Tag Archives: Obamacare

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Elect federal judges? Oh, please!

Many of those on the right are quite fond of criticizing “unelected federal judges” who issue rulings that go against their world view.

What, then, is their alternative? Do they want to elect those who sit on the federal bench? Do they wish to do away with the federal judiciary?

I mention this because the U.S. Supreme Court recently upheld a University of Michigan policy that disallows affirmative action practices when considering who the school should admit. Did those on the left issue similar cries against those “unelected judges”? I didn’t hear any.

And yet, when judges keep striking down states’ bans on same-sex marriage, the cries go out from those who think the federal judiciary is overreaching when it declares states cannot write laws that violate U.S. constitutional provisions, such as the one that provides for “equal protection” under the law, regardless of sexual orientation.

Perhaps my favorite criticism of the high court came when it ruled 5-4 to uphold the Affordable Care Act. The ruling was narrowly defined and it was decided by a single vote, when Chief Justice John Roberts voted with the majority to keep the ACA intact. The criticism — from the right, of course — went something like this: The law should be tossed out because a narrow majority on the Supreme Court voted to keep it, and that the one-vote majority really didn’t mean the law is constitutional.

The founders had it exactly right when they empowered the president with the authority to appoint judges to the bench for life. They sought to de-politicize the federal bench by disallowing the election of federal judges.

States, of course, retain the right to elect judges. Texas even elects judges on partisan ballots, meaning that judicial candidates of one party has a built-in advantage over candidates of the other party. In Texas, that means if you’re a Republican, you’re in; it used to be the other way around, when Democrats were dominant.

Either way, good judges from the “out” party are kicked out simply because they are of the wrong political persuasion.

The federal judiciary, from the Supreme Court on down, functions precisely as the framers intended for it.

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Liar, liar …

Let’s talk briefly one more time about lies and lying.

President Obama’s critics accuse him of “lying” about the Affordable Care Act, specifically about the pledge he made that Americans can “keep their doctor if they so wish.” It turns out, with the unveiling of the ACA, that wasn’t necessarily the case.

Republicans jumped all over Obama for “lying” to Americans.

The dictionary defines “lying” as the intentional telling of an untruth. To suggest someone is lying is to know beyond a doubt the person made a statement knowing it is untrue.

Did the president knowingly assert the “keep-your-doctor” pledge knowing it wasn’t necessarily true? I don’t know, and neither do his critics.

I also need to revisit one more time the so-called “lies” President Bush told us about whether Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. The president used WMD as a reason for going to war.

We invaded Iraq in March 2003, looked high and low for those WMD. We found none.

Intelligence analysts all over the world said Saddam had the WMD. Secretary of State Colin Powell said so in a statement to the United Nations. Were they lying? Did they purposely tell a falsehood? I don’t know that any more than I know that Barack Obama “lied” about the ACA.

I just have grown weary of the casual use of this particular “L” word.

How about cooling it until someone can produce incontrovertible proof that he or she is a true-blue mind reader?

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ACA costs reduced? Maybe

The Affordable Care Act will cost the federal government less money than originally thought.

Good news, yes? Maybe.

http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/cbo-cuts-costs-obamacare-billions

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has reduced the estimated cost of the ACA to the government, which ought to bring cheer to those of us who support the ACA in principle. It also ought to be grim news to those who hate the law they refer to derisively as Obamacare.

I plan to wait to hear what the ACA haters have to say before I take this bit of news to the bank.

The 2014 costs were reduced by about $5 billion from the estimated $41 billion projected initially, according to the CBO. Longer-term costs, to 2024, have been cut by $104 billion, says the CBO.

I’ll conceded that $104 billion over the course of the next decade isn’t a lot of money in the grand scheme of things as it relates to the federal budget. It’s tough to call 104 bil mere “chump change,” but it kinda/sorta is, if you get my drift.

It’s still less money out of the public coffer, which ought to cheer the skeptics — given that CBO reports usually toe the non-partisan line.

No one should expect anyone who’s disposed to detest the law to cheer anything that resembles positive news relating to the ACA.

I’ll be waiting to hear how both sides spin this bit of information.

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Burwell a lock for HHS boss, but first …

Sylvia Mathews Burwell should be able to skate easily from her job as head of the Office of Management and Budget into her new post as health and human services secretary.

She’ll likely get there, but it will be far from an smooth ride from one high-powered government job to another.

You see, the U.S. Senate — which already has confirmed her to the OMB job — will have this other issue to continue litigating. It’s called the Affordable Care Act. Burwell is now the newest woman on the hot seat in that matter, given that HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has resigned and is likely headed back to Kansas.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/sylvia-mathews-burwell-democrats-obamacare-affordable-care-act-105641.html?hp=l4

Sebelius came under intense fire for the handling of the ACA rollout and the collapse of the Healthcare.gov website when the enrollment opened up in January. It all happened on her watch at HHS and she deserved a lot of the pounding she received.

