Obama Cares

I like the President’s latest speech in front of an enthusiastic crowd in Cannon Falls, Minnesota today. He turned the much-hated GOP derogative term “Obamacare” against the opposition today and said this:

“I have no problem with folks saying 'Obamacare,' I do care. If the other side wants to be the folks who don't care, that's fine with me. But, yeah, I do care about families who have been struggling because of crushing health care costs.”

The crowd loved it, and so do I.

Each and every one of the remaining 7 dwarves that constitute the GOP presidential wannabes have promised in the most strident sentences, that the first order of business when they run Barack Obama out of office is to repeal “Obamacare.”

I’d like to see that. I’d like to see that they repeal a law that 50% of American voters like tremendously, and only 39% want to see repealed. And the 39% don’t even suspect a provision of the law that just went into effect on December 1^st.  The most beneficial aspect of the law outside of the establishment of the insurance exchanges -  a provision that will make health insurance completely subject to the law of supply and demand.

The provision that kicked in just 5 days ago was the one that required health insurance companies to commit at least 80% of their premiums, their income, to actual healthcare payments. Large volume companies must pay 85% of their premiums toward coverage.

Believe it or not, for-profit companies, in the past, have committed less than that toward healthcare coverage, allotting a greater percent toward things like executive bonuses.

Yes, the payments that were previously denied were allocated toward covering payment for some insurance executive’s new yacht.

Now they are going to have to run a leaner and meaner machine. Something that the GOP should be applauding, because they want that so much in government.

But no. These GOP candidates are all against that. They really don’t care that people don’t get adequate healthcare coverage, but they do care that Ritchie Rich, the senior VP of coverage denials gets himself a new 50-foot yacht with a bonus funded by their customers’ premiums.

Obama does care.

Chain Emails We Get Chain Emails

Every once in awhile my cousin, who lives in Azizona – yes, THAT Arizona – gets chain emails from her Teabagger acquaintances who are not aware that she is secretly an Independent voter who actually voted for President Obama in 2008.

Apparently, right wing radicals in Arizona are unaware that there are those among them who would disagree with their extremist viewpoints.

This is just grist for my mill though, as I have a permanent request in to her to forward to me any and all of those wild chain emails that you hear about from time to time. The one she sent to me today is a real doozy.

Did you know that Barack Obama is going to levy a 3.8% real estate tax on the sale of your home in order to finance “Obamacare?” Yep, someone pulled something right out of their … eh ... rectum on this one.

Here is the email:

"Will you ever sell your house?”

“Did you know that if you sell your house after 2012 you will pay a 3.8% sales tax on it? That's $3,800 on a $100,000 home etc. “

“When did this happen? It's in the health care bill. Just thought you should know."

“SALES TAX TO GO INTO EFFECT 2013 (Part of HC Bill)  Why 2013? Could it be to come to light AFTER the 2012 Elections?”

“REAL ESTATE SALES TAX “

“So, this is ‘change you can believe in’?   Under the new health care bill - did you know that all real estate transactions will be subject to a 3.8% Sales Tax? The bulk of these new taxes don't kick in until 2013.  If you sell your $400,000 home, there will be a $15,200 tax.  This bill is set to screw the retiring generation who often downsize their homes. Does this information make your November and 2012 vote more important? “

“Oh, you weren't aware this was in the obamacare bill? Guess what, you aren't alone. There are more than a few members of Congress that aren't aware of it either.  Click on this to verify: ”

And  the link takes you to a blog post at gop.gov that was put up last April, essentially spelling out the same lies and misconceptions.

Politifact, the ground-truthing website that takes all of these wild rumors and debunks them is all over this one. They have been for awhile but according to this entry, they have been so inundated by so many inquiries about these wild claims that they thought it was appropriate to reiterate on their earlier ruling.

“Both the chain e-mail and the blog post are deceptive, and here's why:”

“Instead of being a sales tax on all real estate transactions, the 3.8 percent tax is actually a tax on investment income for the wealthy. It applies only to the investment income of single taxpayers who make more than $200,000 or couples who make more than $250,000. (We looked it up in Section 1402 of the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, titled "Unearned income Medicare contribution.")”

“Still, maybe empty-nesters are scared they'll be hit with this tax if they sell their homes for more than $250,000. But that's not a likely scenario for most tax payers, because there's a long-standing tax exemption on the profits from home sales.”

But here is the real truth: truth doesn’t really matter to these people. If a lie will bring more people to the polls out of fear that they are going to be taxed tens of thousands of dollars if they don’t, then a lie will do very nicely. A lie, after all, is only a means to an end and in the end, the goal is not to govern, the goal is to “take back their country.” Take back their country at any cost, including feeding on the fears and ignorance of American voters.

