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Republicans: Can't stop lying

By Bob Cesca: Okay, so this won’t be a column about the biggest lie in the history of the universe. I have no idea what that might be. But I can safely say that today’s column is about the biggest lie in the history of the last several days.

Before I dive into the specific lie, it’s important to underscore the Mitt Romney Is A Lying Liar tote board, maintained by the intrepid Steve Benen. Last week alone, Benen noted 21 different Mitt Romney lies. That’s three lies per day (that Benen is aware of), and they all line up with Romney’s prevailing campaign strategy of “a lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth gets its shoes on.” In other words, these lies will resonate with voters, and when the lie is finally debunked it’s already too late. And anyone who notices will probably chalk it up to “politics as usual.”

Nevertheless, the big lie of the week is that the Affordable Care Act is the biggest tax increase in the history of forever times a thousand.

Here’s Republican spokesmodel Rush Limbaugh:

“So ObamaCare is nothing more than the largest tax increase in the history of the world,” Limbaugh said. “And the people who were characterizing it as such were right and were telling the truth. We have the biggest tax increase in the history of the world right in the middle of one of this country’s worst recessions.”

The largest tax increase in the history of the world. This ostensibly includes the ancient Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Greeks, Romans and whichever space alien culture built Stonehenge.

Fox News commentator James Pinkerton described the ACA as the “biggest tax hike in the universe,” which is simply an insane notion especially given Emperor Palpatine’s outrageous Death Star Tax Hike of 1958, passed just before he was assassinated by Darth Vader, Lando Calrissian and a ragtag group of rebels on the nearby forest moon of Endor.

The Examiner’s Christopher Collins called it “the largest tax increase in American history,” while citing the Heritage Foundation and Star Trek Romulan Charles Krauthammer as sources for this claim.

Is this true? Of course not.

Of the last handful of presidents, guess who’s responsible for the largest tax hike.

Ronald Reagan.

According to the CBO, the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 was the biggest tax hike in the last 30 years.

The mandate under the ACA is a distant fourth behind tax increases from Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. If we rewind further, back to 1950, the ACA is the 10th largest tax increase in recent American history. By the way, 9th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th are all Bush 41, Reagan and Nixon tax increases. Clearly, those three Republican saints would never pass through the Norquist gauntlet.

Regardless of the facts, Limbaugh, Fox News and the others have a wickedly massive audience and the “biggest tax cut in the history of whatever” lie is already out there, while our documentation of the truth is just now lacing up its shoes.

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ADAPT Medicaid Rally (Photo credit: SEIU International)

by Charles Ornstein: For many people without insurance, a key question raised by the Supreme Court’s decision today to uphold the Affordable Care Act is whether states will decline to participate in the law’s big Medicaid expansion.

Although the court upheld the law’s mandate requiring individuals to buy insurance, the justices said the act could not force states to expand Medicaid to millions by threatening to withhold federal funding.

Republican leaders of some states already are saying they are inclined to say thanks, but no thanks.

Tom Suehs, the Texas Health and Human Services Executive commissioner whose state could cover an additional 1.8 million people by 2019, praised the court for giving “states more ability to push back against a forced expansion of Medicaid. The court clearly recognized that the Affordable Care Act put states in the no-win situation of losing all their Medicaid funding or expanding their programs knowing that they would face billions of dollars in extra costs down the road.”

The act, signed by President Obama in March 2010, required “states to extend Medicaid coverage to non-elderly individuals with incomes up to 133 percent of the poverty line, or about $30,700 for a family of four,” according to a March 2012 report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank. The extension was expected to cover nearly 16 million people by 2019, one of the law’s main ways of reducing the ranks of the uninsured.

The 26 states that challenged the health care law together account for an estimated 8.5 million of those who would benefit from Medicaid’s expansion by 2019, more than half the total, according to ProPublica’s analysis of an Urban Institute report prepared for the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Stanford University health economist Dr. Jay Bhattacharya wrote on Stanford’s medical school blog that some states may opt out. “Cash-strapped states will almost certainly consider this option since they will ultimately be on the hook for financing at least a portion of this expansion,” he wrote. “If enough states decide to deny the Medicaid expansion, this may substantially reduce the ability of ACA [the Affordable Care Act] to expand insurance coverage.”

