GOP Plans Would Make Lives Worse, Says Obama

Former President Barack Obama issued a statement earlier today, via Facebook, in response to the Senate Republicans’ newly announced scheme to repeal the Affordable Care Act (aka “Obamacare”) and replace it with a regressive, financially unsustainable, and hastily assembled (in secret!) plan that has the potential to steal health care insurance away from more than 20 million Americans, while giving yet another tax break to the wealthy minority among us.

As the ever-astute Steve Benen remarks in The Maddow Blog, “The Democrat’s 1,000-word statement is worth reading in its entirety, and it clearly has more than one audience in mind. Part of Obama’s message clearly intends to encourage health care advocates and their allies to remain engaged and fight to prevent the nation from falling backwards. But the other part of the message appears to be a challenge to Republican policymakers to do the right thing.”

Here is Mr. Obama’s message in its entirety:

Our politics are divided. They have been for a long time. And while I know that division makes it difficult to listen to Americans with whom we disagree, that’s what we need to do today.

I recognize that repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act has become a core tenet of the Republican Party. Still, I hope that our Senators, many of whom I know well, step back and measure what’s really at stake, and consider that the rationale for action, on health care or any other issue, must be something more than simply undoing something that Democrats did.

We didn’t fight for the Affordable Care Act for more than a year in the public square for any personal or political gain—we fought for it because we knew it would save lives, prevent financial misery, and ultimately set this country we love on a better, healthier course.

Nor did we fight for it alone. Thousands upon thousands of Americans, including Republicans, threw themselves into that collective effort, not for political reasons, but for intensely personal ones—a sick child, a parent lost to cancer, the memory of medical bills that threatened to derail their dreams.

And you made a difference. For the first time, more than ninety percent of Americans know the security of health insurance. Health care costs, while still rising, have been rising at the slowest pace in fifty years. Women can’t be charged more for their insurance, young adults can stay on their parents’ plan until they turn 26, contraceptive care and preventive care are now free. Paying more, or being denied insurance altogether due to a preexisting condition—we made that a thing of the past.

We did these things together. So many of you made that change possible.

At the same time, I was careful to say again and again that while the Affordable Care Act represented a significant step forward for America, it was not perfect, nor could it be the end of our efforts—and that if Republicans could put together a plan that is demonstrably better than the improvements we made to our health care system, that covers as many people at less cost, I would gladly and publicly support it.

That remains true. So I still hope that there are enough Republicans in Congress who remember that public service is not about sport or notching a political win, that there’s a reason we all chose to serve in the first place, and that hopefully, it’s to make people’s lives better, not worse.

But right now, after eight years, the legislation rushed through the House and the Senate without public hearings or debate would do the opposite. It would raise costs, reduce coverage, roll back protections, and ruin Medicaid as we know it. That’s not my opinion, but rather the conclusion of all objective analyses, from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which found that 23 million Americans would lose insurance, to America’s doctors, nurses, and hospitals on the front lines of our health care system.

The Senate bill, unveiled today, is not a health care bill. It’s a massive transfer of wealth from middle-class and poor families to the richest people in America. It hands enormous tax cuts to the rich and to the drug and insurance industries, paid for by cutting health care for everybody else. Those with private insurance will experience higher premiums and higher deductibles, with lower tax credits to help working families cover the costs, even as their plans might no longer cover pregnancy, mental health care, or expensive prescriptions. Discrimination based on pre-existing conditions could become the norm again. Millions of families will lose coverage entirely.

Simply put, if there’s a chance you might get sick, get old, or start a family – this bill will do you harm. And small tweaks over the course of the next couple weeks, under the guise of making these bills easier to stomach, cannot change the fundamental meanness at the core of this legislation.

I hope our Senators ask themselves—what will happen to the Americans grappling with opioid addiction who suddenly lose their coverage? What will happen to pregnant mothers, children with disabilities, poor adults and seniors who need long-term care once they can no longer count on Medicaid? What will happen if you have a medical emergency when insurance companies are once again allowed to exclude the benefits you need, send you unlimited bills, or set unaffordable deductibles? What impossible choices will working parents be forced to make if their child’s cancer treatment costs them more than their life savings?

To put the American people through that pain—while giving billionaires and corporations a massive tax cut in return—that’s tough to fathom. But it’s what’s at stake right now. So it remains my fervent hope that we step back and try to deliver on what the American people need.

That might take some time and compromise between Democrats and Republicans. But I believe that’s what people want to see. I believe it would demonstrate the kind of leadership that appeals to Americans across party lines. And I believe that it’s possible—if you are willing to make a difference again. If you’re willing to call your members of Congress. If you are willing to visit their offices. If you are willing to speak out, let them and the country know, in very real terms, what this means for you and your family.

After all, this debate has always been about something bigger than politics. It’s about the character of our country—who we are, and who we aspire to be. And that’s always worth fighting for.

(The boldfacing is mine, for emphasis.)

“Obamacare” Wins Again!

This will undoubtedly be the best news I hear all this week. As reported by The Huffington Post:

The latest and possibly the last serious effort to cripple Obamacare through the courts has just failed.

On Thursday, for the second time in three years, the Supreme Court rejected a major lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act--thereby preserving the largest expansion in health coverage since the creation of Medicare and Medicaid half a century ago.

The stakes of the case, King v. Burwell, were enormous. Had the plaintiffs prevailed, millions of people who depend upon the Affordable Care Act for insurance would have lost financial assistance from the federal government. Without that money, most of them would have had to give up coverage altogether. But two of the court’s conservatives, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy, joined the court’s four liberals in rejecting the lawsuit in a 6-3 decision. Roberts delivered the opinion for the majority.

