The problem with our economy continuing to drag its feet is that conservatives blame President Obama and the Democrats’ “liberal policies.” Liberals blame those same people, but for policies they say tilt too far to the right: in the interest of “bipartisanship,” they capitulate to failed conservative ideas like deregulation and tax cuts.
So who is right? If only we had some unbiased, reliable source of information, some kind of professional fact-checkers, people whose job it is to talk to experts, not partisans. You know, maybe present the facts! Ahem.
Instead, we have a group of people whose only interest is in telling the process story, the inside scoop: who’s winning and who’s losing the power play? Is Speaker Boehner losing his influence? Will President Obama lose re-election? Is the debt deal a victory for President Obama and the Democrats? Is it a victory for the Tea Party?
I mean, look. If real liberals are constantly getting thrown under the bus every time there’s a legislative battle in Washington — the economic stimulus, healthcare reform, extending the Bush tax cuts — then why is it always our fault when nothing gets better?
Democracy doesn’t work if the people are uninformed. And our traditional information source no longer performs that function (did it ever? I don’t know. I think the media certainly did a much better job of things once upon a time. Not perfect, but not .. this.) So what are Americans to do? If we can’t turn to the news media, where do we go? Must it take a judge to decide?
Kay at Balloon Juice has this item up today in which former Ohio Representative Steve Driehaus sued the anti-choice Susan B. Anthony List for defamation after the SBA List ran ads saying Driehaus voted for taxpayer-funded abortions. Driehaus happens to be an anti-choice Democrat and he didn’t take too kindly to having his healthcare reform vote characterized as such, especially since the Affordable Care Act does no such thing. On top of which, Driehaus lost his seat, thanks no doubt to the lies spread by groups like the SBA List. The judge agreed that the Affordable Care Act did not call for taxpayer funded abortions in any way and cleared the way for Driehaus’ suit to move forward.
Kay wonders why this case even had to get to a judge. Good question.
We’ve all wondered why, for example, the lies about death panels and taxpayer-funded abortions and “government takeover of healthcare” were never countered in the press. You had right wingers spouting their nonsense, liberals sputtering “no it does not do that!”, and then, of course, that’s all the time we have, we’ll have to leave it there, yada yada. Why couldn’t someone, somewhere, read the damn bill, conclude that there are no death panels, no taxpayer funded abortions and certainly no government takeovers of anything, and the next time some yahoo tries to claim big mean ol’ Obama will decide if grandma gets to live or die, they tell them to shut the fuck up? Why is that so hard?
Politics has just destroyed everything, chief among them, our media. Democrats will always get blamed for everything because the rules of modern political discourse are, a) IOKIYAR and, b) it’s always good news for Republicans. So when Democrats capitulate to conservatives, and those conservative ideas fail again (no one could have anticipated! Really!), everyone says, well the Democrats were in charge, so there ya go! And they have a really good point.
If Democrats are going to dump every good and decent and proven Democratic idea of the past 80 years and hop on board with free market fairy tales and the miraculous job-creating power of tax cuts, well then you deserve what you get. Until our media wakes up and starts telling people facts, not spin — and there’s no indication that this will happen any time soon — Democrats will continue to get blamed for everything, whether they’re in charge or not.
During the debt ceiling debate I heard Republicans blame the national debt on the “Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid congress” and President Obama. Sure because those wars and the unfunded Medicare prescription drug giveaway to Big Pharma never happened! And on the left there’s a lot of disgust because we did have a majority in Congress, and what did we get for it? It’s like people have forgotten all of those filibusters, the long hard slog to get Sen. Al Franken seated, the deaths of Senators Kennedy and Byrd, the “60 is the new 50” crap we went through these past years. It’s been one Republican obstructionist hardball tactic after another, pushing Democrats ever further to the right, peeling away DINOs like Joe Lieberman (who, let’s face it, isn’t even a Democrat anymore, he’s a Lieberman) or Ben Nelson on one issue after another. We’ve all written about it. Have we forgotten?
