I was totally happy to see this piece by Paul Krugman in the NY Times today. It’s been driving me crazy to hear Rethugs repeat these lying talking points over and over.
Myth Number 1: Obamacare will result in a government takeover of 1/6 of the U.S. Economy
Myth Buster from Krugman:
Medicare, Medicaid, and other government programs already pay for almost half of American health care, while private insurance pays for barely more than a third (the rest is mostly out-of-pocket expenses). And the great bulk of that private insurance is provided via employee plans, which are both subsidized with tax exemptions and tightly regulated.
The only part of health care in which there isn’t already a lot of federal intervention is the market in which individuals who can’t get employment-based coverage buy their own insurance. And that market, in case you hadn’t noticed, is a disaster — no coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions, coverage dropped when you get sick, and huge premium increases in the middle of an economic crisis. It’s this sector, plus the plight of Americans with no insurance at all, that reform aims to fix. What’s wrong with that?
Myth Number 2: Obamacare will do nothing to control costs.
Myth Buster from Krugman:
[C]ritics point to reports by the Medicare actuary, who predicts that total national health spending would be slightly higher in 2019 with reform than without it.
Even if this prediction were correct, it points to a pretty good bargain. The actuary’s assessment of the Senate bill, for example, finds that it would raise total health care spending by less than 1 percent, while extending coverage to 34 million Americans who would otherwise be uninsured. That’s a large expansion in coverage at an essentially trivial cost.
As this race unfolds, the winning coalition for us is clearer and clearer. There are three demographic variables that explain almost all of the voters in the primary—gender, party, and income. Race is a factor as well, but we are fighting hard to neutralize it.
We are the candidate of people with needs.
We win women, lower classes, and Democrats (about 3 to 1 in our favor).
Obama wins men, upper class, and independents (about 2 to 1 in his favor).
Edwards draws from these groups as well.
Our winning strategy builds from a base of women, builds on top of that a lower and middle class constituency, and seeks to minimize his advantages with the high class democrats.
If we double perform with WOMEN, LOWER AND MIDDLE CLASS VOTERS, then we have about 55% of the voters.
The reason the Invisible Americans is so powerful is that it speaks to exactly how you can be a champion for those in needs [sic]. He may be the JFK in the race, but you are the Bobby.
Quelle surprise!
Too bad Lambert wasn’t an Obot. A much more skilled operator like Axelrove would have been manipulating him by remote control to terrorize Hillary’s angel-like supporters by the time the Iowa caucuses rolled around. Thug 4 Life!
When my lovely wife Chris and I were recently vacationing in our undisclosed location, I forgot to mention that Biscuit was as well. She spent the entire time we were away with our pals and their two righteous children in their Brooklyn abode. She had a fabulous time. Here’s a pic of her eyeballing their cucumber salad and not their roasted chicken because she is a well-behaved hippy cat. I love this photo.
p.s. More Biscuit pics on the way this weekend. I can’t believe how big she’s gotten. I used to hold her in the palm of my hand and now it’s hard to scoop her up without using both of my hands.
Harry Reid fires off a missive to Mitch McConnell about health care reform, reconciliation, etc., and, ka-THUNK! Here’s my favorite paragraph:
Republicans have spent the past year mischaracterizing the health reform bill and misleading the public. Though we have tried to engage in a serious discussion, our efforts have been met by repeatedly debunked myths and outright lies. At the same time, Republicans have resorted to extraordinary legislative maneuvers in an effort not to improve the bill, but to delay and kill it. After watching these tactics for nearly a year, there is only one conclusion an objective observer could make: these Republican maneuvers are rooted less in substantive policy concerns and more in a partisan desire to discredit Democrats, bolster Republicans, and protect the status quo on behalf of the insurance industry.
Only two days into their sponsorship of Beck’s radio show, TurboTax tweeted a contrite acknowledgment that it had mistaken a liability for an asset.
According to StopBeck.com, TurboTax is the 120th advertiser to shift or outright yank its buys from Beck’s radio and TV programs.
Hard to say at this point whether TurboTax was responding to howls of consumer indignation, or the sudden realization that Beck supports a Soviet-style Flat Tax and a vastly simplified Tax Code, neither of which represents an exciting growth opportunity for sellers of tax-preparation software.
