A Truly Progressive Budget, could save $3.2 Trillion

So the President has put out a Budget that cuts $1 Trillion over the next ten years, while the House GOP has proposed $63 Billion in cuts that Obama has already promised to Veto. But has every reasonable (not to mention unreasonable) idea been brought to the table?

Thinkprogress has Five Progressive Ideas that neither the GOP or the President has mentioned, maybe it's something the House Dems should be putting on table.


http://thinkprogress.org/2011/02/15/five-progressive-deficit-ideas/

1. Rein In The Military Budget: Neither the president’s budget or the House CR cuts the overall level of defense spending. In fact, Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s request for the Pentagon budget is a whopping $553 billion — “the largest request ever” by the Pentagon and the largest adjusted for inflation since World War II. CAP Senior Fellow Lawrence Korb has laid out $1 trillion in defense reductions that can be made over the next 10 years by phasing out outdated programs and resizing our military. This comes out to roughly $100 billion a year, which is approximately how much funding is being proposed to be cut from the Pell Grant program.

2. Reduce Or Eliminate Subsidies To Big Agribusiness: The federal government “paid out a quarter of a trillion dollars in federal farm subsidies between 1995 and 2009.” “Just ten percent of America’s largest and richest farms collect almost three-fourths” of these subsidies. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) has proposed — as a part of her progressive deficit reduction plan — a fifty percent cut in federal direct support for agriculture, which would save $7.5 billion in 2015.

3. Reduce Or Eliminate Wasteful Tax Expenditures: The CAP paper “Cracking the Code: A Closer Look at Tax Expenditure Spending” notes that “special credits, deductions, exclusions, exemptions, and preferential tax rates provide more than $1 trillion in subsidies intended to support public objectives,” yet are ineffective and should be reduced or eliminated. Eliminating this tax expenditure could save $100 billion, for example.

4. Enact A Financial Transactions Tax: A “0.25 percent tax on trades of stocks, bonds, derivatives, and other Wall Street financial instruments” would do little to nothing to reduce commerce or productivity but would generate “between $50 billion and $150 billion annually,” according to a CAP analysis.

5. Empower Medicare To Negotiate For Lower Drug Prices: One of the main drivers of the growing U.S. budget deficit is health care costs. While there are a number of things that can be done to streamline the efficiency of our health care system, like introducing a public option or even moving towards a Medicare-for-all system, one policy option that would be very simple to enact and would not require any sort of increased spending or expansion of government would be to simply allow Medicare to use its bulk purchasing power to negotiate with drugmakers for lower prices. Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT) estimates that doing this could save as much as $156 billion over 10 years.

Taken all together these proposals could save as much as $3.2 Trillion over the next decade, far more than what has been proposed by either the President's Budget or the Republicans - without negatively impacting Social Security, Medicaid or Medicare and leaving plenty of room for infrastructure investment, green job growth and even retain significant middle-class and small business tax cuts.

Wouldn't you love to see a budget like this put forward by Democrats in the House and scored by CBO lined up side-by-side against the GOP or Presidents proposals?

How could either of them seriously argue they would prefer to go with the plans that Saves Less and Hurts More compared to a plan like this? Rather than sit on the sidelines, Progressives need to make sure their voice is heard and their priorities are on the table. You never know, just like with the Patriot Act Vote, we could pull more than a few surprise upsets as the GOP caucus splits, divides and separates into their far-right and super-far-right-libertarian flanks.

Vyan

Clarence Thomas should recuse himself from Affordable Care Act Decisions

That's what 74 lawmakers apparently think...

As an Associate Justice, you are entrusted with the responsibility to exercise the highest degree of discretion and impartiality when deciding a case. As Members of Congress, we were surprised by recent revelations of your financial ties to leading organizations dedicated to lobbying against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. We write today to respectfully ask that you maintain the integrity of this court and recuse yourself from any deliberations on the constitutionality of this act.

Uh oh, I think that's going to upset the apple cart on Tea Bagger Hill.


It's not like Repubs can claim that Thomas is being "picked on and singled out" because he happens to be a certainty to vote against the constitutionality of the mandate because Senator Orrin Hatch has already called for Justice Kagan to recuse herself from the Patients Affordability Act deliberations for far flimsier reasons.

WASHINGTON – Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch, an opponent of the recently enacted health care overhaul, says Justice Elena Kagan should not take part in the widely expected Supreme Court consideration of the new law.

...

Hatch said he is sure that Kagan participated in discussions about the law and challenges to it while she served in the Justice Department as Obama's top Supreme Court lawyer. Hatch told Fox News that he believes Kagan "should recuse herself," although he noted the justice alone will make that determination.

Oh, "He is Sure" is he? Never mind the fact that as Solicitor General she wouldn't have had anything to do with this particular issue until it appeared it might actually go before the Supreme Court - which hasn't happened yet. But he figures that it must have been water-cooler office talk??

There are several cases from which Kagan actually will have to recuse herself because she was involved in forming the administrations legal rationale for them, and hence would be judging her own arguments. In fact she has already volunteered to recuse herself from over 2 dozen cases.

Kagan, 50, has recused herself from 25 of the 51 cases the court has accepted so far this term, all as a result of her 14-month tenure as solicitor general, the government's chief legal representative in the Supreme Court and the nation's lower appellate courts.

This simply isn't one of those cases.

Kagan addressed her participation during her confirmation hearing. She said then that she "attended at least one meeting where the existence of the litigation was briefly mentioned, but none where any substantive discussion of the litigation occurred." Kagan left the administration in August, about five months after the health care overhaul became law.

So basically Hatch is a) Making Shit UP that goes directly against Kagan's sworn testimony b) Implying she's a liar and c) Implying she's a Perjurer.

Nice.

But in the case of Thomas it's not really a matter of opinion that his family, through his wife Ginny's activism for Right-Wing causes, would directly benefit from his decision. She already has in the case of Citizen's United, and she is currently making money lobbying against the Health Care Bill via her firm Liberty Central.

RICHMOND, Va. — As one of the keynote speakers here Friday at a state convention billed as the largest Tea Party event ever, Virginia Thomas gave the throng of more than 2,000 activists a full-throated call to arms for conservative principles.

Mrs. Thomas is the founder and head of a new nonprofit group, Liberty Central, dedicated to opposing what she characterizes as the leftist “tyranny” of President Obama and Democrats in Congress and to “protecting the core founding principles” of the nation.

...

A federal law requires justices to recuse themselves in a number of circumstances where real or perceived conflicts of interest could arise, including in cases where their spouses could have a financial interest. But the decision to step aside is up to each justice; there is no appeal from the nation’s highest court.

“It’s shocking that you would have a Supreme Court justice sitting on a case that might implicate in a very fundamental way the interests of someone who might have contributed to his wife’s organization,” said Deborah L. Rhode, a law professor and director of the Stanford University Center on the Legal Profession.

As many of us know Thomas failed to document the earnings from his wife's activism for over a dozen years.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has amended 13 years’ worth of disclosure reports to include details of wife Virginia Thomas’s sources of income, documents released on Monday show.

The documents indicate that Thomas’s wife, who goes by Ginni, had worked for Hillsdale College in Michigan, the Heritage Foundation and the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives, among other entities.

Like all federal judges, Thomas must file annual disclosure reports on his personal finances, but he had omitted details of his wife’s earnings in what he wrote was a “misunderstanding of the filing instructions.” He also had checked a box marking no spousal income.

He also didn't disclose any information about her work with Liberty Central until recently.

Here she is on Fox News with Neal Cavuto.



Most recently Ginni has formed Liberty Consulting, a firm that couldn't have existed without Citizen's United.

Ginni Thomas’ new career advising clients on how to donate money to political causes is striking in light of the fact that this career path was much more difficult to break into just one year ago. In Citizens United v. FEC, Ginni’s husband Clarence cast the key fifth vote enabling corporations to spend unlimited money influencing U.S. elections. As a result of this vote, outside groups spent nearly $300 million influencing the 2010 elections — much of which would have been illegal before Justice Thomas greenlighted this spending.

Now, Ginni Thomas appears to have found a way to earn money off her husband’s actions as a justice. Clarence Thomas released countless amounts of corporate spending on U.S. elections, and Ginni Thomas can get rich advising those corporate clients on how to direct that spending

The point is that this isn't just a matter of opinion (or fantasy) as Hatch's criticism of Kagan, this is a matter of law.

(a) Any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.

(b) He shall also disqualify himself in the following circumstances: …

(5) He or his spouse, or a person within the third degree of relationship to either of them, or the spouse of such a person: . . .

(iii) Is known by the judge to have an interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding;

Even beyond Hatch, Republicans have used this very same arguement themselves in the past when they called for the recusal of one judge from a decision on California Proposition 8, because his wife had been part of an anti-Prop 8 advocacy group.

It’s worth noting that conservatives have already interpreted this ethics law in a way that requires Justice Thomas to recuse himself from the health care litigation. After progressive Judge Stephen Reinhardt was assigned to the appellate panel that was to hear a challenge to anti-gay Proposition 8, supporters of the anti-gay law called for Reinhardt to recuse because his wife’s organization advocates against Prop 8.