Now she’s on her way out, apparently with few expressions of regret from the White House at her departure.

Burwell is known to be a cool customer who will be able to handle Republican senators’ expected tough grilling during her confirmation hearing. She’ll need all the coolness she can muster, as GOP senators likely are going to beat the daylights out of her over how she intends to implement an established law that Republicans still hate with a passion.

So, as with everything political these days, what’s supposed to be an easy transition will resemble something quite different. Hold on tightly, Ms. Burwell.

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Uninsured rate is falling

Politicians of all stripes have this way of spinning news in their favor and against their opponents’ interests.

That’s how the game is played. Take the Affordable Care Act. President Obama has declared something of a victory in that 7.1 million Americans signed up for the ACA before the March 31 open enrollment deadline; he had set a goal of 7 million signups. Republicans on the other hand declared the signup period a failure because of the rollout snafus and clumsiness that followed.

Now comes some interesting news from the Gallup Poll organization. The rate of uninsured Americans is the lowest since 2008, the final full year of George W. Bush’s presidency.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/168248/uninsured-rate-lowest-2008.aspx

What does that mean?

Let’s see. The president said when he took office in 2009 that he intended to make health insurance available to more Americans and to bite into the number of uninsured Americans, which stood at 40 million or so, give or take.

The ACA passed. The enrollment period opened up. Americans got signed up through the exchanges. More Americans now have health insurance than before enactment of the law and, according to Gallup, the rate of uninsured Americans is at a six-year low.

The improvement is greatest among poor Americans and African-Americans, says Gallup. The rate of uninsured among all age groups has declined.

Is this an unqualified success for the Obama administration? It is not. The president made a couple of promises he couldn’t keep, such as the infamous “you can keep your doctor” pledge. The law will need to be tweaked, fine-tuned and improved along the way — which is the norm for almost all major pieces of legislation.

However, to say the ACA has “failed” and that it is going to “bankrupt the country” and create “death panels” to determine who lives is dishonest in the extreme.

The survey noted here suggests that the administration’s major goal — to provide health insurance to more Americans — has been met.

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Cruz asks trick question on ACA

Ted Cruz is a smart Texas lawyer and a U.S. senator who ought to know this basic tenet about the legal profession: Never ask a question without knowing the answer you’ll get.

Well, the junior Republican lawmaker from Texas posed this question March 24 on Facebook: “Quick poll: Obamacare was signed into law four years ago yesterday. Are you better off now than you were then? Comment with YES or NO!.”

The question received more than 55,000 responses and the respondents were — are you ready for this one? — quite positive in their comments on the Affordable Care Act.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/ted-cruz-obamacare-facebook-poll-105306.html?ml=tb

You’ll recall that Sen. Cruz staged that fake filibuster on the Senate floor as he sought to persuade his colleagues to join him in killing the ACA. It didn’t work.

Also, you might recall that the Cruz Missile said he’d do “whatever it takes” to eliminate the law, to wipe off the books a law that an earlier Congress approved and the president signed.

One of his tactics, apparently, was to gin up support on Facebook for his effort. That didn’t work out too well, either.

As Politico.com reports, of the 100 most recent comments on Cruz’s Facebook page, only two of them were negative. The rest of them were testimonials on how the ACA has helped people’s lives, provided them with affordable health insurance and actually reformed the nation’s health care system.

Cruz staff says the results were cooked up by liberal websites that had rallied their followers for responses among those who favor the law. The senator’s staff insists the law is wildly unpopular with Americans.

OK, if that’s the case, then where were their responses to this, um, survey?

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ACA deadline passes, the sun rose this morning

What do you know? The Affordable Care Act’s first open enrollment deadline passed and Planet Earth didn’t spin off its axis.

Here’s another tidbit: The White House announced that it met its enrollment goal of 7 million Americans signed up for health insurance. Was the deadline glitch-free? No. But it came, it’s history and millions of Americans who didn’t have health insurance before have it now.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/obamacare-enrollment-deadline-special-enrollment-105239.html?hp=t1

Let’s remember, though, that critics will continue to declare the law a total failure. They’ll continue to assert that the president runs the most “lawless” administration in the history of the Republic. They’ll suggest the White House “cooked the books” on the ACA enrollment numbers. They’ll likely have more votes in Congress to seek to repeal the law.

President Obama asserted the following today in a White House Rose Garden ceremony: “There are still no death panels. Armageddon has not arrived. Instead, this law is helping millions of Americans.”

We’ll need to remember that many of the ACA’s basic tenets came from Republicans. One of them, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, helped push through a health care law in the Bay State that became a significant model for the federal law that was enacted in 2010. Romney would try to distance himself from his own creation as he ran for president in 2012. The strategy didn’t work, as Americans re-elected Barack Obama.