But Thomas Jefferson had it exact in his observations on Americans, the vote and education. Jefferson placed at the very foundation of a free democracy the requirement that the electorate be educated. He said it several different ways, but this is the way I think it is said best:

“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”

True then as now.

Healthcare Reform: A States’ Rights Issue

Politics, and filthy lucre, make strange bedfellows sometimes. This is too true when it comes to the Republican mantra on healthcare reform. “Want to save money on health insurance,” they ask, “allow insurance companies to sell health insurance across state lines.” At first blush this seems to be a reasonable idea, even a liberal one.

That’s what got me suspicious of this notion. Why, I asked myself, would these anti-big government pro-local control ideologues be suddenly be all big government federalists?

Right now, the individual states regulate insurance within their borders. All states have insurance commissioners of some sort of another. Individual states have mandates over what an insurer must cover and what is optional.

For example, in California health insurance companies are required to offer coverage when someone wants a second opinion before going through a surgical procedure. In Texas, insurers are not required to offer that coverage. So a Texas insurance company could not sell insurance to a Californian by California law, unless it offered the coverage that California mandates.

This is the epitome of a states’ rights issue. Republicans, it would seem, are now arguing for centralization of insurance regulation at the federal level.

Or are they?

Actually not. Actually Republicans are not arguing for more regulation of the insurance industry, but less. That’s right, the same logic and reasoning that saw the repeal of Glass-Steagall, deregulating the banking industry giving us the economic trough we are in today is being argued on healthcare reform.

If the insurance industry is allowed to do the same thing as, say, the credit card industry here is the expected scenario. A small conservative state like Utah or South Dakota would approach, say, Humana and offer to let them write the law that regulates their industry. Their small, conservative legislature would pass it, their conservative governor would sign it, and Americans would be treated to the least beneficial healthcare plans possible. And rather than have, say United Health Care rise to the occasion and offer a plan that competes with Humana’s, they would move their corporate offices to Provo or Pierre.

Why would Republicans want to do this to Americans? Are they truly mean, heartless people who really don’t care what happens to Americans? Are they truly only looking after themselves and their friends? Do they truly only worship at the altar of the almighty dollar?

They say no. They say that they are the only responsible people in government and it is their duty to reign in the wild spending ways of we progressives.

But really, all you have to do is follow the money. Actions speak louder than words. When the actions of Republicans run up against one of their core red meat issues, states' rights, you have to wonder where the skeletons are buried.

And who gets to keep the money.

Block the Healthcare Reform Senate Bill

It’s time to call a spade a spade. The senate’s version of the current healthcare reform bill is a disaster that has been compromised into a gigantic cash cow for the health insurance industry. Aspects of the reform, like guaranteeing lower health insurance premiums, are now gone from the bill in what amounts to a shell game.

Don’t like the public option, Senator Lieberman? Hey presto, it’s now under another shell only now it looks like an expansion of Medicare benefits to those 55 and older. An idea promoted by a guy named Joe Lieberman (I - Aetna). Many on the left loved this idea of Joe’s calling it a giant step toward single payer universal health care.

They liked it so much that, hey presto, it’s now gone from the bill, courtesy of one Joe Lieberman.

An interesting shell game, then, where the pea vanishes altogether.

But you have to love what they have kept in the bill all this time. The one thing that the health insurance industry wants in it: mandatory participation in a healthcare plan. Because how nice would it be if millions of their potential customers are threatened with a great big fine if they refuse to become insurance customers? It’s kind of like that city in Georgia, Kennesaw, I think, that has a municipal statute that requires all heads of households to own a firearm. Can you imagine that law passed nationally? Gun lobbyists would positively drool if that bill ever came to the senate floor for debate.

No, the senate has proven to the country what it has proven before time and time again: it is a dysfunctional legislative body that debates on an issue that anyone with half a brain can see is a no-brainer.

They have taken a perfectly mediocre bill and turned it into another bailout, this time for the health insurance industry. Liberals in the senate need to step up now and block this bill before it’s too late. We still have a perfectly acceptable bill in the House, Republicans have signaled that they are sitting this one out, and Conservidems need to be shown that their ways are out of the mainstream and do not reflect what the public wants.

We need to act on the House bill through the reconciliation process. It’s the only way to get this done without giving away the rest of the store to insurance fat cats.

Reconciliation.

Now.

Healthcare Vote Repercussions

Both sides of the aisle in the House of Representatives are going to suffer repercussions as a result of the recent votes entered on Saturday for and against healthcare reform.