Not that anyone seriously thinks Thomas will do the right thing and recuse himself in case, but it's going to interesting watching Repubs who called for Kagan and Reinhardt to recuse themselves wriggle out of the hypocrisy noose on this one.

Here's a blast from the past on Ginni by former CNN Host Rick Sanchez.



Vyan

Update: Added more videos, and links to Ginni Thomas and her current work with Liberty Consulting, as well as link to WaPo article that documents that Elena Kagan has recused herself in nearly half the cases the Supreme Court will hear this session.

Forbes Says "Health Care Reform is Working"

From Forbes via TalkingPointsMemo.

The first statistics are coming in and, to the surprise of a great many, Obamacare might just be working to bring health care to working Americans precisely as promised.

The major health insurance companies around the country are reporting a significant increase in small businesses offering health care benefits to their employees.

Why?

Because the tax cut created in the new health care reform law providing small businesses with an incentive to give health benefits to employees is working.

So much for that "Job-Killing" Bill, eh?

Republicans, headed by Deficit Fraud Paul Ryan and the Heritage Foundation have been arguing for months that the the Health Reform Act would cost business and force them to either drop coverage or cut jobs due to their "intrusive employer mandates and taxes".

From the Speakers "Report on ObamaCare".

“Evaluating the Small Business Tax Credit
Sections 1421 and 10105 of the health care bills passed by Congress provide for the creation of a tax credit to help small businesses afford the cost of covering their workers. Evidence suggests, however, this tax credit actually has the opposite effect than was intended: it acts as a disincentive to increase wages and hire additional workers. A NFIB analysis determined that the tax credit “will do little to nothing to make purchasing insurance more affordable for small firms”:

 Early estimates by CBO indicated that just 12 percent of small business workers would benefit.

 The credit is very restrictive and requires small business owners to meet three complicated “tests” to qualify for any portion of the credit.

 The credit is only available for a maximum of six years, but according to the actuaries at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, health care costs will continue to increase well after those six years.

Response to the small business tax credit has been described as “tepid” because “the credit starts to phase out for companies that pay average annual wages of more than $25,000 or employ more than 25 workers. The value of the benefit declines quickly, so many business owners in high-cost states get no tax break, and those elsewhere often say the credit is too small to make much of a difference.”

Well, that's the Republican theory, but what's the reality?

From the LA Times.

Reporting from Gladstone, Mo. — Major insurers around the country are reporting that a growing number of small businesses are signing up to give their workers health benefits, a sign of potential progress for the nation's battered healthcare system.

The increase, although not universal, has brought new security to thousands of workers, many of whom did not have insurance or were at risk of losing it.

An important selling point has been a tax credit that the nation's new healthcare law provides to companies with fewer than 25 employees and moderate-to-low pay scales to help offset the cost of providing benefits. The tax credit is one of the first few provisions to kick in; much of the law rolls out over the next few years.

...

For insurers, the market presents a big opportunity. Nationally, three-quarters of businesses with 10 to 24 workers offer benefits. About half of those with three to nine employees provide health plans. By comparison, 99% of firms with more than 200 employees offer benefits.

Now some insurers are reporting significant jumps in coverage

OOps.

Despite Republican's sticking their fingers in their ears and going "LALALaaaaa" the truth is that millions of small businesses are eligible for this credit, in fact as many as 400,000 of them in California alone.

Garnering little to no press attention when released in July, a report undertaken by Families USA and the Small Business Majority found that 80 percent of California’s small businesses with 25 or fewer employees will qualify for federal tax credits under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act starting this year. This means that of the state’s 571,200 small businesses, 465,500 are eligible for the tax credits in 2010. Of those, 30 percent – or 135,900 – qualify for the maximum tax credit amount.

This credit currently offsets 35% of the cost of Healthcare for these small businesses, and in 2014 the credit increases to 50% of the their costs.

And you know what happens as more and more small business begin to offer health insurance? The overall costs begin to go down. Back to the Times.

For Bistro Kids, a small business in the Kansas City suburb of Gladstone that serves school meals made with locally grown, organic produce, the deal was too good to pass up.

...

Like other small-business owners nationwide, Firquain had been keeping a file of health insurance quotes. But every year, the prices seemed to get more out of reach. "It just wasn't realistic," she said.

Now, Firquain is offering her 10 chefs a standard individual preferred provider organization plan with a $1,000 deductible and $30 co-pays. The employees pay $67 to $212 a month, depending on age and gender.

Back to Forbes:

The next argument has been that the PPACA is a job killer.

If these small businesses found the new law to be so onerous, why have so many of them voluntarily taken advantage of the benefits provided in the law to give their employees these benefits? They were not mandated to do so. And to the extent that the coming mandate obligations might figure into their thinking, would you not imagine they would wait until 2014 to make a move as the rules do not go into effect until that time?

Of course, there is the nagging banter as to how Obamacare is leading us down the road to socialism.

Let it go, folks.

Private market insurance companies are experiencing significant growth because of a tax break provided by the PPACA. I may have missed the day this was discussed in economics class, but I’m pretty sure this is not a socialistic result of federal legislation.

This certainly doesn't address every issue and concern brought up by reform, and there are still significant complaints coming larges businesses with low-income employees who have limited and weak insurance options such as McDonald's and Jack-in-the-Box who are mandated to provide 'quality' healthcare if they have 50 employees or more, or else pay a $2,000 per employee penalty. Of course the Obama Administration is offering waivers to many of these companies to prevent them from cutting their workforce or dropping covering until the Insurance Exchange come online with tax credits and subsidies similar to what these small business already have and begin to offer less costly choices for those companies, but that time may come far sooner if more and more small business begin to sign up for insurance and begin to further spread the risk pool and share costs.

Vyan

Boehner, Ryan and Rank Republican CBO Hypocrisy

So yesterday the CBO announces that the cost of Repealing Health Care Reform would be $230 Billion over ten years - and to this newly minted Speaker Boehner proclaims that he's possess the powers of Professor X.

Well, I do not believe that repealing the job-killing health care law will increase the deficit," Boehner replied. "CBO is entitled to their opinion, but they're locked within constraints of the 1974 Budget Act."

...

"I don't think anybody in this town believes that repealing Obamacare is going to increase the deficit."

Besides Beohner's Jedi mind-reading tricks we've also had some sweet tweets from our new Budget Committee Chairmain - Paul Ryan.

@RepPaulRyan Setting the record straight on budget-busting health care law: http://bit.ly/fndkzq

Who was far more specific about what he feels that CBO is wrong with it's projection.

Claim: In his letter to Speaker Boehner, CBO director Elmendorf writes that the Democrats’ new health care law “would reduce budget deficits over the 2010-2019 period and in subsequent years; consequently, we expect that repealing that legislation would increase budget deficits.”

Response: The same budget gimmicks that allowed the Democrats to get a CBO score last spring saying that their massive entitlement expansion would somehow reduce the deficit are still in place today. Nothing has changed about the underlying legislation.

Claims of deficit reduction are still excluding the $115 billion needed to implement the law. The Democrats are still double-counting $521 billion from Social Security payroll taxes, CLASS Act premiums, and Medicare cuts. The score still doesn’t account for the costly “doc-fix” provision that Democrats stripped out of the bill and passed separately.

Ryan is correct to note that the change from $143 Billion in estimated savings from the original forecast only shifted to $230 Billion because this forecast is for a different period - from 2012 to 2021, instead of 2010-2019, but that both estimates work off the same basic presumptions.

Let me take the last part of Ryan's argument first because if you think about for more than a nano-second - it's truly striking in it's rank ridiculousness. Ryan is criticizing the CBO estimate for not including the cost of the "doc fix" - Because the DOC FIX WASN'T INCLUDED IN THE LAW!

Follow me slowly here -- why exactly should the CBO include the cost of repealing something that's Not Going to be REPEALED by the theoretical implementation of HR2?

Once you've wrapped your mind around that astounding example of illogical sollipism there's also the fact that the CBO did address issues like this in their original report on the final Reconciliation Bill of 2010.

Key Considerations. Those longer-term calculations reflect an assumption that the provisions of the reconciliation proposal and H.R. 3590 are enacted and remain unchanged throughout the next two decades, which is often not the case for major legislation. For example, the sustainable growth rate mechanism governing Medicare’s payments to physicians has frequently been modified (either through legislation or administrative action) to avoid reductions in those payments, and legislation to do so again is currently under consideration by the Congress

They admit that the Doc Fix was in the process of being addressed in another bill - and they logically didn't include it because, that's a different BILL.

Ryan claims that the CBO didn't include "$115 Billion needed to implement the law" but reviewing the report I found this...

CBO expects that the cost to the Internal Revenue Service of
implementing the eligibility determination, documentation, and
verification processes for premium and cost sharing subsidies would
probably be between $5 billion and $10 billion over 10 years.

