Obamacare

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How democracy works

This is how democracy works: Sometimes the majority is against you and you lose. Your solution is to work to get people elected who will change the law.

Holding a temper tantrum and shutting down government until you get your way is not how democracy works.vote_ballot_box

Look, Republicans: You lost. You lost in 2008 when Obama had health care as part of his platform and you lost in 2012 after it had been enacted. Your candidate vowed to get rid of Obamacare and he lost. If it wasn’t for gerrymandering, you would have lost the House too since more people voted for Democrats. In fact, in five of the past six Presidential elections, more people voted against you than for you.

You lost. Even the lawsuit you filed to stop Obamacare lost.

Grow up and deal with it.

Senator McCain gets it. He took to the floor last night and reminded his GOP colleagues that the law passed after lengthy debate. McCain said “the people spoke” on the matter when they reelected Obama in 2012 and rejected GOP candidate Mitt Romney — whose main selling point was that he would repeal the health care law.

“We fought as hard as we could in a fair and honest manner and we lost,” McCain said. “One of the reasons was because we were in the minority, and in democracies, almost always the majority governs and passes legislation.”

So, Republicans — don’t like Obamacare? Maybe you might want to try getting the support of the American people and winning an election. I heard that works.

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GOP urges young people to break the law

There are some ridiculous commercials out now urging young people to “opt out” of Obamacare.

The commercials feature a huge Uncle Sam puppet about to give a woman a gynecological exam.

Because, you know, if there’s one thing Republicans are against, it’s having the government force women to have unnecessary gynecological examinations, am I right, ladies?

Uncle sam

But more importantly, it’s the message here: Please, they say, break the law. Don’t buy insurance.

Really?

Can you imagine what they’d say if there was an ad saying “Please don’t allow the evil government to force you to buy car insurance!”?

Apparently they have run out of options, because the law is here and it’s staying. So the only thing left to do is tell people to ignore it.

Yeah, use that as an excuse when you’re paying the fine for disobeying it. “But your honor, my Senator told me to disobey this law!” See how well that works, and then get back to me. I could use the work.

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Cruz in for a Bruisin’

As I write this, Senator Cruz is in some sort of semi-fillibuster mode in a useless and futile attempt to — well, I’m not sure. He says he wants to stop Obamacare, but this won’t do it. Certainly his own party leaders don’t support this. Cruz is just sucking up to the Tea Party crazies who like to bang their heads against the wall and constantly complain, because no matter what Obama does for them, he continues to stubbornly remain black. Or something. I’m not quite sure of their logic.ted-cruz

Obamacare passed both Houses. It was signed by the President. The Supreme Court ruled it constitutional. Forty-two attempts to repeal it have failed. It’s not going away.

Most of its provisions have already gone into effect and are showing to be successful. My insurance rates have risen every year for the past ten years and for the first time, I am able to negotiate (because the companies can no longer turn me down for my wife’s pre-existing condition) and how about that? My rates are going down, and that’s in a state with a Tea Party governor doing everything possible to thwart the law.

What the Republicans are really worried about is not that the program will fail. They are worried it will be successful — that people will like it, and then blame them for trying to prevent it.

After all, they have shown over and over again that they don’t really care about anything except getting re-elected and helping their wealthy donors. That’s why we have seen a grand total of zero job bills passed by the Republicans.

Ted Cruz is becoming the new face of that party, which is not making the party leadership happy. Then again, they invited this. Instead of standing up to the Tea Party extremists, they catered to them. And now they have to deal with it.

And they’re not the only ones suffering because of it.

Editorial cartoon of the day

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The true horror of Obamacare

There seems to be one big worry of certain Republican Obamacare opponents. What if people end up liking it?

After all, many of the same arguments against Obamacare were used against Social Security and Medicare (“It’s socialism! It’ll bankrupt us! We will lose all our freedoms and the world will be encased in fire and brimstone!”). Yet here we are, fifty years later, and most people seem to like those things just fine.

Does this man look worried?

Worse yet, Obamacare is working. Kids are not being thrown off their health care for pre-existing conditions. Young adults stay on their parent’s health care longer. People are getting refund checks from their insurance companies who had overcharged them before. And in states that are working to implement it, health care insurance costs have gone down.

Why, if this works, people might actually realize it’s not a bad idea, and may even (shudder) vote for Democrats!

So the GOP has gone into overdrive, banging its head against the wall, trying every damn thing they can think of to stop something that was passed years ago and has no chance of being repealed.

Because the horror of what may become of them if it works is too terrible to imagine.

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Health costs to drop 50% in New York

As predicted by those who understood it, Obamacare is making health care costs drop (which is exactly the opposite of what opponents said would happen, of course). We’ve already seen that happen in California, and now New York is seeing the same.

“Provisions of the Affordable Care Act that have already been implemented and constrained government payments to doctors and hospitals appear to be trickling down to consumers, in the form of less expensive insurance plans, and cheaper drugs and treatments,” says The Week.

