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Obamacare

Countering misinformation about the ACA

by Dan Burns on February 25, 2013

Media mouthpieces, conservative politicians, and online trolls (paid and otherwise) continue to spread a great deal of misinformation about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Of course, the ACA is really only a stopgap, and continued progress needs to be made toward universal single-payer – that is, among other things, the removal of corporate profiteering as the #1 priority of health care spending. Anyway, here are a couple of items of reality:

 

- On proposed rate increases.

 

 

- “Small Businesses Applaud ACA Advances.”

 

Being able to offer healthcare benefits can make the difference between keeping a small business open or closing its doors.

 

It’s time to level the playing field. Lower priced, better quality health plans are commonplace in large businesses and among public employees. Small businesses need the same access to lower priced, better quality benefits in order to thrive.

 

The Minnesota Healthcare Exchange bill is part of the solution, (SF1 Lourey and HF 5 Atkins).

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The epitome of Bachmann leadership: cannot get any co-sponsors for repeal Obamacare bill

by The Big E on January 17, 2013

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) was proud to introduce the very first bill in this latest session. She was so proud that she tweeted her glee. Of course, her bill was to repeal Obamacare. This was the 34th time House Republicans have introduced a repeal Obamacare bill.

As always with Bachmann the only end game, the only intention of her efforts is for self-promotion.

She has never been interested in representing her district or of accomplishing anything. Except to score political points.

But this time not even her usual co-conspirators are not interested in her games:

In a sign that the GOP’s anti-Obamacare fervor may finally be giving way to political reality, Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-MN) latest Obamacare repeal bill doesn’t have a single co-sponsor in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. Bachmann made introducing the repeal bill her first order of business for the 113th Congress, even as millions of Americans waited for House Republicans to act on a disaster relief package in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.

And two other anti-Obamacare bills – one to repeal the law’s individual insurance mandate and another introduced by Rep. Steve King (R-IA) to repeal the whole law – also do not have any co-sponsors. By contrast, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s (R-VA) so-called “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act” had a total of 182 cosponsors by the fourth day of the 112th Congress, and House Republicans successfully voted to repeal Obamacare a staggering 33 times during the last session – costing taxpayers an approximate $50 million. Public support for repealing the reform law has plunged to an all-time low as Americans begin experiencing its positive effects.
(Think Progress)


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Unpopular Bachmann introduces 34th attempt to repeal Obamacare

by The Big E on January 9, 2013

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) represents an R+10 district. Minnesota’s Sixth Congressional District is MN’s most conservative. Yet, she barely squeaked out a victory.

How is that possible?

MN-06 voters finally got a decent look at Bachmann in all her glory. MN media has failed to cover her so the national spotlight of the Presidential race was Minnesota’s first good look at her. Her approval rating in her district is poor and her disapproval is high. During her 2012 reelection campaign her approval/disapproval plummeted to 29% favorable, 59% unfavorable.

Furthermore, the Tea Party is really unpopular.

Views of the Tea Party movement are at their lowest point ever, with voters for the first time evenly divided when asked to match the views of the average Tea Party member against those of the average member of Congress.  Only eight percent (8%) now say they are members of the Tea Party, down from a high of 24% in April 2010 just after passage of the national health care law.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that only 30% of Likely U.S. Voters now have a favorable opinion of the Tea Party. Half (49%) of voters have an unfavorable view of the movement.

So how is Bachmann celebrating her mandate?


Yes, that’s right. Bachmann introduced a repeal Obamacare bill. It’s the 34th time the House has wasted their time on this.

House Republicans have voted on zero actual job creation bills (disguising a tax cut as job creation doesn’t count), but they have voted on repealing Obamacare 33 times in the past two years. It is a certainty that Bachmann’s bill will come to the House floor, and the House will vote to repeal Obamacare for the 34th meaningless time.

It would be easy to pick on Bachmann’s priorities, but she is just a symptom of the larger disease. House Republicans don’t care about the victims of Hurricane Sandy. Gov. Chris Christie specifically blamed John Boehner for the bill not being brought to the floor, when the person he really should have blamed was Majority Leader Eric Cantor.

Cantor is the loudest and the most powerful GOP voice in the House behind the idea that disaster relief should be offset by spending cuts. In September 2011, Cantor wanted a 40% cut in funding for first responders in exchange for disaster relief. Cantor has a long history of disaster relief hypocrisy. The fact that he chose to call out Boehner instead of the right wing billionaires’ best boy reveals a lot about both Chris Christie and who really controls the Republican Party.
(Politics USA)

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Michele Bachmann: her solution to Medicare costs–cure all those damn diseases!

by Bill Prendergast on November 3, 2012

This Bachmann proposal for health care reform will kill you.