CBO expects that the costs to the Department of Health and Human
Services (especially the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Services) and the Office of Personnel Management of implementing
the changes in Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health
Insurance Program, as well as certain reforms to the private
insurance market, would probably be at least $5 billion to $10 billion
over 10 years. (The administrative costs of establishing and
operating the exchanges were included as direct spending in CBO’s
estimate for the legislation.)

So basically - Ryan is Lying when he says CBO didn't include the cost of implementing the Bill. They did. He doesn't specify, but if you surmise that his "$115 Billion" comes from is the cost of implementing the State-Based High Risk Pools between now and 2014 and the Exchanges after that point (Even though CBO specifically said this was included), the problem that remains is that this is a cost to the STATES and shouldn't be included in the Federal Deficit!!!.

The other assumption one could make, because as I said Ryan doesn't specify where this magic money is being spent, is that's he's just plain wrong because Table 4 of the CBO report happens to include $5 Billion for the Costs Federal Subsidies for High-Risk Pools and Exchange Subsidies.

Even when reading the speakers report on how much "Obamacare Kills Jobs and creates a $701 Billion Deficit" it's still not clear where this "$115 Billion" comes from.

$115 billion in new government spending required to implement the health care law is not factored into CBO’s initial estimate. On May 11, CBO notified Congress that additional discretionary spending would be required to implement the government takeover of health care. This includes roughly $9 billion for both the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Department of Health and Human Services
(HHS).l i

This claims simultaneously that the CBO did not include an estimate for IRS costs - when they actually did include these costs as between $5 and $10 Billion - and that those costs both $9 Billion and $115 Billion at the same time.

Ryan claims that CBO Double-Counts the benefits of Medicare Savings in the plan - yet I can only find it once - on Table 2 (Page 18) at $455 Billion in Savings over 10 Years. Yet again, this appears to be another LIE, but the Speakers report may shed some light on it.

$398 billion is claimed in Medicare Hospital Insurance Fund savings. CBO has previously noted that “to describe the full amount of HI trust fund savings as both improving the government’s ability to pay future Medicare benefits and financing new spending outside of Medicare would essentially double-count a large share of those savings and thus overstate the improvement in the government’s fiscal
position.”

Ok, I don't see a reference to $398 Billion in savings to the "Medicare Hospital Insurance Fund" (Also Known as Medicare Part-A) in the March 20, 2010 CBO Report at all - so that looks like yet another lie. The report notes a Medicare Fee-for-Service Rate (which includes Parts-A and B) reduction of $193 Billion and a Medicare Advantage (Part C) reduction of $139 Billion. So basically the Republcans are saying CBO claimed $398 Billion in savings for Part-A ALONE but CBO actually say Part A, B, & C savings all together only comes up $332 Billion which still doesn't add up to $398 Billion.

And on top of all that Medicare Trustee Report Says This...

The Medicare Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund is projected to remain solvent until 2029, 12 years longer than reported in 2009 thanks to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, as amended by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, according to the Medicare Board of Trustees 2010 annual report, which was released today. In addition, the HI long-range actuarial deficit has been reduced to 0.66 percent of taxable payroll, or one-sixth of its projected amount before enactment of the Affordable Care Act. Although HI costs are estimated to continue to exceed trust fund income for the next few years, as they have since 2008, the savings under the new health reform act are expected to result in fund surpluses during 2014-22.

So according to the Trustees Report, the same report that in 1994 sent the Gingrich Congress into a desperate flat-spin tizzy to force a Balanced the Budget by 2002 and consequently Shutdown the Government - TWICE, Medicare - as of now - is headed for a Surplus in 2014 as shown by this chart.

Table II.E1.—Estimated Operations of the HI Trust Fund under Intermediate Assumptions, Calendar Years 2009-2019 [Dollar amounts in billions]
Calendar year	Total income	Total expenditures	Change in fund	Fund at year end	Ratio of assets to expenditures
2009	225.4	242.5	-17.1	304.2	132
2010	217.6	249.3	-31.7	272.5	122
2011	241.5	259.3	-17.8	254.7	105
2012	254.4	271.2	-16.8	237.9	94
2013	277.0	282.5	-5.5	232.4	84
2014	297.2	296.0	1.2	233.6	79
2015	315.9	305.0	10.8	244.4	77
2016	336.6	321.2	15.4	259.8	76
2017	357.2	338.2	19.0	278.8	77
2018	377.9	357.9	20.0	298.8	78
2019	397.9	379.7	18.2	317.0	79

More from the Trustees

The Affordable Care Act has introduced important changes to the
Medicare program that are designed to reduce costs, increase
revenues, expand the scope of benefits, and encourage the
development of new systems of health care delivery that will improve
health outcomes and cost efficiency.

Also, getting back to Ryan again, as a result of the Tax Deal that Obama made with Congressional Republicans last month, Social Security Payroll taxes were REDUCED by 2% so it's no longer a benefit to the deficit, it's now a negative.

Now while Ryan has a field day trying to rip the CBO a brand new orifice with his latest batch of tweets he seemed proud as punch to accept it's conclusions when it review HIS socalled "Roadmap for America".

The Roadmap is my attempt to offer America a choice, an alternative to Progressivism’s dreary path to welfare statism. It shows, using CBO analysis, that it is not too late for America to choose a path true to its founding ideas. We can still be that exceptional nation.

So when the CBO says something that Republicans like Beohner and Ryan dogmatically choose not to believe they say the Congress Official Non-Partisan Budget Umpire is "Entitled to their Opinion", but when they want to bolster the clout of their own ideas they TOUT the fact that it's been analyzed by the CBO?

Hypocrit Much, Mr Ryan?

Of course, while he crows about his plan being CBO scored he ignores what the CBO actually said about his plan.

On Social Security Ryan's plan would both cut benefits and RAISE payroll taxes.

Traditional retirement benefits would be reduced below those scheduled under current law for many workers who are age 55 or younger in 2011.

The Roadmap would also eliminate the income and payroll tax exclusions for
employment-based health insurance. As a result, more earnings would become taxable for Social Security purposes, thus boosting future benefit payments, and payroll tax revenues credited to the Social Security trust funds would increase.

On Medicare the eligibility age would be raised, and the system converted into vouches program which would slash it's effectiveness.

The age of eligibility for Medicare would increase incrementally from 65 (for people born before 1956), as it is under current law, to 69 years and 6 months for people born in 2022 and later. Starting in 2021, new enrollees would no longer receive coverage through the current program but, instead, would be given a voucher with which to purchase private health insurance.

Welcome to the wonderful world of Health Stamps.

And on the Budget?

The Roadmap, in the form that CBO analyzed, would result in less federal spending for Medicare and Medicaid as well as lower tax revenues than projected under CBO’s alternative fiscal scenario (see Table 1). On balance, those changes would reduce federal budget deficits and the federal debt.

So it would cut the deficit, which as a point in fact is already going down, but it would do so by punishing the poor, the sick and the old at a time when 74% of the Public supports raises taxes on the Rich to Balance the Budget.

So much for the "Will of the People"

Contrast that result with both the CBO and the Medicare Trustees say that the "Obamacare" reduce the deficit, increase the number of people covered and improve quality.

Bu there is another source that both Boehner and Ryan have depended on, a report from he Independant Centers for Medicare and Medicaid which the Heritage Foundation Characterized this way.

Obamacare will bend the cost curve up, causeing an additional $289 billion in expenditure

Millions will lose their existing private coverage

18 million Americans will either face jail time or be forced to pay a new tax they will receive no benefit from.

8.5 million seniours who currently get such services as coordinated care for chronic conditions, routine eye and hearing examinations, and preventive-care services would lose their existing private coverage.

More than half the people who gain health insurance will receive it through the welfare program Medicaid.

Hospitals currently serving Medicare patients might be forced to stop doing so, thus making it much more difficult for seniors to get health care.

Supply constraints will mean that the 21 million people who are gaining health insurance through Medicaid are going to have a very tough time finding a doctor who will treat them.

Yet, Surprise surprise - the actual CMS Report says nothing of the kind.

By 2019, the mandates, along with the Medicaid expansion would reduce the number of uninsured from an estimated 57 Million - to 23 Million.

Another 10 Million people would gain insurance through the newly created Exchange. Finally, we estimate the number of persons with employer-based insurance would increase by 2.9 Million.

CMS estimated that the total Cost of the Bill (which actually was the House Version of the Bill which was voted out in November of 2009 and Included The PUBLIC OPTION, not the final Bill that passed both the house and Senate) was $406 Billion over 10 years, including $900 Billion in outlays and over $571 Billion in Medicare Savings. They also estimated that the Costs for Plans Offered through the Public Option would be 5% lower than private plans, but that their premiums would be 4% Higher because of the "anti-selection by enrollees" - so that gives you an insight as to how their thinking seems to work.

There are a lot of differences between the CBO and CMS report but the most obvious thing that jumps out to me is their differing assumptions on the amount of subsidies and affordability credits available via the Exchange. CBO estimates that these credits will cost $107 Billion over the course of 10 years, where the CMS assumes it would cost $591 Billion. (As Jamie Henneman might say - "There's your problem") Exactly who is more correct is debatable since it all depends on how many people choose to join the exchange and how many of them will need subsidies. It's fair to say either of their estimate could be correct, and they both could be wrong - but we won't really know until 2019.

