Today's op-ed of the day comes from George Will. In this column......... April Fools!!! I don't know if i could ever select a George Will column for op-ed of the day. Anyway today's op-ed is from Will's home paper, the Washington Post, and written by Matt Miller. His piece is titled The Republican crackup.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/31/AR2010033101663.html
The Republican crackup
By Matt MillerTuesday, March 31, 2010;
Has anyone else noticed that seemingly well-adjusted Republicans have been driven insane by the passage of Obamacare? You can catch them muttering under their breath, whimpering on editorial pages and howling to the moon that this Democratic victory is the death knell for much that we cherish in American life. When I first saw a Republican friend jump out the window in this fashion, I assumed it was an isolated incident, or even politically motivated play-acting. Now that I've seen countless others follow suit, however, it's a phenomenon that merits deeper psychological inquiry.
As a matter of objective reality, after all, this Republican derangement seems an absurd overreaction. How could taking Mitt Romney's health-care plan national be seen by any balanced person as the beginning of the end? Still, everyone knows that too many big, stressful changes at once -- such as getting divorced, changing jobs and moving homes -- can push even sturdy people over the edge. Three sudden emotional shocks likewise explain the Republican crackup.
Shock 1: Losing big. For starters, Republicans simply have not lost on an issue this big in decades. Media coverage features so many breathless political ups and downs that it's easy to assume each party tastes victory and defeat in equal measure. But as a matter of ideology, these overheated fights take place between the 45-yard lines on a field that conservatives shrewdly tilted to their advantage several decades ago. That President Obama could move the debate to the 40-yard line and win is something the modern GOP has never experienced. Republicans mauled President Clinton when he tried to do the same; after 1994, Clinton's "wins" were trumped-up and tiny. Republicans have so successfully framed the debate for so long that they don't know what it feels like to be thoroughly beaten. Who wouldn't feel disoriented and angry?
Shock 2: The quest for security. The next blow is the dawning awareness that the quest for economic security in a global era is reshaping politics. The instant premise of Republican analysis -- that the public will never tolerate Obamacare's repeal once it is implemented -- concedes the point that health reform will bring a measure of security that families crave. The Republican psyche is having so much trouble digesting this reality, though, that the party is resorting to the kind of condescending arguments for which they normally damn liberals. Who's got more contempt for the average American? Liberals who say everyday Kansans vote Republican because they're too dumb to grasp their own economic self-interest? Or conservatives who now say voters are too dimwitted to see that Obamacare will devour their freedom?
Deep down, Republicans know they haven't developed serious policy responses to the economic anxieties of the middle class. This (rightly) scares them.
Shock 3: The death of the tax issue. The final shock is the cruelest of all: the demise of the tax issue that's defined the Republican brand since Ronald Reagan. There's been no shortage of conservative carping since the health-care vote that we're now doomed to have a value-added tax to fund the runaway welfare state. Well, earth to GOP: Taxes have always been destined to go up as baby boomers retire and we double the number of people on Social Security and Medicare in the years ahead -- and the scale of that retiree commitment is far greater than the tab for Obamacare. Trying to blame health reform for the higher taxes in our future is another species of the denial that has left GOP tax talk almost comically detached from reality. But this is just the GOP acting out its fears. When a party discovers that core aspects of its political identity no longer offer meaningful answers to the nation's problems, the torment is acute. Yet what else can we say of the GOP now that "rugged individualism" won't suffice to save American workers from competition from China and India, and when taxes are sure to rise, no matter how many Republicans we elect?
The signposts in the Republican universe have been abruptly altered. So don't let yourself become desensitized to the sight of conservatives stumbling, lost in the night, the way you avert your eyes when passing poor homeless souls on the sidewalk. Suffering is subjective. There are people on the street who really think they are Jesus. There are Republicans in our midst who really think Obama's version of Romneycare equals socialism. There but for the grace of God -- and maybe a little less sloppy thinking -- go we.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Late Night reading thanks to Frum
Late night reading. Piece from the FrumForum by Tim Mak discussing the rivalry between Hannity and Beck- goodnight
http://www.frumforum.com/high-noon-at-fox-news
http://www.frumforum.com/high-noon-at-fox-news
W V Vatican
Maureen Dowd, who I rarely think is on point, nails the Catholic Church's response to the latest accusations against them. MODO does a fantastic job of the parallels of contrasting the George W. Bush Administration and the Vatican. Yea,yea, i know its not the same thing but just read the column and see what you think- http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/opinion/31dowd.html
north v south round 2
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2009/05/04/090504taco_talk_hertzberg
I know the article posted above is a year old, but every time I see these gun nuts and conservatives talking about how universal health care is "Armageddon" I can't help but flirt with the idea of secession and think everyone would be a tad bit happier.
When i seriously think about it I wouldn't want secession to occur because I truly believe the varied culture and values across the country is what makes it great(corny, i know). I'll have more thoughts on tihs over time.
I also cut and pasted the piece below-
So Long,Pardner. by Hendrik Hertzberg
QUESTION: What do you think about the idea of secession or sovereignty for your state? GOVERNOR PERRY, OF TEXAS: Oh, I think there’s a lot of different scenarios.