During the debate yesterday MPR moderator Kerri Miller asked Bachmann and opponent Jim Graves for their specific proposals for stabilizing Medicare and containing health care costs borne by the taxpayers.

Bachmann gave a specific proposal: why don’t we cure the diseases? (No s**t, that’s what she suggested.)

Why hasn’t anybody else in the national health care debate proposed that as a cost-saving solution before?

Bachmann said great strides were being made in research and possible cures for Alzheimer’s (which is true, that’s in the headlines.) But I was amazed by the originality of her thinking. I wondered why she hadn’t proposed “curing all the diseases” as a practical solution to rising health care costs during her presidential bid. It might have made the difference.

Moderator Kerri Miller was not happy with Bachmann’s answer. She said that the things Bachmann was now talking about were not specific solutions to funding Medicare.

Bachmann began to talk about free markets, and she said that she disagreed with Miller that cures are not an answer.

Miller pointed out that no one disputes that cures are an answer to disease, but–

Bachmann said she had an example. Back in the day a lot of money was budgeted for treatment of polio, but Jonas Salk cured it, and the costs designated for treating polio were cut.

See how Bachmann’s plan on Medicare and Obamcare  would work? Simply cure these g***amn diseases–then we don’t have to worry about rising health care costs next year.

Sometimes I think Lewis Carroll is writing her brain. I think her proposal is newsworthy. But in all the pro media accounts I’ve read reporting on this debate so far: no mention of Bachmann’s proposal that the problem of Medicare funding and rising medical costs could be addressed by “curing the diseases.” Her proposal deserves wider attention. The medical community should be alerted and put to work on this, right away.
(CONTINUED)
Graves, on the other hand proposed a practical cost-cutting measure: let’s open up the bidding procedure for pharmaceuticals purchased via Medicare Part D.

Bachmann objected, (ironically) claiming to backing free market principles. Moderator Miller pointed out that Congress has voted not to allow bidding for prescription drugs.

Graves asked Bachmann for a straight yes or no on the idea. Bachmann said that bidding represented price fixing.

Someone asked Bachmann: “Doesn’t it benefit big pharm to have no bidding?”

Michele didn’t want to “go there,” either. She believes: health care cost are the problem–”cures” are the cure.

LINK: You’ll find Bachmann proposing this remarkable solution to the health care problem at about 39:28 in the time code at the audio recording below. She starts out talking about how the government can address the problem cheaply by discouraging obesity and smoking, and then goes into the “I think we should look at cures” thing.

MPR audio recording of the debate:
http://minnesota.publicradio.o…  

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The ACA will reduce abortions

by Dan Burns on October 26, 2012

This highlights a potential benefit of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, that I haven’t seen widely reported.

Specifically, women in the United States use long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) at a far lower rate than the rest of the developed world – less than 10% of American women choose these forms of contraception. Forms of LARC include intrauterine devices, such as Mirena or ParaGard and subdermal implants like Nexplanon. These forms of LARC are up to 20 times more effective than the birth control pill, but their cost often makes it impossible for many women to afford.

Researchers were surprised to find, though, that when these options were made available for free that their utilization increased dramatically. In fact, fully 75% of the women in the study selected a form of LARC (the researchers anticipated a doubling of utilization into the low-teens). And, as you would expect based on those numbers, unplanned pregnancies and abortions sharply declined…

Expand those numbers nationally, and there will literally be hundreds of thousands fewer abortions per year even if the rates don’t decline as much as they did in the St. Louis area. Enabling access to all forms of contraception empowers women and allows them to make the best decisions – from all the available options – for their lives and circumstances. For that, the Obama Administration deserves credit.

More on “women’s (in fact, everybody’s) issues,” below the fold.
From equal pay to contraception to Social Security and more, here are the top six lies that Willard Mitt Romney has told women.

Plans in Texas to restrict Planned Parenthood, if implemented, will likely have disastrous consequences.

A new university study has found Texas wanting when it comes to reproductive health care in the state. Researchers at George Washington University have found that if Texas manages to exclude Planned Parenthood from participating in the Texas Women’s Health Program (WHP), “tens of thousands of low-income Texas women could lose access to affordable family planning services and to other women’s health services.”