The decision is a major defeat for conservatives, who have been trying to wipe Obamacare off the books ever since its enactment in 2010. The sweeping reform law, a key component of President Barack Obama’s legacy, now appears to be secure at least through the 2016 elections. Its fate beyond that will depend on who becomes president next year--and whether Republicans in Congress are willing to keep fighting for repeal.

Republicans on Capitol Hill and in red states nationwide were so sure that their right-wing allies on the U.S. Supreme Court would do whatever it took to undermine and destroy the Affordable Care Act, even if it meant damaging the Court’s reputation. Yet … that didn’t happen. Justice and progressive values won the day. The U.S. economy won’t have to suffer again under ever-escalating health-care costs and Americans won’t be forced once more to sell off their futures in order to obtain health insurance. It’s a good day, indeed.

READ MORE: “They Won’t Admit It, but Republicans Dodged a Health Care Bullet,” by Steve Benen (The Maddow Blog).

Yep, That’s About the Size of It

In a column for Business Insider titled “House Republicans Show Themselves to Be Dangerously Incompetent, Again,” Josh Barro reflected today on the legislative train wreck that has resulted from GOP efforts to hold the U.S. government hostage as part of its campaign to undermine President Obama’s Affordable Care Act and thereby leave millions of Americans once more at the mercy of greedy health-insurance providers. He writes:

There is no serious argument for Republican governance right now, even if you prefer conservative policies over liberal ones. These people are just too dangerously incompetent to be trusted with power.

A party that is this bad at tactics can’t be expected to be any good at policy-making.

You can read the whole column here.

A Momentous Day

GOP: To Hell with Americans in Need!

What will Republicans do if the U.S. Supreme Court foolishly strikes down the Affordable Care Act? Nothing, reports Steve Benen:

Politico, citing a “shift” in the GOP strategy, reports today that Republicans won’t lift a finger to help families hurt by the demise of the law--no coverage for young adults; no protections for those with pre-existing conditions; no help for seniors struggling to pay for prescription medication.

If families suffer as a result of the likely high court decision, well, maybe Republicans will think about doing something next year, maybe not.

Clearly, Americans can’t expect Republicans to look out for their best interests. Which is why, in November, I’ll be voting for President Obama and Democratic candidates ONLY.

If This Doesn’t Scare You, Nothing Will

Even though they’ve benefited from them, Republicans and other right-wing ideologues have hated the progressive political reforms of the 20th century ever since they were instituted. And they haven’t given up trying to overturn them, even after all these decades. In a piece today in Salon, political reporter Alex Seitz-Wald suggests that the U.S. Supreme Court’s possible overturning of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act might finally give right-wingers a chance to basically erase the social advances of the 20th century. Writes Seitz-Wald:

At the heart of case are two constitutional questions. First, whether Congress has the authority to require Americans to purchase health insurance under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. And second, whether the federal government can compel states to expand their Medicaid funding.

In a white paper published by the American Constitution Society last year, Lazarus argued that if both go down, “[it] will call into question the constitutional bases for, and hence could trigger copycat challenges to, provisions of other landmark laws and programs, including safety net programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and CHIP (the Children’s Health Insurance Program); civil rights law guarantees against private discrimination by places of public accommodation or in the workplace; federal grant programs in education, transportation, and other large-scale cooperative federalism initiatives; and environmental protection.”

This line of argument assumes that the individual mandate is valid, as many legal scholars agree it is, and so for the Court to overturn it, they would have to invalidate other progressive reforms going back to Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, as they are all built on an expansive interpretation of the Commerce Clause. This wouldn’t happen right away, but would come piecemeal through lawsuits against specific regulations over time. As courts applied the Supreme Court’s new precedent, they would chip away at labor, environmental and other regulations, and unforeseeable other programs.

A negative ruling on the Medicaid expansion could be even more consequential. This provision of the Affordable Care Act increases the number of people who are eligible for the federal low-income healthcare program, and is the means by which the law covers the bulk of today’s uninsured population. Under the new law, the federal government provides some of the funds for the expansion, and makes states pony up the rest by threatening to rescind all federal Medicaid funds if they don’t comply. Congress has used this same basic principle to do everything from increasing the drinking age to 21 to implementing Title IX, the gender equity in education law.

“The collateral damage is huge,” Lazarus told Salon. “The Medicaid expansion would have farther reaching consequences [than the individual mandate], especially immediately. It would be more possible to contain the implications of the mandate than the Medicaid expansion.”

The full article can be found here.

Naturally, right-wingers deny that the Supreme Court’s actions might given them this opening to kill off Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and a host of other social programs that have proved invaluable to Americans over the last 80 years.

But even presumptive Republican presidential candidate Mitt “Flip-flopper” Romney, by endorsing a budget plan put forward by Representative Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin), is now solidly in the camp of Republicans wanting to undo those progressive reforms. And if Romney--with the help of his self-interested corporate backers--wins the White House in November, and he gains significant backing in Congress, he’ll undoubtedly start the dismantling process, no matter what public opinion says.

The bottom line: Vote Democratic in November in order to save the nation’s most cherished social programs.

READ MORE: “Social Security Bankrupt? Not So Fast!” by Nathaniel Downes (Addicting Info).

