The Commentariat -- Oct. 28, 2013
... Buh-bye, ObamaCare Girl. Tal Kopan of Politico: the face of Healthcare.gov changes -- to an interactive graphic. ...
... The Slate staff imagine what Healthcare.gov might look like if the major tech companies had designed it, which many critics suggest is the way HHS should have gone. Here's Slate's take on the Google design; go to the link to see the other mock-ups:
... Paul Krugman: "Obamacare is an immense kludge -- a clumsy, ugly structure that more or less deals with a problem, but in an inefficient way. The thing is, such better-than-nothing-but-pretty-bad solutions have become the norm in American governance. As Steven Teles of Johns Hopkins University put it in a recent essay, we've become a 'kludgeocracy.' And the main reason that is happening, I'd argue, is ideology." ...
** Michael Lind in Salon: "... the worst features of Obamacare are the very features that conservatives want to impose on all federal social policy [i.e., Medicare, Social Security]: means-testing, a major role for the states, and subsidies to private providers instead of direct public provision of health or retirement benefits. This is not surprising, because Obamacare's models are right-wing models -- the Heritage Foundation's healthcare plan in the 1990s and Mitt Romney's 'Romneycare' in Massachusetts." CW: Krugman makes the same point about Paul Ryan's plan for replacing "Medicare as we know it" in his column today. Last week I read the Konczal piece to which Lind refers -- it's here -- & didn't link it because it's a bit hard to follow unless you read closely. However, you don't have to be a genius to read it. The bottom line of all three pieces -- Lind's, Krugman's & Konczal's -- is that what people won't like about ObamaCare is the part that conservatives imposed. ...
... Jonathan Cohn of the New Republic provides an honest, balanced look at how the ACA will affect health insurance premium rates -- a rundown you will be hard-pressed to find elsewhere. ...
We nearly killed ObamaCare. It's not dead yet, but we're not done beating on it either. -- Rep. Steve King (RTP-Iowa)
... Heather of Crooks & Liars: "You hear it on the lips of every single one of the Republican talking heads on every single Sunday news show: President Obama promised that if you liked your healthcare, you could keep it and HE LIED!!! ... Millions of Americans found out that they've been dropped from their healthcare! ... David Gregory has never come across a Republican talking point that he didn't love, embrace and swallow up whole to faithfully regurgitate to the masses. So he dutifully confronts Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida CEO Patrick Geraghty about the news that 300,000 Floridians have found their policies dropped because they fall below the minimum standards of coverage set by Obamacare. Problem was, Geraghty wasn't going to play Gregory's gotcha game with people's healthcare:
We're not cutting people. We're actually transitioning people. What we've been doing is informing folks that their plan doesn't meet the test of the essential health benefits; therefore, they have a choice of many options that we make available through the exchange. And, in fact, with subsidy, many people will be getting better plans at a lesser cost. This really is a transition. In fact, the 300,000 figure is the entire year. So it's really 40,000 people for January 1, and we're walking them through that transition.
Steve Coll of the New Yorker on the decline of the Republican party: "The Tea Party's anti-intellectualism reflects a longer, deeper decline in the Republican Party's ability to tolerate a diversity of ideas and public-policy strategies, and to adapt to American multiculturalism." ...
... ** Greg Sargent makes an important point: Tea Party Republican's idea "is that the demand that Republicans enter into conventional policy discussions is itself a political trap! ... There is probably nothing that could result from normal governing compromises between Republicans and Democrats that the Tea Party wing can ever accept." CW: Calling Tea Party radicals the Crazy Caucus is not derogatory; it's a statement of fact.
Every Fucking Bad Thing Is Obama's Fault. Steve M. of NMMNB: "... I thought I'd share this response from a Free Republic commenter to the death of Lou Reed:
The ObamaCare Death Panels in New York wouldn't give him a liver transplant so he got it done in Ohio instead. Typical liberal hypocrisy. Death Panels for thee but not for me.
... "I'm not quite sure how 'ObamaCare Death Panels' could kill Reed given that (a) Reed was old enough for Medicare, (b) Obamacare hasn't been fully implemented, and (c) Ohio, like New York, is part of the United States, and Obamacare is federal law, but whatever."
