American Health Care Reform

[headhonchoII]

It sure is ironic quoting David Cameron on the issue of entitlement.

Why he is only the 19th British prime minister to graduate from Eton College. Perhaps he means entitlement programs for poor people as against the entitlement of the ruling class?

[archylgp]

This is a bit random, but relevant:

I had an American friend in Taiwan. He hates the idea of the government offering any services to people whatsoever. He bitches about it all the time. Anyways, he unfortunately had a medical emergency which he wasn't sure the Taiwanese government would pay for. They eventually paid for it and he was very happy. He still bitches about the government providing social services to people who need it, though People like this have a hard time connecting reality and policy. I wouldn't be surprised if 90% of Republicans are like this, as Republican policy actually works against the average American in very serious ways, but for some strange reason people still support them...

[flike]

I had an American friend in Taiwan. He hates the idea of the government offering any services to people whatsoever. He bitches about it all the time. Anyways, he unfortunately had a medical emergency which he wasn't sure the Taiwanese government would pay for. They eventually paid for it and he was very happy. He still bitches about the government providing social services to people who need it, though People like this have a hard time connecting reality and policy. I wouldn't be surprised if 90% of Republicans are like this, as Republican policy actually works against the average American in very serious ways, but for some strange reason people still support them...

The answer stares us all in the face. Republicans support the GOP because they CANNOT support the Democratic Party. Patently. For any number of reasons.

Your friend isn't stupid, right? Ask yourself this: how crappy must the Democratic Party be to fail to garner the support of otherwise rational Americans like your friend? In a 2 party system, how inept/craven/unprincipled must the Democrats be in order to fail to attract people like your friend and other 'average' Americans?

[archylgp]

I had an American friend in Taiwan. He hates the idea of the government offering any services to people whatsoever. He bitches about it all the time. Anyways, he unfortunately had a medical emergency which he wasn't sure the Taiwanese government would pay for. They eventually paid for it and he was very happy. He still bitches about the government providing social services to people who need it, though People like this have a hard time connecting reality and policy. I wouldn't be surprised if 90% of Republicans are like this, as Republican policy actually works against the average American in very serious ways, but for some strange reason people still support them...

The answer stares us all in the face. Republicans support the GOP because they CANNOT support the Democratic Party. Patently. For any number of reasons.

Your friend isn't stupid, right? Ask yourself this: how crappy must the Democratic Party be to fail to garner the support of otherwise rational Americans like your friend? In a 2 party system, how inept/craven/unprincipled must the Democrats be in order to fail to attract people like your friend and other 'average' Americans?

I don't think he's rational but confused and hypocritical....There is a widespread disconnect between abstract policy and reality among Republicans -- or in other words, they can't connect the dots...

[Gao Bohan]

The Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) hangs in the balance with this election. CFO, a conservative website, offers a good analysis of the various options.

The extreme polarization of American politics means that the national elections in November could have a profound effect on the fate of health-care reform. Much is potentially at stake for the economy, the health of the citizenry, and certainly corporate budgets. Here is what to expect, depending on how the elections turn out.

Scenario 1: Mitt Romney Wins, Democrats Keep a Senate Majority. A Democratic-led Senate would make it difficult to dismantle the Affordable Care Act (ACA) legislatively. But because the law is skeletal and leaves federal agencies with an enormous rule-making chore, Romney could push out regulations so slowly that the law is rendered virtually ineffective. He also could slow the government’s development of health exchanges for states that choose not to create their own.

But he may be careful in orchestrating those tactics. “The Romney campaign is criticizing the Obama Administration for using its powers in an imperial way that is not consistent with what Congress has mandated, in several areas,” notes William Sarraille, a health-care attorney with Sidley Austin. Romney, therefore, might be reluctant to invite like criticism.

Romney has said that on “Day 1” of his Presidency he would issue an order to stop implementation of the ACA. He probably wouldn’t have the authority to do that, though. Even if he did, an avalanche of lawsuits would be the likely result, says James Klein, president of the American Benefits Council, which advocates on benefits-related issues for about 350 large corporate members.