Right Round the Bend

Republican’ts clearly want nothing whatsoever to do with helping Americans to find more affordable health-care coverage or bringing down the persistently escalating costs of health care in this country. Instead, they’d prefer to wind the clocks back, undermine and overturn last year’s history-making health-care reform legislation, and leave Americans again at the mercy of manipulative, avaricious health insurance suppliers. Although they won’t lift a finger to create new jobs for the unemployed, they’re happy to stage pointless, time-wasting efforts to repeal health-care reform and try to stall the scheduled enactment of publicly popular provisions within the Affordable Care Act--at least until the U.S. Supreme Court rules once and for all in favor of the health-care law’s constitutionality.

Today brought more signs of GOP irrationality on this matter:

Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell said Thursday he has asked his attorney general to advise him on whether implementing and enforcing the federal health care overhaul would put Parnell in violation of his oath of office.

A federal judge in Florida this week struck down the law as unconstitutional in a case joined by 26 states, including Alaska. A major point of contention is a provision requiring citizens to buy health insurance.

Parnell told reporters that he took an oath to support and defend the constitutions of the United States and Alaska. While the Republican governor concedes the issue is expected to be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, he said he has a duty to uphold the law and wants Attorney General John J. Burns to advise on what that duty is after the Florida ruling.

Sometimes I wonder at the intelligence of my fellow Americans.

READ MORE: “Can’t Repeal Health Care Reform? Try Burying It in Paperwork!” by Bradford Plumer (The New Republic).

Republicans Just Don’t Care to Help You

From The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein:

In a world where the two parties’ top priority on health care was providing answers for the uninsured and cost control, an argument over the best way to do health-care reform would be a very healthy thing. But that’s not what we’ve got. We’ve got the Democratic Party, whose top priority is to try and solve our health-care problems and who’ve shown their commitment to that by moving steadily rightward over the last century in a bid to pick up Republican support for some sort of solution, and the Republican Party, whose top priority is that we shouldn’t do whatever the Democrats are proposing and have proven their commitment to that by abandoning previously favored policy proposals as soon as the Democrats demonstrated any interest in adopting them.

And that’s the fundamental problem here: It’s easy to compromise when both sides are committed to solving a problem, because the appeal of solving the problem is enough to persuade both sides to make concessions. That’s why Democrats gave up on single payer, on an employer mandate, on a public option. But it’s impossible to compromise when one side is uninterested in solving the problem, as they lack the incentive to make any concessions. That’s where the Republicans are on this, and it’s why they’ve not been interested in joining onto a bill even when Bill Clinton moved to the right and adopted the core of Richard Nixon’s plan and Barack Obama moved even further to the right and adopted the core of Mitt Romney and Bob Dole’s plan.

There’s more from Klein here.

Bias Toward Anti-reform Rulings

If your perception is that the U.S. news media paid considerably more attention to yesterday’s baldly partisan and error-ridden ruling against the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act by a Republican-appointed Federal District Court Judge than they have in the past to similar rulings in favor of last year’s history-making health-care reform legislation ... well, you’re not alone.

And you’re not wrong.

The Washington Monthly’s Steve Benen went carefully back through the coverage by four prominent national press organizations to weigh how they have reported court rulings that bolstered the arguments of health-care reform proponents against how they reported on an equal number of federal rulings against it, and found that “the coverage discrepancy is overwhelming. ... In literally every instance, the Republican-friendly rulings generated more coverage, with better placement, and longer stories than the rulings preferred by Democrats.”

Benen’s findings are here.

READ MORE: “What Happens If Conservatives Succeed in Undermining the ACA?” by Ezra Klein (The Washington Post); “Why Judge Vinson’s Decision Matters,” by Kevin Drum (Mother Jones).

A Healthy Development

This is bad news for all of those Big Business-friendly Republican’ts who are hoping to torpedo the health-care advances made by Democrats this year, but it’s good for the rest of us:

Opposition to the landmark health care overhaul declined over the past month, to 35 percent from 41 percent, according to the latest results of a tracking poll, reported Thursday.

Fifty percent of the public held a favorable view of the law, up slightly from 48 percent a month ago, while 14 percent expressed no opinion about the measure, according to the poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

The approval level was the highest for the legislation since it was enacted in March, after a divisive year-long debate. In April, the poll found 46 percent in favor and 40 percent opposed.

The Washington Post’s full report on this survey is here.

A Study in Contrasts

You just knew this was going to happen, right? Some bright YouTube user has modified rapper Will.i.am’s pro-Barack Obama, “Yes, We Can” video from the 2008 U.S. presidential election to demonstrate the sharp contrast between Obama’s hopeful message for the country and the Republican’ts’ blanket negativity toward every change he and his fellow Democrats try to make.

The screaming little man who repeatedly interrupts Obama and his supporters in this version of the video is House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), shouting in anger, frustration, and cynicism on the House floor last Sunday as he tried desperately--but futily--to derail Obama’s health-care reform legislation.



(Hat tip to Salon editor Joan Walsh).

READ MORE: “An Attack on Inequality,” by Ezra Klein (The Washington Post); “A Muddled Repeal Message,” by Steve Benen (The Washington Monthly); “The Surging Popularity of Health-Care Reform,” by Michael J.W. Stickings (The Reaction); “Nasty Parties Don’t Win Elections,” by Anne Applebaum (Slate).

Making History!

And after last night’s hard-won victory for health-care reform in the U.S. House of Representatives, The New Republic is declaring that Barack Obama “has sealed his reputation as a president of great historical import.” The Washington Monthly’s Steven Benen has more to say here and here on Obama’s combativeness, while Salon applauds House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for her no less important “legislative savvy--mastery, really.”

