This week, House Republicans will hold a vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The bill is expected to pass the House, where the GOP holds a majority, but stall in the Democratic-controlled Senate. In the meantime, the symbolic vote is giving both Republicans and Democrats a pretext to publicly rehash their views on the legislation.
At AlterNet, Faiz Shakir and colleagues point out that repealing health care reform would cost the federal government an additional $320 billion over the next decade, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. The authors also note that despite Republican campaign promises to "repeal and replace" the law, their bill contains no replacement plan. Health care reform protects Americans with preexisting conditions from some forms discrimination by insurers. At least half of all Americans under the age of 65 could be construed as having a preexisting condition. No wonder only 1 in 4 Americans support repeal, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll released on Monday.
Perhaps that explains, as Paul Waldman reports at TAPPED, why the White House is vigorously defending health care reform. The Obama administration is making full use of the aforementioned statistics from The Department Health and Human Services on the percentage of Americans who have preexisting conditions:
As the House prepares to vote on the "Repeal the Puppy-Strangling Job-Vivisecting O-Commie-Care Act," or whatever they're now calling it, the White House and its allies actually seem to have their act together when it comes to fighting this war for public opinion. The latest is an analysis from the Department of Health and Human Services on just how many people have pre-existing conditions, and thus will be protected from denials of health insurance when the Affordable Care Act goes fully into effect in 2014
Republicans are fuming that Democrats are "politicizing" a policy debate by bringing up the uncomfortable fact that, if the GOP's repeal plan became law, millions of people could lose their health insurance. As Waldman points out, the high incidence of preexisting conditions is an argument for a universal mandate. It's impossible to insure people with known health problems at an affordable cost unless they share the risk with healthier policy-holders. Hence the need for a mandate.
Anti-choice at the end of life
In The Nation, Ann Neumann explains how anti-choice leaders fought to re-eliminate free end-of-life counseling for seniors under Medicare. The provision was taken out of the health care reform bill but briefly reinstated by Department of Health and Social Services before being rescinded again by HHS amid false allegations by anti-choice groups, including The Family Research Council, that the government was promulgating euthanasia for the elderly.
As seen on TV
The Kansas-based anti-choice group Operation Rescue is lashing out at the Iowa Board of Medicine for dismissing their complaint against Dr. Linda Haskell, Lynda Waddington reports in The Iowa Independent. Dr. Haskell attracted the ire of anti-choicers for using telemedicine to help doctors provide abortion care. The board investigated Operation Rescue's allegations, which it cannot discuss or even acknowledge, but found no basis for sanctions against Haskell. Iowa medical authorities said they were still deliberating about the rules for telemedicine in general.
Salon retracts RFK vaccine story
Online news magazine Salon.com has retracted a 2005 article by Robert Kennedy, Jr. alleging a link between childhood vaccines and autism, Kristina Chew reports at Care2. The article leaned heavily on now discredited research by Dr. Andrew Wakefield. His research had been discredited for some time, but only recently did an investigative journalist reveal that Wakefield skewed his data as part of an elaborate scam to profit from a lawsuit against vaccine makers.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) was shot in the head at a constituent outreach event in a supermarket parking lot in Tucson on Saturday. In all, the gunman shot 18 people, killing 6, including a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl.
Jamelle Bouie of TAPPED urges President Obama to take up the issue of mental health care in his upcoming speech on the mass shooting. Several people who knew the alleged shooter came forward with stories of bizarre behavior and run-ins with campus police at his community college. College administrators ordered him to seek treatment before he returned to school, but he does not appear to have done so.
H. Clarke Romans of the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Southern Arizona explained to Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! that mental health services in Arizona have been devastated by budget cuts.
In 2008 the state eliminated support services for all non-Medicaid behavioral health patients and stopped covering most brand-name psychiatric drugs. At least 28,000 Arizonans were affected. Arizonans with mental illnesses can expect even more cuts in the future as the state slashes spending in an attempt to address its budget shortfall.
In AlterNet, Adele Stan, argues that, while we don't yet know the gunman's motives, the right wing's intensifying campaign of anti-government hysteria and violent rhetoric may have emboldened an already disturbed person:
Had the vitriolic rhetoric that today shapes Arizona's political landscape (and, indeed, our national landscape) never come to call, Loughner may have found a different reason to go on a killing spree. But that vitriol does exist as a powerful prompt to the paranoid, and those who publicly deem war on the federal government a patriot's duty should today be doing some soul-searching.
Weekly Pulse: GOP Plays Chicken with the Debt Ceiling
By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) is calling for a "big showdown" over the upcoming vote to raise the nation's debt ceiling to $14.3 trillion from $13.9 trillion. The debt ceiling is simply the maximum amount the government can borrow.