Medicaid is a joint state-federal program that provides health coverage to the poor and disabled, with states putting up a portion of the money and the federal government funding the rest. Each state’s matching percentage is based on per capita income.

According to a separate Kaiser foundation report, “Medicaid currently provides health coverage for over 60 million individuals, including 1 in 4 children, but low parent eligibility levels and restrictions in eligibility for other adults mean that many low income individuals remain uninsured. The ACA expands coverage by setting a national Medicaid eligibility floor for nearly all groups.”

Under the law, the federal government would cover nearly 93 percent of the costs of the Medicaid expansion from 2014-22, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

“Specifically, the federal government will assume 100 percent of the Medicaid costs of covering newly eligible individuals for the first three years that the expansion is in effect (2014-16). Federal support will then phase down slightly over the following several years, and by 2020 (and for all subsequent years), the federal government will pay 90 percent of the costs of covering these individuals. According to CBO, between 2014 and 2022, the federal government will pay $931 billion of the cost of the Medicaid expansion, while states will pay roughly $73 billion, or 7 percent.”

States that challenged the law argued that it was coercive to require them to either expand Medicaid or risk losing all Medicaid funding, a practical impossibility given the size of the program in most states. The court ruled that while it was constitutional for Congress to offer states money to expand Medicaid, it could not take away funding for their existing program if they declined, according to SCOTUSblog.

Immediately after the ruling, some Republican state officials said they were inclined to reject the new federal money, although there has been no deadline set for doing so.

In Missouri, according to The Associated Press, “House Majority Leader Tim Jones says the Republican-led Legislature will not consider the expansion. Republican Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder called the Medicaid expansion a ‘break-the-bank provision.’”

The Birmingham Business Journal said that “opting out of the Medicaid expansion seems increasingly likely for Alabama 2014 though Medicaid officials said they were still reviewing the court’s ruling.”

After all, Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley said, “The health care law is an overreach by the federal government that creates more regulation, bureaucracy, and a dramatic increase in costs to taxpayers.”

And South Dakota’s attorney general, Marty Jackle, was likewise blunt: “I am relieved that the Act’s Medicaid expansion has been declared unconstitutional and has been significantly limited by the Court.”

That said, rhetoric does not always translate to action. Many Republican governors said they would not accept funds from the 2009 stimulus package, but they ended up taking the money in the end. Three governors, in Florida, Wisconsin and Ohio, turned down money to build a high-speed rail line. Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford tried to turn down federal education stimulus money, but his state Supreme Court rejected that. And former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin rejected some state energy funding, but her Legislature overruled her.

ProPublica reporter Michael Grabell contributed to this report.

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Welcome to this week’s edition of The Daily Banter mailbag, where Bob, Ben and Chez answer our readers questions on stuff we should probably know about….

Today, we answer questions on the Supreme Court ruling on Obamacare – whether it hurts or helps Obama’s chances of re-election, why PR could help organized Labor, and the ins and outs of corporate socialism.

The questions:

I know on the face of it the health care ruling looks good for Obama, but I think that the Romney campaign might actually be happy about it as it gives them something to hammer Obama on during the election. Had the ruling gone the other way Obama could have claimed the Republicans and ‘activist’ judges ruined his health care plan (like they have done to the economy). What do you guys think?
Sarah

Ben: I think you’re worrying for no reason Sarah. This is very, very good news for Obama despite what one might think about ‘Obamacare’. This was Obama’s signature policy and the GOP has spent the past three years trying to tear it down. In short, they failed despite getting it to the Supreme Court, and Obama won. It’s a political victory that makes the President look stronger, and Americans love a winner. If Romney wants to make attacking the mandate the centerpiece of his campaign strategy,  I think Obama’s campaign team will welcome it with open arms. Obamacare is virtually identical to Romney’s plan in Massachusetts and the Democrats will have a field day reminding everyone how ridiculous his double standards are. Obama is having a field day with Romney’s never ending flip flops – he has managed, unlike most other Democratic leaders, to set the agenda and watch the Republicans scramble to catch up. By getting his healthcare plan through, Romney now has to run a campaign on stripping Americans of policies they will benefit hugely from. Obama has done the same on issues like immigration and gay marriage; he sets the agenda, then sits back and watches Romney and the GOP try to figure out how to tell Americans they want to take things away from them. If he continues this strategy all year, Romney is in for a very, very rough time.