At the same time, Republicans--who tried desperately over the last year to block any legislation that would rein in the power of insurance companies--are assessing the extent of their failure to participate in health-care restructuring. As former Bush speechwriter David Frum wrote yesterday, the success of landmark health-care reform is the “most crushing legislative defeat” for the right wing in half a century.

Click here to see how reform’s win is playing nationwide.

READ MORE: “The Party of Anger,” by Stephen Schlesinger (The Huffington Post); “Repealicans: The GOP’s Risky Plan to Run Against Health Care Reform,” by William Saletan (Slate); “Republicans Might Reform Health Reform, but They Won’t Repeal It,” by Ezra Klein (The Washington Post); “Frightening GOP Behavior,” by James Zogby (The Huffington Post).

The End of the Beginning?

This weekend is bringing something of a tumultuous climax to the debate over health-care reform in the United States. As a final vote nears this afternoon in the House of Representatives to reconcile budgeting matters in the bill (this is not a vote to pass health-care reform itself; that was already done successfully three months ago), there have been some loud and bigoted statements made by the Tea Party cultists--sometimes, but not always, denounced by Republican officials, who have been stirring up anger for the last year and still cannot divorce themselves from the hateful results.

Meanwhile, James Fallows of The Atlantic Monthly explains the momentous nature of President Barack Obama’s legislation, which his predecessors have been talking about passing for more than a century. It’s certainly not perfect; much still needs to be done to complete the task of protecting Americans’ health. But as Fallows tells National Public Radio’s Guy Raz, “this actually is quite a consequential matter if it does pass, mainly because it’s a bill that establishes that American citizens should have medical coverage just by virtue of being here, not by being old or being poor or being veterans or working for a big company.”

Listen to more of Fallows’ comments here.

READ MORE: “What We Learned,” by Tom Schaller (FiveThirtyEight); “Groundhog Day for GOP on Health Care Reform,” by Joan Walsh (Salon).

1994, the Coming Sequel?

Any Republican’ts who weren’t already popping champagne corks over former underwear model Scott Brown’s success at capturing the late Edward Kennedy’s U.S. Senate seat earlier this week now have more reasons to rejoice. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced this morning that Democrats in the lower chamber lack the votes necessary to pass the Senate’s compromise health-care reform legislation, quashing hopes--high only a month ago--that reforms sought for more than century in the United States might finally be adopted.

“I don’t see the votes for it at this time,” Pelosi told reporters. “The members have been very clear.”

Unbelievably, President Obama--who said only last summer that “he was willing to be a one-term president” if that’s what it takes to get health-care reform passed--essentially conceded the battle on Wednesday, saying, “Here’s one thing I know and I just want to make sure that this is off the table. The Senate certainly shouldn’t try to jam anything through until Scott Brown is seated. People in Massachusetts spoke. He’s got to be part of that process.”

Are you kidding, Mr. President? Were a Republican’t in this same position, having lost only one seat in the U.S. Senate, do you really think he would throw in the towel? Admittedly, the fight would probably not be over something as important as health-care overhaul legislation, but I’m confident that even a wrongheaded stumblebum like George W. Bush would not be so considerate of the opposition. There’s absolutely no reason for Democrats to lose their backbones, just because they’ve suddenly lost their 60th vote in the Senate. This should be motivation to step up the fight, not step away from it. The American people elected Obama and his fellow Democrats to Capitol Hill majorities last year, because they believed that Dems could deliver on their promise to enact essential health-care reforms. If the promise is abandoned, then the motivation for keeping Democratic control of Congress disappears with it.

Sure, Obama and the Dems in Congress promise to carry on the struggle. But who’s going to believe them, when they are so willing to snatch failure from the jaws of success?

Ted Kennedy must be spinning in his grave. The moral cause to which he devoted so much time and energy during his almost 50 years in the Senate--winning access to high-quality medical care for all Americans--is suddenly endangered by Democrats who are ready to succumb without taking the last vote they need to fulfill at least part of Kennedy’s dream. All House Democrats have to do is endorse the Senate’s health-care reform legislation, then make improvements through the subsequent budget-reconciliation process. The results would likely fall short of what many progressive members want, but there would at least be a platform to build upon in the future. (The importance of that cannot be discounted. Remember, Social Security and Medicare didn’t pass in the forms we know them today; they also had to be modified over time, just as health-care reform would need to be improved with the passage of years.) To walk away from this opportunity, just as there is victory over the horizon for health-care reform, would be political suicide.

If health-care reform is allowed to fail in this way, making Democrats and the president both look weak--victims of a tyrannical minority on Capitol Hill--voters can’t be expected to believe Dems when they say they’ll keep up the fight. Can you really see lawmakers returning to the subject of health-care reform immediately, when they are also expected to cure the nation’s persistent unemployment and reign in banking abuses?

Prominent Democratic pollster Celinda Lake said earlier today that “moving away from health care would be the worst decision. ‘We can’t talk about it for a year and deliver nothing, that would be a disaster. We should pass it and then we have to go sell it. We have to tell people what is in it.”

She’s absolutely right. Democrats on Capitol Hill as well as in the White House have to deliver on their promises, or their promises mean nothing. And even if they can’t ultimately deliver, for one reason or another, they must at least fight the good fight. They cannot roll over and play dead just because Republican’ts in Massachusetts were more energized to turn out and vote for one of their guys than Bay State Democrats were motivated to endorse Brown’s opponent, state Attorney General Martha Coakley.

Presidential advisor David Axelrod had it right when he said, after the Massachusetts election: “[W]e should finish health care because the caricature of that bill is there and everyone who voted for it will have to live with that. The way to deal with that is to pass the bill and let people see ... the value of it.”

