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Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

Hey, hold on! There’s a baby in that bathwater!!!

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On Wednesday, Health and Human Resources Secretary Kathleen Sebelius released the sign-up numbers for the first month of enrollments via the insurance marketplace. They were modest but hopeful: showing not as many signups as expected but a lot of people who have started the process of shopping for a policy.

Elsewhere in Washington D.C., Senate Democrats were preparing legislation that would destroy the Affordable Care Act and crush the spirits of those who are uninsured and underinsured and who desperately need affordable health care.  

Why do I call out Senate Democrats when Republicans have been just as guilty in this regard? Because Democrats should know better. Because the people who voted for the law should know something about the law. And because I am ashamed of them.

Polls released this week show that the generic Democrat and the generic Republican are now tied in the 2014 mid-terms. So two candidates who don’t even exist (and are an invention of the horserace-obsessed media) are tied in an election almost a year from now. Democrats, who had seen a double-digit gap in that mythical race as recently as a month ago, have decided to set their hair on fire and in the process torch the hopes of those who see affordable health care as a core Democratic Party principle.

How did we get to this point? Well, it started when the rollout of the most visible component of the new law, the federal marketplace website, was a grade A failure and when the 10-second-news-cycle media needed a story that would require little or no research (“I clicked and the web site was busy: Obamacare FAIL!!!”). Then when that stopped being interesting (computer code!! zzzzzz), the media pivoted to the story of cancellation notices from insurance companies and a “promise by President Obama” that was less a promise than an attempt to explain something without getting too deep into the weeds on policy. And, look! It was another story that needed little or no research (“I read somewhere that someone who had a crappy policy had their policy cancelled: Obamacare FAIL!”).

And then a former Democratic president with legacy envy who still holds a grudge against the man who is the actual first black president, decides to throw in his lot with that president’s political enemies; people who don’t understand or are willfully ignoring that you can’t keep a crappy insurance policy that does not meet the standards of a law passed by Congress, signed by the president, and affirmed by the Supreme Court.

The law is protecting people from those substandard policies, policies like the one in Florida where a woman was paying an insurance company $54 a month for a policy that does not even cover hospitalization. Insurance policies that FAIL at the emergency room door and whose failure leads directly to increased costs to everyone who uses medical care. And a law that needs all the pieces of the marketplace reforms, you can’t just cherry-pick those any more than you can delay the mandate … it is a package of reforms that hang together to achieve the goal of affordable health insurance.

When you purchase auto insurance, the state sets minimums for coverage for property damage and bodily injury. That is so that your insurance actually protects you from liability and actually pays someone who is injured by an accident you cause. Your policy also includes coverage for uninsured drivers in the event that the person who hit you has no insurance. And you have to pay for that!!! And the government requires you to!!! Insurance companies are not allowed to even offer an auto policy that does not include that basic coverage. And there are few screams about freedoms being trampled (although I suspect that Rand Paul hates it).  

So the people who are complaining that the government is setting standards, and that the law states that your crappy policy should be flushed away, need to get a grip on reality.

And former presidents whose legacy includes NAFTA and DADT and DOMA and the repeal of Glass-Steagal and that other thing, and who now has Dick Cheney agreeing with him should just shut the heck up. You don’t get to be president for life, this is 2013, and the politics of kumbaya were bludgeoned in a back room when that other thing led to an election in 2000 that was close enough to steal.

But I digress.

Our current president, Barack Obama, and HHS Secretary Sebelius need to know that we have their back.

Please, take your time to finish the job of implementing the Affordable Care Act. If you have to make changes, make changes that don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater, changes such as increasing the subsidies to help those whose policies were cancelled to transition more seamlessly into the new marketplace. Don’t make changes that could make the law fail in 2015 when the risk pools which don’t include healthy people cause spikes in premiums. We want this law in place for us and for our children and for our grandchildren.

Listen to your hearts and remember this part of why passing the ACA was such a Big Huge Deal (to paraphrase Joe Biden):

And we have now just enshrined, as soon as I sign this bill, the core principle that everybody should have some basic security when it comes to their health care.