GWU has had its eye on the state since May, when it released a report questioning claims by Texas’s Department of Health And Human Services that non-Planned Parenthood providers could easily see the 50,000 or so Texans who currently rely on Planned Parenthood for breast and cervical cancer screenings, contraceptive supplies, and other basic preventive care. Lawmakers in Texas want to exclude Planned Parenthood from the program because they consider it an abortion “affiliate,” even though no Planned Parenthood clinic enrolled in the WHP provides abortions and the WHP itself cannot ever be used to serve a pregnant person-it’s intended solely for the use of Texans who do not want to be, and who are not, pregnant.

I got the following from Righteous Babe Revolution.

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Jumpstart the Economy with Obamacare

by CynthiaMiller on October 23, 2012

My sister brought me a pin from the DFL booth at the Minnesota State Fair that says, “I ♥ OBAMACARE,” and I was proud to put it on.  We have a friend with a serious precondition, who would be struggling without health insurance if it weren’t for the passage of this long-overdue program.

I also wish I had a pin that says, “I HEAD OBAMACARE” with an icon of a functioning brain.  From my perspective as a self-employed person, the problem of finding affordable health care has become painfully acute over the past decade. I have seen more than one friend who would rather freelance take full-time work, because it was the only way to get health insurance for their families. I’ve heard a friend who’s a manager in a small business tell about the resentment shown to employees who get sick, because of the impact on the company’s premiums.  And I’ve felt the anxiety of those who know they’d better hide a diagnosis, since if word got out, it could render them unemployable.

All of which raises the question: To what extent is the current health care morass holding the economy hostage, because it’s interfering with risk taking? It’s not a big leap to imagine what would happen once we begin to subtract health insurance from the jobs equation. Individuals would have more freedom to risk starting their own businesses. Companies would have more flexibility to take the risk of hiring, including older workers and people with disabilities. It would be easier for everyone to look for jobs and start businesses in different states, without worrying about state-by-state health care provisions.

I’m not saying Obamacare is going to solve all this nation’s problems. But it’s a big step in the right direction and could be exactly the economic stimulus we need.

Cynthia

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Cravaack against protections for pre-existing conditions

by The Big E on October 16, 2012

Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-MN/NH) wants everyone to forget he rode a Tea Party wave into Congress. He’s trying to sell himself as a moderate. But all Republicans are virtually required to support repealing Obamacare.

And that’s not a moderate position.

One part of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare’s real name) is that insurance companies can no longer deny someone insurance or reject someone’s claim because it was a pre-existing condition.

Cravaack wants this repealed and wants you to believe that insurance companies wouldn’t do this anymore if it were legal again. Remember, insurance companies make money when they don’t have to pay for your care — and when you’re asking them to pay for something that’s really, really expensive, denying you just means more profits.

Here’s Cravaack selling the insurance-companies-won’t-deny-your-preexisting-condition snake oil on Sunday’s MN-08 debate on KSTP:

Tom Hauser: And you would scrap the dependent care coverage – pre-existing coverage?

Chip Cravaack: That is already in private models already.  The American public wants that, so it’s already in the insurance plan.

Hauser: Real quickly, on pre-existing conditions, if we go back before Obamacare, there are insurance companies that would not insure you, if you had a preexisting condition.

Cravaack: Yes, that’s correct, but there are insurance companies that will. And this will give our seniors and give our American people options. The thing is to have options and competition is the key in bringing down lower costs.

The underlying lie that Cravaack is trying to sell is that insurance companies can self-regulate. He wants you to believe they won’t deny claims or reject coverage when doing so makes them money.

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American seniors respond to Paul Ryan’s plan for health care

by Bill Prendergast on September 22, 2012

This is the guy who conservatives hailed as the solution to Romney’s problems at the polls.

Did you watch that clip? I wonder what kind of reaction Ryan was expecting to get to those kind of remarks–from an audience of seniors?

It doesn’t help that this particular audience knew in advance that claims Ryan made during this speech had already been exposed as lies–*weeks and months before.* Here’s just one of those lies, from Politico.

Ryan claim: “First, it funnels $716 billion out of Medicare to pay for a new entitlement we didn’t even ask for.”

False. Do the $716 billion in Medicare cuts pay for “Obamacare”? Sure – that’s one of the main ways the law is financed. But Ryan throws in a couple of twists that get him into trouble.

First, by suggesting the law “funnels” the money “out of Medicare,” Ryan makes it sound like Obama is stealing money from a piggybank. But – as POLITICO and other news outlets have pointed out many times – those are actually cuts in spending, not a theft of funds. The government would save money by paying less to providers and Medicare Advantage plans, not by cutting Medicare benefits.

This is why conservatives and Romney campaign want to ban fact checkers from this election cycle. The rationale seems to be that they’d have no appeal to any voters if they weren’t able to circulate discredited lies with impunity!
(CONTINUED)    
Go to the Politico article and see all the other Ryan lies. This fact-checking is from Politico! They’re practically a GOP talking points news blog–and they identify Ryan as a liar!

