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If you peruse today's news, you'll run across stories that may seem contradictory. On the one hand, you'll find plenty of coverage of congressional Republicans saying they remain committed to repealing the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare"). On the other, you'll also see pieces noting that congressional Republicans intend to use the savings from the health care law to balance the budget.
Which is it? Actually, it's both.
It remains true that GOP lawmakers are committed to Obamacare repeal as if the 2012 election never happened.
Republicans in Congress are renewing their political assault on the nation's new healthcare law, trying to repeal President Obama's signature domestic achievement as part of the next battle over the federal budget.
Rep. Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, last year's Republican vice presidential nominee, said Sunday his forthcoming budget proposal will include repeal of "Obamacare," as his party calls it.
Byron York reported over the weekend that "some conservatives" are upset that House Republican leaders haven't done even more to defund the Affordable Care Act, regardless of the consequences, even if it shuts down the government.
Of course, since Obamacare shrinks the deficit, wouldn't a repeal effort make it harder for the GOP to balance the budget? Yes, and that's why there's a catch: Repblicans only really want to repeal the parts of the reform law that provide health care benefits to people who need them. The rest of the law, as Ezra explained, can stay.
Every Ryan budget since the passage of Obamacare has assumed the repeal of Obamacare. Kinda. Ryan's version of repeal means getting rid of all the parts that spend money to give people health insurance but keeping the tax increases and the Medicare cuts that pays for that health insurance, as without those policies, it is very, very difficult for Ryan to hit his deficit-reduction targets.
It's a nice trick, isn't it? Repeal the parts of the ACA that help people, keep the parts of the ACA that reduce the deficit. Scrap the half that advances the goals Republicans don't like, keep the half that advances the goals Republicans do like.
As a practical matter, GOP leaders thumping their chests and posturing for the cameras is ultimately meaningless -- they're not going to repeal the law. This is about the making the right feel better about itself and ignoring national elections results that conservatives found unsatisfying.
But there are a couple of noteworthy takeaways from the story. First, it's worth noting that as recently as January, Republican leaders didn't see much of a point in pursuing "Obamacare repeal" as a serious goal. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), for example, continued to say how much he hates the law, but publicly acknowledged that he intended to invest his energies elsewhere.
In the seven weeks since, in other words, congressional Republicans have become even more eager to pander to right-wing activists than they were before.
Second, the parts of the ACA congressional Republicans are inclined to keep are troublesome for a guy like Paul Ryan. Sahil Kapur had a good piece on this, noting that the congressman is poised to "complete a 720-degree flip."
Ryan ran for vice president last year against Obama's cuts to Medicare, which don't target beneficiaries but instead lower reimbursements for hospitals and private insurance companies under Medicare Advantage.... And yet GOP budget chief's new position is a return to an earlier stance. His House-passed blueprints in 2011 and 2012 also assumed the same level of Medicare savings as the Affordable Care Act, while repealing the rest of the law.
But even that was a reversal after Ryan and his GOP colleagues strenuously objected to the Medicare cuts before Obamacare passed, warning as he did during the 2012 campaign that the lower provider payments would harm services for current seniors.
In other words, Ryan and Republican leaders started off opposing the ACA's Medicare cuts, then turned around and twice passed budgets that kept them, then campaigned against those cuts in the 2012 election, and are now embracing them again.
Is this the point at which the Beltway press tells me again how "serious" Ryan is?
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Sadly, many of these oh-so-generous Makers are simply people who haven't been crippled by health care costs (yet), or unemployed (yet), or otherwise harmed by events beyond their control (yet). For these people, it takes a profound moment of crisis to realize their brothers aren't Takers. They are our brothers.
As for benefiting from policies you demonized, that's just good old Conservative hypocrisy in action. Nothing to see here. Remember:
IOKIYAR
It's time to give the GOP something else to complain about.
Like a tax on the hoard of Wealth of the top one half of the 1%: Folks with net worths over $10 million. These are the folks getting all the benefits of the increase in Wealth in the US, so it is fair that this appreciation in their net worth be taxed.
Everyone else is contributing to that GDP growth, so it's Fair.
It's not class warfare. It is simply taking a fair percentage of where all the wealth is going.
The facts are pretty clear about that. (Maddow Graph of where all the Wealth has gone).
"Has gone" being the operative word...
Love/hate relationship? Where's the love?
only when we start talking about a THIRD PARTY SOLUTION will we be able to have the power to FIRE THE REPOOPS
All you left wing people are so misguided. You believe all the propaganda you hear and see ON MSNBC. Why do all of us who fend for ourselves have to pay for the people with their hands out. I live on a very fixed income and manage to budget my money. I am 73 years old and if odumma care takes over I ill probably end up living in my car. I volunteer in a hospital and have watched many doctors leave because of the threat of odumma care.