(Crossposted from Views from North Central Blogistan)


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/ 47 Comments

47 comments

  1. JanF

    People won’t vote for you if you vote to destroy the ACA. They will vote for the party that has killing the ACA in its platform. They will vote for you if you defend core Democratic party principles enshrined in the Social Security Act and the Medicare Act and the Affordable Care Act.

    You can run on that. Yes. You. Can.

  2. Portlaw

    And former presidents whose legacy includes NAFTA and DADT and DOMA and the repeal of Glass-Steagal and that other thing, and who now has Dick Cheney agreeing with him should just shut the heck up. You don’t get to be president for life, this is 2013, and the politics of kumbaya were bludgeoned in a back room when that other thing led to an election in 2000 that was close enough to steal.

    Am I the only one who remembers Lani Guinier?  

  3. JanF

    White House Live at 11:35am

    President Obama Makes a Statement on the Affordable Care Act

    The pundits are spinning themselves in a circle. I think I will wait to see what the president says.

    It goes without saying that the only fixes available are “administrative fixes”. Congress has no interest in making the law better and opening it up for the kind of changes they envision are a recipe for disaster.

  4. JanF

    The Real Obamacare Problem (And Why It Can Be Fixed)

    The problem for Obamacare isn’t that people are receiving letters telling them that they’re losing their current health plan. The problem isn’t that HealthCare.gov has been performing poorly since it opened on Oct. 1.

    The problem is that those two things are happening at the same time.

    If those people with canceled health plans were able to log onto the federal website and find out what their new insurance options were, the outcry over old plans being cut off would likely be tempered. And that suggests that, if the White House can get the website fixed by the end of the month as they’ve pledged to do, the administration might ultimately be able to endure the political firestorm of the last few weeks.

  5. JanF

    BREAKING NEWS

    Thursday, November 14, 2013 10:45 AM EST

    Obama to Allow Insurers to Renew Canceled Plans, House Democrat Says

    Facing dissent from his own party and growing pressure from anxious Congressional Democrats, President Obama on Thursday is preparing to offer an administrative fix to a central element of his signature health care law, allowing Americans who are losing their health insurance coverage because of the Affordable Care Act to retain it.

    A House Democrat with knowledge of the president’s plan said that the fix would allow insurance companies to renew plans that do not meet the higher standard of the new health care law for a year for existing policy holders, though they would be required to notify the policy holder of alternative available coverage options, as well any benefits they might lose by staying on their existing, subpar plan.

    READ MORE

    http://www.nytimes.com?emc=edi…

    If this is the fix, it will solve several problems:

    1. No one can claim to be harmed by the 2014 rollout.

    2. Insurers have to tell people that the substandard plans are substandard.

    3. Insurers have to tell people that they don’t have to keep the crappy policies, they can go buy something better.

    4. It calls the insurers bluff: some of the policies are being cancelled because of the new rules on lifetime caps, recission, and pre-existing conditions … NOT because they comply with the new ACA standards.

    If the insurers  still want to cancel those policies, I hope this turns the heat on them and off the ACA.  

  6. princesspat

    Beautiful Mess Things

    Real people’s lives will be better because of the ACA, and that should be the focus of our collective attention. I just learned my brother will need a liver transplant. He lives in Florida and every moment political ideology makes it harder for him to receive the health care he needs is a wasted moment.

  10. princesspat

    Obama’s Iran-Contra Moment

    Obama now is where Reagan was – but sooner in his second term. But Obama, unlike Reagan, can still do something tangible to improve his position: he can make the ACA work and he should soon begin to make a much more aggressive, positive case for the reform. He has an administrative task right now. But he must soon also engage in a critical political task: to get off the defensive and onto the offensive; to make the case for the good things the ACA can do, and is doing; to remind people of the radical uncertainty of the past, and to demand that the Republicans offer more than just cynical, partisan spitballs to address the unfair, unjust and grotesquely inefficient mess that the ACA was designed to reform. That was the gist of his presser today. It needs to become a stump-speech. He needs to get out of his White House administrative mode as soon as he gets a grip on the reform, and launch a campaign mode against a return to the wild west of the past in healthcare and to expose the Republicans as cynical, opportunist critics who refuse to offer any alternative and any constructive reform.