Scenario 2: Romney Wins, Republicans Take the Senate. In a Republican bid to repeal health reform, the main avenue open to minority Senate Democrats would be a filibuster, as long as Republicans have fewer than 60 seats. But for legislation that affects federal revenue, only a simple majority is needed to avert a filibuster. Because the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the individual mandate provision of the health-care reform law was a tax, congressional Republicans could attach a repeal of the mandate to a budget bill and push it through with as few as 50 Senate seats (with, in that case, Vice President Paul Ryan casting the deciding vote). “That would leave the rest of the ACA in place, but its guts would be eviscerated,” says Klein.

Taking the more conventional approach to legislation would require care by the Republicans, as some provisions are very popular. For example, the law closed the “donut hole” in Medicare drug coverage, saving many seniors thousands of dollars per year. “We know older Americans vote more than younger ones,” notes Chantel Sheaks, a principal in government affairs at Buck Consultants. Another coveted provision is the coverage of children under parents’ insurance until age 26. “The children don’t vote a lot, but their parents do,” Sheaks says.

Scenario 3: Barack Obama Wins. The President doesn’t need a Democratic-controlled Senate to keep the ACA in place. He can veto any legislative efforts to undo it. The status quo will reign.

The bottom line is that the fate of ObamaCare will be determined by the election on November 6. This may seem obvious, but many liberals are hopeful that a Romney victory will not necessary spell the end of ObamaCare. It is possible the law may not be outright repealed if the Democrats in the Senate can hold firm, but it will be either defunded if Republicans gain control of the Senate, or simply not implemented by Romney if Democrats keep the Senate.

A major difference between ObamaCare and other major government health care initiatives (Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP) is that ObamaCare has not been fully implemented. The vast majority of the intended beneficiaries are not yet beneficiaries. Contrast that situation with Medicare in 1981, when Reagan tried to gut the widely popular program that was rolled out more than a decade prior.

[Gao Bohan]

With Obama having been re-elected to a second term, and the Senate Democrats not only holding on to their majority but increasing it, Obamacare will be implemented. The US will have near universal health coverage by the time his second term ends.

[GuyInTaiwan]

It sure is ironic quoting David Cameron on the issue of entitlement.

Why he is only the 19th British prime minister to graduate from Eton College. Perhaps he means entitlement programs for poor people as against the entitlement of the ruling class?

Did his parents fund his education my taking money from someone else? Class envy: that great European tradition. Coming to an America near you.

[Chris]

With Obama having been re-elected to a second term, and the Senate Democrats not only holding on to their majority but increasing it, Obamacare will be implemented. The US will have near universal health coverage by the time his second term ends.

Obamacare (I'm OK with this term now since Obama is OK with it) passed legislative muster in 2010, Constitutional muster this summer, and popular muster two days ago. It's a green light. I am relieved!

[headhonchoII]

It sure is ironic quoting David Cameron on the issue of entitlement.

Why he is only the 19th British prime minister to graduate from Eton College. Perhaps he means entitlement programs for poor people as against the entitlement of the ruling class?

Did his parents fund his education my taking money from someone else? Class envy: that great European tradition. Coming to an America near you.

It's just a startling fact, and I don't think you need actual 'class' to get into Eton , just piles of money and connections and that your family went before you. Having 19 prime ministers from one private secondary school is not how democracy is supposed to work in practice.

[ChewDawg]

Having 19 prime ministers from one private secondary school is not how democracy is supposed to work in practice.

I think such breeding and background benefitted Great Britain as these grads that became PMs often put the whole country ahead of their class backgrounds. Let's not forget that noblesse oblige has a long tradition in Great Britain, and that many of the Eton grads that went on to become PMs advocated "One Nation Toryism" or "Red Toryism" that focused on paternalistic obligations to the less fortunate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Nation_Conservatism.

Let's also not forget that a daughter of a greengrocer and an Oxford grad (Thatcher) did more to destroy One Nation Toryism, just as she destroyed the unions and defeated Labour in election after election . Now I admire Thatcher a hell of a lot more than the One Nation aristocrats, but your belief that having such PMs from certain class backgrounds in the UK has somehow hurt democracy is complete horseshit. The working classes were hurt more by their own--ie people with humble backgrounds such as Thatcher. Or if you applaud market reforms, you could say she opened the City banking positions to merit rather than education , which likely pissed off people of privileged backgrounds on both sides of the spectrum. At the time, her tough love with Scargill and the lazy union folk etc. was much more needed that moderate aristocrats that wouldn't have had the chutzpah to break the unions as she did.