Except you are just projecting your own behaviors onto people who watch MSNBC, here is a clue, we are not lazy conservatives that rely on anyone to tell us what to think, that is a conservative trait. Which is why no conservative was ever kicked out of class for being smart.
"In other words, Ryan and Republican leaders started off opposing the ACA's Medicare cuts, then turned around and twice passed budgets that kept them, then campaigned against those cuts in the 2012 election, and are now embracing them again."
Simply put, they don't have a clue to what they really want.
Sure they do. Like most of the government cuts they're always telling us "the American people" want, they want to cut Medicare, but they want someone else to take the blame for it. That's the tell that they know it's unpopular, no matter how often they publicly proclaim the majority is on their side.
Sorry, but if you talk to 99% of the tea party Republicans and probably 75% of the regular party Republicans they will tell you that Obamacare is costing the government, the employers and even the employees money.
Facts don't count.
The simple rule of thumb is this: believe nothing they say. Did Bush campaign on invading Iraq and privatizing Social Security? Of course not. But that's what he did once he got into office. Whatever Paul Ryan says or doesn't say, his intentions are clear. If he or any other Republican is elected president and Republicans control Congress, Medicare and Social Security will be abolished, taxes on the wealthy and corporations will be cut drastically, a heavy national sales tax will be imposed, abortion will be outlawed, armed drones will patrol the border and the right to vote will be severely restricted. It doesn't matter what they say. This is what they'll do.
All you have to do is look at States with a Republican Supermajority ...that is your future in a Republican world. It is effin scary.
repoops are thieves who steal from people. often they have to deprive people of life and respect to weaken them to steal. israelis do this to palestinians all the time. IT'S AN OLD GAME.
My 8-year-old niece has just been diagnosed with an incurable genetic kidney disease. As she grows older, she will need dialysis and kidney transplants. Praise the Lord that she will be able to have this treatment; without "Obamacare," she would just have to die. That, to me, is the difference between republicans and democrats--democrats value human life and care about others; republicans value money and care only about themselves.
That's truly sad, Sue.
Rather makes me angry, too, thinking how much the GOP loves the fetus, but hates the child.
Rochester, Yeah. Once they're born their concern for them ends.
They make me sad, lately more sad than angry. They have taken a great, fertile, productive country of amazing resources, including its children, and squandered it on wars and the wealthy 1%.
It's quite simply already unsustainable. How can we recover from the damage that's been done? The income inequality is so great as to be obscene.
Who do you think makes the laws when that happens? Whom will these 1% represent now that they own over 40% of the nation's wealth?
i need you to see something about the 1% - as pimps for repoops that put themselves out for them. the game is simple, the pimped out repoops tell the 1% that they will protect their wealth and it wont cost them a dime. in this fashion the repoops use the 1% to abuse the population to steal productivity and live.
usually it's the other way around where the 1% hire repoops to do their dirty work - like in syria or with momar or mubarek or pinochet....
but in the u.s., as there is no one guy at the top, the dirty guys go to the top wealthy greedsters and turn them out.
this is a corruption of what is good. it is the opposite of what Jesus teaches but the repoops prefer power over sharing and equality. the worse is yet to come when the inheritors of wealth and power hire mindless lawyers to write dynastic terror laws which has a template now with how the congress thieves do for wallstreet corps.
Moths attracted to the porch light - the only light they know, and one in which they could be burned any second without knowing why!
Modern Republicans seem to be spreading their wings, awaiting the white light! -Kevo
Dear Jebus, I wish they'd get on it already..
the fire will come to them, they beg for it. they want everyone armed so the shooting can begin so the repubes can rid the country of differences and complications. simple minded repoops cannot handle anything but stepford wives.
It's like that "Stimulus spending" back when the President took office; the GOTP whined, belly-ached, complained loudly - even as they were requesting "Stimulus" spending and standing next to those "shovel ready" projects taking pictures. Nothing new same old hypocrisy....
This is just what Republicans do. Too bad it only gets reported on the blogs. Looking at YOU, alleged newsman Brian Williams.
brian williams is a robotic dummy.
If one looks at the Republican dislike of Obamacare from an historical perspective, their hatred comes into sharp focus:
Like Social Security and Medicare, the Affordable Care Act was given to ALL the American people by a Democrat. And a Black one, at that!
Suck on THAT, Tea Party!
@ Day
One problem... the Affordable Care Act was named wrong... so much for making it more affordable for me. Since the Act, my insurance premiums continued to rise. We switched to a high deductible plan in order to reduce total out of pocket from 16+K annually to 14+K annually. I needed cost containment via tort reform and portability across state lines... didn't get that. Did it help ALL Americans... not the ones paying the insurance premium bill.
the affordable care act is the last step before a public option. all people deserve health care. health care is an entitlement as is life and food. anyone who would seek to deprice another of life or life support is a thief and a willing killer - a person who would brand others as expendable. repoops are such persons.