    Given the short attention span of many in this country, and the relentless propaganda against the ACA by the R’s and many in the media President Obama’s patience and articulate focus is needed more than ever.

  11. princesspat

    Washington state behind only CA, NY in health care sign-ups

    SEATTLE – Washington state has signed more people up for health insurance than any state other than New York and California since open enrollment for health care reform began Oct. 1, according to new federal and state statistics released on Wednesday.

    Between Oct. 1 and Nov. 7, more than 9,000 people selected a private health insurance plan through the marketplace in Washington state. Another 68,532 found out they were eligible for free insurance under Medicaid. And another 81,166 have completed applications for insurance, but have not finished the sign up process.

    WA won’t let old insurance policies to be extended

    SEATTLE – Washington state’s insurance commissioner said Thursday President Barack Obama’s proposal to extend old health insurance policies isn’t a good deal for Washington citizens.

    Commissioner Mike Kreidler said he won’t allow insurance companies to extend their old policies that didn’t meet the requirements of federal health care reform. An estimated 290,000 Washington residents have received notices that their old insurance policies will be canceled.

    Kreidler, a Democrat, says all of them can get better coverage on the new health care exchange. He says at least half of them will qualify for a subsidy to help them pay the premium.

  12. Diana in NoVa

    Jan, well said!

    I am looking at this optimistically. A year from now these problems will have been solved, people will be happy (except the Rethugs), and it will be like Medicare–essential.

    My friend in Germany e-mailed to ask me why the opposition is opposed to universal health care coverage. I had to explain to her that Republicans think if you’re poor it’s because you’re too lazy and shiftless to get a good job that would give you good health insurance. Therefore, if you’re poor you deserve to get sick and die.

    What a country! Still, I’ve been told that in Australia the conservatives resisted universal health care coverage when it was introduced in the 70’s. They wouldn’t dream of challenging it now.

  13. creamer

    The republicans aren’t winning jack. They have slowed and blocked progress. They don’t have a single legislative accomplishment since Medicare part D (not exactly classic conservative).

     Yeah the ACA rollout visually has sucked, but ask all those are now enrolled on Medicare how they feel. The media like to jump on Obama because it’s easier than being constructive. Who gives a rip what the far right thinks about anything. Those in the center will think this is pretty cool.

      All the right is doing is digging a deeper hole. More and more the center see’s them for what they are. Despite the core of crazy fucks on the far right, Obama has helped move away from a center-right country towards a center-left country. The right recognizes this and reacts in increasingly desperate ways. They got nothing.

    Is Obama more cynical, of course. A little pissed, I hope so. This wasn’t supposed to be easy. One day we will look back to now as a time when we bent the curve back towards a better and more just society.

  14. JanF

    From Jonathon Cohn: Upton Bill Passes, Democrats Stand by Obamacare-For Now

    The House just passed Fred Upton’s bill. He calls it the “Keep Your Health Plan Act,” because its ostensible purpose is to make sure people losing their existing health plans can keep them. It might or might not have that effect. But an equally accurate description would be “Go Back to the Old Lousy Health Care System Act.” Under its provisions, insurers could keep denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, continue selling policies that have huge gaps, and so on. These are the sorts of practices that even most Republicans say they want to prohibit.

    [Senator Mary Landrieu, putting forward her own bill,] gave a full-throated defense of the Affordable Care Act itself, hailing the security it would bring to millions of Americans and insisting her goal was merely to fix what she believed were the law’s problems, not wreck it altogether.

    That rhetoric is also an important political barometer: It suggests that most Democrats want to protect themselves on the plan cancellations, but aren’t looking to sabotage the law itself.

    Landreiu’s bill at least includes the consumer protections. When Democrats tried to put them into the House bill, they were roundly rejected: Republicans Reject Obamacare ‘Fix’ Because It Includes Too Many Consumer Protections. So when someone tells you that the Republican bill was to protect consumers, the appropriate response will be to laugh in their faces.