Bob: Sure, but the politics ought to be irrelevant here in the face of a very valuable law that will continue on with the blessing of the Supremes. Yes, Romney will continue to use the law as a rallying cry — but in doing so, he also exposes himself to increasingly loud accusations of hypocrisy since he passed a very similar law in Massachusetts. So he won’t be as loud about it as we might think. If Obama can’t use the ruling to attack the judges using Republican frames like “activist judges” that’s fine with me. I’d rather he not use those terms anyway and stick with ballyhooing all of the positives things in the law that only exist because he took a huge political risk to get them passed into law.

Chez:True, the Romney camp feels like it has a new issue to hit Obama hard on, but the fact is that once things go fully into effect a majority of the American public is going to appreciate this. The Republicans know this and that’s why they’re so pissed off: It scares them to death to know that they’ll eventually be proven to have been on the wrong end of this. I really don’t think the ACA will be able to used effectively as a weapon against Obama except with the right-wing howlers, and they don’t like the president to begin with so today’s ruling hardly matters, other than to give them another reason to shriek that Obama is the worst president in history and he’s changed the face of America forever and we need to think about rising up with guns, etc. etc.

Really interesting piece from Mark Ames on the left’s abandonment of organized labor. It seems like a bit of a hopeless cause at the moment but there has to be a way to re-organize and put labor back at the forefront of politics. My question: How the hell can we do this without being painted as commie loving socialists? Maybe the left should hire a fancy ad agency to repackage the concept of unionism. I really think it needs to be sold to Americans somehow. Any ideas?
Sanj

Bob: The good news about Citizens United is that unions can invest limitless cash into campaigns as well. I hope they intend to do so as a means of fighting back. It’s really up to the unions to do a better job of pitching themselves. Meanwhile, the best think the left can do is to make a case for fair labor practices: equal pay, benefits, living wages, real pensions and so forth. Unions can work on their own PR while we focus on the issues.

Ben: I’m with you on this Sanj – I’m all for using modern PR techniques to re-brand labor and make it palatable to the public again. I’ve said this before, if advertisers can convince people to spend hundreds of dollars on minor upgrades for their cellphones every 6 months, there’s no reason they can’t convince 99% of the population that by working together and fighting for their rights they can get better pay and more security.  It amazes me that so many people I talk to hate organize labor so much, when they would benefit massively from collective bargaining (in one case, I spoke to a lawyer who was militantly opposed to organized labor, but was part of a union herself!). It’s a serious misconception that has been spread through a well funded propaganda campaign from right wing think tanks and media outlets (think Koch brothers and Fox News). Americans have been brainwashed into hating unions through advertising, so there’s no reason they can’t be un-brainwashed (is that a word?) through the same medium. I’ve always thought the left lacked polish when it comes to presenting their ideas, and their lack of presentation has cost them dearly.

Chez: First of all, don’t ever worry about being painted as a commie-loving socialist because what you do will never affect one bit how you’re perceived by the right — you’ll always be the enemy and a threat to America that must be extinguished. That’s just how it is. As for labor, I don’t mean “blame the victim” on this but I’m one of those center-left types who thinks that labor needs to be overhauled — that it isn’t simply a case of changing the messaging but of changing what’s being messaged. Labor always served a noble purpose but at some point it really did become a hindrance to doing business efficiently. I’m of course not for the exploitation of workers and I fully understand that there need to be constraints on what management can get away with, but making changes that benefit everyone is going to be a tall order now that we’re a global business community. Things are changing and labor has no choice but to change with them. Still, I certainly would like to see responsible organized labor take a stand against the kind of draconian measures we’ve seen taken in places like Wisconsin and that will require both an adjustment in how labor thinks followed by a smart rebranding.