Why would Ryan show up in person to insult the intelligence of the AARP, insult the intelligence of informed and politically active seniors?

He’s attempting to serve them exposed lies that are only accepted by audiences that are ill-informed, downright stupid, or love to hear lies. Thus Ryan is telling the AARP that he thinks they are ill-informed, downright stupid, love to hear lies. That really p****s an audience off, when a politician shows up in person to insult them.

Maybe Ryan’s so clever he actually expected to get this kind of response. Maybe he went out there and insulted them with lies because he was trying to get a recording of America’s seniors booing him on tape. Maybe Ryan, Romney, Rove and Fox have some Machiavellian plan ready to go for “use” of this footage to benefit the Romney campaign?

Maybe they plan to use the footage to tell Americans that the audience was not booing–they were yelling “Bruuuuuce,” like at a Springsteen concert.

Or maybe they plan to use the footage to point out that most of America’s seniors are part of the 47%–the government teat-suckers sucking up Medicaid and Social Security…who should shut up about politics if they’re not contributing…anymore… they used to, but…now they’re not “makers,” they’re “takers”… so maybe they should be insulted.

Is that the “re-tooled” Romney agenda?

LINK:
http://www.politico.com/news/s…

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The NRCC’s Anti-Nolan Ad Is A Farce

by Dan Burns on September 19, 2012

You may have seen this ad.  It’s from the National Republican Congressional Committee, on behalf of Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-MN/NH), who by any reasonable assessment is not favored to win reelection, at this time.

Among the members of Cravaack’s campaign brain trust, presumably including Chip himself, the word “radical” seems to have manifested within their collective political consciousness like a big ol’ toadstool.  That would possibly indicate that they believe that targeting base turnout can win the election.  Or they may honestly think that they can convince swing voters that the avuncular, reasonable Nolan really is some sort of deranged revolutionary at heart.  I don’t see that as a winning strategy.  

Again, because some people just never seem to get it, the $716B is projected Medicare savings, not cuts;  nobody’s benefits will be adversely affected.  And the Affordable Care Act is not some huge tax hike.  And those who support the ACA, plus those who wish it went further, are in the majority.

Three strikes.  Gotta wonder why ‘CCO hasn’t pulled this one.

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“The Affordable Care Act is saving my daughter’s life”

by Jeff Rosenberg on September 5, 2012

It’s taken two and a half years, but Barack Obama and the Democrats are finally playing offense on Obamacare. Speakers at the DNC have been eager to claim the Affordable Care Act as one of Obama’s signature achievements. In addition, last night’s lineup featured a powerful appearance by Stacy Lihn, a mother who says her daughter would not survive without Obamacare.

Governor Romney says people like me were the most excited about President Obama the day we voted for him. But that’s not true. Not even close. For me, there was the day the Affordable Care Act passed and I no longer had to worry about getting Zoe the care she needed. There was the day the letter arrived from the insurance company, saying that our daughter’s lifetime cap had been lifted.

I don’t know about you, but I thought Lihn’s story really packed an emotional punch. It makes the stakes crystal clear. This debate isn’t about abstract facts and figures, or even about the role of government. It is quite literally about saving American lives. That’s a story Democrats have largely failed to tell, until now.
In fact, the Democrats have failed to make their case for so long that most political observers now take it for granted that the public opposes the Affordable Care Act. Take this analysis from Ezra Klein, which was a fairly typical reaction to Lihn’s speech:

Obamacare – or, as it’s officially called, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act – doesn’t poll particularly well, and it’s believed to have been a key contributor to the Republican victory in 2010. But Democrats appear to think that the politics have changed.

That’s what all the pundits have been saying, but they just don’t get it. Obamacare hasn’t polled well precisely because Democrats haven’t been talking about it. They’ve run away from Obamacare, instead of telling the stories of Stacy Lihn and the thousands of Americans like her.

After hearing about Lihn’s daughter Zoe, how many Americans will really be willing to go back to a system where insurers are allowed to kick her to the curb because she’s reached her “lifetime cap?” If more people knew Zoe’s story, Obamacare would be far more popular. Democrats have only themselves to blame that it’s not.

That’s why I was so happy to see the Democrats finally embracing the Affordable Care Act. They’re not doing it because they “think the politics have changed.” They’ve realized that the only way the politics will change is if they finally make their case to the American people. Obamacare is one of the best things the Democrats have done in decades. It’s time to stop running, and start bragging.

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