ABC News & the AP: "U.S. officials responded Sunday night to a report that the National Security Agency ended a program used to spy on German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other world leaders only after an internal Obama administration review started this summer exposed the operation. An unnamed senior official told The Wall Street Journal that the White House 'cut off some monitoring programs after learning of them, including the one tracking Ms. Merkel and some other world leaders. Other programs have been slated for termination but haven't been phased out completely yet.'" CW: So if the project to spy on Merkel began in 2002 & Obama ended it, then I guess this one is George Bush's fault. ...
... Sarah White & Emma Pinedo of Reuters: " The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) recently tracked over 60 million calls in Spain in the space of a month, a Spanish newspaper said on Monday, citing a document which it said formed part of papers obtained from ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden."
A Reminder from E. J. Dionne: "... here is the tea party’s greatest victory: It has made the wrong problem the center of policymaking. The wrong problem is the deficit. The right problem is sluggish growth and persistent unemployment.... By putting so much effort into negotiating a failed 'grand bargain' with House Speaker John Boehner in 2011 and subsequently agreeing to the sharp, across-the-board cuts of the 'sequester' to get out of a crisis, Obama contributed to the deficit chorus. Because of the fiscal tightening, our unemployment rate is probably a point higher than it would have been otherwise. We've done a heck of a job on the deficit, reducing it from about 10 percent of the economy in 2009 to 4 percent now. We've done badly by the jobless."
Philip Rucker of the Washington Post on the strong Clinton-McAuliffe friendship. "Bill and Hillary, a potential 2016 presidential candidate, are leveraging their popularity in an all-out push to help [Terry] McAuliffe win the governorship of Virginia. On Sunday, Bill kicked off a four-day, nine-city tour of Virginia with McAuliffe, while Hillary will raise money for him this week in California." CW: Hey, McAuliffe's opponent Ken Cuccinelli has Rick Santorum (who seems to be on the campaign trail to hawk a Christianist movie he produced or something).
Adam Gopnik of the New Yorker has a long piece on the assassination of President Kennedy: "An assassination should be significant for more than its atmospherics. Kennedy's should also matter for people who weren't there, because something happened in America that would not have happened had Kennedy lived."
Sarah Duggin of the National Constitution Center has a good piece on the Constitutional meaning of "natural-born citizen."
... More Fishing News from Wyoming, the State that Fined Liz Cheney for Lying about her Residence Status on Her Fishing License Application. Elise Viebeck of the Hill: "Former Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday that Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) lied about their relationship when he said that the two had gone fishing. Cheney's daughter, Liz Cheney, is challenging Enzi in the Wyoming Republican Senate primary." CW: How big was that fish you caught, Mike?
News Ledes
Politico: "The Obama administration is attributing Sunday outages on HealthCare.gov to technical failures by Verizon Terremark, the company operating the federal data hub."
AFP: "A South African court began sentencing Monday 20 right-wing extremists convicted of high treason for a plot to kill Nelson Mandela and drive blacks out of the country. The 'Boeremag' organisation had planned a right-wing coup in 2002 to overthrow the post-apartheid government. The trial lasted almost a decade until the organisation's members were convicted in August last year -- the first guilty verdicts for treason since the end of apartheid in 1994."
AP: "International observers gave their stamp of approval to Georgia's presidential election on Monday, characterizing it as 'clean' and 'transparent.' Sunday's election was won easily by Giorgi Margvelashvili, a 44-year-old former university rector with limited political experience." CW: The article of course is not about the U.S. state of Georgia, which has a voter ID law requiring photo identification.
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Reader Comments (15)
Today's lengthy NY Times back-and-forth (excusez-moi, 'conversation') between Bill Keller and Glen Greenwald http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/28/opinion/a-conversation-in-lieu-of-a-column.html?hp&pagewanted=all — offers the expected from both, but it also opens up a much-needed dialogue. Factual journalism doesn't serve us when it falls back on the he/she said-&-he/she said. Likewise, opinionated, overly-subjective "journalistic writing' fails us when details/facts are ignored. My observation of comments —whether it be a "fact-based" (ahem!) Page One story or feature from the Opinion section, is that some readers are unaware of the difference.