On April 15th, a.k.a. tax day, protest rallies promoted by conservative lobbyists and Fox News television hosts attracted a couple of hundred thousand people to a couple of hundred locations around the country. The rallies were called “tea parties”—more mad than Boston, by the look and sound of them—with “tea” standing for “Taxed Enough Already.” The partygoers’ main target was President Obama’s plan for an enormous tax hike, under which, starting in 2011, persons with incomes in excess of a quarter-million dollars could see their top marginal rate go from thirty-five per cent to 39.6. This means that a fellow making, for example, three hundred grand could see his tax bill go up $34.62 per week. (In a typical liberal trick, most people making under a quarter mil, which is to say ninety-seven per cent of us, are getting a reduction.)
Lifting the burden of taxation from the backs of the comfortable is no longer the exciting new panacea it was back in the nineteen-eighties. But another proposal that the tea parties were buzzing about merits the respectful consideration of concerned citizens: Governor Rick Perry’s suggestion that Texas might end its association with the United States of America and strike out on its own.
Independence wouldn’t be a huge stretch for Texas. It already has its own national flag, left over from its decade as a sovereign republic. As a result, transition expenses should be minimal. At the Austin tea party, Governor Perry, still flushed with the excitement of denouncing federal oppression from the platform, told reporters, “When we came in the union, in 1845, one of the issues was that we would be able to leave if we decided to do that.” He added, a little ominously:My hope is that America, and Washington in particular, pays attention. We’ve got a great Union. There’s absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, who knows what might come out of that.
Or, translated into New Yorkese: Nice little Union you got there. Be a shame if anything happened to it.
The Governor is mistaken about Texas having been admitted to the Union with an opt-out provision; the actual deal was that Texas, with Congress’s permission, could theoretically divide itself into five states. Exiting the United States is not as simple as resigning from a restricted country club. Since “the Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union” (Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, Texas v. White, 1869), Perry would need either a constitutional amendment or a Supreme Court chock-full of Scaliaesque “originalists.”
Putting aside the technicalities, though, what about the merits? Secession has been in questionable odor ever since Fort Sumter, but there are big differences between then and now. The cause of the Civil War was slavery, and the white South’s determination, in Lincoln’s phrase, “to strengthen, perpetuate, and extend” it. That was something worth fighting against, if not worth fighting for. But a difference of opinion about a marginal tax rate? There is, to be sure, a superficial parallel: just as only a minority of Southern whites owned slaves, only a tiny minority of Texans are due for a tax increase. It’s an aspirational thing. According to a poll taken the other day, a mere third of the people of the Lone Star State, and only half of Texas Republicans, are currently inclined to secede. But, if the numbers mount, might it not be better for all concerned if we just let Texas—and, by extension, any other parts of the old Confederacy that wish to accompany it—go?
Despite Perry’s fighting words, there is no reason for the separation to be an occasion for violence. The globe is replete with two-state solutions: India and Pakistan, Ethiopia and Eritrea, Israel and Palestine. Admittedly, these may not be the best examples. A closer parallel would be Czechoslovakia, which, in 1993, split peacefully into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Like Czechs and Slovaks, Americans and Texans speak closely related languages, share a common, if not equally intense, interest in football games (though the Dallas Cowboys could no longer style themselves “America’s Team”), and enjoy each other’s cuisines. (Houston has a number of acceptable organic fusion restaurants, and there is a pretty fair barbecue place just a block from The New Yorker’s offices.) The border between the United States and the Federated States (“Confederate” being a word that remains a little too provocative) might not be as trouble-free as that between the United States and Canada, but, compared to the border with Mexico, it would probably require somewhat fewer armed citizen militias and fences topped with concertina wire to thwart illegal aliens desperate for a better life. On balance, trade relations between the U.S. and the F.S. would be advantageous to both. Cultural exchanges, tourism, and even a degree of military coöperation would be far from unthinkable.
For the old country, the benefits would be obvious. A more intimately sized Congress would briskly enact sensible gun control, universal health insurance, and ample support for the arts, the humanities, and the sciences. Although Texas itself has been a net contributor to the Treasury—it gets back ninety-four cents for each dollar it sends to Washington—nearly all the other potential F.S. states, especially the ones whose politicians complain most loudly about the federal jackboot, are on the dole. (South Carolina, for example, receives $1.35 on the dollar, as compared with Illinois’s seventy-five cents.) Republicans would have a hard time winning elections for a generation or two, but eventually a responsible opposition party would emerge, along the lines of Britain’s Conservatives, and a normal alternation in power could return.
The Federated States, meanwhile, could get on with the business of protecting the sanctity of marriage, mandating organized prayer sessions and the teaching of creationism in schools, and giving the theory that eliminating taxes increases government revenues a fair test. Although Texas and the other likely F.S. states already conduct some eighty-six per cent of executions, their death rows remain clogged with thousands of prisoners kept alive by meddling judges. These would be rapidly cleared out, providing more prison space for abortion providers. Although there might be some economic dislocation at first, the F.S. could remedy this by taking advantage of its eligibility for OPEC membership and arranging a new “oil shock.” Failing that, foreign aid could be solicited from Washington. But the greatest benefit would be psychological: freed from the condescension of metropolitan élites and Hollywood degenerates, the new country could tap its dormant creativity and develop a truly distinctive Way of Life.