It's fair to note that the CBO also includes excise taxes on high-premium plans ($32 Billion), reinsurance and risk assessment collections ($106 Billion) that the CMS report doesn't include because it's focus is only on the outlays and savings associated primarily with Medicare and Medicaid not Taxes that will be collected and the fact that it's based on an earlier House version of the Bill, not the final version that passed and was signed by the President.

However you parse the disagreement here between CBO and CMS (or the Medicare Trustee's Report) it's clear that NONE OF THEM support half the claims we see coming from Republicans and the Heritage Foundation over Health Care. None. Zero. Zilch.


Vyan

Thank You, Mr President

After two long and difficult years of ups and downs, from the economic collapse and loss of 8 Million U.S. jobs, to the BP Oil Spill, rampant spraying of Corexit 95, specter of Whistle-Blower persecution, indefinite detention, loss of the Public Option and extension of the Paris Hilton Tax Cuts... many of us have doubted you.

But during this final month of your second year, you certain proved nearly all of your critics wrong.

I for one, never lost faith, never lost hope, and right now all I can say is - Thank you, Mr President for showing us that all our hopes were not misplaced.



My favorite portion of the Press Conference was this part in response to a question about the difficulty you've had in closing Guantanemo Bay. Rather than go "small ball" and reduce your goals in the light of the Republican Control of the House - you managed to double-down on ultimately implementing your agenda.

Obama: America is more than just it's economic & military might - we also must implement our Ideals even when it's difficult.

Doing the Right Thing isn't always doing the Easy Thing, or what might make one more popular.

And I especially appreciated this answer on the issue of Immigration.

Obama: My Admintration has done more on Border Security than *Any* other in resent years, but we still need the Dream Act!!

With Predator Drones for Surveillance, additional Border Guards and supporting National Guard Troops this is absolutely true. The number of illegal border crossings have dropped to a relative trickle, and the actually number of undocumented immigrants has gone down significantly for the first time in decades - a record that no Republican President can lay claim to.

(Sept. 2) -- With immigration as a hot-button issue ahead of this year's midterm elections, a new report shows that the number of illegal immigrants to the U.S. fell last year in its first and biggest drop in two decades.

There were 11.1 million immigrants living in the U.S. illegally in March 2009, down from a peak of 12 million two years earlier, the Pew Hispanic Center said in a report issued Wednesday. From 2007 to 2009, the number of illegals entering the country shrank to about 300,000 per year, down by nearly two-thirds from the estimated 850,000 per year from March 2000 to March 2005.

"The decrease represents the first significant reversal in the growth of this population over the past two decades," the report said.

Republicans have no leg to stand on when it comes to criticizing you on Immigration issues.

Despite all the challenges you've faced, not the least of which being a recalcitrant, obstructive and surly Republican minority intent on derailing your Presidency rather than helping the American people - you've managed to accomplish all of this.

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act


Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act of 2009


Cash For Clunkers Extension

Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure (CARD) Act of 2009


Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act

Helping Families Save Their Homes Act

Haiti Economic Lift Program Act of 2010

Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act

Veterans Health Care Budget Reform and Transparency Act of 2009

Antitrust Criminal Penalty Enhancement and Reform Act of 2004 Extension.

Human Rights Enforcement Act of 2009

Jobs for Mainstreet Act, 2010

Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010

Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Haiti Debt Relief and Earthquake Recovery Act of 2010

Disaster Relief and Summer Jobs Act of 2010

Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009

Serve America Act

Medicare Physician Payment Reform Act of 2009

Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program Act of 2009

Homebuyer Assistance and Improvement Act of 2010

Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act

Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2010

Fair Sentencing Act

Southwest Border Security Supplemental

Small Business Jobs Act of 2010

Nursing Home Care to Parents of Veterans Who Died While Serving in the Armed Forces

Reducing Over-Classification Act

Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research Reauthorization Act of 2010

International Adoption Simplification Act

Help HAITI Act of 2010

Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010

FOR VETS Act of 2010

Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010.

Besides all this you salvaged the America Auto Industry, successfully Ratified the START Treaty to help control and contain Lose Nukes, have just this year generated as many if not more private sector jobs than George Bush produced during his entire 8 Year Administration, pushed BP to close and cap the Gulf Oil Spill weeks sooner than any other comparitive spill has ever been stopped while managing to get a $20 Billion commitment from them to compensate those impacted by the spill.

There's still much more to do, there's the Dream Act and Full Comprehensive Immigration Reform, a final resolution of the GITMO issue, maintaining the funding for and implementation of Wall Street Reform, Consumer Financial Protection, Health Care Reform. crafting a Comprehensive Green Enegy Plan, updating our Trade Policies, and the final resolutions of both the Irag and Afghanistan Wars while reforming and updating our overall Counter-Terrorism Strategies and Diplomacy Efforts in the Mid-East, but this week you showed us all that you are a Baller!

Of course, we should have known that by your response to the threat of the Somali Pirates in early 2009.

Even though we may disagree with some of the details of your style, and some compromises you may have made, even your Republican critics such as Charles Krauthammer have begun to sing your praises. Kinda.

Obama’s presidency has sparked “an extraordinary national debate over what kind of nation we are – who we are as a people, what we believe in,” Krauthammer said.

There is “something intrinsically healthy and clarifying” about this great debate, Krauthammer said. “It’s been a healthy debate, it’s been an important debate, it’s been a spontaneous debate” and one of the most significant in American history.

Obama “thinks very large in world historical terms,” Krauthammer said. He compared Obama to Ronald Reagan, adding: “Obama sees himself as the anti-Reagan….the man who will reverse Reagan” and take the nation “back to a new liberalism.”

Although I never lost my faith, now more than at any time in the last 2 years, I feel that my vote in November of 2008 was the correct one and I look forward with you to the challenges and battles of the future.

Good Job Mr. President, Good Job.

Vyan

Shep Smith Blows Up over Stalling of 9/11 First Responders Bill

Smith: How do they sleep at night after this vote on 9/11 First Responders?

...

We've cover this hear, and let people know they didn't pass it. Jon Stewart is absolutely right, whose going to hold these people's feet to the fire? We can give tax cuts to billionaires who don't need them, and we can't help these people? Everybody who voted against it should stand up and account for himself or herself. We spend more money giving Warren Buffet his tax return.

Yes, amazing isn't it - that someone on Fox news, including Chris Wallace who concurs fully, would actually come out this forcefully on this issue?

Shep was responding to these two awesome clips from Thursday Nights Daily Show.

Part 1


Part 2



For some time now Shep Smith has been the new Alan Colmes at Fox News, with occasional uncontrolled explosions of truth seeping out around the edges.

He has previosly Ripped Fox News over it's handling of the Shirley Sherrod Fiasco. He's ranted about the AIG Bonuses.

Slammed Fox for it's Shameless Defense of BP. He even argued in Favor of the Public Option in Health Care. The "We Don't Fucking Torture" rant. His response to Birther Hate Mail. And most famously, his empathetic response to Hurricane Katrina.

While his most recent rant is commendable, it's also tragically flawed. There's a reason that The More You Watch Fox, The Less You Know and this segment is no different.

No where in this segment does Smith utter the word "Republicans".

He rails about "They" and "Them" and he asks "Whose going to hold THEM accountable?" - But he doesn't bother to Name them, not once.

The list who voted to block this act is HERE. Every Democrat (except Reid, which allows him to bring the measure up again), voted for the measure - except for Sam Brownback who didn't vote, Every Republican Voted AGAINST This.

NAYs ---- 42
Alexander (R-TN) Barrasso (R-WY) Bennett (R-UT) Bond (R-MO) Brown (R-MA) Bunning (R-KY) Burr (R-NC) Chambliss (R-GA) Coburn (R-OK) Cochran (R-MS) Collins (R-ME) Corker (R-TN) Cornyn (R-TX) Crapo (R-ID)	DeMint (R-SC) Ensign (R-NV) Enzi (R-WY) Graham (R-SC) Grassley (R-IA) Gregg (R-NH) Hatch (R-UT) Hutchison (R-TX) Inhofe (R-OK) Isakson (R-GA) Johanns (R-NE) Kirk (R-IL) Kyl (R-AZ) LeMieux (R-FL)	Lugar (R-IN) McCain (R-AZ) McConnell (R-KY) Murkowski (R-AK) Reid (D-NV) Risch (R-ID) Roberts (R-KS) Sessions (R-AL) Shelby (R-AL) Snowe (R-ME) Thune (R-SD) Vitter (R-LA) Voinovich (R-OH) Wicker (R-MS)
Not Voting - 1 Brownback (R-KS)

That's who THEY are. That's who should be held "Accountable". This vote was blocked by Republicans to Give Warren Buffet, Paris Hilton and the Koch Brothers a Tax Bonus, they DON'T NEED!.

But will Shepard Smith say THAT on the air?