I agree with Greenwald on journalism's methods: "...(it) rewards dishonesty on the part of political and corporate officials who know they can rely on “objective” reporters to amplify their falsehoods without challenge (i.e., reporting is reduced to “X says Y” rather than “X says Y and that’s false”)." Or as Chuck Todd, says "...not my job!"
Does anyone else find it hysterical that wingnuts are concerned about Lou Reed?
Can't you just see Tom Delay and his Heritage cronies sitting around at strategy sessions singing "Hey sugar, take a walk on the wild side"? Or maybe teabaggers have a thing for songs about male hookers, drugs, blowjobs, and cross dressing (hey you never know, Reagan thought "Born in the USA" was an anthem about American Exceptionalism).
Heartwarming, in'it? Republicans, who gathered around the fire at summer camp when they were just shavetail wingnuts singing "Heroin" and "Sweet Jane", all tore up about Lou kicking the bucket, and blaming Obama for it.
Kinda gets you right here, doesn't it?
MAG,
Good point. And it's those unaware types (dullards? nitwits?) who are the target audience for Fox, Scream Radio, Greggers and other Sunday morning gasbags, themselves either low information types or cynical, smirking rat bastards, and a primary reason so much opinion and bald-faced lies are received, transmitted, and reposted ad infinitum as unassailable facts.
Sorry...I'm cracking myself up sitting here, picturing Dick Cheney, eyes closed, head bobbing, crooning to himself "....and the colored girls sing, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo..."
Probably had old black light Velvet Underground posters on the wall of his undisclosed hidey hole.
Oh man.
Akhilleus: Can you imagine Dick Cheney dancing to rock and roll? I believe that is the only time "laugh" and "Dick Cheney" have ever been in the same sentence.
I'm still sitting here in awe that some teabagging comenter doesn't
know that one of the best, if not the best, hospitals is in Ohio. Must
be a really big rock that all of these nutjobs crawl out from under.
Just to provide a medical contact to the Lou Reed story. Besides the fact that his transplant was last May, long before the ACA came into effect, the stupid comment says that he was turned down in NY. I could not find anything on that but presuming it is true, it looks like NY got is right. You see there are for transplants what conservatives call death panels. But actually they are 'life' panels.
These people evaluate the chances of success for a transplant because there are far more patients than organs available. So when someone is turned down it actually means that someone had their life saved. And it looks from the fact that he died 5 months after his transplant, NY may have saved a life and Ohio lost one. And I don't mean Reed.
"We nearly killed ObamaCare. It’s not dead yet, but we’re not done beating on it either."
Call me simple, call me naive, call me innocent--please--but this is plain and simply the language of sadism and torture, and it is being applied to, of all things, health care. And in public. Without shame.
It's like saying, for example, "I hope that infant drowns in breastmilk," to those who nurse in public because, uhh, babies don't know how to hold it and say, "Please sir, can my mom tend to me now, in the rest room, if it's okay with your highness?"
Or, how about, "Are those weapons those guys are carrying? It's a little hard to tell on my ultra-tech monitor array. Are there kids there with them?"
"Light 'em up," comes the reply. "Let their God sort 'em out. Unzip--I mean release--the weapon."
And have a nice day.
We will be finding out, in all too short order, what happens when you separate the human from the being. You get a class of organism which finds immense pleasure in destruction, and holds sacred only the bonds it forms with it own special kind. Damn those "lesser forms," and let 'em scratch it out for themselves.
I suppose this is God's work, if you stare at it long enough, but unlike these warriors might wish on me, I'll still manage to accept that they have their place in the greater scheme; taking us way way, way down to the bottom of the abuse pit, so we can maybe hear those angels wings. These critters are surely bent on hastening the day.
And healthcare is a privilege, errr, commodity, errr growth stock .. umm. Reserved for the upper half, errr the chosen few, uhh--me, after trashing life's gift of a body, so don't get in my way! And only a few letters amiss between hippocratic and hypocritical.
