March 27, 2012

Will the rest of the law fall if the mandate is ruled unconstitutional?

If the whole law falls, that would be a pretty big body-blow to President Obama but then I imagine a lot of people are going to be asking, "what' now?" Once parents realize that their 18-26 year old son or daughter is dropped off of their insurance again, they (and their young adult children) probably won't be happy about that. When people realize that their preventative care and/or birth control is not going to be covered, they're not going to happy about that. This could end up being a bigger headache for Republicans then they might like to think IMHO. They won't have "Obamacare" to kick around anymore, so they'll lose one of their more potent issues against Democrats and President Obama and have no good ideas on how to make health care affordable, all the more ironic since "Obamacare" originally started out as "Republicancare".
if OTOH the mandate is invalidated but the rest of the law stands, then it shouldn't be too bad, particularly since it is the most despised part of the law. All of the other components of ACA will be fine. Fixing ACA will just be a matter of finding a legislative remedy for it, which shouldn't be rocket science. The big hurdle will be getting something through Congress by 2014, which will, of course, depend entirely on the makeup in Congress after this upcoming election.

March 27, 2012

It would be a blow to be sure

but then, once people realize what new stuff they have that is suddenly taken away from them, it may create some unpleasant headaches for the Republicans in the near short long-term. They should be careful what they wish for- like an actual official end to Roe V. Wade. Yeah, the anti-choice movement will rejoice for a few days until Planned Parenthood and its allies start taking it to the streets and state legislatures and the ballot boxes in the next election. Likewise, drop-kicking PPACA will warm the hearts of the Republican Tea Party but there are still lots of people whom want to see health care reform and won't be content to just go back to the way things were on 03/22/10.

March 27, 2012

Why hasn't Romneycare been challenged yet?

Where are the "freedom fighters" filing lawsuits against that law? I might have missed it but I have not heard ANYBODY from Massachusetts on the right complain about having to buy health insurance there. They might say that it shouldn't matter b/c it is a state law not a federal law but what is the real difference when it comes to the mandate?

March 27, 2012

In a perfect world

if "Obamacare" gets struck down, a bipartisan group of legislators would get together and come up with a better plan to replace it. As should be painfully obvious by now, we don't live in that particular world with the Republican Tea Party running amok. The fact that we BARELY got what we got should remove any doubts as to whether we could have gotten something better or even single payer. We should IMHO consolidate our gains under the new law, make sure the key benefits get implemented, then work like hell to get a progressive majority elected to Congress to help tweak the law and fix some of its flaws and perhaps make it into the single-payer system that we want. The Republicans want to destroy it completely and take us back to health care system as it existed on 03/22/10 and before and will not fix a g-d single thing! We need to mend the law NOT end it IMHO but the only way that will happen is if we get a progressive majority elected to Congress and/or state legislatures willing to do it. Let's stop sitting around talking about what we didn't get. Let's figure out what we want and elect people whom promise to deliver it!

March 26, 2012

Random Questions about the Republican Assault on PPACA:

1. Would Conservatives be up in arms if PPACA (in more or less its present form) had been signed into law by George W. Bush?
2. PPACA was originally introduced as a "conservative" alternative to President Clinton's health care proposal. Why was there never any action taken on it? Did they really support or was it just a gimmick to them? Where was all the teeth-gnashing about the individual mandate then?
3. How do they support Mitt Romney's PPACA "blueprint" in Massachusetts? Why is mandating that people of a state to purchase health insurance o.k. but requiring everybody in every state to do the same? Have any "freedom fighters" in Massachusetts challenged THAT mandate yet and if not, why?

To me, the Republican Tea Party opposition to PPACA is borne not of sincere and genuine concern about its constitutionality and/or concerns about "freedom" but is more opportunistic Obama-bashing mostly (if not entirely) because he was the one who signed it into law and they fear that it might be successful and lead to more reforms. Of course, they don't have any answers for the American public about what they'd do differently and they certainly don't have anything substantive to replace it with but, of course, that won't stop them from trying to tear PPACA down so that we can go back to what we had before, which, honestly, I don't believe most people want but as long as people don't fully understand what's in the law and how it is helping them right now and how it will help them more in the future, the Republicans are going to continue to ride the wave of misguided/misdirected anger all the way to the ballot box.

March 26, 2012

Obama's first term has played out much like Clinton's first term

albeit without the personal baggage and not losing the Senate to the Republicans in the midterms. Oh, yes, and finally passing health care reform as well.

I just hope that Obama's second term plays out better than Clinton's did, though the Republicans are all empty in terms of finding anything impeachable on President Obama. I just hope we're not stuck with a partial (or fully) Republican Congress so that some more important stuff can actually get done and that people are sick and tired of their obstructionism and overreach.

After 12 whole years of running Congress into the ground and 8 driving the nation into a ditch, it still amazes me that people (those whom voted anyway) were willing to put them back in charge of at least one House of Congress so readily.



Having the Democrats running everything in Washington is nice but never seems to last long enough to try to really fix much and the Republicans (and their "base&quot seem to have an uncanny ability to keep that from happening very often in the first place.

March 26, 2012

Romney Chalks Up Detail-Free Policies To Political Considerations (TPM)

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/03/romney-i-wont-say-what-programs-ill-cut-because-its-bad-politics.php?ref=fpnewsfeed

If Republicans actually had to run on what they do when they take office, there would be virtually no way that- outside of the deep south-they would be able to win a majority. Almost their entire political strategy seems to consist of either camouflaging their real agenda until they get elected or performing a massive "bait-and-switch" once they get elected yet a lot of people continue to fall for it and/or simply refuse to get out and vote against them out of a misguided IMHO belief that both parties are essentially the same- despite the massive amount of evidence to the contrary. I believe that every Democratic candidate running for office needs to remind people over and over again what to expect if they decide to vote Republican because it will almost always be the truth. Finding a few principled (i.e. "moderate&quot Republicans worth voting for (or able to tolerate) is pretty much like finding a needle in a haystack, which is to say nearly impossible to find, so Democrats should start people out PRIOR TO THE ELECTION with the assumption that 99% of the public is bound to get the shaft if/when they elect Republicans and that they (Republican candidates) should have to prove otherwise IMHO.

March 24, 2012

Why does Newt feel like it matters

There is NO religious test for office. The founders were very clear about THAT. So, whether he's a Christian, Jew, secret Muslim, atheist.......it's not supposed to matter.

March 23, 2012

Looks like Romney is a "job creator" after all

March 22, 2012

So what is Romney's PLAN for America if elected POTUS?

I realize that this may seem like a trick question but after thinking about it but does anybody really know what he is proposing to do if elected POTUS- I mean other than more or less going right back to the usual Republican bromides of tax cuts for the wealthy, less regulation and oversight, pretty much repealing everything President Obama and the Democrats achieved from 2009-2011?

I have yet to hear any "bold" and/or "new" vision of what a Romney Presidency would look like from him and what he might offer the country (though maybe that is the whole point). The only thing that I've been able to figure out is that he thinks that Obama has done everything wrong and nothing right (like every single right-winger out there) and if elected would pretty much just do the complete opposite of whatever President Obama has done/is doing.

He's taken a lot of positions on a lot of things but nobody can know for sure whether or not he would actually enact what he *says* he supports but, frankly, it doesn't matter because he's going to have start running for re-election from day one and if he has a Republican Congress to work with, he will be under immense pressure to sign anything they send him. In that respect, he should be Grover Norquist's ideal candidate as he is such a "Tabula Rasa" that the Republican Congress should simply be able to hand him all of their "wildest dreams" legislation to be signed with no questions asked.

Have I missed something (re: Romney)?