Ezra Klein says it still better in The Washington Post: “Letting this process die is, of course, the worst of all worlds. Democrats have 59 votes in the Senate and almost 260 votes in the House. They brought their [health-care reform] bill to the one-yard line before Scott Brown forced a fumble. Proving yourself unable to govern in that scenario is proving yourself unable to govern. Moreover, it would be staggeringly cruel to the people that this bill is meant to help, and who need this bill’s help. Covering 30 million and protecting countless millions more is not just a talking point. It’s the reason for this whole enterprise. To abandon those people because Brown won in Massachusetts is simply indecent, and would prove the Democratic Party worse than ineffective. It would prove the party unconcerned.”

No wonder Republican’ts are talking again about being able to recapture control of Congress in 2010. If Democrats give up on health-care reform now, they run the decided risk of delivering to the GOP the same sort of successes this November that they enjoyed in 1994. And Obama loses the faith of so many people who backed him in the presidential election of 2008.

The time has come for the Democratic majority in the U.S. House of Representatives to put aside its egos and petty policy differences, and for the president to step up and prove himself capable of taking this fight to the finish line. They all have a larger goal: to deliver on health-care reform now, while they have it within their reach. That’s essential to keeping faith with the American public, retaining anywhere near their lawmaking majority come the midterm elections, and stopping Obama’s remark about being a one-term chief executive from coming true.

READ MORE: “There’s No Such Thing as ‘Health Care Lite,’” by Timothy Noah (Slate); “In Obama’s First Year, Successes Outweigh Missteps,” by Fred Hiatt (The Washington Post).

Pass Health Care Reform NOW!

Washington Monthly’s Steve Benen has an excellent post up today, pointing out how essential it is for Democrats in Congress to pass health-care reform legislation immediately, even if it means that House Dems must accept the Senate’s weaker compromise bill and then make improvements through the upcoming budget reconciliation process. Writes Benen:

Congressional Democrats have already voted for the controversial health care reform bill. Do they seriously believe the electorate will be impressed if they spend a year doing the hard work of tackling this seemingly-impossible challenge, pass the landmark legislation, and then let it die? They think that’s the smart political move that increases their chance of winning re-election?

Failure begets failure. Choosing to walk away would be electoral suicide--the attacks from the right will only be more intense for Dems who voted for reform before deciding to throw in the towel.

The reform initiative has obviously suffered in the face of an intense misinformation campaign. But Dems stand a far better chance of persevering if they at least take their case to the public, and explain the strengths of the proposal. There is literally no upside to the majority party asking voters for support after failing to do what they said they would do. Democrats were elected to finally pass health care reform; there will be no reward for turning success into a fiasco.

As Paul Begala said last night, “If it’s the end of health care, it’s the end of the Democratic majority.” Josh Marshall added, “The Dems have no choice but to finish
the job. No choice.”

The whole piece can be found here.

I wholeheartedly agree with Benen’s point. After a century of trying to pass health-care reform legislation, Democrats in Congress are on the brink of success. This is a historic moment. Now is not the time to slam on the breaks and try to negotiate with Republican’ts, who are determined to destroy President Obama and his fellow Dems, and regain the power they had under George W. Bush to ignore the health care needs of Americans and further bankrupt the federal government they so despise. They’ve already proved this year that they have no interest in compromising--even if it means people go without steady employment and affordable health-care coverage.

The message of yesterday’s election in Massachusetts was not that Democrats have gone too far, and that they need to be more conservative in their governance; it’s that they’ve accomplished too little during the last year. Democratic voters are disappointed by the lack of change. They are looking for more bold action, not impossible compromises that leave them out in the cold--again.

Were Republican’ts in the position Democrats face now, they’d be barreling ahead with their plans, not second-guessing themselves. Obama and Democrats in Congress must move forward, not retreat, for retreat at this point can bring nothing but worse results in this year’s midterm elections.

READ MORE: “Learning the Wrong Lessons from Massachusetts,” by Joan Walsh (Salon); “Lieberman, Self-Serving Hypocrite Extraordinaire, Backs Away from Health Care Reform,” by Michael J.W. Stickings (The Reaction); “Sometimes, a Bunny Is Just a Bunny,” by Ezra Klein (The Washington Post).

Good News for a Change

Democrats secured the 60 votes they needed in the U.S. Senate to prevent intransigent Republican’ts from killing President Obama’s effort to reform the American health care system--a deficit-reducing public service that’s been sought by presidents for the last century. There are still many significant hurdles ahead: reconciling the differences between plans put forward by the Senate and the House; overcoming myriad lies promulgated by the GOP to unnecessarily stall or kill health-care reform and thereby protect the minority party’s Big Money backers; and preventing arguments over abortion coverage or public-option insurance plans from sinking the whole effort. Furthermore, no matter what reforms pass, they will likely have to be improved on in years to come, just as Social Security was modified by subsequent amendments. But at least allowing legislation to reform the broken, expensive U.S. health-care system to move forward in Congress is a vital first step.

READ MORE: “Quote of the Day: Why Is It So Difficult for Democrats to Start Health Care Debate?” by Joe Gandleman (The Moderate Voice); “Threading a Very Small Needle” and “Refreshing Lieberman’s Memory,” by Steve Benen (The Washington Monthly); “Thrust and Parry on the Senate Floor,” by David M. Herszenhorn (The New York Times); “The Nativism Tax: What It Will Cost You to Deny Illegal Immigrants Health Care Insurance,” by Timothy Noah (Slate).