Now your tripping, the Republicans have never loved Obamacare....any aspect of it.
Perhaps also worth noting - Ryan doesn't want to reduce the deficit. He wants to use those "savings" to lower taxes.
It would be funny if it weren't so tragic.
ryan is a thief. he wants to look like a champion for his pimps. he wants to steal power and life support and productivity from the general population. ryan is a lot like stalin, pinochet, pol pot. his radical monstrous brain thinks little of people other than himself and his cult of worshippers.
he is also nuts.
Obamacare is the single worst law passed in the last 50 years. it has been a head wind to the unemployed because employers know they have to provide insurance to fulltime employees. it has a ton of unfunded mandates, death panels. as far as taxes, what taxes? i thought the liberal statists said it had no tax increases.
Increase Medicare tax rate by .9% and impose added tax of 3.8% on unearned income for high-income taxpayers
Impose a 40% excise tax on health insurance annual premiums in excess of $10,200 for an individual or $27,500 for a family
Impose an annual fee on manufacturers and importers of branded drugs
Impose a 2.3% excise tax on manufacturers and importers of certain medical devices
Raise the 7.5% Adjusted Gross Income floor on medical expenses deduction to 10%
Limit annual contributions to flexible spending arrangements in cafeteria plans to $2,500
General Accounting Office issued a report stating that, based on assumed future changes to the law continuing past trends, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act could add a total of $6.2 trillion to the deficit
oh here is your death panel.
The Independent Payment Advisory Board, or IPAB, is a fifteen-member United States Government agency created in 2010 by sections 3403 and 10320 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act which has the explicit task of achieving specified savings in Medicare
and to all those who are going to say"yeah but the board isn't going to affect coverage" right! just like the obama pres sec robert gibbs admitted that he denied drones. look it up.
you lie.
The "death panel" excuse is bullcrap, and it doesn't even make sense in conservative ideology anyway. According to the conservatives, private business is always super-efficient and never spends unnecessarily, unlike their view of government spending - all over spending and waste. So, with that logic, who would be more likely to have "death panels"? Private insurance companies or universal government healthcare? I'm thinking the ultra efficient private medical insurance companies and hospitals, who are worried about profits than people, are far more likely not to want to "waste" money by covering an expensive treatment for an elderly or terminally ill person who will die soon anyway.
It's a ridiculous scare tactic. If you want to see the compassion of health insurance companies, go visit a "warehousing" (convalescent home) facility for brain damaged and chronically ill people. It's probably pretty cost effective for them, and it's disgusting. And for this type of "care", our family pays $200 more per month than our mortgage costs because to go without would mean financial ruin for us if one of us should get ill or have an accident.
The GOP congress won't ever have to worry about it though, since they and their families get first class health care free of charge (to them) for life, at the taxpayers' expense.
Hypocrites of the worst kind. Especially when you consider that most of them could easily afford to pay for this type of premium health insurance policy out of their own pockets and not even feel it financially.
Your insurance company is the only "death" panel. They tell you who you can see and what they will pay for.
Thank you for summing up the point I was trying to make so succinctly.
My post was a rather awkwardly worded rant :)
Ahh, the "tricks" usually lie with the Democrats.
The only tricks democrats have is the one that shows conservatives as being dumb gullible fools that will vote against their own interests. Not much of a trick as the only way it works is if the person lives in a bubble and refuse to let any information in that would cause them to question a belief, like conservatives live in.
why does the gop fight so hard against obamacare. is it because they don't want to save money? because they like poor people to not have any type of health care? because they don't want people with existing conditions on insurance? because they don't want children living at home to be covered until they are 26? i wonder. perhaps their handlers, the insurance companies, have figured out that they will make a little less profit than they would like. so what we are really talking about is money. good old greedy money. not whats fair or right, but gives corporate america more profit. you all know that the insurance companies are starving to death, right! they are scared that some day their ' little game' will be all done. and believe me that scares them to death. its too bad that we have to blog about these things in order to have a discourse about certain items. of course these huge companies are 'sponsors' and so we can't really discuss this on news programs. so here we are getting our 33% of the real news. money talks!
Cute to see both Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid in this picture with hands praying for some kind of divine intervention! Must be an ANCIENT file photo.
Republicans hate the Grassley amendment and the Franken Amendment, and see repeal of the Affordable Care Act as the only way to get rid of those two amendments without drawing public attention to what they're trying to do.
The next time you talk to a Republican Senator or Representative, ask them specifically about either of those two amendments.
Grassley requires federal elected officials and their staffs to buy health insurance on the state exchanges instead of their cushy congressional package. They cannot carry the same cushy package for life after leaving office, either.
Franken requires health insurance companies to rebate premiums if they fail to spend at least 85% on direct client care each year. Last October, insurance companies had to rebate $1.2 Billion to policyholders.