Not every Southerner would be eager to go along with the new order, so delicate diplomacy would be a must. New Orleans might have to be made a “free city,” like Danzig (now Gdańsk) between the world wars. If partitioning Austin along the lines of Cold War Berlin proved unfeasible, peacekeeping troops might have to be sent in. But, before long, living side by side in peace and tranquillity, we could all say either “God bless the United States of America” or “God bless the Federated States,” as the case may be. ♦
I know the article posted above is a year old, but every time I see these gun nuts and conservatives talking about how universal health care is "Armageddon" I can't help but flirt with the idea of secession and think everyone would be a tad bit happier.
When i seriously think about it I wouldn't want secession to occur because I truly believe the varied culture and values across the country is what makes it great(corny, i know). I'll have more thoughts on tihs over time.
I also cut and pasted the piece below-
So Long,Pardner. by Hendrik Hertzberg
QUESTION: What do you think about the idea of secession or sovereignty for your state? GOVERNOR PERRY, OF TEXAS: Oh, I think there’s a lot of different scenarios.
On April 15th, a.k.a. tax day, protest rallies promoted by conservative lobbyists and Fox News television hosts attracted a couple of hundred thousand people to a couple of hundred locations around the country. The rallies were called “tea parties”—more mad than Boston, by the look and sound of them—with “tea” standing for “Taxed Enough Already.” The partygoers’ main target was President Obama’s plan for an enormous tax hike, under which, starting in 2011, persons with incomes in excess of a quarter-million dollars could see their top marginal rate go from thirty-five per cent to 39.6. This means that a fellow making, for example, three hundred grand could see his tax bill go up $34.62 per week. (In a typical liberal trick, most people making under a quarter mil, which is to say ninety-seven per cent of us, are getting a reduction.)
Lifting the burden of taxation from the backs of the comfortable is no longer the exciting new panacea it was back in the nineteen-eighties. But another proposal that the tea parties were buzzing about merits the respectful consideration of concerned citizens: Governor Rick Perry’s suggestion that Texas might end its association with the United States of America and strike out on its own.
Independence wouldn’t be a huge stretch for Texas. It already has its own national flag, left over from its decade as a sovereign republic. As a result, transition expenses should be minimal. At the Austin tea party, Governor Perry, still flushed with the excitement of denouncing federal oppression from the platform, told reporters, “When we came in the union, in 1845, one of the issues was that we would be able to leave if we decided to do that.” He added, a little ominously:My hope is that America, and Washington in particular, pays attention. We’ve got a great Union. There’s absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, who knows what might come out of that.
Or, translated into New Yorkese: Nice little Union you got there. Be a shame if anything happened to it.
The Governor is mistaken about Texas having been admitted to the Union with an opt-out provision; the actual deal was that Texas, with Congress’s permission, could theoretically divide itself into five states. Exiting the United States is not as simple as resigning from a restricted country club. Since “the Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union” (Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, Texas v. White, 1869), Perry would need either a constitutional amendment or a Supreme Court chock-full of Scaliaesque “originalists.”
Putting aside the technicalities, though, what about the merits? Secession has been in questionable odor ever since Fort Sumter, but there are big differences between then and now. The cause of the Civil War was slavery, and the white South’s determination, in Lincoln’s phrase, “to strengthen, perpetuate, and extend” it. That was something worth fighting against, if not worth fighting for. But a difference of opinion about a marginal tax rate? There is, to be sure, a superficial parallel: just as only a minority of Southern whites owned slaves, only a tiny minority of Texans are due for a tax increase. It’s an aspirational thing. According to a poll taken the other day, a mere third of the people of the Lone Star State, and only half of Texas Republicans, are currently inclined to secede. But, if the numbers mount, might it not be better for all concerned if we just let Texas—and, by extension, any other parts of the old Confederacy that wish to accompany it—go?
Despite Perry’s fighting words, there is no reason for the separation to be an occasion for violence. The globe is replete with two-state solutions: India and Pakistan, Ethiopia and Eritrea, Israel and Palestine. Admittedly, these may not be the best examples. A closer parallel would be Czechoslovakia, which, in 1993, split peacefully into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Like Czechs and Slovaks, Americans and Texans speak closely related languages, share a common, if not equally intense, interest in football games (though the Dallas Cowboys could no longer style themselves “America’s Team”), and enjoy each other’s cuisines. (Houston has a number of acceptable organic fusion restaurants, and there is a pretty fair barbecue place just a block from The New Yorker’s offices.) The border between the United States and the Federated States (“Confederate” being a word that remains a little too provocative) might not be as trouble-free as that between the United States and Canada, but, compared to the border with Mexico, it would probably require somewhat fewer armed citizen militias and fences topped with concertina wire to thwart illegal aliens desperate for a better life. On balance, trade relations between the U.S. and the F.S. would be advantageous to both. Cultural exchanges, tourism, and even a degree of military coöperation would be far from unthinkable.