The DNC is going to be targeting 32 Republican members of congress who voted against HR 3962 on final passage because they come from districts whose residents not only voted in majority numbers for Barack Obama last year, but also whose residents need a leg up on getting health insurance.

They come from all over (unfortunately, none from Texas). Go on over to Politico to see the list of names.

Now on the Stupak Amendment, the one that prevents women from obtaining an abortion, a legal right last time I looked, there is another thing to consider.

Actually, 64 other things.

Other things that my friend Marsha likes to call “gas bags.”

These 64 are Democrats who voted with Republicans in favor of the Stupak Amendment. Mostly they are Blue Dog Democrats, but it goes farther than that. Blue Dogs only number 53. And last I heard, abortion isn’t a fiscal issue, it’s a religious issue.

For a list of those names you can go here to OpenCongress.org where I have applied the filter on Democrats who voted for Amendment 1.

Democrats may need to reconsider whether they want to be represented by men and women who put their own religious viewpoints ahead of the right that every woman has (or should I say still has) to a legal medical procedure.

A right that these people have no logical reason to interfere with.

Congressman Pete Olson Votes Against Texans

Obviously, since only one Republican voted for HR 3962, the recently passed House measure to reform healthcare insurance in America, and it wasn’t my congressman, and no congressman abstained from voting last night, one could reasonably conclude that Congressman Pete Olson of Texas CD 22 voted against, as he would call it, “the Pelosi Bill.”

And I now see that Olson did vote in favor of Boehner’s Republican replacement bill along with 177 of his compatriots. Curiously enough, so did Anh Cao, the lone Republican supporter of “Obamacare.”

This was not announced in the news, and obviously Rep. Cao likes to play both sides against the middle.

But back to Olson, who consistently votes with the Republican Party, I have to ask myself how could he have possibly done what 80% of Texans didn’t want him to do? Well, that’s somewhat rhetorical because clearly Olson doesn’t care what Texans think when he casts his votes. But we should remember the Texas Tribune’s recent internet poll of 800 Texans asking what were the main concerns of Texans.

Well you have to scroll down through the dross to come to something that is completely startling in the extreme. Texans, it seems, are nearly all unified over their opposition to the common dishonorable and shameful practice of healthcare insurance companies to deny coverage due to pre-existing conditions.

From the Texas Tribune poll:

“• 80 percent would stop the denial of health coverage for preexisting conditions.”

Get it? 80% or respondents want the healthcare industry to clean up its act and end this immoral practice once and for all.

80 percent.

And so when Pete Olson cast his “Nay” vote against HR 3962 and his “Yea” vote for the Boehner Amendment he was in his own small way, stomping on the desires of 80 percent of all Texans.

Because HR 3962 ends the practice of denial of coverage due to pre-existing conditions statutorily. Ends it.

But don’t take my word for it. Here it is in Section 221:

“SEC. 211. PROHIBITING PREEXISTING CONDITION EXCLUSIONS.”

“A qualified health benefits plan may not impose any preexisting condition exclusion (as defined in section 2701(b)(1)(A) of the Public Health Service Act) or otherwise impose any limit or condition on the coverage under the plan with respect to an individual or dependent based on any of the following: health status, medical condition, claims experience, receipt of health care, medical history, genetic information, evidence of insurability, disability, or source of injury (including conditions arising out of acts of domestic violence) or any similar factors.”

Pete Olson voted against that.

Here is what he voted for:

“SEC. 101. ESTABLISH UNIVERSAL ACCESS PROGRAMS TO IMPROVE HIGH RISK POOLS AND REINSURANCE MARKETS.”

STATE REQUIREMENT.—

(1) IN GENERAL.—Not later than January 1, 2010, each State shall—
(A) subject to paragraph (3), operate—
(i) a qualified State reinsurance program described in subsection (b); or
(ii) qualifying State high risk pool dscribed in subsection (c)(1); and
(B) subject to paragraph (3), apply to the operation of such a program from State funds an amount equivalent to the portion of State funds derived from State premium assessments (as defined by the Secretary) that are not otherwise used on State health care programs.”

Get it? Healthcare insurance providers are not forbidden from the practice of denial of coverage because of pre-existing conditions. Boehner’s bill, the bill that Olson voted for, was an unfunded mandate that states must provide funds to cover these unfortunate souls in “high risk pools.”

This is a huge gift to the healthcare insurance industry, a huge gift made on the backs of state taxpayers.

And Pete Olson voted for it.

Pete Olson doesn’t even defend his vote on his website. As I write this, there is nothing on his website about last night’s vote.

And I completely understand why he wouldn’t want to defend his vote. If I voted for the thing that he voted for, and against the thing he voted against, I wouldn’t want to own up to it either.

Not to that 80 percent of all Texans, anyway.