If wishes had wings…

The problems facing the Affordable Care Act's website have given the law's critics no shortage of ammunition to take potshots at President Obama's signature legislative accomplishment. But to hear those critics tell it, the ACA's problems are a growing catastrophe in which Democrats are poised to jump ship – and the law is just a second away from repeal. Repeal of the ACA is and always has been a fantasy. And right now this fantasy is being enabled by members of the mainstream press for whom the ACA's problems somehow merit embellishment. Apparently, they have nothing else over which to cry that the sky is falling – and they have to be able to scream about something that is devastatingly world changing to justify their existence.

Tea Party congressmen and conservative pundits have been keeping the repeal fantasy alive ever since the law was signed back in 2010. The backlash from the government shutdown, which was inspired by Tea Party efforts to gut the ACA, did nothing to dull enthusiasm for the "repeal Obamacare" crowd. "Obamacare will be repealed well in advance of the 2014 elections," conservative writer Steven Hayward wrote in Forbes on November 11. "There is a chance Obamacare could be repealed in a bipartisan vote," wrote Ed Rogers in the Washington Post. Peggy Noonan  wrote in the Wall Street Journal that Congress "could try to vote now, under new conditions and with the American people behind them, to repeal the whole thing… And who knows, they just might." 

No… they will not. 

This is nothing but empty wishing. Even if Republicans in the Senate did somehow manage to pass a bill ‘over Harry Reid's dead body’ repealing the ACA, it would absolutely be vetoed by President Obama. Congress does not have the two-thirds votes in both houses to override the President’s veto.

But this is what pundits and activists do: shape and spin stories to conform to their preferred outcome. The National Journal's Josh Kraushaar, rather than tamping down this irrational enthusiasm among the law's opponents, is giving it a big push. "There's a growing likelihood that over time enough Democrats may join Republicans to decide to start over and scrap the whole complex health care enterprise," Kraushaar writes in his November 18 column. He argued to the point of being meaningless – he is saying there is an increased chance of something possibly happening over an indeterminate time period if everything lines up perfectly – but Kraushaar nonetheless wants us to think that the threat of repeal is real:

"Consider [this],” wrote Kraushaar, “Despite the White House's protestations, 62.4 percent of the House voted for Michigan GOP Rep. Fred Upton's legislation (261-157) was just shy of the two-thirds necessary to override a veto." 

Kraushaar is comparing apples to oranges. Upton's bill was not about full repeal of the law. Upton's bill, which would permit health insurers to continue selling plans that don't meet the ACA's minimum standards, reflected Democratic frustration with the website. The vote itself was essentially symbolic. The bill will not be taken up by the Senate – Harry Reid will never bring it to the floor – and it would never survive an Obama veto. Those Democrats went into the vote knowing that it would not have any impact on policy.  They did it for cover back home. So you cannot extrapolate from that symbolic expression of frustration a desire to scrap the whole law. 

Kraushaar arrived at the notion that repeal is visible on the horizon by sketching out immense political shifts and alignments of the planets and stars that must occur in order to arrive at veto-proof majorities.  In doing so, Kraushaar unwittingly demonstrated exactly how the repeal fantasy will never come true.
 
Republicans are all wishing and dreaming. “If wishes had wings…” my grandmother used to say.

To the GOP: Enough Already

Do you remember the rollout of Medicare Part D? It was a mess.

I have had enough of this Republican gloating about HealthCare.gov. Yes, the website was and is a major and inexcusable fiasco. So they were entitled to a week of “we told ya so” – or even two. But really, it has practically been a month now. Enough already. 

I know that we can expect no decency from the GOP, so this will sound naïve, but truly, what they should be doing is helping their constituents figure it all out. That is what the Democrats did in a similar situation not too long ago. I refer, of course, to the Medicare Part D implementation in late 2005 and early 2006. That was the big prescription drug bill passed in 2003. You remember – it is the one where the Republicans did not have the votes in the House, even though they controlled the House, and Speaker Tom DeLay held the floor open for 15 minutes after the bell rang as his lieutenants went around and badgered and threatened some GOP members until they changed their vote from nay to aye. 

Most Democrats voted against the bill. In the House just 16 of 203 Democratic members voted yes. In the Senate, however, 11 of 48 Democrats voted for the new Bush entitlement. First, let’s just stop right there. Could you imagine 16 and 11 Republicans ever voting for an Obama legislative priority, something that was clearly Obama’s “baby” in the same way that the Part D bill was Bush’s? There would be no end to the slobbering over Republicans for being so reasonable. As I recall, the Democrats were attacked at the time for not supporting the bill enough. 

Two years later, the rollout came. It was a mess. In mid-October 2005, the Bush administration announced a delay. But a month later, as Jon Perr noted recently at Crooks & Liars, the planned comparison-shopping website still wasn’t up and running. Even after it finally was, it was confusing and a mess. Some sample headlines: “Web-based Comparison of Prescription Plans Delayed,” The Washington Post; “Glitches Mar Launch of Medicare Drug Plan,” The Wall Street Journal; “President Tells Insurers to Aid Ailing Medicare Drug Plan,” The New York Times.

Needless to say, some of the same people now trying to put the hex on Obamacare spent 2006 pooh-poohing the glitches – as Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) put it back then. I’m sure they would say the two laws are different things, and it is true that the Affordable Care Act is a bigger undertaking. But they are precisely similar in spirit – big, new government programs that depended largely on citizen interaction via personal computer. And the Obama law corrects what was conspicuously awful about the Bush law – the so-called doughnut hole in prescription drug coverage.