For the old country, the benefits would be obvious. A more intimately sized Congress would briskly enact sensible gun control, universal health insurance, and ample support for the arts, the humanities, and the sciences. Although Texas itself has been a net contributor to the Treasury—it gets back ninety-four cents for each dollar it sends to Washington—nearly all the other potential F.S. states, especially the ones whose politicians complain most loudly about the federal jackboot, are on the dole. (South Carolina, for example, receives $1.35 on the dollar, as compared with Illinois’s seventy-five cents.) Republicans would have a hard time winning elections for a generation or two, but eventually a responsible opposition party would emerge, along the lines of Britain’s Conservatives, and a normal alternation in power could return.
The Federated States, meanwhile, could get on with the business of protecting the sanctity of marriage, mandating organized prayer sessions and the teaching of creationism in schools, and giving the theory that eliminating taxes increases government revenues a fair test. Although Texas and the other likely F.S. states already conduct some eighty-six per cent of executions, their death rows remain clogged with thousands of prisoners kept alive by meddling judges. These would be rapidly cleared out, providing more prison space for abortion providers. Although there might be some economic dislocation at first, the F.S. could remedy this by taking advantage of its eligibility for OPEC membership and arranging a new “oil shock.” Failing that, foreign aid could be solicited from Washington. But the greatest benefit would be psychological: freed from the condescension of metropolitan élites and Hollywood degenerates, the new country could tap its dormant creativity and develop a truly distinctive Way of Life.
Not every Southerner would be eager to go along with the new order, so delicate diplomacy would be a must. New Orleans might have to be made a “free city,” like Danzig (now Gdańsk) between the world wars. If partitioning Austin along the lines of Cold War Berlin proved unfeasible, peacekeeping troops might have to be sent in. But, before long, living side by side in peace and tranquillity, we could all say either “God bless the United States of America” or “God bless the Federated States,” as the case may be. ♦
Irish food. yup, it exists
On occasion I discuss food, the main source being Wednesday's dining section in the NY Times, so here ya go. Showing some love to the Irish-http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/dining
great stuff from daily show
Vintage Jon Stewart. Rips up, what soon could be former, RNC chairman, Michael Steele. Is ken Melhman still looking for work?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/31/jon-stewart-revels-in-gop_n_519748.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/31/jon-stewart-revels-in-gop_n_519748.html
Drill Baby Drill!
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/science/earth/31energy.html?hp
Obama co opts the GOP's offshore drilling strategy. More brilliant politics from POTUS.
"The proposal is to be announced by President Obama and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland on Wednesday, but administration officials agreed to preview the details on the condition that they not be identified.
The proposal is intended to reduce dependence on oil imports, generate revenue from the sale of offshore leases and help win political support for comprehensive energy and climate legislation. "
Obama co opts the GOP's offshore drilling strategy. More brilliant politics from POTUS.
"The proposal is to be announced by President Obama and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland on Wednesday, but administration officials agreed to preview the details on the condition that they not be identified.
The proposal is intended to reduce dependence on oil imports, generate revenue from the sale of offshore leases and help win political support for comprehensive energy and climate legislation. "
OP-ED of the Day
Atul Gawande writes in the New Yorker about the coming battle over the implimentation of healthcare reform.
Now What? by Atul Gawande
On July 30, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare into law. In public memory, what ensued was the smooth establishment of a popular program, but in fact Medicare faced a year of nearly crippling rearguard attacks. The American Medical Association had waged war to try to stop the program, and doctors weren’t about to abandon the fight against “socialized medicine” simply because it had passed into law. The Ohio Medical Association, with ten thousand physician members, declared that it would boycott Medicare, and a nationwide movement began. Race proved an even more explosive issue. Many hospitals, especially in the South, were segregated, and the law required them to integrate in order to receive Medicare dollars. Alabama’s Governor George Wallace was among those who encouraged resistance; just two months before coverage was to begin, half the hospitals in a dozen Southern states had still refused to meet Medicare certification.
Either boycott could have destroyed the program. Hundreds of thousands of elderly and black patients would have found their hospitals and doctors’ offices closed to them. But, as David Blumenthal and James A. Morone recount in “The Heart of Power,” their riveting history of health-care politics, Johnson recognized the threat and outmaneuvered his opponents. With the doctors, he cajoled and compromised, giving the A.M.A. a seat on an advisory council that oversaw the rules and regulations, and working with it on a series of thirty “improving” amendments to the legislation. With hospitals, however, the President brooked no compromise. He convened a battle council of top advisers; set Vice-President Hubert Humphrey phoning mayors to pressure resistant hospitals; and deployed hundreds of inspectors to make sure that participating hospitals integrated their wards. There was fury and acrimony. In the final weeks before Medicare’s start, though, the hospitals decided to abandon segregation rather than lose federal dollars. Only then was Medicare possible.
The health-reform bill that President Obama signed into law last week—the unmemorably named Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act—could prove as momentous as Medicare. Yet, because most of its provisions phase in more slowly than Medicare did, they are even more vulnerable to attack. The context, of course, is different. As Robert Blendon, of the Harvard School of Public Health, points out, the war against health reform in 2010 has not been an interest-group battle. The A.M.A. endorsed the legislation; hospital associations were supportive. Once the public option was dropped, most insurers favored the bill. The medical world will wage no civil resistance. This time, the threat comes from party politics. Conservatives are casting the November midterm elections as a vote on repealing the health-reform law. If they regain power, they are unlikely to repeal the whole thing. (No one is going to force children with preëxisting conditions back off their parents’ health plans.) Instead, they will try to strip out the critical but less straightforwardly appealing elements of reform—the requirement that larger employers provide health benefits and that uncovered individuals buy at least a basic policy; the subsidies to make sure that they can afford those policies; the significant new taxes on household incomes over two hundred and fifty thousand dollars—and thereby gut coverage for the uninsured.