Morons with Microphones

Republican’ts appear willing to tell any lies necessary to keep their insurance company contributors happy and prevent President Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats from reforming America’s broken and costly health-care system. The latest incident of deception came yesterday on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, where Congressman John Shadegg (R-Arizona) let forth with this ridiculous tirade about how health-care reform is going to turn the United States into the Soviet Union:

You know, it occurs to me, and I’ll go through these other scandals very quickly, but what we’re really getting here is we’re not just getting single-payer care. We’re getting full-on Russian gulag, Soviet-style gulag health care ... It appeared in last Friday’s Wall Street Journal. You can Google it. You can pick up the phone and call Kim Strassel. You can ask her about Soviet-style gulag health care in America, where powerful politicians protect their constituents.

It’s hard to believe that people actually voted this yahoo into office. And anyone gullible enough now to swallow his line of B.S. must only be watching FOX “News.”

READ MORE: “Shadegg’s ‘Soviet-Style’ Stupidity,” by Steve Benen (The Washington Monthly).

“I Will Not Accept the Status Quo as a Solution”

After weeks of hatemongering and misinformation spread by right-wingers in and out of Congress, President Barack Obama got a chance earlier this evening to explain the details of his thinking of health-care reform to the American public via a televised address. I like something Steven Benen of The Washington Monthly wrote in his column: “I feared, going into tonight, that the president might be more cautious and understated in his pitch. He wasn't. Obama went big, sold the plan, and actually explained how this would work. It was as strong as I've seen him on health care--which means he came through with the right speech at the right time (Biggest Speech of His Career, Part VII).”

Obama did a good job of identifying Republican’ts as the principal roadblocks to honest reform of the nation’s ailing and economy-busting health-care system. Except when the president advocated “medical malpractice reform,” members of the GOP pretty much sat on their hands, looking grumpy, unable to advocate a health-care reform plan of their own--because the “Party of No” has no alternative to present. Oh, but let’s not forget that stupid outburst by Representative Joe Wilson (R-South Carolina), who shouted “You lie!” at the president when Obama assured viewers that reform won’t insure illegal immigrants. (It won’t, in fact.) Wilson later issued an apology, but it was too late. As Salon’s Mike Madden noted, “The outburst could only have helped convey the impression Obama was aiming for in his speech: that he was the reasonable one, working hard to find a solution to a problem that has bedeviled America for decades, and his opponents were simply not interested in joining the cause.”

In short, Obama restored the initiative to health-care reform tonight. And not a moment too soon.

UPDATE: It seems that Congressman Wilson wasn’t the only Republican’t behaving badly on Wednesday night. The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank has a piece up recounting numerous examples of petulance on the right side of the aisle:

But while the majority of both parties’ lawmakers behaved as adults, the insolence by House Republicans stole the show. There was derisive laughter on that side of the chamber when Obama noted that “there remain some significant details to be ironed out.” They applauded as he spoke of “all the misinformation that’s been spread over the past few months.” They laughed again when he said that “many Americans have grown nervous about reform.”

When Obama addressed the charge that he plans “panels of bureaucrats with the power to kill off senior citizens,” someone on the GOP side shouted out “shame!” The president went on: “Such a charge would be laughable if it weren’t so cynical.” “Read the bill!” someone shouted back. Obama mentioned those who accuse him of a government takeover of health care. “It’s true,” someone shouted back.

Alex Koppleman of Salon spells out once more the cost Republican’ts--especially Congressman Wilson--just paid for such childish behavior in the House chamber:

All of this is a gift to the White House. All of it will serve to reinforce the impression, which reform supporters have been working hard to create and spread, that Republicans have gone around the bend, that they’re more interested in attacking Obama than in reaching across the aisle to work on reform. And it makes Obama look calm, bipartisan and presidential.

There’s some damage to Wilson himself, too. As of this post, his Democratic opponent for 2010, Rob Miller, had raised about $50,000 since the speech.

It serves him right.

READ MORE: “Obama Delivers” and “Liking What They Saw,” by Steve Benen (The Washington Monthly); “Aim of Obama Speech: Reigniting a Presidency,” by Adam Nagourney (The New York Times); “Olbermann Offers ‘Special Comment’ on Joe Wilson: ‘You’ve Embarrassed the Nation’” (The Huffington Post).

“The People to Whom You Are Listening with Half an Ear Are Telling You Half the Truth”

MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann used his “special commentary” segment last night to slam quitter ex-governor Sarah Palin of Alaska over her fact-free assertion that President Obama’s health-care reform legislation will create “death panels” of bureaucrats to judge whether sick senior citizens are of sufficient value to society to be given life-sustaining medical care. “There is no ‘death panel,’” he stated. “There is no judgment based on societal productivity. There is no worthiness test. But there is downright evil, and Ms. Palin, you just served its cause.” Olbermann did still more to sink Palin’s rising star, calling her “a clear and present danger to the safety and security of this nation.”

I’m not sure I would go that far. But Palin has certainly proved herself to be a fool, and willing to fool all Americans all the time, if that’s what it takes for her to stay in the political limelight. The Associated Press has already issued a “fact-check” story pointing out the inaccuracies of statements made by Palin and others regarding the health-care overhaul. “Nothing in the legislation would carry out such a bleak vision [of death panels],” the AP explains. “The provision that has caused the uproar would instead authorize Medicare to pay doctors for counseling patients about end-of-life care, if the patient wishes.” That story addresses this matter further as part of its Q&A section:

Q: Does the health care legislation bill promote “mercy killing,” or euthanasia?

A: No.