The Republicans gained ground in last night's midterm elections, recapturing the House and gaining seats in the Senate. The future House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) wasted no time in affirming that the GOP will try to repeal health care reform.
A full-scale repeal is unlikely in the next two years because the Democrats have retained control of the White House and the Senate. However, Republicans are already making noises about shutting down the government to force the issue. The House controls the nation's purse strings, which confers significant leverage if the majority is willing to bring the government to a screeching halt to make a point.
Don't assume they'll blink. The GOP shut down government in 1995, albeit to its own political detriment. Rep. Steve King (R-IA) and his allies have sworn a "blood oath" to shut down the government, regardless of the consequences. The Republicans may actually succeed in modifying minor aspects of the Affordable Care Act, such as the controversial 1099 reporting requirement for small business.
The most significant threat to the implementation of health care reform may be at the state level. Republicans picked up several governorships, and the Affordable Care Act requires the cooperation of states to set up their own insurance exchanges. Hostile governors could seriously impede things.
Mixed results for radical, anti-choice senate candidates
As a group, the eight ultra-radical, anti-choice Republican Senate candidates had mixed results last night. Three wins, two sure losses, and three likely losses that haven't been definitively called. Voters didn't seem thrilled about electing senators who oppose a woman's right to abortion, even in cases of rape and incest.
Two cruised to victory: Rand Paul easily defeated Democrat Jack Conway in Kentucky. Paul is one of the most extreme the of a radical cohort. As Amie Newman reported in RH Reality Check, Paul doesn't even believe in a woman's right to abort to save her own life. In Florida, anti-choice standard bearer Marco Rubio defeated Independent Charlie Christ.
Another radical anti-choicer, Pat Toomey, who favors jailing abortion providers, narrowly edged out Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania.
Two were soundly defeated. Evangelical code-talker Sharron Angle lost to Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), and anti-masturbation crusader Christine O'Donnell lost to Chris Coons in Delaware.
The last three radical anti-choice senate candidates were down, but not, out as of this morning. Democrat Sen. Michael Bennett leads Republican Ken Buck by just 15,000 votes out of over 1.5 million ballots cast, according to TPMDC. Planned Parenthood launched an 11th hour offensive against Buck because of his retrograde stances on abortion, sexual assault, and other women's issues, as Joseph Boven reports for the Colorado Independent.
This morning, Tea Party Republican Joe Miller was trailing behind incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), who challenged him as an Independent, but no winner had been declared. In Washington State, Democrat Sen. Patti Murray maintains a 1% lead over radical anti-choicer Republican Dino Rossi.
Are fertilized eggs people in Colorado?
Coloradans won a decisive victory for reproductive rights last night. Fertilized eggs are still not people in Colorado, as Jodi Jacobson reports for RH Reality Check.
Amendment 62, which would have conferred full person status from the moment of conception, thereby outlawing abortion and in vitro fertilization. It also called into question the legality of many forms of birth control, including an array of medical procedures for pregnant women that might harm their fetuses. The proposed amendment was resoundingly defeated: 72% against to 28% in favor. This is the second time Colorado voters have rejected an egg-as-person amendment.
Blue Dogs and anti-choice Dems feel the pain
Last night was brutal for corporatist Democrats who fought the more progressive options for health care reform and Democrats who put their anti-choice ideology ahead passing health care. In AlterNet, Sarah Seltzer reports only 12 of the 34 Democrats who voted against health care reform hung on to their seats. The Blue Dog caucus was halved overnight from 56 to 24. Nick Baumann of Mother Jones speculated that the midterms would mark the end of the Stupak bloc, the coalition of anti-choice Democrats whose last-minute brinksmanship could have derailed health care reform.
Did foot-dragging on health care hurt Democrats?
Jamelle Bouie suggests at TAPPED that Democrats shot themselves in the foot by passing a health care reform bill that won't provide tangible benefits to most people for years. The exchanges that are supposed to provide affordable insurance for millions of Americans won't be up and running until 2014.
In Summer 2009, Former DNC chair Howard Dean predicted that the Democrats would be penalized at the polls if they failed to deliver tangible benefits from health care reform before the midterm elections. That's why Dean suggested expanding the public health insurance programs we already have, rather than creating insurance exchanges from scratch.
Sink, sunk by Scott
Andy Kroll of Mother Jones profiles Rick Scott, the billionaire health clinic mogul, corporate fraudster, and enemy of health care reform who spent over $50 million of his own money to eke out a very narrow victory over Democrat Alex Sink in the Florida governor's race.