Opponents may also exploit the administrative difficulties of creating state insurance exchanges. The states have four years to prepare, and creating an exchange is, in theory, no more complicated than what states do in providing health-benefit options to public employees. Massachusetts, which has achieved near-universal coverage this way, had its exchange working in six months. Still, with fourteen state attorneys general already suing to stop parts of the reform, some states may refuse to coöperate, forcing a showdown.
The major engine of opposition, however, remains the insistence that health-care reform is unaffordable. The best way to protect reform, in turn, is to prove the skeptics wrong. In 1965, health care consumed just six per cent of U.S. economic output; today, the figure is eighteen per cent. Nearly all the gains that wage earners made over the past three decades have gone to paying for health care. Its costs are curtailing all other investments in the economy, and, if they continue to rise as they have been doing—twice as fast as inflation—the reform’s subsidies, not to mention America’s prosperity, will indeed prove unsustainable.
But the reform package emerged with a clear recognition of what is driving costs up: a system that pays for the quantity of care rather than the value of it. This can’t continue. Recently, clinicians at Children’s Hospital Boston adopted a more systematic approach for managing inner-city children who suffer severe asthma attacks, by introducing a bundle of preventive measures. Insurance would cover just one: prescribing an inhaler. The hospital agreed to pay for the rest, which included nurses who would visit parents after discharge and make sure that they had their child’s medicine, knew how to administer it, and had a follow-up appointment with a pediatrician; home inspections for mold and pests; and vacuum cleaners for families without one (which is cheaper than medication). After a year, the hospital readmission rate for these patients dropped by more than eighty per cent, and costs plunged. But an empty hospital bed is a revenue loss, and asthma is Children’s Hospital’s leading source of admissions. Under the current system, this sensible program could threaten to bankrupt it. So far, neither the government nor the insurance companies have figured out a solution.
The most interesting, under-discussed, and potentially revolutionary aspect of the law is that it doesn’t pretend to have the answers. Instead, through a new Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, it offers to free communities and local health systems from existing payment rules, and let them experiment with ways to deliver better care at lower costs. In large part, it entrusts the task of devising cost-saving health-care innovation to communities like Boise and Boston and Buffalo, rather than to the drug and device companies and the public and private insurers that have failed to do so. This is the way costs will come down—or not.
That’s the one truly scary thing about health reform: far from being a government takeover, it counts on local communities and clinicians for success. We are the ones to determine whether costs are controlled and health care improves—which is to say, whether reform survives and resistance is defeated. The voting is over, and the country has many other issues that clamor for attention. But, as L.B.J. would have recognized, the battle for health-care reform has only begun. ♦
Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2010/04/05/100405taco_talk_gawande
Now What? by Atul Gawande
On July 30, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare into law. In public memory, what ensued was the smooth establishment of a popular program, but in fact Medicare faced a year of nearly crippling rearguard attacks. The American Medical Association had waged war to try to stop the program, and doctors weren’t about to abandon the fight against “socialized medicine” simply because it had passed into law. The Ohio Medical Association, with ten thousand physician members, declared that it would boycott Medicare, and a nationwide movement began. Race proved an even more explosive issue. Many hospitals, especially in the South, were segregated, and the law required them to integrate in order to receive Medicare dollars. Alabama’s Governor George Wallace was among those who encouraged resistance; just two months before coverage was to begin, half the hospitals in a dozen Southern states had still refused to meet Medicare certification.
Either boycott could have destroyed the program. Hundreds of thousands of elderly and black patients would have found their hospitals and doctors’ offices closed to them. But, as David Blumenthal and James A. Morone recount in “The Heart of Power,” their riveting history of health-care politics, Johnson recognized the threat and outmaneuvered his opponents. With the doctors, he cajoled and compromised, giving the A.M.A. a seat on an advisory council that oversaw the rules and regulations, and working with it on a series of thirty “improving” amendments to the legislation. With hospitals, however, the President brooked no compromise. He convened a battle council of top advisers; set Vice-President Hubert Humphrey phoning mayors to pressure resistant hospitals; and deployed hundreds of inspectors to make sure that participating hospitals integrated their wards. There was fury and acrimony. In the final weeks before Medicare’s start, though, the hospitals decided to abandon segregation rather than lose federal dollars. Only then was Medicare possible.
The health-reform bill that President Obama signed into law last week—the unmemorably named Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act—could prove as momentous as Medicare. Yet, because most of its provisions phase in more slowly than Medicare did, they are even more vulnerable to attack. The context, of course, is different. As Robert Blendon, of the Harvard School of Public Health, points out, the war against health reform in 2010 has not been an interest-group battle. The A.M.A. endorsed the legislation; hospital associations were supportive. Once the public option was dropped, most insurers favored the bill. The medical world will wage no civil resistance. This time, the threat comes from party politics. Conservatives are casting the November midterm elections as a vote on repealing the health-reform law. If they regain power, they are unlikely to repeal the whole thing. (No one is going to force children with preëxisting conditions back off their parents’ health plans.) Instead, they will try to strip out the critical but less straightforwardly appealing elements of reform—the requirement that larger employers provide health benefits and that uncovered individuals buy at least a basic policy; the subsidies to make sure that they can afford those policies; the significant new taxes on household incomes over two hundred and fifty thousand dollars—and thereby gut coverage for the uninsured.