Assemblyman Felix Ortiz, D-Brooklyn, has introduced a bill that would completely ban the use of salt in restaurant cooking.
“No owner or operator of a restaurant in this state shall use salt in any form in the preparation of any food for consumption by customers of such restaurant, including food prepared to be consumed on the premises of such restaurant or off of such premises,” the bill, A. 10129 , states in part.
The bill proposes a $1,000 fine on restaurants for each violation.
Give me, oh PULEEZ, give me a break here. First of all even the Mayo Clinic doesn’t recommend a completely salt free diet. Salt, after all, is needed by our bodies for essential functions. And second, many dishes simply can’t be prepared correctly or flavorfully without the use of some salt. If this law is enacted say goodbye to pickles, kimchee, sauerkraut and any other pickled dishes; soy sauce, worcestershire sauce and many other condiments; and most importantly FLAVOR!
New York has an incredibly vibrant restaurant industry. This heavy handed attempt to impose unnecessary dietary restrictions on anyone choosing to eat out would have a very dampening effect on the business of many restaurants for no apparent public benefit. I realize it’s not likely to pass but, jeebus, don’t those assembly peeps have anything better to do with their time?
If you think the food police are getting a little too aggressive here’s a website where you can sound off.
Palin propagandist John Ziegler warns that unless God Himself sends a golden chariot drawn by legions of cherubs to elevate Sarah Palin to the presidency, she is toast should she choose to disregard his advice and run in 2012:
[B]arring a literal act of God, there is absolutely no chance that Palin can beat Obama in 2012.
[snip]
[T]here is no doubt that her celebrity power keeps her theoretically viable to do literally anything she wants, except the problem here is that huge portions of public believe, wrongly, that they already know the real Sarah Palin… [A]re Republicans really going to run against an over-hyped, inexperienced, charismatic celebrity by nominating someone who is already thought of exactly that way by at least half of America?
This is guest post from Barbara O’Brien (aka Maha from the excellent The Mahablog) outlining some of the reasons why passing the health care reform bill would help out a whole bunch of people.
Many obstacles and stumbling blocks remain in the way of health care reform. The House and Senate bills will have to be merged, and then the House and Senate both will vote on the final bill. We don’t yet know what will be in the final bill, or if the final bill will be passed into law. Passage will be especially difficult in the Senate, where it will need 60 votes to pass. It is still possible that after all this angst, just one grandstanding senator could kill the whole thing.
But just for fun, let’s look at what conventional wisdom says will be in the final bill and see if there is anything in it that will be an immediate benefit to people with mesothelioma and other asbestos-related disease.
It is likely that the final bill will provide additional funding for state high-risk insurance pools. Currently more than 30 states run such pools, which are nonprofit, state-sponsored health insurance plans for people who can’t buy insurance because of pre-existing conditions. The biggest problem with such pools is that, often, the insurance they offer is too expensive for many who might need it. Both the Senate and House bills provide $5 billion in subsidies for state high-risk pools to make the insurance more affordable.
Under the Senate bill, beginning in 2014, private companies would no longer be able to deny coverage to adults with pre-existing conditions, nor could they charge higher premiums for people with pre-existing conditions. Until then, the state high-risk pools could provide some help.
Alaskan blog Palingates, which broke the story on March 3, additionally serves up some compelling speculation on the mystery of why Sarah Palin was standing in front of a snowmachine in her TV commercial spot promoting the Iditarod, which is rather famously a dog-sledding event. Opportunistic product placement or spontaneous scene propping? You decide.
Beyond that, the jokes write themselves: The CBS story notes that Citgo has been the target of repeated Wingnut boycott initiatives. Palingates includes a video from the 2008 Primary where Sarah admits to a Venezuelan interviewer that she believes Hugo Chavez is a dictator. Chavez responded at the time by calling Sarah a confused “Beauty Queen.” Elsewhere, Salon split the difference by dubbing Sarah the “Hugo Chavez of Alaska.”
Optically, this is a bad look for the Palins. But perhaps embracing foreign socialist Enemy-of-America sponsors and cashing paychecks from dictators is just a “common sense solution” for energy self-sufficiency she hasn’t shared with us yet.