Explain to me how you can support obamacare when you claim to be liberals? It’s a giant con. The mandate is a forced tax that goes to private insurance companies rather than the government. It’s disgusting and big corporate socialist scam that was sold to the idiot left who lapped it up because Saint Obama declared it to be good. Pathetic.
Rory

Bob: Hate to break it to you, Rory, but the mandate was invented by conservatives like Mitt Romney, Chuck Grassley and Newt Gingrich. President Obama was against the mandate and only took it up because conservative Democrats and several Republicans insisted that it be included — or else the rest of the law wouldn’t have been passed. Also, what is a “corporate socialist” — other than a ridiculous oxymoron you made up because you’re a misinformed crank? By the way, unless  you’re uninsured, the mandate doesn’t even pertain to you. Ultimately, the mandate is just one small part of a very large bill that’s filled with consumer protections and middle class subsidies (for a change). The mandate, however scary (and conservative), will keep people from scamming the system — and here I thought conservatives were against freeloaders.

Chez: See Bob’s answer. Also, you’re an idiot.

Ben: Technically, you’re right Rory. But this is the real world and there was absolutely no chance Obama was going to get anything resembling universal, government run healthcare passed. The system is completely corrupt, and Obama has managed to pass a policy that uses the inherent corruption for far, far better outcomes. The current private insurance system in America is dysfunctional, dangerously expensive and doesn’t cover millions of people. Obama’s plan adds desperately needed regulation to that system, cuts costs and dramatically expands coverage. Yes, it is basically a government handout to the insurance industry, but it should not be underestimated how powerful they are and how difficult it was to regulate them properly. In retrospect, it was crazy to expect Obama to fix the system in one swoop – he was fighting a divided Democratic party, a deeply hostile opposition party, and the insurance lobby. What was passed was imperfect and not a long term solution, but it gives millions of Americans access to healthcare, and that is important.

—–

Got a question for us? Email us at TheDailyBanter@gmail.com and see your queries answered on next week’s Mail Bag!!

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With a huge amount of disinformation about President Obama’s healthcare plan swirling around the country, it is no wonder Americans are unsure about ‘Obamacare’ and what it means for them.  As Bob Cesca wrote in a column earlier this week, even Republicans love Obamacare, they just don’t know it.

So what does the Supreme Court ruling that upheld the major tenants of Obama’s healthcare plan (and the much derided individual mandate) actually mean for real people? Jeffrey Young at the Huffington Post spells out the major components:

The Supreme Court’s decision allows the Obama administration to go forward with a law that will extend health coverage to as many as 30 million Americans through private health insurance and Medicaid starting in 2014. The law also prohibits health insurance company practices that were previously legal, including refusing to sell plans to children and adults with pre-existing medical conditions, setting lifetime limits on medical coverage that cut people off when their expenses get too high, and charging higher premiums to women…..

Under the law, people who earn 133 percent of the federal poverty level or less will qualify for Medicaid coverage. Those whose income is between 133 percent and 400 percent of the poverty level will be eligible for tax credits to defray the cost of health insurance. Companies with at least 50 employees will have to provide health benefits to workers or pay a penalty to the government, and some smaller companies will receive tax credits for employee health insurance. And nearly every American will be required to obtain some form of health care coverage or face a penalty under the individual mandate.

So the beneficiaries of ‘Obamacare’ are basically pretty much everyone. It is not a perfect solution to the nation’s problems – far from it. It is a deeply flawed plan that at the end of the day, still leaves health care in the hands of private insurance companies. But there are major benefits that outweigh the costs, primarily that is is the largest expansion of coverage in 45 years.

Josh Marshall at TPM outlines the two major ramifications of the ruling:

A lot of people tonight and in the future will sleep a lot better for this result. Young people, people with pre-existing conditions and mainly people who through the chaos of the health care market simply find themselves with no coverage.

That’s the big deal.

What also matters is: we may learn that President Obama sacrificed his presidency to push through this piece of legislation — the Dems already lost Congress over it. But presidencies are for doing important things not just for getting elected to second terms in office. And I strongly suspect that even if Mitt Romney wins and gets a Republican Congress, they still won’t be able to get rid of this law.

That counts. That matters.