Opponents may also exploit the administrative difficulties of creating state insurance exchanges. The states have four years to prepare, and creating an exchange is, in theory, no more complicated than what states do in providing health-benefit options to public employees. Massachusetts, which has achieved near-universal coverage this way, had its exchange working in six months. Still, with fourteen state attorneys general already suing to stop parts of the reform, some states may refuse to coöperate, forcing a showdown.
The major engine of opposition, however, remains the insistence that health-care reform is unaffordable. The best way to protect reform, in turn, is to prove the skeptics wrong. In 1965, health care consumed just six per cent of U.S. economic output; today, the figure is eighteen per cent. Nearly all the gains that wage earners made over the past three decades have gone to paying for health care. Its costs are curtailing all other investments in the economy, and, if they continue to rise as they have been doing—twice as fast as inflation—the reform’s subsidies, not to mention America’s prosperity, will indeed prove unsustainable.
But the reform package emerged with a clear recognition of what is driving costs up: a system that pays for the quantity of care rather than the value of it. This can’t continue. Recently, clinicians at Children’s Hospital Boston adopted a more systematic approach for managing inner-city children who suffer severe asthma attacks, by introducing a bundle of preventive measures. Insurance would cover just one: prescribing an inhaler. The hospital agreed to pay for the rest, which included nurses who would visit parents after discharge and make sure that they had their child’s medicine, knew how to administer it, and had a follow-up appointment with a pediatrician; home inspections for mold and pests; and vacuum cleaners for families without one (which is cheaper than medication). After a year, the hospital readmission rate for these patients dropped by more than eighty per cent, and costs plunged. But an empty hospital bed is a revenue loss, and asthma is Children’s Hospital’s leading source of admissions. Under the current system, this sensible program could threaten to bankrupt it. So far, neither the government nor the insurance companies have figured out a solution.
The most interesting, under-discussed, and potentially revolutionary aspect of the law is that it doesn’t pretend to have the answers. Instead, through a new Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, it offers to free communities and local health systems from existing payment rules, and let them experiment with ways to deliver better care at lower costs. In large part, it entrusts the task of devising cost-saving health-care innovation to communities like Boise and Boston and Buffalo, rather than to the drug and device companies and the public and private insurers that have failed to do so. This is the way costs will come down—or not.
That’s the one truly scary thing about health reform: far from being a government takeover, it counts on local communities and clinicians for success. We are the ones to determine whether costs are controlled and health care improves—which is to say, whether reform survives and resistance is defeated. The voting is over, and the country has many other issues that clamor for attention. But, as L.B.J. would have recognized, the battle for health-care reform has only begun. ♦
Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2010/04/05/100405taco_talk_gawande
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
HH Nails Mac
Great post from, in my opinion, the best living political essayist, Hendrik Hertzberg. He really shows McCain's legacy as it should be- an empty and cracked shell of what made him so respected for so many years. This respct came from across the political spectrum. That said, for the far right he was always something of a Libermanesque Republican.ANyway check out the post below and goodnight.
-http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/hendrikhertzberg/2010/03/lousy-choices.html
-http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/hendrikhertzberg/2010/03/lousy-choices.html
late night op-ed recomendation
Great article from Bob Herbert- http://www.nytimes.com//2010/03/30/opinion/30herbert.html
Mandates vs Mitt
I keep wondering how long this whole Mitt Romney " i was for health care mandates before i was against them" is going to last before it takes him, and his Reaganesque hair, to become this year's Bobby Jindal?
As Josh Marshall points out on TPM Obama saying " a lot of commentators have said this is sort of similar to the bill that Mitt Romney, the Republican Governor and now presidential candidate, passed in Massachusetts." could be like a " throwing a drowning man an anchor".
As Josh Marshall points out on TPM Obama saying " a lot of commentators have said this is sort of similar to the bill that Mitt Romney, the Republican Governor and now presidential candidate, passed in Massachusetts." could be like a " throwing a drowning man an anchor".
Backfire
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6932410.html
Conservatives not filling out census. Wow. The politically blind leading the politically blind.
It would really be amazing, if, as i had hoped for sometime, this moronic/blind opposition to government came back and took away some congressional seats from safe conservative districts.
Conservatives not filling out census. Wow. The politically blind leading the politically blind.
It would really be amazing, if, as i had hoped for sometime, this moronic/blind opposition to government came back and took away some congressional seats from safe conservative districts.
political capital/gun control
Despite being happy about Bloomberg "stepping up" to POTUS on the issue of gun control I wonder how much, if any, political capital he can afford to use on something like that with financial reform, some sort of price on carbon, and other issues coming up?
skim
Lost in the great accomplishment of HCR is the student loan reform that the president signed into law today. The middleman with no risk(salliemae) no longer gets to, as they said in the film Casino, "skim the skim".
full text op-ed of the day
The Hutaree militia and the rising risk of far-right violence
By Eugene RobinsonTuesday, March 30, 2010; A25
The arrests of members of a Michigan-based "Christian" militia group should convince doubters that there is good reason to worry about right-wing, anti-government extremism -- and potential violence -- in the Age of Obama.