The teeming masses will, one day, have something to say about this. But how did these MBAs and political hacks manage to buy off all of the doctors, the educators, and the rest of the professional class that are now all too complicit? And how about those spouses? Too wrapped up in the lifestyle? The world is waiting for our answer, for now.
@Todd K, I may have told this story before, but it says much about medicine in America. At the medical school where I work, the Dean tells me how disappointed he is that an orthopedic surgeon turned down his offer for a position at a salary of at least $500,000. His reason? His wife refused to see such a drastic cut in his income!
The best part is the event happened 23 years ago.
Der Spiegel on spying:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/
I can just picture John Boehner and Mitch McConnell singing "Femme Fatale" to each other after Michele Bachmann leaves the room.
@ Akhilleus: It is to laugh, indeed.
"Give me your hungry, your tired, your poor I'll piss on 'em
That's what the Statue of Bigotry says
Your poor huddled masses
Let's club 'em to death
And get it over with and just dump 'em on the boulevard"
Lou Reed was writing about the very people who are now screaming about his dying, saying it's somehow a failure of a program that didn't even exist when he needed treatment. They are shameless and Reed had contempt for them, as should we all.
It's hard when one has to grapple with those that we think are so far removed from reality––(thank you for reminding us, Lou Reed, who can now rest in his Velvet Underground) but when it's your own blood relative it becomes so very difficult. My brother––the one from Wisconsin that I have written about often––sent me some days ago the screaming "Obama lied to us ..." re: the health care business so today I sent him the excellent Cohn article that Marie posted thinking this would clear up the misinformation. This is what I got in return:
:
> Did you forget I was a licensed insurance agent for 32 years? There is lots
> of flaws in this and I let it go at that. You are buying B.O.s BS and what
> ever I say, you won't buy so why waste my time? Bill
And I replied: Of course there are flaws in this because the damn Republicans wouldn't go for single payer which makes SENSE, but it's better than nothing and nothing is what millions of people had/have in this country. Waste your time? I thought it was informative. Sorry to have bothered.
Forgive me for hanging out my dirty laundry but I know so many of you have the same problem and it's so good to vent.
Dear PD, your post seems more to me like anguish than venting, and sans the special indicator of a) superiority, and b) aggression, I find it in keeping with the more livable signs, which you well state, of c) willingness to offer an apology when you discover your overtures unwelcome, d) seeking forgiveness for any display you might make by way of e) venting, as in getting it out of your system, with witnesses, in an act of trust and fellowship.
But I caution you with regard to employing reason in the face of someone who has self-identified as a long time believer in both (a) and (b) above, as anyone who is given to cite their CV in a suspect industry as leverage in seeking to belittle your capability and conscientiousness with regard to the aforementioned quality of reason is clearly signaling.
I'm sorry this is your brother, but such is the nature of the ongoing US Civil War. At present, I prefer to grieve and mourn the loss of a loving relationship, once it becomes clear it has gone beyond reach, and give that period of loss its due, while coming to recognize the newly limited form of the person before me, than to engage in endless rounds of futile attempts to bridge a cognitive divide. It is incumbent on your brother to accept you as you are, or not, and for you to do same, or not.
I tell my kids, bless their hearts, that loving everyone = well worth the effort, if you can handle it, because it will keep you whole, even if they don't appreciate it. At the same time, expecting people to love you (in return) is an exercise in absurdity. I encourage them to enjoy reciprocity when they do find it, even if it only lasts a while.
Fall is the time for the trees to lose their leaves, in preparation for the long Winter. It's also a good time for us to let go of our discomfort in the harms we have witnessed and experienced. Spring will rise again and so will we, if we allow ourselves.
Reasoned debate is a high art. Rank argument, a fool's game.
Peace and love to you, and thank you for your sincere appeal.
PD. Last doo-doo I stepped in with my RW brother was over the "deliberate" closing of the Vets WWII Memorial. Long ago, the topic of Obamacare was added to our list of Never Discuss" topics. Thanks to today's commenters I shall update that list and add Lou Reed.