Yes, some Americans got an extension on the deadline. Those are the folks who got hung up in the application process. The White House gave them a few extra days to finish it up.

Where this law goes from here remains a bit of an open question. It shouldn’t be repealed. It needs tweaking, just as Medicare needed it when it was created in 1965. That program has been a godsend to elderly Americans.

Of course, GOP efforts to toss out the ACA will continue. However, as more Americans sign up for health insurance and report back the positive impact of that coverage, there might be enough of a reaction that sends a stern message to ACA critics: Back off; the law is working.

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Tide is turning seriously against Democrats

Democrats beware.

A congressional election on the Gulf Coast of Florida has just spelled impending disaster for your party this coming November.

Republican David Jolly has just defeated Democrat Alex Sink for the seat vacated by the death of longtime Republican U.S. Rep. C.W. Bill Young. Democrats thought the special election could provide a breakthrough in a traditionally strong GOP district. They were mistaken.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/local/adam-c-smith-column-david-jolly-victory-spells-trouble-for-democrats/2169745

Jolly won, although by a narrow margin.

He managed to make the Affordable Care Act the issue. He nationalized a local contest. Sink was sunk by her support of the ACA, which Republicans have demonized successfully — and wrongly, in my view — as some kind of evil government intrusion.

How will this play out in all 435 congressional districts? Not well if you’re a Democratic candidate, or so it appears at this moment.

Democratic candidates are spooked, or at least they should be spooked, by the prospect of running for Congress with public disapproval of the ACA so high. Tampa Bay Times political columnist Adam Smith put it this way: “Don’t be surprised to see vulnerable Democrats across the country start distancing themselves from health care reform in a way that Sink did not.”

None of this discussion, of course, matters for the 13th Congressional District of Texas, one of the most reliably Republican districts in the House of Representatives. Incumbent Mac Thornberry of Clarendon faces a Democrat this fall, someone named Mike Minter; Thornberry will cruise to re-election.

The contested races involving potentially vulnerable Democrats do pose a problem. Democrats have all but given up the idea of regaining control of the House and they are in serious danger of losing control of the Senate.

What happens if the GOP gains control of both congressional chambers? Well, gridlock will tighten. Dysfunction will intensify. Tempers will flare. Relations between the White House and Capitol Hill will go from bad to worse to abysmal.

Government will not work.

When the new Congress takes over in January 2015 we just might be longing for the “good old days” that are about to pass into history.

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Health care rollout no ‘mission accomplished’

ABC News correspondent Jon Karl sought to pin White House spokesman Jay Carney down on whether the tinkering of the once-crashed health care website produced a “mission accomplished” moment.

Carney didn’t take the bait.

Nor should he.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/12/02/abcs_jon_karl_to_carney_is_it_mission_accomplished_for_obamacare_website.html

The reference, of course, is to the famous photo op of President George W. Bush landing aboard the aircraft carrier in 2003 after the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had been captured. Then the president stood before the world — and in front of a banner hung across the conning tower of the carrier — that declared “Mission Accomplished.”

It turned out the mission was far from accomplished. Many more Americans would die in battle before the Iraq War came to an end. Anyone with half a memory of that event knows the folly of declaring victory too quickly.

I’m quite sure the current president, Barack Obama, is aware as well.

The Affordable Care Act rollout was a disaster for the White House. The computer program meant to handle all those applications for health insurance crashed and burned. The White House took it down. Health officials throughout the administration began feeling intense pressure. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius could have done an honorable thing by resigning, given that it all happened on her watch. She has stayed.

The healthcare.gov website has been updated, tweaked, nipped-and-tucked and is working a lot better than before. Is it perfect? Has the administration accomplished its mission? No on both counts.

But the administration is making strides, which is about as good as it can get when you take on such a huge enterprise as trying to fix a broken health care system.

The mission is not accomplished — at least not yet.

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Cornyn offers insulting tweet on Iran deal

I’ve long thought that U.S. Sen. John Cornyn was a serious man.

Then came this response to the deal brokered over the weekend involving Iran’s nuclear development program.

“Amazing what WH will do to distract attention from O-care”

http://blogs.star-telegram.com/politex/2013/11/sen-cornyns-iran-tweet-sparks-reaction-in-twitter-sphere.html

Huh? That was the response from the senior U.S. Republican senator from the great state of Texas?

So, in Cornyn’s mind an agreement that seeks to guide Iran toward a dismantling of its nuclear program, protect Israel — our nation’s most stalwart Middle East ally — and restore some semblance of stability in one of the world’s most explosive regions is a mere “distraction”?

Cornyn’s tweet drew some harsh response, some of which was equally unfair.

My larger point, though, is that Sen. Cornyn should know better than to suggest an intense negotiation involving the United States, Iran and several other great world powers is some kind of political feint to take interest away from an unrelated domestic policy dispute.

Ridiculous.