I put the word Christian in quotes because anyone who plots to assassinate law enforcement officers, as a federal indictment alleges members of the Hutaree militia did, is no follower of Christ. According to federal prosecutors, the Hutaree -- the word's not in my dictionary, but its Web site claims it means "Christian warrior" -- are convinced that their enemies include "state and local law enforcement, who are deemed 'foot soldiers' of the federal government, federal law enforcement agencies and employees, participants in the 'New World Order,' and anyone who does not share in the Hutaree's beliefs."
According to the indictment, the group had been plotting for two years to assassinate federal, state or local police officers. "Possible such acts which were discussed," the indictment says, "included killing a member of law enforcement after a traffic stop, killing a member of law enforcement and his or her family at home, ambushing a member of law enforcement in rural communities, luring a member of law enforcement with a false 911 emergency call and then killing him or her, and killing a member of law enforcement and then attacking the funeral procession motorcade" with homemade bombs.
Nine members of the Hutaree were named in the indictment. Eight were arrested during weekend FBI raids in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana; one suspect remains at large. The group's Web site shows members in camouflage outfits traipsing through woods in "training" exercises. They could be out for an afternoon of paintball, except for the loony rhetoric about "sword and flame" and the page, labeled "Gear," that links to several gun dealers. Along with numerous weapons offenses, the Hutaree are charged with sedition.
The episode highlights the obvious: For decades now, the most serious threat of domestic terrorism has come from the growing ranks of paranoid, anti-government hate groups that draw their inspiration, vocabulary and anger from the far right.
It is disingenuous for mainstream purveyors of incendiary far-right rhetoric to dismiss groups such as the Hutaree by saying that there are "crazies on both sides." This simply is not true.
There was a time when the far left was a spawning ground for political violence. The first big story I covered was the San Francisco trial of heiress Patricia Hearst, who had been kidnapped and eventually co-opted by the Symbionese Liberation Army -- a far-left group whose philosophy was as apocalyptic and incoherent as that of the Hutaree. There are aging radicals in Cuba today who got to Havana by hijacking airplanes in the 1970s. Left-wing radicals caused mayhem and took innocent lives.
But for the most part, far-left violence in this country has gone the way of the leisure suit and the AMC Gremlin. An anti-globalization movement, including a few window-smashing anarchists, was gaining traction at one point, but it quickly diminished after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. An environmental group and an animal-rights group have been linked with incidents of arson. Beyond those particulars, it is hard to identify any kind of leftist threat.
By contrast, there has been explosive growth among far-right, militia-type groups that identify themselves as white supremacists, "constitutionalists," tax protesters and religious soldiers determined to kill people to uphold "Christian" values. Most of the groups that posed a real danger, as the Hutaree allegedly did, have been infiltrated and dismantled by authorities before they could do any damage. But we should never forget that the worst act of domestic terrorism ever committed in this country was authored by a member of the government-hating right wing: Timothy McVeigh's bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City.
It is dishonest for right-wing commentators to insist on an equivalence that does not exist. The danger of political violence in this country comes overwhelmingly from one direction -- the right, not the left. The vitriolic, anti-government hate speech that is spewed on talk radio every day -- and, quite regularly, at Tea Party rallies -- is calibrated not to inform but to incite.
Demagogues scream at people that their government is illegitimate, that their country has been "taken away," that their elected officials are "traitors" and that their freedom is at risk. They have a right to free speech, which I will always defend. But they shouldn't be surprised if some listeners take them literally.
By Eugene RobinsonTuesday, March 30, 2010; A25
The arrests of members of a Michigan-based "Christian" militia group should convince doubters that there is good reason to worry about right-wing, anti-government extremism -- and potential violence -- in the Age of Obama.
I put the word Christian in quotes because anyone who plots to assassinate law enforcement officers, as a federal indictment alleges members of the Hutaree militia did, is no follower of Christ. According to federal prosecutors, the Hutaree -- the word's not in my dictionary, but its Web site claims it means "Christian warrior" -- are convinced that their enemies include "state and local law enforcement, who are deemed 'foot soldiers' of the federal government, federal law enforcement agencies and employees, participants in the 'New World Order,' and anyone who does not share in the Hutaree's beliefs."
According to the indictment, the group had been plotting for two years to assassinate federal, state or local police officers. "Possible such acts which were discussed," the indictment says, "included killing a member of law enforcement after a traffic stop, killing a member of law enforcement and his or her family at home, ambushing a member of law enforcement in rural communities, luring a member of law enforcement with a false 911 emergency call and then killing him or her, and killing a member of law enforcement and then attacking the funeral procession motorcade" with homemade bombs.
Nine members of the Hutaree were named in the indictment. Eight were arrested during weekend FBI raids in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana; one suspect remains at large. The group's Web site shows members in camouflage outfits traipsing through woods in "training" exercises. They could be out for an afternoon of paintball, except for the loony rhetoric about "sword and flame" and the page, labeled "Gear," that links to several gun dealers. Along with numerous weapons offenses, the Hutaree are charged with sedition.