Mitt Romney joked yesterday that the President wouldn’t be “Sleeping real well in the White House” in anticipation of the ruling. Maybe he didn’t, but it will be Romney not sleeping so well tonight.

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Single-payer rally (Photo credit: Public Citizen)

By Bob Cesca: Throughout the last four years, whenever healthcare reform has reached critical mass — either when it was in danger of failing or close to passing, big dumb Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson (D-In Name Only) has invariably shoved his bulbous skull into the mix and blurted out something unforgivably stupid. Part of the reason is the aforementioned “big dumb” thing I just wrote, and the other part is that Omaha is the insurance capital of America.

Here’s the senator yesterday:

“Many expect an activist Supreme Court will strike down part or all of health reform,” Nelson said in a prepared statement. “If they strike down the mandate, the Supreme Court will be paving the way to a single-payer system, or back to the old broken health care system — neither of which are good for Nebraskans.”

First things first. The House Progressive Caucus is planning to reintroduce a single-payer law if the ACA dies today. That bill will predictably fail because there aren’t enough votes, and the House is controlled by the Republicans who will rapidly poop all over it.

Next, single-payer would be fantastic for Nebraskans. And Iowans and Virginians and Texans and New Yorkers. Why? Because it would be a wildly affordable and accessible form of providing insurance for everyone. It would be more accountable to the people than a corporate insurance provider. Financially, it would have inimal overhead to maintain (Medicare’s overhead is around 3-cents on the dollar), zero profit tacked onto the premiums — essentially Medicare, but without the “over 65″ part. And as near as I can tell, old people love Medicare so much so that they want government to keep its hands off the program. Doctors, prescription drug companies, medical supply companies and hospitals would remain autonomous (though fairly-regulated as they are now).

The only people who would lose in a single-payer system are greedy whores like Ben Nelson. Everyone else would fight to keep it once they discovered how inexpensive and accessible it was.

The other error in Ben Nelson’s quote is less fun. No. Sorry. Single-payer will not become more likely if the Supreme Court strikes down the law today (as I write this at 5AM EDT, there’s obviously still no decision).

History has proved that every time a healthcare reform effort fails, the next version is more conservative. LBJ’s version was more conservative than Truman’s (LBJ tried to reform the whole system, but settled for just the elderly with the creation of Medicare). Carter’s was more conservative than LBJ’s. Clinton’s was more conservative than Carter’s. And President Obama’s law is more conservative than Clinton’s. It’s not because Democrats are becoming more conservative — though some of them are. It’s because repeated failure has naturally shifted the parameters of the reform ideas closer to what might actually pass. Clearly more liberal reform failed, so, the reasoning goes, there must be greener grass to the right.

That’s not to say the new law is conservative by today’s standards. There are liberal things about it (Medicaid expansion and subsidies) and there are conservative things in there, too — ironically, the individual mandate is a conservative idea created by Republicans including Mitt Romney. Either way, the law is a massive achievement and not only includes significant reforms to the system, but it makes insurance more affordable while providing a superstructure upon which additional reforms can be added, such as a public option program which could eventually lead to single-payer.

I sincerely hope I’m wrong, but none of that will exist if the law disappears today. None of it. Single-payer won’t become more likely. It’ll be an even greater pipe dream. It’ll be even more unattainable. The likely scenario is a far more conservative bill, perhaps offered up by the next Republican president or even President Obama in his second term, but probably not.

I hate to be a Debbie Downer about single-payer, but as much as I like the idea of it, there’s just no way it gets past Ben Nelson’s gigantic head — or Joe Lieberman’s gigantic head, and so forth. This is what some progressives (and Ben Nelson) fail to realize. When the ACA was about to become law, Jane Hamsher and others thought that if they managed to kill the bill, another law — perhaps single-payer — would take over. Okay, sure. 50 years from now. But in the meantime, 45,000 Americans will die every year because they can’t afford insurance. That’s a new 9/11 every month. The stakes are too high to play the idealistic long-game. Like the climate crisis, changing the system is urgent and immediate and the smart money is on this “Obamacare” law because it’s opened the door to more reforms and, yes, that coveted path to single-payer.

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