Admittedly, this will not be true in every state. Some will see rises, but from what I understand, it is mostly because Obamacare is making those states cover more than they used to whereas in other states, they had already been covered. In other words, in states where there was already a mandated coverage from state regulation (mostly Democratic states as you’d guess), Obamacare appears to have brought prices down, whereas in states where insurance companies did not cover much (mostly Republican states) and are now required to cover more, the prices will go up a bit.

I am no economist — far from it — but I did want to point this out as a counter to the constant drone that this would make all insurance costs go up. Perhaps some of you reading this may have more expertise on this to contribute, and hopefully as free from political bias as possible, because I’d really like to know the facts free from spin.

Editorial cartoon of the day

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Your boss gets to decide your health care?

…At least, that seems to be the ruling of a Federal court in Oklahoma, which held that the owners of Hobby Lobby don’t have to provide health care coverage to their employees if it may include nasty things the employer doesn’t like, such as abortions.

Yes, that’s right. Your employer gets to decide health care decisions for you.

This has been framed as a 1st amendment Freedom of Religion argument, but apparently the court only cares about the employer’s religion and not that of the employee.

Could be worse, I suppose. If he was one of those Jehovah’s Witnesses who thinks that you can pray away disease, then you wouldn’t get any coverage whatsoever according to this opinion.

I guess if a business owner didn’t like, I dunno, kidney stones, then those wouldn’t be covered either. Oh, right, only religious reasons allow an employer to discriminate like this.

Let’s see — I seem to remember a Constitutional amendment that prohibited that sort of thing.gavel

This is an absolutely ridiculous decision. Hobby Lobby is not a religious organization; it’s a for-profit business. A business owner should not have the right to decide health care decisions for his or her employees. This is not comparable to a church, for instance, being forced to disobey its beliefs.

Should I, as a business owner, be allowed to force my beliefs on my employees? What if my religion believes women should wear burkas and never speak? Should I make all my female employees wear burkas?

The Court apparently believes employers have powers to ignore laws they don’t like. “If you work here, you have to live by my beliefs, not yours. Don’t like it? Tough!” I think we should say to business owners, “These are people who work for you, who have the right to make their own decisions about health care. You will give them the option, because this is America where we value individual decisions. Don’t like it? Tough!”

Your religion does not give you the right to disobey the law. There are Jamaican religions that believe in smoking marijuana during their ceremonies — tough, that’s illegal. Animal cruelty in the name of religion is illegal. Refusing to give your child medicine in the name of religion is illegal. Religions shouldn’t be exempt from the law just because they “really really believe” something. That’s not what America is about.

Look, if you start a business in America, we expect certain things from you. You have to pay a minimum wage; you have to have a safe working environment; you have to pay business taxes; you have to pay for worker’s compensation; you have to provide health care. Keep in mind that your employees may decide to use their money or benefits to do things you personally disagree with. Don’t like it? Tough. Don’t open a business.

If you don’t like the fact that we have freedom from religion in America, then maybe you should open a business somewhere else, like Iran. I understand they have no problem with you forcing religion on people who work for you.

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Obamacare is not really socialism

With Obamacare, you are forced to buy insurance.

This was the plan supported by Republicans since Bob Dole was running for President. It’s the exact same plan Romney installed in Massachusetts that he bragged about until the GOP decided it was a bad idea. They originally thought it was a great idea, because it supported insurance companies and business. It promoted capitalism. It was the exact opposite of socialism, where the government provides the service.

Many of these same Republicans (well, at least the ones who have no morals about being completely inconsistent in their views) are now screaming against this terrible form of “socialism”.

Damn, I wish it was socialism. A “medicare for all” system would solve a ton of the problems Obamacare brings and allow us to better spread the costs over all Americans while at the same time getting rid of a middle-man (insurance companies) that provide no health care whatsoever. What a savings that would be.

But no. Obama caved in to the Republicans in order to get their vote and then didn’t get it anyway, which will be regarded as one of his administration’s biggest mistakes.

So go ahead and criticize Obamacare. (I certainly do; I wish it could be better.) But please — don’t look stupid by calling it “socialism”, OK?

(And now, a disclaimer: If you define socialism so broadly as to include any government regulation whatsoever, then Obamacare is socialism in the same way laws requiring you to get a license for your dog is socialism. But you and I both know that’s not what critics mean when they make that stupid argument.)

 

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No, That’s Not the Point

“America has the best health care system in the world! That’s why people from countries with socialized medicine come here!”

I’ve seen this used as an argument against having any sort of “medicare for all” plan in America. It’s a silly argument which completely misses the point: It’s not whether we have the best care, it’s who gets the care. We also have the best hotels in the world, but most of us can’t afford those, either.

Paul Miller

Apparently, people who make this argument think that if we have socialized medicine here, then we will no longer have the best medical care in the world — that our doctors will forget all they know and hospitals will suddenly become backwater chop shops.

Well, no. No one has ever suggested that all doctors have to work for the government. A “medicare for all” plan keeps doctors independent, and they can decide whether to accept patients or not. Hey, just like it works now!

A national health care policy will not stop independent health care. Public schools did not stop private schools. Public defenders did not stop private attorneys. If you’ve got money, there will be nothing stopping you from affording that high-cost health care you want.

Anyone who tells you different is just plain wrong.