Healthcare

Sabrina Schaeffer states her case well, though we obviously don't agree (Sabrina won't like my column tomorrow in The Hill, either — wink).

I agree with Sabrina that some reforms of entitlements are necessary, including Medicare. Where I disagree is that I believe Paul Ryan overkills by a very large margin, that it would be a catastrophic policy mistake to eliminate Medicare as we know it, and that it is indeed a political Waterloo for Republicans.

Whether Sabrina is right, or I am right, about the politics will be proven by events to come. It is a debate I am very pleased to join. For now I will let the New York results speak for themselves.

I have to respond to fellow contributor Brent Budowsky’s post yesterday, “Medicare Extremism, GOP Waterloo,” in which he describes Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) proposal to overhaul Medicare as “the worst policy idea and the worst political blunder of the millennium.”

It’s true Republican Jane Corwin’s defeat in New York last night suggests the GOP might be losing the fight over Medicare reform; but the fact is Corwin tried to have her cake and eat it too. She opposed ObamaCare while criticizing the Ryan plan, and she offered no clear alternatives of her own.

If Democrat Kathy Hochul defeats Republican Jane Corwin in the New York House race today, it will be the dagger in the heart of the radical and extreme Republican attempt to destroy Medicare. Even if the race is close and Corwin wins, the Democrats win, because the race will show so much movement to Democrats that the numbers will prove the poison Medicare creates for Republicans, and the prospects for Democrats regaining control of the House and keeping control of the Senate.

The proposal originated by Republican Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, which is now the political religion of Republicans, is the worst policy idea and worst political blunder of the millennium. It is the Republican Waterloo.

I guess the first question I have about Mitt Romney’s healthcare plan is, has it worked?

Romney defended MassCare yesterday in an attempt to confront conservative critics, who blame the Romney plan for helping to usher in ObamaCare.  

Romney's major defense seems to be over scope.  

“Our plan was a state solution to a state problem, and his was a power grab by the federal government to put in place a one-size-fits-all plan across the nation.”

The problem for Mr. Romney is the scope of the plan seems to be the only difference. And that is a difference without a distinction to most observers.  

“Americans are screaming at the top of their lungs to STOP, and yet Democrats here in Washington continue to forge ahead. Why? Because they’re not listening.

”Republicans have been listening to the American people, and we’re going to continue to listen to the American people. But right now, we need Americans to stand with us to make sure that this bill never, ever, ever becomes law.” — then-House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) on March 16, 2010
 
“For all those who supported the health law, it’s an opportunity to re-evaluate your vote. To listen to your constituents who are desperately trying to get your attention. You can say, ‘Perhaps this was a mistake. We can do this better.’ Or you can continue to dismiss the majority of the people in this country as not knowing what they’re talking about." — Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), The Hill, Feb. 1, 2011

I love that commercial where a bunch of small-business executives are sitting around the table trying to find budget cuts, when the CEO says, “We aren’t leaving until we find the savings,” and a woman says under her breath, “Can they really do that?”

We need a Medicare commission where the members are forced to stay in the room and figure out a compromise that passes both the House and the Senate.

In 1981, Ronald Reagan, with the cooperation of Tip O’Neill and Howard Baker, appointed Alan Greenspan to head a commission whose mission was to save a Social Security program that was about ready to go bankrupt.

There’s been a lot of talk lately about the authority to declare war, so I want to know: Who authorized the war on American women currently being waged in Republican-controlled legislatures around the country? Aided by some Democrats at the federal and state levels, extreme measures cloaked in lofty rhetoric about fiscal discipline and civil rights are being proposed and passed that undermine our status as equal Americans and take away our access to legal health procedures.
 
In Georgia, as a way to make sure women don’t “game the system” a measure would require a woman to prove that she had a miscarriage; and in his budget, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker bans insurance coverage for prescription birth control.
 
In South Dakota, a measure would redefine murder as “justifiable homicide” if the relative of a woman who’d decided to have an abortion kills the person who performed that procedure. There’s also a new law requiring a woman to wait three days after meeting with her doctor, and undergo a consultation at a "pregnancy help center" — to speak with counselors who oppose abortion.

Happy birthday to healthcare reform. Unfortunately, after that long battle, and all the money spent not only to implement the law but to educate Americans who know little about it, the law remains even more unpopular than when it passed a year ago and the cost of healthcare insurance remains prohibitive and continues to rise.
 
Democrats, who lost their majority in the House in the midterm elections last fall, in part due to healthcare reform, won't campaign on it next year, just as they didn't last year. But on its anniversary they are going all out to try and budge public opinion on reform, which has proven quite stubborn. The most recent polling by the Kaiser Family Foundation found 42 percent of respondents approved of the law while 46 percent opposed it, a bit worse than the average polls on the law since it passed. The survey also finds a majority of respondents are confused about what the law does and whether or not it has been repealed.

The Obama administration bowed to the conditions that federal Judge Roger Vinson placed upon it when he provided a stay to his finding that the healthcare law was unconstitutional.

Vinson put two stipulations on his stay (which allows the administration to continue writing regulations on the law, which otherwise would be defunct). The first was that the administration file an appeal of his original ruling of unconstitutionality within seven calendar days, and the second was that the appeal pursue an expedited process to the Supreme Court.

Six days later, Obama’s legal team filed its appeal.

"States' rights, states’ rights, states’ rights!" — Rick Perry, governor of Texas, at the first Tea Party event on April 15, 2009.

To put it simply, the most astonishing thing that has happened these past two years is that the states have suddenly seen, as if through a glass darkly, that they do not have to do what the federal government tells them to do.

Consider the consequences. The idea seemed incomprehensible when it was first presented up here in northern New England five years ago. And backwoods governors up here, like Vermont’s Peter Shumlin today, saw themselves exclusively as pharaoh’s agent. Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) truly shocked comment when she was told she couldn’t do just anything she wanted was, “Are you serious? Are you serious?” Today, the Supreme Court faces state sovereignty challenges which promise to shake the nation.