I'll bet that he won't, and neither will anyone else at Fox. Just as they haven't held Republicans Accountable for holding the Unemployed Hostage. Just as they haven't reported that it has been Republicans who are punishing Children for the Sins of thier Parents by blocking the Dream Act. Just as they won't admit woh has been putting our National Security at Risk by stalling and delaying the START treaty. They won't admit that the party they openly and shameless cheerlead for have been the ones screwing this Counry UP for years. They won't tell people the truth, even while pretending to.

Yes, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is moments away from being repealed and that's a great thing - but we can't forget one simple fact.

FOX and REPUBLICANS can't be trusted. But at least this outburst gives us just one more chance to make that fact obvious.

Vyan

Update DADT Repeal has just passed the Senate 65 - 31, now they begin to take up the START votes.

Virginia Judge Finds Individual Mandage Unconstitutional

From the Hill

A federal judge in Virginia ruled the healthcare reform law’s provision requiring Americans to buy insurance is unconstitutional, marking the Obama administration’s first major defeat in defense of the new law.

U.S. District Court Judge Henry E. Hudson only struck down the individual mandate and “directly dependent provisions” while upholding the rest of the reform law. The decision marks the first major step in a lawsuit destined for the Supreme Court.

\What's interesting about this ruling is that it's not the first one despite what many may say, it's actually the third ruling on the Individual Mandate - only this is the first of the three to go against the bill. 14 other challenges to the law have been dismissed outright.

The First Federal Ruling found the Individual Mandate Constitutional in opposition to this ruling.

In Detroit today, U.S. District Court Judge George Steeh refused to issue a preliminary injunction to delay implementing the law in the state. He also dismissed the key contention of the bill's conservative opponents: that a mandate requiring individuals to buy health insurance is unconstitutional.

Another Judge in Virginia ruled that same way last month.

But this new judge, who happens to be a Bush appointee, has ruled that the personal responsibility section of the Health Care Law is Unconstitutional not because of what's written in the law, but because of how it was discussed prior to completion.

Hudson said the law’s final language deceptively labels the penalty a tax, after it had been called a penalty in draft language just hours before the final bill was passed on Christmas Eve last year. The distinction between penalty and tax became a sticking point because the Constitution grants the federal government wide latitude to impose taxes, but a penalty would amount to regulation of commerce across state lines in violation of the Constitution.

Throughout the debates, Democrats in Congress and Obama said it wasn’t a tax in part because that would have violated his pledge not to raise taxes against middle-class Americans. The administration changed its tune to back its legal arguments for the individual mandate, but the judge didn’t buy it.

“This Court’s analysis begins with the unequivocal denials [during the debate] by the Executive and legislative branches that the [law] was a tax,” Hudson wrote.

A lot of things were discussed prior to passing the bill, such as the Public Option, or a Triggered Medicare Buy-in, but they aren't in the legislation either. Neither is what he's ruling on.

The actual bill has the "penalty" handled as a tax by the I.R.S. only if a person is unable to find an affordable even with subsidies. People in this position are exempt from this tax. If you already have Employer based Care, Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare or the VA - you are exempt from this mandate and this tax. Only those people who have the funds and ability to pay, and have available affordable plans in their area would be required to pay the tax penalty, and even if they don't pay it they are exempt from any further penalty.

If this ruling stands then, you'll have the Freedom to be a freeloader and let everyone else pay for your healthcare when you get sick or get into an accident. (Like, for example, the Car Accident my wife and I were in yesterday, with a resulting 5 Hour Emergency Room stay - which frankly was Record Time, down from 16 Hours last time)

Technically this portion of the bill was a Republican Idea that used to be championed by the Heritage Foundation, and was established as a gift to the insurance industry in order to get them to go along with the bill and isn't central to what the bill provides in banning pre-existing conditions, setting up the Exchanges for purchasing affordable care or accessing the Non Profit Option to avoid being gouged by Private Insurers. Even with this gift, the Industry still fought against the bill, so if this version of the lawsuit were to go forward, despite the contrary rulings in other cases, then only this provision would be struck taking away the number one gift to the Insurers and leaving the rest of the law in tact.


The Judge didn't issue an injunction blocking enforcement of this provision, but then it doesn't go into effect until 2014 anyway.

(There is also the fact that this Judge has partial ownership of a Right-Wing Lobbying Shop that campaigned against Health Care and was paid by the Plaintiff Ag Cuchinelli to argue against the law. That's more than a BIT of a comflict of interest and a hint of political motivation for his ruling.)

Frankly, I'm fine with it either way, but I have my doubts that this clearly ideologically based ruling is going to outstrip other legal opinions.

Vyan

Heritage Health Care Repeal Hooey

In recent days I've been in a twitter debate with some Tea Party/#TCOT Conservatives, for once it's actually been rational and respectful. I find that debating someone that disagrees isn't pointless if you goal isn't just to prove them wrong, but to actually improve your own position and understanding. As a result I've learned a great deal.

Most of the discussion has revolved, naturally, around the Health Care Reform Law, and this happens to be something I know very well. Now I know it even better.

Jan Brewer's Arizona Death Panel

Yes, Mrs. Palin - Death Panels are Real... in Jan Brewer's Arizona.



More on this with Chris Hayes.

Federal Judge Finds Health Care Law - Constitutional

From TalkingPointsMemo.

In Detroit today, U.S. District Court Judge George Steeh refused to issue a preliminary injunction to delay implementing the law in the state. He also dismissed the key contention of the bill's conservative opponents: that a mandate requiring individuals to buy health insurance is unconstitutional.

Ruh Roh! All those Wingnut Attorney General's and Governors who've been jumping up and down screaming about how unfair and unconstitutional the PPACA is, just got O'Keefe Slapped.

Continued.

"This ruling marks the first time a court has considered the merits of any challenge to this law and we welcome the court's decision upholding the health care reform statute as constitutional," says DOJ spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler. "The court found that the minimum coverage provision of the statute was a reasonable means for Congress to take in reforming our health care system. The department will continue to vigorously defend this law in ongoing litigation."

In denying this element of the lawsuit the judge said that the requirement was intended to help lower the overall cost of health care, and was clearly within the powers of congress.

This decisions doesn't directly affect the cases from 20 various states - including the one by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer's general counsel bypassing her own State AG when he refused to be involved - who have all filed suit against implementation of this law arguing that the Interstate Commerce Clause does not allow the Congress to create a law impacting consumers of a resource that is clearly provided across multiple states.

Congress has done similar measures in the past, because essentially the "fine" is really a "tax" which is handled and assessed by the IRS. If you buy health insurance, you are exempt from this tax in the same way that first time home buyers are afforded a tax credit, which lowers the amount they send to the IRS. This personal responsibility mandate really isn't any different from that, and even if one of these suites does manage to reach a sympathetic judge it wouldn't cancel the implementation of the Health Care Law, what it might do is for the first time allow a Federal Court to Repeal a Federal Tax which was duly passed by Congress and signed into law by the President.

Would you then see a stampede of other States rushing to block and repeal the end of the Bush Tax Breaks for Millionaires and Billionaires arguing that returning to the rates from the 1990's is "Unconstitutional"? That may seem farfetced but many of them are currently arguing that the Minimum Wage is Unconstitutional even though it easily survived challenge before the Supreme Court almost 60 years ago, but then they do keep saying the want to take the "County Back". Apparently back to the 19th Century and Charles Dickens.

As Senate Candidate and Former Federal Magistrate Joe Miller Said.

"What I'd recommend that you do is go to the Constitution and look at the enumerated powers because what we have is something that we call the 10th amendment that says, look if it's not there if it's not enumerated, then it's delegated to the states," Miller said. "Everything that's not there is reserved to the states and the people."

Interesting that Joe Miller's read the 10th Amendment, but he hasn't read the 9th Amendment because it makes the opposite argument on the limits of "enumeration".

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

So even though a specific right isn't enumerated, it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist and isn't retained by people. That would include clearly implied rights such as the right to privacy which is only generally prescribed by the 4th and 5th Amendments, and the rights to Life, which requires the ability to Live via access to Health Care which is clearly one of the "Blessings of Liberty" outlined in the preamble, the protection of both is indeed part of the Congressional Powers as it is charged with "providing for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States" under Article 1, Section 8.

Not that this ever seems to deter most of these so-called uber-Constitutionists who constantly argue that there is an absolute right to life (which isn't specifically enumerated in Constitution, it's only mentioned in the "Declaration of Independence"), but no right to privacy (which is *almost* enumerated) from either sides of their mouths.

Considering all the unrestrained nutball crazy we've seen coming from the Right-Wing over the past two years, I wouldn't put anything past them or beneath them.

Vyan

Are Dems Doomed in November?

Things are not looking good. Democrats continue to refuse to press any advantage they might have on any issue - like tax cuts for the Rich - even when they're enormously popular. They DON'T SAY THE TRUTH!

For example Health Care has begun to kick in, but Dems won't take credit for it because they feel they'll get hit upside the head with stuff like this...



But all they have to do - is FIGHT BACK.