    ~

    Paul Waldman Memo to Democratic Chicken Littles: The Sky Is Not Falling

    Ah, now this is what politics is supposed to be like: Ruthless Republicans, gleeful at the prospect that they might increase the net total of human suffering. Timorous Democrats, panicking at the first hint of political difficulty and rushing to assemble a circular firing squad. And the news media bringing out the “Dems In Disarray!” headlines they keep in storage for just this purpose.

    The problems of the last couple weeks “could threaten Democratic priorities for years,” says Ron Brownstein. It’s just like Hurricane Katrina, says The New York Times (minus the 1,500 dead people, I guess they mean, though they don’t say so). “On the broader question of whether Obama can rebuild an effective presidency after this debacle,” says Dana Milbank, “it’s starting to look as if it may be game over.” Ruth Marcus also declares this presidency all but dead: “Can he recover? I’m sorry to say: I’m not at all confident.”

    Oh please. Everyone just chill out. […]

    So let’s try to see things from a less panicky perspective. The rollout has been a mess, but it’s important to remember that this period is all a preparation for the actual implementation of the law. Nothing that’s happening now is permanent. People have gotten cancellation notices, but no one has lost their coverage. The website sucked when it debuted, it sucks slightly less now, but there’s still lots of time for people to sign up for plans that take effect next year. And if things aren’t working properly by December, they’ll probably extend the open enrollment period to a point at which everything’s working. That’s a hassle, sure. But you can’t call the Affordable Care Act a failure until it takes effect and does or does not achieve its goals. That would be like calling your team’s season a failure because they lost a couple of pre-season games.

    The reminder that “nothing that’s happening now is permanent” is a good one. And we are not venturing into the great unknown: we know how health insurance works. We just need to link people up with policies and we have 4 weeks before we even hit the first “deadline”.

    ~

    Charlie Pierce takes the chicken analogy in a different direction 🙂

    The debate has now passed into the idiotic. Michele Bachmann is blaming the president for something done by Chuck Grassley, the dimmest bulb in the senatorial chandelier.[…]

    And then, of course, there were the members of the Democratic Chickenshit Caucus in the House who signed onto Fred (You Shall Not Crucify Blue Cross Upon This Cross Of Blue) Upton’s attempt to kill the Affordable Care Act in slow motion. There were 39 of them in all who voted in favor of allowing people to be kicked off plans for pre-existing conditions, and lifetime caps for kids with cancer, and all the other wonderful things we all loved about the health-insurance industry in this country before the ACA came along, at least for another year.

    The 39 members are here: NPR list 39 Democrats. I am less harsh in my judgement than Charlie: I live in a purple state and I can see the value of having more Democrats first and better Democrats later. But the people who voted for the law in districts that are reliably blue have me shaking my head. Tammy Duckworth saddens me the most.

  15. JanF

    Diana Reese What Obamacare means to me

    What seems to get lost in all the talk from the political pundits, the politicians and even President Obama himself, is the personal side of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.

    If you’ve never been without health insurance or worried that you could not get a policy – at any price – then perhaps it’s hard to have empathy for those of us who still support this law, even though I’ll be the first to admit it has flaws, it will need tweaking and yes, I share in the frustration over the Web site.

    But I quit worrying about health insurance once Obamacare had been signed into law.

    Without divulging personal information, I’m one of those people whom no insurance company will touch. I know. I tried, without success, to get insurance from a private company after my husband’s layoff from his job in IT (the company decided to offshore software development as it was less expensive.) We ended up paying $1,400 a month for 18 months for health insurance through COBRA (the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act);  he was unemployed for part of that time and when he did work, it was for a company that did not offer benefits.

    […]

    The cost down the road to the entire taxpaying public? I don’t know, but can we honestly believe that continuing to have 40 million Americans without insurance won’t run up emergency room bills and increase costs because simple conditions go untreated until they become complex and expensive?

    Obamacare is not the final answer in providing health coverage to every American. I think it’s just the start.

    A start on the road towards health care security. Let’s keep the bathwater until we are sure that all the babies are safe and secure.

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