Commence Republican Spin

Several hours now since the Supreme Court handed down its decision upholding the Constitutionality of the nation's healthcare reform law.

I've noted that Republican talking points are concise and consistent:

• This is a tax and represents a HUGE tax hike on Americans - they're saying this because the law was held Constitutional by the Court as they determined that Congress could tax Americans if they did not have health insurance....and thus compelling them to buy insurance. So, taxation is the mechanism that makes the law hold. The law has not changed, but this "tax" interpretation is the one now from the right and you will be hearing A LOT about it over the next few months. 
• The act will actually raise healthcare costs and limit coverage to Americans. This is the typical Republican playbook. Take what your opponent is running on or claims that they make and reverse them. Convince Americans that their "strength" is their weakness. Facts need not be considered. 
• It represents a program we simply cannot afford. So says the party that ran our economy into the ground and manufactured our massive debt when they ran all branches of the government from Jan. 2001 to Jan. 2009. Sorry. Try again. You have zero credibility on this.
• We will move to repeal it legislatively. Now this is a true statement. They will. I suspect we'll see the first try in a few days and then more tries into the election season. And then certainly if the Rs control any amount of Congress or the Presidency come January 2013, they'll try again.

And in the case of Mitt Romney...of course he is saying all these things too...but doing so after supporting and passing a virtual carbon copy of the national law in his state while he was governor. Since that is public knowledge, you can see that Mitt is literally counting on Americans to be short-term-memory morons and just go with whatever he is saying today.

SCOUSA Upholds Healtchare Reform Law

I have to say, I am SURPRISED that the profoundly conservative majority of the Supreme Court has voted to uphold the nation's healthcare reform law. This is not something that I thought would happen.

What I am getting out of the first news reports I am hearing is that the Court decided that the entire law is Constitutional. More specifically, the majority opinion says that the law is upholdable under a taxation provision of the US Constitution, but that it was not under the commerce clause as orignally argued by the White Hosue and reform supporters. That's a bit of a twist.

So, while upholding the law under tax provisions, the Court also said that the federal government cannot require individuals to buy something as part of regulating commerce nationally...like health insurance.

I note that this also would mean going forward that laws requiring people to buy other things as part of regulating commerce would not pass muster as Constitutional...like private pension funds as part of a conservative overall of Socail Security. That's something conservatives have long talked about doing, but I seriouly doubt Republicans would try to enforce a individual mandate requiring purchase of private investment services as part of an overhaul of Social Security by relying on a TAX provision to do it. Just not their thing, and despite a keen ability to do a 180 on issues at a drop of hat...that might be a bit much for even them. So, the ruling today might be a double whammy against the conservative agenda.

One person who should be a bit perplexed by the decision today is Mitt Romney. After all, he championed and successuflly passed a very, very similar law in Massachesetts when he was governor. So, he was correct on what was best for Americans by supporting this reform back in the day, right? But he also has consistenly railed against the national healthcare reform law since he began running for President. Odd to run against the exact thing you championed previously. But that's Mitt for you.

But, all that being said, with its decision today the Supreme Court has upheld that:

• Expands coverage to 32 million Americans who are currently uninsured
• Health insurers cannot turn you down for coverage based on pre-existing conditions
• Insurance companies could no longer denying children coverage based on a preexisting condition

Do I think that a little thing like a ruling by the Supreme Court will stop Republicans and conservatives from trying to get rid of this law - in some way, some how? Hell no. If anything, this will compell them to double down on new and creative was to either effectively neuter the law or - if they gain majority power and the Presidency - just straight out repeal the law legislatively. You watch...that's what Mitt will run on now.

Prediction: Supreme Court Will Overturn Healthcare Law

Here is my prediction on the Supreme Court review of the national health care reform law...

They will overturn it. Or, more specifically, they will overturn portions of it...like the mandate that every individual has to buy insurance...such that the law is effectively negated. And thus will end, before it actually even was enacted (virtually none of the law's provisions have been enacted yet), the nation's most significant attempt at modernizing its health care system and making it more equitable and beneficial for more people. The infant law will be snuffed out in its cradle.

And if that happens? Well, we're back to where we were before the law was passed - a system predicated on earning maximum profit rather than one attempting to use the free market system to provide quality care for the maximum number of people.

Regardless of the outcome, I'll leave the bickering, taughting, celebrating and commiserating to others.

However, I will also point out something very ironic that I read today in an article about the healthcare law debate...

If the Supreme Court rules that the individual legal mandate in the health care law is not consitutional because Congress cannot compel an individual to buy private health insurance products (the law mandates you buy private insurance, not government run insurance), it will be simultaneously negating one of the primary pillars of conservative reform proposals for Social Security - namely, mandating that everyone buy commercial (private) pension funds.