Right now ElectionProjection.com says the Democrats are likely to retain control of the Senate by 1 Seat, but lose the House by 3 giving Republicans a 220 to 215 majority.

This despite the fact that the so-called "Pledge To America" that the GOP House just released contains seven items that are already included in the Health Care Bill and are now part of the law. Via Thinkprogress

	Affordable Care Act	GOP’s ‘Pledge To America’
Insurance Across State Lines	Allows for the creation of State Health Insurance Compacts – permits states to enter into agreements to allow for the sale of insurance across state lines. (SEC. 1333; p. 100-101)	“We will allow individuals to buy health care coverage outside of the state in which they live. ” (p. 15)
High-Risk Insurance Pools	The states and the federal government have already established high-risk insurance pools to provide temporary coverage to individuals with pre-existing conditions until 2014. (SEC. 1101; p. 30-33)	“We will expand state high-­‐risk pools, reinsurance programs and reduce the cost of coverage” (p. 15)
Pre-Existing Conditions	Children cannot be denied coverage starting today, but beginning in 204, insurers must accept everyone who applies. (SEC. 2702-2705; p. 46-51)	“We will make it illegal for an insurance company to deny coverage to someone with prior coverage on the basis of a pre-­‐existing condition.” (p. 15)
Lifetime and Annual Caps	A health insurer cannot impose lifetime limits and will be prohibited from placing annual limits on plans beginning in 2014. (SEC. 2711; p. 14)	“[E]liminate annual and lifetime spending caps” (p.15)
Recissions	A health insurance issuer cannot rescind a policy except for in cases of fraud. (SEC. 2712; p. 14)	“[P]revent insurers from dropping your coverage just because you get sick.” (p.15)
State Innovation	States can receive waives from certain requirements if they can cover the uninsured and lower health costs in a more innovative manner. (SEC. 1332; p. 98-100)	“We will incentivize states to develop innovative programs that lower premiums and reduce the number of uninsured Americans.” (p.15)
Conscience Protections	The law does not affect existing conscience protections or discriminate “on the basis of the willingness or refusal to provide, pay for, cover, or refer for abortion or to provide or participate in training to provide abortion.” (SEC. 1303; p. 67)	“We will also enact into law conscience protections for health care providers, including doctors, nurses, and hospitals.” (p.15)

So not only are the Dems for Covering Children with Pre-existing Conditions - the Republicans are For it Too - or at least they say they are on paper. Yet in the clip Amy Holmes argues that...

Holmes: Some Insurers are already dropping their coverage of sick kids because of Obamacare...

And on this she is correct, some Insurers now refuse to offer "Child-Only" policies. It's not that they dropped coverage just for sick kids, they're dropping it for ALL KIDS so they don't have to cover the ones who are sick. Still, few people who report on this seems to also report that parents with group and family plans now have to accept children at least until those children are 26 years-old, no matter whether their already sick or not. Although you can't get children individual coverage - you can add them to your coverage.

Also this coverage gap created by greedy, heartless health insurance companies would now make nearly all of those children eligible for SCHIP which has been greatly expanded, and State-based High-Risk Poll Insurance which are already coming online at fairly affordable rates. So far enrollment rates for these pools has been low, but then that might be because NO ONE TALKS ABOUT THEM!

Certainly not Democrats.

Breitbart argues that ..

Obamacare was done at a tremendous cost...

He spouts this lie, another in his long string of them, even when the CBO says that Repealing the PPACA would increase the Deficit by $455 Billion.

On balance, the two laws’ health care and revenue provisions are estimated to reduce the projected deficit in 2020 by $28 billion, and the education provisions of the Reconciliation Act are estimated to reduce the projected deficit in 2020 by $2 billion. [...]

Finally, you asked what the net deficit impact would be if certain provisions of PPACA and the Reconciliation Act that were estimated to generate net savings were eliminated—specifically, those which were originally estimated to generate a net reduction in mandatory outlays of $455 billion over the 2010–2019 period. The estimate of $455 billion mentioned in your letter represents the net effects of many provisions. Some of those provisions generated savings for Medicare, Medicaid, or the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and some generated costs. If those provisions were repealed, CBO estimates that there would be an increase in deficits similar to its original estimate of $455 billion in net savings over that period.

Repealing Obamacare would cost Tax Payers almost a Half $Billion, But Democrats don't say it.

Amy comes back again with this gem...

Holmes: What is the morality of passing legislation that is now keeping business from hiring new employees?

First of all, Obama always said "If you like your current insurance - you can keep it and it won't change". He never intended to drastically change the existing Employee-based system, only to add minor fixes - such as the pre-existing condition ban - and to gradually create some alternatives to it for those who can't even get or afford insurance. Plus the ridiculous rate increases the insurance companies have been piling on the backs of business aren't anything new. Remember just last year when Anthem Blue Cross tried to raise their rates by 39 percent in California? Ultimately a rate hike was approved by State Regulators, but for less than half that amount.

Insurance companies have been blaming their rate increases on "Obamacare" requirements but that is simply bogus, and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has begun to call them out for it.

It has come to my attention that several insurance carriers have sent out letters to their enrollees falsely blaming premium increases for 2011 on the (Health Care Bill)

...

According to our analysis and some academic and industry experts, any potential premium impact from consumer protections and increased quality improvements should be minimal. We estimate that the effect will be no more than one or two percent.

...

Already my department has provided 46 states with information to strengthen the review and transparency of proposed premiums. Later this fall we will issue a regulation requiring state or federal review of all unreasonable rate increases.

State regulators already have the power to restrict and reduce these rate hikes by requiring that insurers justify them, HHS is moving to help strengthen their hand in this area to continue to prevent consumer gouging. Also even prior to the Exchanges coming online in 2014, insurers that gouge customers NOW, can be barred from participating in the exchanges and lose access to 32 Million additional customers and $Billions in government subsidies.

But Democrats Don't Talk About it.

Also millions of small businesses (those with less that 50 employees) already have access to a 35% tax credit for their health insurance which can directly offset even the highest proposed cost increase.

Small businesses will receive $40 billion in new tax credits to help cover the cost of health coverage for their employees. The tax credit is designed to both support those small businesses that provide coverage today as well as new businesses who decide to provide coverage. Effective immediately, the tax credit is worth up to 35 percent of the premiums a business pays to cover its workers and in 2014, the value of the credit will increase to 50 percent. An estimated 4 million small businesses will be eligible to receive these tax credits.

But Democrats don't talk about it.

Instead they swallow the line that this is all somehow "Obama's Fault".

Notice how quiet Seth McFarland is during this entire exchange, and finally when he does speak he only mentions one thing - The Public Option.

Once we lost the Public Option - Obama essentially lost his Democratic Base, those who frankly really wanted either Single-Payer, or at least making all health insurers into Non-Profits in order to limit the kind of price gouging and coverage restrictions, all done to increase profits, that we've seen for over a decade.

No, we didn't get the Public Option - however, what we did get is just as good. As a replacement for the PO, a Non-Profit Option will be offered by the Office of Personnel Management. The only real difference between the Public Option and this one, is that instead of being run by Federal employees directly, it's run by a Federal Contractor - but the Director of OPM would have broad control and oversight of that contractor. This is the Directors Authority over that Non-Profit Agency.

SEC 1332 (3) NON-PROFIT ENTITIES.—In entering into contracts under paragraph (1), the Director shall ensure that at least one contract is entered into with a non-profit entity.
(4) ADMINISTRATION.—The Director shall implement this subsection in a manner similar to the manner in which the Director implements the contracting provisions with respect to carriers under the Federal employees health benefit program under chapter 89 of title 5, United States Code, including
(through negotiating with each multi-state plan)—
(A) a medical loss ratio;
(B) a profit margin;
(C) the premiums to be charged; and
(D) such other terms and conditions of coverage as are
in the interests of enrollees in such plans.
(5) AUTHORITY TO PROTECT CONSUMERS.—The Director may prohibit the offering of any multi-State health plan that does not meet the terms and conditions defined by the Director with respect to the elements described in subparagraphs (A)
through (D) of paragraph (4).

(b) ELIGIBILITY.—A health insurance issuer shall be eligible to enter into a contract under subsection (a)(1) if such issuer—
(1) agrees to offer a multi-State qualified health plan that meets the requirements of subsection (c) in each Exchange in each State;

Over and above the new 85% medical loss ration which allows only 15% overhead and profit for any insurer who wishes to participate in the exchange, this option can be negotiated by the OPM Director to an even higher MLR. The Director can set their premium rates and their profit margin, which being by definition "Non-Profit" could essentially be Zero. Current Pseudo Non-Profits like Anthem/Blue Shield are not likely to qualify.

The CBO analysis of costs of operating this option when contrasted with the Public Option were essentially nil, and with other changes includes actually saved about $2 Billion more than it had previously.