Q: Then what’s all the fuss about?

A: A provision in the House bill written by Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., would allow Medicare to pay doctors for voluntary counseling sessions that address end-of-life issues. The conversations between doctor and patient would include living wills, making a close relative or a trusted friend your health care proxy, learning about hospice as an option for the terminally ill, and information about pain medications for people suffering chronic discomfort.

The sessions would be covered every five years, more frequently if someone is gravely ill.

Given the AP’s recent history of fawning over Obama’s GOP rival, if it too is willing to denounce Republican’t talking points, then the limits of truth-telling must really be tested on this matter.

Facing South, the online magazine for the Institute for Southern Studies, notes that Blumenauer isn’t the only Capitol Hill habitué pushing for advance care planning. “[A]s it turns out,” the magazine writes, “the cause of advance planning has been championed especially strongly by a pro-life Republican--U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia.” Isakson has already come out in The Washington Post to refute Palin’s “death panel” comments.

Meanwhile, both Slate and Salon point out that private insurance companies already withhold treatment based on a person’s age or state of health. Is Palin going to call out Blue Cross or any other giant, wealthy U.S. insurance company for the very abuses she insists--erroneously--that Obama and his fellow Democrats are building into their health-care reform programs? Of course not. That might hurt her future campaign fund-raising prospects.

And it seems that Thomas F. Schaller, an associate professor of political science at the University of Maryland, and a contributor to Salon’s informative War Room column, has kicked up a brouhaha with his column in today’s Baltimore Sun, where he charges that the level of political discourse surrounding America’s present health-care reform “debate” has sunk to kookiness among right-wingers. He writes, in part:

Their [birther] dreams of deporting Mr. Obama dashed, kooky conservatives have turned to Plan B: Shouting that the president’s health care proposal amounts to socialism. No, wait, make that fascism: At health care town halls and other public events, we’ve seen posters of Mr. Obama with a Hitler mustache and of a child in a stroller holding a sign warning of impending fascism.

Socialism, fascism--whatever, same diff. It speaks to the incoherence of these protesters that they can’t distinguish the two. Yet, so long as the comparison makes the president sound evil, dastardly and un-American, such complications hardly seem to trouble them.

Following up in Salon this morning, Schaller says, “OK, there’s nothing wrong with voicing opposition. This is America. I have no objections to protests, even loud protests. People should attend town halls and public forums and other debates. They should let their members of Congress and the President know what they think. But what’s annoying--and I won’t bore you with some of the e-mails I’m getting--is the disconnect between this sudden surge in First Amendment expression when, just a few years ago, many of these same folks were deafeningly silent.” He continues:

Where were these same people in the run-up to the Iraq war? Did they call for more concrete evidence, further study? Where were their voiced worries about government overreach or thwarting public will? Remember, a majority did not want to go to war, so why weren’t they raising noisy concerns about an elitist government that was ignoring the will of the people and imposing its own will on them instead?

And how about the coverage of the war debate back in 2002 and 2003? Did these same folks who say the liberal media fix is in for health care question the planting of stories in major papers, sourced from shady characters like Ahmed Chalabi, by the vice president and his cohorts? Did they challenge as bogus the later citation of these planted stories as proof that the case for weapons of mass destruction? Why weren’t they protesting outside the supposedly liberal, dastardly Washington Post’s editorial offices as that paper issued editorial after editorial calling for war? Shouldn’t the Post’s and the New York Times’ pro-war reporting--both papers later had to conduct internal investigations of their journalistic failings--have been warning signal enough to these same liberal-media-conspiracy-believers that something was rotten in the White House? ...

We hear about the fear of government bureaucrats who are out of touch and can’t be relied upon to make good health care decisions for the public. Fine, but where was this argument as we watched Anderson Cooper reporting live from New Orleans before the federal government managed to arrive post-Katrina? Why is there never any anti-bureaucrat fervor directed at defense department acquisition and deployment personnel, given that our troops were sometimes bathing in unsafe water and couldn't get sufficient armor for their vehicles in Iraq? (Oh, right, it was just a matter of “physics” back then, according to our glorious Secretary of Defense.)

I could go on, but you get the point. What amounted to heresy, even treason, a few short years ago in our public discourse has now morphed into patriotic, true-blue American First Amendment expression.

Hypocrisy reigns supreme among America’s right-wing extremists. Which goes back to a point that’s been made by Schaller and some of our more thoughtful TV and newspaper commentators: that opposition to the present health-care reform plans has only tangentially to do with the legislation making its way through Congress; it’s really fueled by lingering opposition to Barack Obama’s election as president last year. Some of it is just conservative discomfort with the U.S. government having fallen into the hands of a smart Democrat, someone who opposed much of what George W. Bush stood for during the last eight disastrous years. Some of this fervor is likely fueled, too, by racism, which remains a pernicious force in the South, the only place in the nation where the Republican’t Party is still strong. Obama is America’s first black president, which makes racists more than a bit uncomfortable. Conservative activists are exploiting the bigotry still infecting this land to drum up opposition to Obama’s agenda. It’s an ugly, hateful tactic, and one that could have the result of turning what Palin called “the America I know and love” back into a place divided not just by political disagreements, but by racial animosities and consequent violence.

Aren’t Americans a better people than all of this suggests?

FOLLOW-UP I: The Washington Monthly’s Steve Benen notes today: “It appears that conservative organizers and Tea Party activists aren’t really interested in some kind of bipartisan reform of the health care system, or watered down Democratic proposals. Their goal is to protect the status quo at all costs.”