Ooops.

As the article also points out, this does not mean it's likely that the conservative majority on the Supreme Court will suddenly support the health care reform act now because they want to preserve the chances for Social Security privatization in the future. No, it likely just means that those conservative judges will find a way to both call the health care mandate unconstitutional and any future Social Security privatization mandate OK. With a heavy sigh, I have to agree with that assessment.

Oh, and one more irony pointed out...if if Obama and the Democratically led House and Senate had simply enacted a single payer program back in 2009-2010, it would have been beyond constitutional challenge -- because government has an unambiguous power to tax and to use the revenues for public purposes.

Obama Healthcare Speech

I thought the events occurring at the U.S. Capitol last night served as an insightful microcosm for the entire debate on healthcare.

• On the one hand, you had the President articulating the need for reform of the system both from an economic and moral perspective. He used facts, re-capped history, declared principles, gave reasons why reform is needed, tied in how a better healthcare system will help the greater economy, provided an overview of what reform would and would not be, dispelled falsehoods and rumors, challenged Congress to act and appealed to a greater sense of our nation's well-being. This has been the approach of those leading the healthcare reform debate so far, but much more compelling coming from Obama himself.

• And on the other hand, you had an emotional outburst from a Republican Congressman from South Carolina shouting at the President and calling him a liar during the speech. And the rest of the Republicans (and a few Democrats too to be fair) who are against reforming the healthcare system? Well, they sat on their hands most of the speech in stony silent support of the current system we have today. Histrionics, unsubstantiated assertions, whipping up fear and stubbornness have been the primary tactics for those opposed to reform, and we saw that in spades last night too.

To summarize: Facts, reason and a moral appeal by Obama. "You lie!" shouted from the other side...and on an issue that Obama was not lying or even shading the truth about. That's where we're at in this big debate.

Emotion usually wins the day, so up to now the "you lie" stuff has been pretty effective. Perhaps the addition of the moral component by Obama will balance things out or bring a much needed reality check to the whole process. We shall see.

Healthcare Reform Protester Irony 101

Last week I posted an entry here about the current healthcare debate and the rowdy protesters that are showing up to town halls on the subject.

My approach was to take the healthcare protesters at their word that they're just simple middle class people concerned about what could happen to their insurance and care - not ringers planted by conservative groups against reform. With that in mind, my assertion then was that the people protesting reform of the healthcare system so loudly are the very people who likely need reform of the healthcare system most...and by extension are not part of an admirable rebellion or icons of free speech. They're ignorant at best, used at worst.

And now we have a real life example of this. At one of the more rowdy town halls about reform last week in the St. Louis area, a scuffle broke out between protesters and supporters of reform. In the melee one of the conservative protesters was roughed up enough that he needed to be taken to a hospital for care of his injuries.

Well, guess what? This guy was recently laid off from his job and does not have any healthcare insurance! Hmmm. And what is he doing to try and pay for the services he needed? Asking other people to pay for it! Huh! Yep, he's asking for donations from other people to cover his costs. Check it here.

What happened to "pull yourself up by your bootstraps?" All of a sudden it's OK to ask others to help you out in a time of need? Hmmm. How quickly those conservative ideals of the "rugged individual" disappear when one of them actually needs help. Oh, and there's the little matter that more and more of us will be reduced to begging for charity to cover our healthcare costs if healthcare reform does not pass.

Look, if you can see the many ironies in this situation, you get what I'm saying about ignorance breeding bad decisions and...in the case of healthcare reform...hurting the very people it would help.

And if you do not see the irony in this situation, I suspect you may also think that tax cuts for the rich magically "trickle down" to create a wealthy economy for all classes, that voting for socially conservative politicians somehow saves jobs from being outsourced of deficits to be reduced...or that the Apollo moon landings only ever took place on a sound stage in LA. In other words, you won't be convinced, facts be damned.

And so the circus continues.

Thanks to my buddy Marcus for pointing out the above action to me.

But Anyway...Thoughts on Healthcare Reform

I've been seeing on the news this week how some of the town hall meetings that members of Congress are having about healthcare reform are being disrupted by loud, obnoxious and pissed off citizens. Interestingly it seems that through some sort of cosmic fate that this is only happening where Democratic members of Congress are holding meetings.

But anyway.

Since most of these meetings are being held during the daytime, I'm seeing via media coverage that a lot of older people an others not at work seem to be filling up these meetings.

But anyway.