This estimate incorporates the effects of the manager’s amendment, which would make a number of changes to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act as originally proposed. The changes with the largest budgetary effects include: expanding eligibility for a small business tax credit; increasing penalties on certain uninsured people; replacing a "public plan" that would be run by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) with "multi-state" plans that would be offered under contract with the Office of Personnel Management (OPM); deleting provisions that would increase payment rates for physicians under Medicare; and increasing the payroll tax on higher-income individuals and families. Of the total deficit reduction of $132 billion projected to result from the legislation, the manager’s amendment accounts for about $2 billion, and the act as originally proposed accounts for the remaining $130 billion.

The Public Option wasn't simply deleted, it was Replaced by something that from a deficit and premium controlling standpoint - is just as effective!

But Democrats don't say it.

Lastly as of now... Preventive Care is Free. Insurers are prohibited from charging co-pays or deductibles for mammograms or other cancer screenings.

Effective for health plan years beginning on or after September 23, 2010

All new plans must cover certain preventive services such as mammograms and colonoscopies without charging a deductible, co-pay or coinsurance.

But Democrats don't say it.

Maher: I don't know how Democrats can keep losing the argument about sick kids, they lost that one this week. They can't even mention health care because it "doesn't poll well". Well maybe if you'd mention it - IT WOULD POLL WELL! Maybe if you brag about what you did for people, it wouldn't poll badly...

This admittedly received the biggest applause of the segment, and it should have - because he's dead right.

It's not guaranteed, but maybe if Democrats DID mention that much of "The Pledge" is simply trying to steal their thunder by laying claim to things the Democrats already did without any Republican support, and maybe if they mentioned that ridiculous rate hikes of 32% can be blocked, and that even if insurers refuse to offer child-only policies - they still have to let now kids on their parents policies, and maybe if they mentioned that there are now state run low-cost high-risk insurance pools for people with pre-existing conditions or who have simply been without coverage for six months, that repealing "Obamacare" would add almost half a $billion to the deficit, that millions of small businesses now have a 35% tax credit for health insurance that will increase to 50% in 2014, that HHS is cracking down on price gouging by insurers and can block them from the Exchanges in 2014 if they gouge now, that Preventive Care is now FREE, and that although we didn't get the "Public Option" we got something that does the same exact thing just as well, if we simply bothered to mention some of this - at least once in a while - we might keep control of both the Senate and the House.

I understand we didn't get everything we might have hoped for, and that there are still loopholes in the law that these private insurers are trying to squirm and slither through. That's always going to be the case.

Yeah, but maybe if Democrats - not just those in Washington - but all of us talked about this stuff more, while admitting things aren't perfect, we might start seeing better polling numbers, and possibly electoral prospects in November.


Maybe... but one thing is certain, if we don't start pushing back on all these memes, distortions and out-and-out lies - and I mean agressively - we can pretty much guarantee what's going to happen in less than 40 days.

Right now all we need to do is keep two or three seats in the House. That could be Alan Grayson's seat (since he's currently trailing). That's all we need to keep Grayson and one or two more... his seat is worth a bit of laryngitis isn't it?

Vyan

Powell Stands up for Obama, Will the Left?

Just when you thought there weren't any Rational Republicans left in the world, Gen. Colin Powell shows up and makes a series of points I haven't seen anyone make in defense of Obama. Not even Democrats.



Apparently the completely and total party purge, will have to wait.

MR. GREGORY: You described him as a transformational figure, to have the potential. Has he lived up to that or do you find yourself disappointed?

GEN. POWELL: I think he has--is a transformational figure. Some people don't like what he's done in transformation, and it's caused him some difficulty. But the fact of the matter is, he did put together a health care reform. It's not perfect, and I think it'll have to be fixed over time, and a lot of people are not happy with that health care reform, but he did it. We still have millions of our fellow citizens who have no insurance, especially children. And so I think he has done transformational work with respect to education, and I think he should get credit for that. But in other aspects, I think he has to focus on now governing, not worrying about the daily, the daily campaign problem or reacting to everything that comes across the cable news channel. I think he needs to sort of get above all of that. Yes, Mr. President, they will kick you like a dog, treat you like a dog, but hey, that's the nature of our system. America's a great country, and this is the way we do our politics.

Powell's defense of the Health Care Bill as Transformative, if imperfect, is something I haven't even seen Congressional Democrats saying on the campaign trail.

Probably because they can essentially expect to get this kind of response from the Left.



Believe it or not Conservative (Paid) Pundit Armstrong Williams actually defends Obama and the Health Care Bill from Jane Hamsher.

I'm sure that even watching this will bring up a lot of anger over the long lost Public Option... but I have to tell everyone This Has to STOP! It's good to see a Democrat get Mad, now if they could just direct some of that anger - AT REPUBLICANS - that would be swell, mm kay?

I don't care what NYCEve says, there ARE price controls in the Health Care Bill, in fact those controls are why Newt Gingrich accused HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius of "Soviet Tyranny" because she began pushing back on the bogus claim that current insurance premiums are rising because of "Obamacare".

I discussed this issue in my rec'd diary yesterday on O'Donnell and Gingrich.

Sebelius: It has come to my attention that several insurance carriers have sent out letters to their enrollees falsely blaming premium increases for 2011 on the (Health Care Bill)

...

According to our analysis and some academic and industry experts, any potential premium impact from consumer protections and increased quality improvements should be minimal. We estimate that the effect will be no more than one or two percent.

...

Already my department has provided 46 states with information to strengthen the review and transparency of proposed premiums. Later this fall we will issue a regulation requiring state or federal review of all unreasonable rate increases.

Insurance providers who jack up their rates, the way we saw Anthem Blue Cross in California attempt to raise rates 39% even before Health Reform Passed, can be barred from access to the customers available in the Exchanges and denied Hundreds of $Millions in Grants and subsidies.

They have the freedom to charge what they want to charge, but not to expect customers to be forced to pay them for it.

As a point of fact Jane, Obama didn't say the Public Option was the "Bedrock" of his plan - he said that was the Exchange which would allow the public to the same type of Health Insurance that Federal Employees have was.

The plans you are discussing embody my core belief that Americans should have better choices for health insurance, building on the principle that if they like the coverage they have now, they can keep it, while seeing their costs lowered as our reforms take hold. But for those who don't have such options, I agree that we should create a health insurance exchange -- a market where Americans can one-stop shop for a health care plan, compare benefits and prices, and choose the plan that's best for them, in the same way that Members of Congress and their families can.

The Exchange was his Holy Grail, not the Public Option.

What we actually received in the final Health Care Bill included a Replacement for the Public Option, which scored better under the CBO (a $1.5 Trillion improvement over 20 years) and gives the head of the Office of Personnel Management the ability to specifically negotiate the premiums, medical loss ratio, and profit margins of a National/Multi-State Non-Profit Health Care Option to be made available through the Exchanges in 2014.

All-in-all those provisions are far better, and potentially far more cost effective, than each state managing it's own "Public Option" to be made available in their individual Exchanges.

Democrats need to start speaking like Powell and Williams have, they need to start getting Behind the good things that Obama has done and arguing that we need to KEEP going rather than let the howling crazies on the right, pied pipered by Palin and Gingrich take control of Congress and our national agenda.

Vyan

Revealing the Stealth Public Option

Heading into the midterm elections, the level of vitriol and energy on the right continues to rise while those and the left feel demoralized, betrayed, and dispirited despite numerous legislative accomplishments by the Democratic Congress and President Obama.

Chief among those disappointments is the lack of single payer plan, or at the very least - a public option within the plan to allow people to avoid having to choose exclusively from health insurance agencies motivated entirely by profit, not patient satisfaction.

What many of us apparently don't know is the final version of the PPACA as passed actually does include something that functions as a public option, and in some ways may even be slightly better as scored by the CBO.

Here's one recent diary which wistfully pines for better non-profit options.

Where we should be talking about the future reforms we need - i.e., opening up Medicare to more Americans on an opt-in basis, creating a more powerful nonprofit option (whether it's negotiated on Medicare rates or not, putting patients ahead of profits), and reining in insurance company abuses and rate increases - instead, we're too busy attacking and ceding political turf to the Republicans, who did NOTHING to support reform and even lied about it to scare voters.

My point here is this nonprofit option already exists.

The final Health Care bill included the "Non-For-Profit Option" as overseen by the Office of Personal Management which scored just as well as the Public Option for Budget Reduction and Cost Savings according to CBO - so for those who desired downward pressure on costs, that's exactly what we have.

The Original Kennedy-Dodd Senate Bill did not include a Public Option and Scored at about $1 Trillion, but after the PO it was re-scored at $389 billion cheaper initially - but also that it's long term projection of over ten years would have increased the deficit by over half a billion

Indeed, according to CBO's July 2 score of the HELP bill, under the legislation, 21 million fewer Americans would be uninsured in 2019 than under current law. In a July 1 letter to members of the HELP committee, publicly released the following day, Kennedy and Dodd wrote that the "Congressional Budget Office has carefully reviewed our complete bill, and we are pleased to report that the CBO has scored it at $611.4 billion over 10 years, with the new coverage provisions scored at $597 billion" -- a cost they noted was a "significant reduction from earlier estimates." The preliminary score of the complete bill that the committee released stated that Title I of the bill would increase the deficit by $597 billion over 10 years.