Apparently, many Floridians were willing to overlook the fact that Scott had to pay a $1.7 billion fine for defrauding Medicare, the largest fine of its kind in history. Scott also spent $5 million of his own money to found Conservatives for Patients' Rights, one of the leading independent groups opposing health care reform.
Pot isn't legalized in California
California defeated Proposition 19, which would have legalized marijuana for personal use. David Borden of DRCnet, a pro-legalization group, writes in AlterNet that the fight over Prop 19 brought legalization into the political mainstream, even if the measure didn't prevail at the polls. The initiative won the backing of the California NAACP, SEIU California, the National Black Police Association, and the National Latino Officers Association and other established groups.
So, what's next for health care reform? The question everyone is asking is whether John Boehner will cave to the extremists in his own party and attempt a full-scale government shutdown, or whether the Republicans will content themselves with extracting piecemeal modifications of the health care law.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
I have a lot of radical friends who don't think voting makes a difference, that it only legitimizes a corrupt system, and that on principle they shouldn't do it. (Perhaps you're one of them.) I used to agree with this, and, unlike many of my not-so-radical friends, I respect the arguments people are making. I have no trouble seeing why people would write off the whole enterprise as pointless.
I take a more complicated view though. I've been meaning to write a comprehensive piece before the elections about how and why real progressives and leftist radicals - these labels really do trip us up - should engage our flawed electoral system and the Democratic Party. Unfortunately I didn't have time to write that piece... yet.
But here are a few main points for anyone on the fence today. I want you to be on the voting side of the fence.
Here's a main argument against voting:
"If voting made any difference, they'd make it illegal."
The fact is, "they" have made it illegal all throughout history and continue to try to today. Black people and women couldn't vote for more than half our country's history, and they had to fight incredibly hard to win that right - and there are still major skirmishes about systematic voter disenfranchisement in elections today.
But the "they" in "they'd make it illegal" betrays some assumptions that I think are embedded in most anti-voting arguments.
Weekly Audit: Your Vote, Your Economy-Why Today's Election Matters to Your Pocketbook
by Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
Election Day is finally here, and control of the House and the Senate hangs in the balance. The differences between parties could not be more stark. Republicans have promised to repeal health care reform and slash government spending for social programs, all while preserving tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. Some of the more radical ideas bandied about this election season-by conservative candidates with a decent shot at winning-include privatizing social security and eliminating the Department of Education.
Quite frankly, there is not much of a choice here: if you don't vote, you will condemn us to changes in our country that will be hard to live with and harder to overcome in the future.
For instance, Republican Senate candidates Linda McMahon in Connecticut, Rand Paul in Kentucky, John Raese in West Virginia, and Dino Rossi in Washington have all pledged to roll back or eliminate the minimum wage.
Sharron Angle in Nevada, Ken Buck in Colorado, and Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania have all talked about privatizing Social Security - or eliminating it altogether.
Today in America there is a big and under-reported issue. There are actually people out there, some of them unbelievably in Congress, crazy enough to challenge that great American institution, the military industrial complex. Who doesn't love Halliburton? Or Dick Cheney? Or the Iraq War? Or useless projects that do nothing more than enrich and empower an already powerful and rich elite?
I'll tell you who. 65 good for nothin' Congresspeople. They're the ones who today voted against a symbolic resolution to get our troops out of Afghanistan.
Now, cutting the snark, so many of the other 356 don't even have the gall to vote against a symbolic resolution to end a war! I understand that some people honestly support it, but when less than half of the country supports the war in Afghanistan, it's a bad sign that all of these Congresspeople still do:
We'll be announcing it on Monday, in time for you to make sure your local bartender is ready to brew it up. Tell us in the comments thread what'll quench your thirst.
The Spartanburg, SC, chapter held their own competition and here were some of their candidates:
"Yes We Caffiene" - Coffee, Brandy and Chrystalized Pineapple
Team of Rivals:
- Kahlua, Cocoanut rum, Baileys, layered in shot glass.
Hope Float:
- Baileys, Butterschotch Schnapps, float Creme de Cocoa on top.
(a dozen more drinks on the flip -- we need your input)
Here it is... after all the campaigning, the speeches, the attacks and comebacks, the primaries, the local committee meetings, the blogs, the newspaper articles, the hours an hours of Morning Joe and C-Span, the worries and the reliefs of the polling... Election Day. I'm, of course, an early voter who is now waiting to see how the rest of America comes in.
Worrying about the final outcome has cost me sleep, made my poor diabetic blood sugar run high in the morning for no apparent reason, and kept me returning to rightist blogs and Fox News to see what the Republicans are doing, waiting for a last minute trick to spoil Barack's potential win (last night alone I must have seen fifty Reverend Wright commercials by some right-wing 527... and read entry after entry in right-wing blogs that made fun of the death of Obama's grandmother... an unimaginable set of evil jabs that I thought were beyond what Americans could do.)