There's been debate on whether these rabble-rousers are part of a coordinated effort by the Republican Party to gin up some fake "astro-turf" (as in fake grass roots) protest against health care reform so as to kill it on behalf of the big business health insurance and pharma companies that are so important to the Republican campaign coffers.

But anyway.

Yes, but anyway...lets pause for a moment on this. Lets assume that the people causing all the ruckus are not the unwitting pawns of the right wing. No. Lets give them their due and assume that they are, in fact, simple middle class citizens and the retired concerned that reforming the healthcare system is a scary proposition that they don't want to see happen. Lets take their word on that.

My assertion is, if this is all true, that these people are gravely misguided and offer a look at what's wrong with the USA and not some sort of rebellion to be admired.

Lets analyze a few aspects of this for a minute:

Fighting for what's hurting them the most. It's funny (as in tragic) how people are so ready to defend the very system that is killing them. In some cases actually killing them. In the same way that people are duped into voting for conservative politicians espousing "family values" only to have them - once elected - ignore that and bend over backwards for the big business that are outsourcing jobs, enabling huge tax cuts for the rich and getting us into wars that kill mostly poor kids...people who could REALLY benefit for healthcare reform are willing to line up against it in the name of vague notions of "America" or "freedom." Lets be straight here. The free market is strangling our healthcare system. It is the reason we're in such dire straights with healthcare, not the answer to our problems. For indeed, the primary motivation of our healthcare system is spectacular and short term (quarterly) profit and it is not providing insurance, access and care. You can see where that has got us. Like those HMOs? Until incentives for profit are aligned with providing access to care and actual care (or eliminating those incentives) nothing will change.

So I ask, why do people defend the very thing that's bringing us all down?

"I want my country back!" This is one line chanted by the crowds. Yeah, get your country back from what? What do you not have now that you had six months ago? The only thing that's changed is that there's a different president from a different party and that same party controls Congress. Is that what those people are talking about? Upset that McCain/Palin and the Republican party took a beating in 2008? OK, well, fine. But, that's not a reason to abdicate your senses. Or, is the notion here that people want to go back to the good old days of W? Or maybe an earlier time than that? Is that what these people want back? Good old boys running things? That worked out pretty well for most of us. The whole "I want my country back" rings quite hollow to me and is a give-away that many of these protesters are disconnected from reality at best.

The claim that "this is socialism." Bibles in hand, protesters say that the proposed healthcare reform is socialism and soon people in government will be passing judgement on who lives or dies. First off, the USA has is such a conservative country that it has no conception of what socialism is. Literally, one guy said, "Get the government out of my Medicare." Really? As Bill Maher said, that's like driving across the country to protest highways.

In reality, some of the most successful and rock solid programs in our nation's history are "socialism" by the definitions being bandied around these days. You like a little thing called the US Army? How about your local fire department, police force or public trauma center? Oh, and how about those roads you drive on to go to Starbucks and to see your family? You think having some money coming your way after you retire or get laid off is good? And how about the healthcare your grandmother gets from Medicare? What if all these things were private and to get the services you had to subscribe to a private company to get them...if you could afford to?

All of the services I've named above, and many more, are by definition "socialized" programs in the good old U.S.A. that we all benefit from. Most the rest of the civilized world has long ago figured out that healthcare is one of the things that we all benefit from having too...and yes, many have socialized that to some degree or the other. Want to know what most of the 36 countries rated with better healthcare systems than we have in common? Most have a socialized component of their system and guaranteed coverage.

Finally, you want to wave around your Bible as some sort of protest to socialism? Jesus Christ. No literally, Jesus Christ. He was, by the modern definition of it, a socialist. Read the frickin' book.

A broken system will yield sharp objects. In the end, protesting against healthcare reform for whatever reason is the ultimate folly because the current system is broke to the degree that it is not good for anyone. Sure, there is more than one way to reform healthcare, but any way you slice it...if reform fails now and status quo holds serve, the problem will not go away. And the problem is so intertwined with the rest of the economy that letting it rot further is not the answer. Nope. It's only gonna get worse if not tackled now. Think about this: when that Baby Boom Generation really starts to hit in there and sucks up healthcare dollars and services, the shit's really gonna hit the fan. You think that mob is not gonna be waving Bibles and signs? I don't. I think they'll be wielding more potent instruments.

I think you can see that, taking the town hall disrupters at their word, my assertion is that they are misguided and way off base. I'd bet you a beer (a decent one too) that 100% of protesters this week actually benefit from a socialized service and that the majority either know someone or themselves directly benefit from Medicare or Medicaid. Ignorance breeds bad decisions and I think that's what we're seeing here.

But anyway, I'm sure Twitter, John and Kate (plus their eight) and Paula Abdul will solve all these problems. What am I all worked up for?