But the Democrats need to wake up, already: you can be pragmatic and “bipartisan” all you want but if an idea stinks, it stinks. And you’re the ones who will get the blame. Always. It doesn’t matter what the facts say: you will get blamed.
I don’t really have a point here. I’m just wondering if there aren’t there any principled Democrats left — or is such a thing even possible absent a news media that refuses to do its job?
“Why couldn’t someone, somewhere, read the damn bill”
Well they had to vote for it to find out what was in it. I think that was by design of then Speaker Pelosi. If you read the bill, several sections simply say “The Secretary shall determine blah blah blah” giving vast powers to the Secretary of Health in deciding what exactly the bill does and does not do. I would call that a government grab of control of healthcare.
You ask if there are any principled Democrats left and I would say that neither party has very many prinicpled people representing us anymore. So in my opinion, the best solution is the solution that gives the government the least amount of power possible.
You got a link to that? That stuff about how vast parts of the bill just abrogate control to the secretary of health?
Here is a link to a chart with close to 2,000 new and expanded Secretarial powers under the Health Reform Law. You will have to open the PDF and zoom in to read them all. Not all of them apply to the Secretary of Health, but the majority do.
Click to access HHSSecretarialPowersCenterforHealthTransformationv3a1.18.11.pdf
OK I looked. Here’s a random selection:
#6103 – … (D) that the State maintain a consumer-oriented website providing useful information to consumers regarding all skilled nursing facilities and all nursing facilities in the State …that the State or the Secretary considers useful in assisting the public…
A website? That’s a government takeover of healthcare, that the State puts together a list of skilled nursing care facilities?
Here’s another:
#10411 l HHS
(e) PATIENT PRIVACY. The Secretary shall ensure that the Congenital Heart Disease Surveillance System is maintained in a manner that complies with the regulations … of HIPPA.
Oooohhh scary socialism!!!! Super scary commie radicalism! Give me a fucking break.
C’mon, Jim. That’s just bullshit fearmongering from whatever crackpot list you subscribe to. They sent out this intimidating document assuming none of the idiots who get it will a) bother to read it or b) understand it if they did.
This is all just standard-issue legislative word salad, the same as any other piece of legislation, be it one written under a Republican administration or a Democratic one. There’s nothing anywhere that calls for a government takeover of anything, especially when the bill maintains our private for-profit insurance system.
Every law ever written has open-ended statements like, “as to be determined by the Secretary of whatever …” built into it. That’s to avoid unintended consequences, like the Florida anti-bestiality bill that unintentionally banned all sex.
How about these:
1311 l HHS
(c) RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE SECRETARY.— (1) The Secretary shall, by regulation, establish criteria for the certification of health plans as qualified health plans …
1323 l HHS
(5) PREMIUMS.— (A) PREMIUMS SUFFICIENT TO COVER COSTS.—The Secretary shall establish geographically adjusted premium rates in an amount sufficient to cover expected costs …
1322 l HHS
(c) QUALIFIED NONPROFIT HEALTH INSURANCE ISSUER.— (3) GOVERNANCE REQUIREMENTS.—An organization shall not be treated as a qualified nonprofit health insurance issuer unless— (C) as provided in regulations promulgated by the Secretary …
3301 l HHS
(2) CIVIL MONEY PENALTY. (A) The Secretary shall impose a civil money
penalty on a manufacturer that fails to provide applicable beneficiaries
discounts for applicable drugs … in an amount the Secretary determines is
commensurate with the sum of …
4105 l HHS
(n) AUTHORITY TO MODIFY OR ELIMINATE COVERAGE OF CERTAIN PREVENTIVE SERVICES. … Effective … January 1, 2010, if the Secretary determines appropriate, the Secretary may (1) modify (A) the coverage of any preventive service … to the extent that such modification is consistent with the recommendations of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force; and (B) the services included in the initial preventive physical examination … and (2) provide that no payment shall be made under this title for a preventive service … that has not received a grade of A, B, C, or I by such Task Force.
The last one sounds like the Secretary gets to decide what is covered and what isn’t.