See that? The Kennedy Bill with the PO included increased the deficit.

The final bill came in with a higher initial costs due to increased subsidies for low income insurance seekers, but long term deficit reductions were an almost $2 Trillion improvement over 20 years.

Comprehensive health care reform will cost the federal government $940 billion over a ten-year period, but will increase revenue and cut other costs by a greater amount, leading to a reduction of $138 billion in the federal deficit over the same period, according to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, a Democratic source tells HuffPost. It will cut the deficit by $1.2 trillion over the second ten year period.

The source said it also extends Medicare's solvency by at least nine years and reduces the rate of its growth by 1.4 percent, while closing the doughnut hole for seniors, meaning there will no longer be a gap in coverage of medication. The CBO also estimated it would extend coverage to 32 million additional people.

The Public Option was removed during negotiations with Sen. Joe Leiberman in the "Manager's Amendment". That amendment was scored by CBO here, where it showed that this option saves just as much of a cost savings as the Public Option did, in fact it came out $2 billion cheaper.

This estimate incorporates the effects of the manager’s amendment, which would make a number of changes to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act as originally proposed. The changes with the largest budgetary effects include: expanding eligibility for a small business tax credit; increasing penalties on certain uninsured people; replacing a "public plan" that would be run by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) with "multi-state" plans that would be offered under contract with the Office of Personnel Management (OPM); deleting provisions that would increase payment rates for physicians under Medicare; and increasing the payroll tax on higher-income individuals and families. Of the total deficit reduction of $132 billion projected to result from the legislation, the manager’s amendment accounts for about $2 billion, and the act as originally proposed accounts for the remaining $130 billion.

...

The proposal would call on OPM to contract for two national or multi-state health insurance plans—one of which would have to be nonprofit—that would be offered through the insurance exchanges.

Considering the intensity of the opposition against the public option, the Stealth Option was able to slip in under the wire without being noticed by the press, and largely without being noticed by the legislators themselves. As a result they haven't been able to respond back to their own constituents on the Left who loudly complain that they caved when the rubber met the road.

In the end, we got 90-95%% of what we wanted and needed.

One of the few Democrats I've even seen bring this provision up was Sen. Mary Landrieu (at 11:58) as she was being attacked and criticized by Howard Dean. (Some of Dean's long list of criticisms here especially the ability to charge older person were removed, along with the "Louisiana Purchase" and "Cornhusker Kick-back" via Reconciliation after the House passed the Senate version of the bill with the Manager's Amendment)

Landrieu: In the Bill that the Governor now says he's not for, there is a national non-profit option that gives the same choices that members of Congress and Federal Employees have...

In all the twists and turns of the legislation - this point was completely lost. We have something that is just as good as what most of us wanted, and maybe having it going through in the background was best, because otherwise if it had gotten more focus and more press - just like Single Payer, and just like the PO, it might have been stripped out too, but it wasn't.

Other issues criticizing the bill, which I've seen are arguments that it doesn't contain "cost controls" - this has especially been brought up by NYCEVE. in What happened to the promise to "control skyrocketing premiums"?!

However, the PPACA does have cost controls, it requires an 85% Medical Loss Ratio, which means that at least 85% of the money paid in as part of premiums has to go to actual care, not advertising, not overhead, not stock value.

NYCeve's next major complaint is that their aren't any limits on deductibles in "junk insurance" - but there will be for people buying employer based insurance outside of the Exchange through their employer.

(2) ANNUAL LIMITATION ON DEDUCTIBLES FOR EMPLOYER SPONSORED PLANS.—
(A) IN GENERAL.—In the case of a health plan offered
in the small group market, the deductible under the plan shall not exceed—
(i) $2,000 in the case of a plan covering a single
individual; and
(ii) $4,000 in the case of any other plan.
The amounts under clauses (i) and (ii) may be increased by the maximum amount of reimbursement which is reasonably available to a participant under a flexible spending arrangement described in section 106(c)(2) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (determined without regard to any salary reduction arrangement).

Prior to the actual implementation of the full plan in 2014, it's not that surprising that some insurers would try to price gouge before they get hit with the ban on life time limits, the 85% medical loss ratio, and the limit on out-of-pocket cost, however they do so at their own risk of being punished for it because there are penalties for Insurers who issue exorbitant rate hikes.

The law allows states that have, or plan to implement, measures that require insurance companies to justify their premium increases to be eligible for $250 million in new grants. Insurance companies with excessive or unjustified premium increases may not be able to participate in the new health insurance Exchanges in 2014.

If the companies try to jack up prices now, as some appear to be doing - although these may be outliers according to the Kaiser Report which says that overall 2010 insurance rates have only increased between 3%-5% - before the exchanges come online if 2014, they either have to justify it or not get any access to the new customers available in the exchanges.

Lastly on this point, if an insurer takes the risk of gouging anyway though the exchange, they can be forced to pay back their customers via rebates.

From the CBO

Several provisions regulating insurers were added, including a requirement for an insurer to provide rebates if its share of premiums going to administrative costs exceeds specified levels and a general prohibition on imposing annual limits on the amount of benefits that would be covered.

If insurers charge more than the 85% limit they have to GIVE THE DIFFERENCE BACK as a rebate. That would be what's called a Price Control.

Nyceve's issue with the junk insurance would not apply to the insurance offered through the Exchanges in 2014 which require that preventative care be offered for free (not with a high deductible), and that a fairly comprehensive minimum set of coverage - for the bronze plans - which haven't even been established by the Secretary of HHS yet be made available at a reasonably affordable price, with subsidies available for those who still can't afford them.

Beyond Health Care the second major criticism of the Obama Administration has been their failure to address the War Crimes of the previous Administration and their overall handing of the "Rule of Law".

The problem isn't just with the Administration, it's with the Law itself and Congress failure to correct that law, although the SCOTUS has been gradually correcting much of this on their own.

After losing the Hamdan case the Bush Administration pushed through the Military Commissions Act which stripped Foreign Enemy Combatants of Habaeus protection, some of which was restored by Boumediene in regards to Gitmo, but as yet has not been restored for Bagram A.F.B. which is were the current detention sore festers. Thus Far the Courts have ruled against Bagram Habeas petitions in accordance with the MCA, but this issue has yet to reach SCOTUS.

On two levels, both via executive order and via both Hamdan & Boumediene at the SCOTUS Habeaus has been restored for Enemy Combatants - but not yet for those held in Bagram, and that is where Congress needs to act.

Don't like Warrantless Searches? Congress essentially Ratified them with the FISA Fix Congress needs to "Unfix" it. Unlike the Bush Administration, the Obama Administration's Justice Dept has been implementing the law as written even if it's a lousy law. The problem is the law itself, not the Administration who has pledged to uphold the law - even when that law sucks.

The investigation of Torture & Bush War Crimes has been handed off to a Special Prosecutor, and although there is no guarantee exactly what that prosecutor will do, or how far they will or won't take the case - it is clearly NOT fair to argue that the Administration has ignored the issue, they've done what they should have done which is let a prosecutor handle this outside of the political process, but under the law. The problem is with the law itself, specifically the MCA which effectively immunized many of these activities retroactively by re-writing the War Crimes Act to match the Bybee Standard (Torture equals Likely Death Only) during the lame-duck session of 2006 right after the Hamdan decision came down. Obama wasn't even in the Senate when that happened.

Admittedly Obama hasn't addressed this since campaigning but he has made it known that he realizes the MCA needs to be repealed and Habeaus restored, the Detainee Treatment Act needs an update to include civilians under Geneva and the AFM, the War Crimes Act needs an update which includes providing legal advice designed to deliberately circumvent the law, and Obama needs to get both Gitmo and Bagram closed down - but those are all works in progress (many of which were delayed by Health Care, The Stimulus and Financial Reform) as the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars wind down, not failures. Not yet.

Even though Bush is gone, he left behind a pile of bad laws that Congress needs to fix, not just Obama - and as a result we need the best possible Congress we can get if we're going to have any hope at all of addressing this continuing issues.

Right now Barbara Boxer is in Trouble. Russ Feingold - the only U.S. Senator to vote against the original Patriot Act - is threatened. We may have our issues with Blue Dogs like Mary Landrieu, but we can't let that frustration be taken out actual progressives like Boxer or Feingold. They need our help, and they need it NOW!

I'm not arguing for anyone to just "clap louder", but to admit these are complex and difficult issues - it will take years to clean up this mess and all the while we're doing it we'll have to fight hard to keep the Conservatives and the out-and-out Wingnuts from rebuilding the mess as fast as they can.

The facts are on our side, we don't have to feel bad or down about anything. This legislation is far from perfect and still has many fixes and changes need, but we're not likely to get any of that done with even fewer Democrats in Congress than we currently have. It's not time give up or give in, it's time to double-down - and to ActBlue.

We all may our issues with how things went down, but one thing we can't do is let the Know Less-Than-Nothing Party steal the day and benefit from their own strategy of obstruction and obfuscation. We have to keep Congress in Democratic hands, at all costs.

Vyan