The campaign schedule has been pretty intense over the last week and will continue to be so until the BIG day on Tuesday, November 4th. I want to congratulate everyone for putting so much effort into this year's election, not just for an individual campaign, but for the entire Democratic ticket. I've seen people in every community throughout the 5th district working to make sure the message is getting out.
I want to remind everyone it is important that we finish strong. Don't take anything for granted, ignore the polls and work like the polls show our candidates 5 points down. Remember, while all indications show Barack Obama will be our next president, if we believe the polls, Al Gore would be concluding his second term or we would be working to re-elect President John Kerry right now.
In 2000, only 60 percent of the voting age population actually came out to vote on Election Day. Alarmed at the level of civic passivity; nonprofit, political and religious organizations of all stripes began a massive campaign to stimulate more participation in the voting process. Organizations such as USAction, La Raza, the National Rifle Association and religious organizations began registering millions of new voters across this country. Four years later, an additional 13 million voters were added to the rolls and 64 percent of voters turned out for the 2004 elections.
The massive voter engagement campaigns were an unqualified success and you would think public officials would be dancing in the streets, right? Wrong. Instead, this year, the right-wing assault machine has launched a blistering campaign of attacks against liberal and non-partisan groups for getting millions more American citizens registered to vote and active in the electoral process. Why? Simply because they have been so effective at it. Some people would call that sour grapes, others would call it being a sore loser; I call it a pathetic display of unAmericanism.
From the very first presidential election over two centuries ago, you have always had winners and losers. Federalists, Anti-federalists, Whigs, Democrats, Republicans and Independents have always understood the rules of the game: The winner wins and the loser lives to fight another day.
Now partisan operatives don't want to play the game by the rules anymore. They have leashed their latest disinformation campaign and against ACORN, the progressive advocacy group that has successfully registered 1.3 million largely young, poor, and ethnic minorities to vote this year.
In the business world, you learn by your competitors' example and adopt some of their strategies to remain competitive. In dirty politics, you try to get laws passed to invalidate your opponents, you buy friendly judges to disqualify or overturn results, or you persuade law enforcement officials to raid their offices and prevent them from operating in the first place.
Fox News recently stated - and I quote:
"The ongoing investigations into a controversial advocacy group that specializes in registering low-income voters are becoming a rallying cry for Right-wings just weeks before Election Day."
A fundamental concern with the current nomination fight is the lack of an obvious exit strategy. How, and when exactly, is this race going to end? Interestingly, though, I think this race is much closer to ending than is widely thought. The Clinton campaign has, in its desperation, argued that the popular vote should be the standard for evaluating who should win the nomination. As I have written previously, I think this is absolutely the wrong standard to apply. Pledged delegates is clearly the correct standard. But if you examine the remaining contests it is becoming increasingly obvious that Obama is in position to claim a popular vote victory on May 6th.
The table below shows the current popular vote and my projections for the remaining contests. I have used the realclearpolitics calculations to estimate the popular vote in the caucus states that did not report popular vote totals. Right now Obama holds an 827 thousand vote lead without Florida, or a 539 thousand vote lead if you include Florida. For Clinton netting at least enough votes in the remaining contests to take the lead in the popular vote is a pre-requisite for making any reasonable claim for the nomination. As my table shows, however, Clinton right now is likely to fall far short of the votes needed to win the popular vote. As it also shows, if the current projections in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Indiana hold she will have to win the contests after May 6th by nearly 30 percent in order to win the popular vote, a practical impossibility given that she trails by 10 in Oregon.
Obviously the question everyone is asking today is how much does Clinton need to win by? From a popular vote perspective, the answer is not in terms of popular vote, but rather in terms of how many votes she needs to net. As I show below, if you build a best case scenario for Clinton which projects her vote based on the best poll result for her in the remaining contests, she nets 156,989 votes. This means she would need to net 382,232 votes tomorrow. Here is the math:
Obama Lead including Florida
539,141
Clinton net assuming best poll in states after PA
156,989
Margin required in PA to catch Obama
382,232
This table shows the relationship between turnout and Margin of Victory. In order to get close to the roughly 380,000 margin Clinton will need to win by 15 on heavy turnout (my own prediction is for turnout of 2.2 million which is on the high side)
My projections for the rest of the contests are on the flip...
Maybe the Senate and House should vote to censure Ann Coulter for this lovely comment:
If we took away women's right to vote, we'd never have to worry about another Democrat president. It's kind of a pipe dream, it's a personal fantasy of mine, but I don't think it's going to happen. And it is a good way of making the point that women are voting so stupidly, at least single women.
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