Oh, Jim. Yes, these “sound” super scary out of context and incomplete. You’ve been had. They’re designed to make you VERY SCARED by whatever partisans you got it from and I’m not suprised you bit. By the way, where DID you get it from?
Most of these super scary things you’ve pulled out apply to Medicaid and Medicare, which ARE government health insurance programs. These programs have existed for years.
Sec. 1311 sets up the exchanges.
As for some of the others:
Sec. 1323 “authorizes $2 billion in funding to cover the increases; grants territories the option of operating a Health Benefits Exchange.”
Sec. 3301, “Provides a $250 rebate for all Medicare Part D enrollees who enter the donut hole in 2010. Requires drug manufacturers to provide a 50% discount to Part D beneficiaries for brand-name drugs and biologics purchased during the coverage gap beginning 2011; discount increases to 75% by 2020.”
This was filling the “donut hole” which the Republicans left in their unfunded Part D prescription drug plan.
Sec. 4103-4105 also applies to Medicare. “Sec. 4105. Allows HHS Secretary to modify coverage of existing preventive services to the extent that the modification is consistent with USPSTF recommendations. The Secretary can withdraw Medicare coverage for services rated ―D or harmful by USPSTF.”
USPSTF is the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force. If you’re on Medicare and want some experimental herbal treatment, the Secretary may determine that you will have to pay for it yourself. Medicare won’t cover it.
OH, major Jim fail! I see you got that inflammatory piece of propaganda from the “Center For Health Transformation.” My crack GOOGLE skills reveal the CHT is a Washington, D.C. think tank founded by … wait for it … Newt Gingrich!! And not only that, but it was founded as a project of the Gingrich Group, a for-profit consultancy and membership organization “comprised of corporations and organizations that all have a vested interest in transforming health and healthcare,” as its website states.
LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL
FAIL FAIL FAIL
Ok, sorry for that source that quoted directly from the bill explaining what new powers the Secretary was granted. The point being the law was written such that alot of the measures are up to the Secretary to determine what the bill does.
Here is an article from the Washington Post – not sure if that is considered right wing or not – on a new panel that is to decide what plans must cover. All of this is under the control of the Secretary of Health as Congress wrote the bill.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/14/AR2011011406172.html
Jim, you’re looking like a tool and a fool. Quit while you’re ahead. That source DIDN’T quote directly from the bill, it gave little snippets, with no context and no frame of reference. Clearly it was designed to mislead and it’s just sad that it worked so well in your case
And I find nothing worrisome in the WaPo article at all. Healthcare Reform was a health insurance reform law. DUH. There is a government mandate that everyone have some kind of health insurance — a Republican idea, let me remind you — so OF COURSE there is a need to set minimum parameters on what’s considered “coverage.” Otherwise you’ll have the inevitable jerkwad private employer who only provides non-coverage “coverage,” like a plan that only cover injuries sustained when walking and chewing gum.
Sorry but your fears are just dumb. No, worse than dumb. Seriously misinformed. Go to your Libertarian paradise of Somalia and see how much you like it there. They haven’t had a functioning government in decades. It’s all the free, glorious hand of the market, completely unfettered. Enjoy.
SB – my point was that several sections of the bill set it so that the Secretary of Health determines what the bill requires. Are you still saying this is not the case? You may think it is reasonable, you may even think this will save you money, but that was not my statement. My statement was that more of the healthcare industry will now be controlled by the government. I think that is a bad idea.
Yeah Jim, I’m telling you you’re wrong, you’re misinterpreting those sections. Every single piece of regulatory legislation has similar language in it. And you’re wrong, more of the healthcare industry will NOT be controlled by the government. This was health INSURANCE reform, not healthcare reform. This legislation sets parameters on health insurance companies, not healthcare companies. The pieces you are freaking out about applied to Medicare and Medicaid. Those are government programs and your side of the aisle throws “gummint waste” hissy fits every time you see something you don’t like, say Medicare coverage of some alternative herbal therapy or whatnot.
Healthcare companies can do whatever they want, whether Medicare and Medicaid will pay for it is another story.