The episode highlights the obvious: For decades now, the most serious threat of domestic terrorism has come from the growing ranks of paranoid, anti-government hate groups that draw their inspiration, vocabulary and anger from the far right.
It is disingenuous for mainstream purveyors of incendiary far-right rhetoric to dismiss groups such as the Hutaree by saying that there are "crazies on both sides." This simply is not true.
There was a time when the far left was a spawning ground for political violence. The first big story I covered was the San Francisco trial of heiress Patricia Hearst, who had been kidnapped and eventually co-opted by the Symbionese Liberation Army -- a far-left group whose philosophy was as apocalyptic and incoherent as that of the Hutaree. There are aging radicals in Cuba today who got to Havana by hijacking airplanes in the 1970s. Left-wing radicals caused mayhem and took innocent lives.
But for the most part, far-left violence in this country has gone the way of the leisure suit and the AMC Gremlin. An anti-globalization movement, including a few window-smashing anarchists, was gaining traction at one point, but it quickly diminished after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. An environmental group and an animal-rights group have been linked with incidents of arson. Beyond those particulars, it is hard to identify any kind of leftist threat.
By contrast, there has been explosive growth among far-right, militia-type groups that identify themselves as white supremacists, "constitutionalists," tax protesters and religious soldiers determined to kill people to uphold "Christian" values. Most of the groups that posed a real danger, as the Hutaree allegedly did, have been infiltrated and dismantled by authorities before they could do any damage. But we should never forget that the worst act of domestic terrorism ever committed in this country was authored by a member of the government-hating right wing: Timothy McVeigh's bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City.
It is dishonest for right-wing commentators to insist on an equivalence that does not exist. The danger of political violence in this country comes overwhelmingly from one direction -- the right, not the left. The vitriolic, anti-government hate speech that is spewed on talk radio every day -- and, quite regularly, at Tea Party rallies -- is calibrated not to inform but to incite.
Demagogues scream at people that their government is illegitimate, that their country has been "taken away," that their elected officials are "traitors" and that their freedom is at risk. They have a right to free speech, which I will always defend. But they shouldn't be surprised if some listeners take them literally.
OP-ED Of the day
Every morning from here on out I will put up what I think is the best opinion piece. Today I have selected the 2008 Pullitzer prize winning columnist Eugene Robinson's column titled The Hutaree Militia and the rising risk of far-right violence.
Here is the Link to the piece- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/29/AR2010032901891.html
Here is the Link to the piece- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/29/AR2010032901891.html
tough
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303410404575152110331938210.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLETopStories
Are people really surprised that Obama is tough? yea, he's stepped up the rhetoric a bit but he's always been tough. Not talking smack doesn't mean not tough. If the republicans don't realise it now they may face the same political consequences of Hillary,McCain, and maybe even Bibi. We shall c but if i we're John Boehner i would ease up on the "Hell,no" and find some nuance in opposition.
Are people really surprised that Obama is tough? yea, he's stepped up the rhetoric a bit but he's always been tough. Not talking smack doesn't mean not tough. If the republicans don't realise it now they may face the same political consequences of Hillary,McCain, and maybe even Bibi. We shall c but if i we're John Boehner i would ease up on the "Hell,no" and find some nuance in opposition.
why I can't be richard dawkins
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/29/nyregion/29church.html?scp=1&sq=church%20couple%20marriage%20lisence&st=cse
This article from yesterday's NYT highlights why a relativley strict agnostic such as myself can't go all out against organzied religion. If you need god, or a god, to help people like those at the church of St Paul and St Andrew it's all good.
This article from yesterday's NYT highlights why a relativley strict agnostic such as myself can't go all out against organzied religion. If you need god, or a god, to help people like those at the church of St Paul and St Andrew it's all good.
Monday, March 29, 2010
enthused dems
The WAPO poll out yesterday showing that the enthusiasm gap has closed between the Dems and the GOP(76%to 75% in favor of democrats) is another green shoot for the democrats. If they can get some serious growth( jobs!jobs!jobs!) from the economy the GOP will have experienced a true suckers rally. That said, i never underestimate the right's ability to mobilize.
link to the entire poll-http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/postpoll_032810.html?sid=ST2010032804111
link to the entire poll-http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/postpoll_032810.html?sid=ST2010032804111
the cow on the tracks
RNC chairman Michael Steele infamously likened himself to the cow on the tracks, the train being health care reform. Well health care has been reformed and the cow on the tracks wasn't as success full as he had hoped. But i guess sits hard to stop major legislation when your racking up thousands of dollars in charges at a bondage centered strip club- http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/03/rnc-spent-nearly-2000-at-club-with-topless-dancers.php?ref=fpb
tweet
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Hello/welcome
Hello. This blog is intended to discuss politics,mostly. I will discuss other matters when i find them of interest but i generally find politics to be the most interesting thing there is.
FYI- the basis for the blogs title is my initials(MR) and stemwinder is, when used in the political sense a term dating back to the late 1800's , meaning an orator, or a speech capable of rousing a crowd.
FYI- the basis for the blogs title is my initials(MR) and stemwinder is, when used in the political sense a term dating back to the late 1800's , meaning an orator, or a speech capable of rousing a crowd.
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