FOLLOW-UP II: President Obama’s New Hampshire town-hall meeting earlier today on the subject of health-care was particularly powerful. Watch here.

FOLLOW-UP III: Sometimes I think I must live in quite a different world from the minority of Obama-haters out there. Steve Benen lists some of the wacky statements made during a health-care reform town-hall meeting Senator Arlen Specter held today in Lebanon, Pennsylvania:

Specter’s largely right-wing crowd insisted President Obama isn’t an American. One nutty man said to applause, “One day, God is going to stand before you and he’s going to judge you!” Another yelled, “This is the Soviet Union, this is Maoist China.”

One attendee drew a standing ovation when she said health care reform is about “dismantling” the United States and “turning” the country “into Russia.” She later added that she feared toilet paper rationing.

Someone in the audience wanted to explain that the Qu’ran says that “all unbelievers will be executed.” The same person added that if we close Gitmo, “criminals” will “escape” and we'll find “a bunch of innocent people are murdered. And that’s what’s gonna happen.”

What sort of hallucinogens are these folks taking?

READ MORE: “Exposing the Euthanasia Scare,” by Harold Pollack (The New Republic); “Making the Same Mistake Twice,” by John Dickerson (Slate); “It Is Democracy, Not Health-Care Reform, That Is Sick,” by Ezra Klein (The Washington Post); “Health Care Protestors Largely from Out of District, Sign-in Sheets Show,” by Ryan Grim (The Huffington Post); “Over the Top and Beneath Contempt,” by Roger Simon (Politico).

The Crazies Can Only Lose by Winning

Conservatives and Republican’ts have truly gone off the psychological deep end when it comes to fighting the health-care proposals currently being worked out by President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority in Congress. Desperate to regain power and to prevent their adversaries from making significant changes in the meantime, these people are spreading some incredible falsehoods, hoping that at least a vocal minority of Americans will be stupid enough to swallow their lies and assist them in creating an anti-reform backlash.

Charges that, under the Democrats’ plans, Americans will face health-care rationing? That Obama wants to mandate sex changes, fund more abortions, and subject the elderly to euthanasia? That illegal immigrants will be given free medical care under the new plans, and that private insurance coverage will be eliminated? Anyone who has studied the Democratic proposals knows that these are all lies. There’s not a bit of truth about them. Most outlandish of all, though, is the charge, leveled last week by Sarah Palin, the quitter of a former Alaska governor, that Obama intends to create “death panels” to ration health care coverage to children, based on their potential “level of productivity in society.” Even the barely surviving sane element of the GOP, represented by New York Times columnist David Brooks, was repulsed by that deplorable bit of insanity. Brooks called Palin’s attack “crazy,” and he remarked that “the crazies are attacking the plan because it will cut off granny. That’s simply not true. That simply is not going to happen.”

Brooks isn’t alone in his concern that Republican’ts are endangering their own credibility, if not their party’s future, by making such outlandish charges and convincing gullible right-wing voters to echo them, angrily, during town hall meetings. As reported in The Huffington Post, one of George W. Bush’s former strategists, Matthew Dowd, appeared this morning on This Week with George Stephanopoulos and “cautioned conservatives to not go too far in pushing back against Obama’s agenda, lest they be blamed for actually preventing people from getting better health care coverage. ‘I think the Republicans soon have to be careful of something,’ Dowd said. ‘I know Republicans are all patting themselves on the back and saying, “We’ve got the Democrats on the run, Obama on the run.” I don’t think it’s necessarily a good political place to be in by November if you’ve defeated any health care reform.’”

Meanwhile, former Bush economic speechwriter David Frum ponders the consequences of the GOP actually being able to defeat Obama’s health-care reform plans this year. At the conservative Web site New Majority, Frum writes:

What would it mean to “win” the healthcare fight?

For some, the answer is obvious: beat back the president’s proposals, defeat the House bill, stand back and wait for 1994 to repeat itself.

The problem is that if we do that ... we’ll still have the present healthcare system. Meaning that we’ll have (1) flat-lining wages, (2) exploding Medicaid and Medicare costs and thus immense pressure for future tax increases, (3) small businesses and self-employed individuals priced out of the insurance market, and (4) a lot of uninsured or underinsured people imposing costs on hospitals and local governments.

We’ll have entrenched and perpetuated some of the most irrational features of a hugely costly and under-performing system, at the expense of entrepreneurs and risk-takers, exactly the people the Republican party exists to champion. ...

Even worse will be the way this fight is won: basically by convincing older Americans already covered by a government health program, Medicare, that Obama’s reform plans will reduce their coverage. In other words, we’ll have sent a powerful message to the entire political system to avoid at all hazards any tinkering with Medicare except to make it more generous for the already covered.

If we win, we’ll trumpet the success as a great triumph for liberty and individualism. Really, though, it will be a triumph for inertia. To the extent that anybody in the conservative world still aspires to any kind of future reform and improvement of America’s ossified government, that should be a very ashy victory indeed.

Unfortunately, I think too few conservatives are thinking as clearly or as far ahead on this subject as Frum. Radio comic Rush Limburger, disgraced former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and their fellows are only hoping to weaken Obama in the short term. They can’t see that in the course of killing health-care reform, they might well be limiting their own chances of fixing the broken and insufficient U.S. health-care system somewhere down the road.

READ MORE: “White House, Dems Organize Reform Pushback,” by Steve Benen (The Washington Monthly); “‘Death Panels’ for Dummies,” by Shannyn Moore (The Huffington Post); “Sweet Surrender,” by Steve Benen (The Washington Monthly).