But the biggest difference between the two laws is not how Republicans behaved back then but how Democrats did. Most Democrats voted against the law; but they did not then sue the Bush administration and try to take the thing to the Supreme Court and get it invalidated. And then, when the start-up was a mess, Democrats did not go around saying it was proof the law had to go. They tried to help fix it.   

Hillary Clinton, then a senator, said: “I voted against it, but once it passed I certainly determined that I would try to do everything I could to make sure that New Yorkers understood it, could access it, and make the best of it.”  It is interesting that we have this quote from someone the press has described over the years as one of the most polarizing women in America. Here she was being the exact opposite of polarizing, just doing what was then her job, being a normal and rational human being and public servant. She was deciding, amazingly enough, that the needs of her senior-citizen constituents who might benefit from the law once the kinks were worked out were more important than any grudge or animus she might bear toward the sitting administration. Her husband said it well Sunday, while campaigning with Terry McAuliffe: 

“But our side, we are not so ideological. So instead of bashing them and screaming about how incompetent they were, most of our people just tried to help people understand the law and make it work, and then wait for it to get fixed.”

And yet here was Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) on TV on Sunday spouting the same lies and scare-tactics that has been gushing from their mouths for a month. And there was Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), having no earthly idea what she was talking about on CNN. Neither Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell nor Sen. Rand Paul had one kind word to say for Kentucky’s excellent implementation of the law under Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear. About 15,000 Kentuckians had enrolled as of last week. 

This is yet another stomach-turning GOP-induced state of affairs. I am sick and tired of hearing that Obamacare is an existential threat to their idea of America. Grow up and get over it. You lost this political fight. You may someday win, but until the day you do, behave like adults and as if you actually love the democracy you live in.  And you might consider behaving like the Democrats did back in 2006 when you passed the unpaid for Medicare Part D that added millions of dollars to the deficit. 

Edited from: Michael Tomasky, The Daily Beast, October 29, 2013 Grow Up And Get Over It: Enough Already On HealthCare.Gov, Don’t You Remember Medicare Part D?

President Obama Should NOT Yield to GOP

Republicans in the House are like a bunch of 3-year-olds playing with matches. Their hapless leaders don’t have the sense to scold them and send them to their rooms — which means President Obama has to be the disciplinarian in this dysfunctional family.

Mature adults in the GOP should have explained reality to these tantrum-throwing tykes long ago: It simply is not within their constitutional power to make Obamacare go away. They can scream at the top of their lungs, roll around on the floor, hold their breath until they turn blue, waste everybody’s time with 41 useless votes — whatever. All they can really do is hurt themselves or others.

Yet here we are, with Speaker John Boehner (Ohio) cowed into letting his members threaten to shut down the government unless they are allowed to stay up all night watching television and eating candy. Also, unless the Senate and Obama agree to nullify health-care reform before it fully takes effect.

I happen to believe that Obamacare is a great accomplishment, providing access to medical insurance to millions of Americans who lack it and bringing the nation much closer to universal health care. It’s an imperfect law, to be sure, but it could be made much better with the kind of constructive tinkering that responsible leaders performed on Social Security and Medicare.

Even if Obamacare were tremendously flawed, however, it would be wrong to let a bunch of extremist ideologues hold the country hostage in this manner. If Republicans want to repeal the reforms, they should win the Senate and the presidency. If not, they’re welcome to pout and sulk all they want — but not to use extortion to get their way.

At issue is not just the threat of a federal shutdown, which will happen Oct. 1 unless Congress passes a continuing resolution to fund government operations. The debt ceiling has to be raised before the Treasury hits its borrowing limit, which will happen around Oct. 18. If House Republicans don’t kill or neutralize Obamacare with the funding bill, they are ready to threaten the nation — and the global economy — with a potentially catastrophic default.

The proper response — really, the only response — is to say no. And mean it.

Obama is, by nature, a reasonable and flexible man, but this time he must not yield. Even if you leave aside what delaying or defunding Obamacare would mean for his legacy — erasing his most significant domestic accomplishment — it would be irresponsible for him to bow to the GOP zealots’ demands.

The practical impact of acquiescing would be huge. Individuals who have been uninsured are anticipating access to adequate care. State governments, insurance companies and health-care providers have spent vast amounts of time and money preparing for the law to take effect. To suddenly say “never mind” would be unbelievably reckless.

The political implication of compromising with blackmailers would be an unthinkable surrender of presidential authority. The next time he says “I will do this” or “I will not do that,” why should Congress or the American people take him seriously? How could that possibly enhance Obama’s image on the world stage?

Obama has said he will not accept a budget deal that cripples Obamacare and will never negotiate on the debt ceiling. Even if the Republicans carry through with their threats — and this may happen — the president has no option but to stand his ground.

You don’t deal with bullies by making a deal to keep the peace. That only rewards and encourages them. You have to push back.

The thing is, this showdown is a sure political loser for the GOP — and smart Republicans know it. Boehner doesn’t want this fight and, in fact, should be grateful if Obama hangs tough and shows the crazies the limits of their power. Most Republicans in the Senate don’t want this fight. It’s doubtful that even a majority of House Republicans really, truly want this fight, no matter what they say publicly.

But irresponsible demagogues — I mean you, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) — have whipped the GOP base into a frenzy of unrealistic expectations. House members who balk at jumping off the cliff risk being labeled “moderate,” which is the very worst thing you can call a Republican — and the most likely thing to shorten his or her political career.

The way to end this madness is by firmly saying no. If Boehner won’t do it, Obama must.


By: Eugene Robinson, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, September 20, 2013