Except that the “problems” they wanted to fix were the higher taxes and the mandates. If you “fix” those issues, it wrecks the whole system, as the CBO’s analysis showed. Implementing tweaks and incremental changes would have gone over fine with a majority of the voters, but wouldn’t have satisfied the rich and the business interests who are their core campaign donors.
I can’t really think of another example of a program being named after the President while they were in office, recent or otherwise. There’s a few kinda analogues: The Hoover Dam, Mr Madison’s War, Washington DC, the Bush Tax cuts, but none of those are really gov’t programs in the usual sense.
“Obamacare” was a weird coincidence, where both parties thought the name played to their advantage, so the press ran with it (plus the fact that the WH never really came up with a catchy name of their own). Not sure its really indicating a new trend.
It all began with Hillary Clinton. When she was first lady - and health care was her cause - the term “Hillarycare” was regularly bandied about. “Obamacare” was the natural offshoot.
Although, Clinton didn’t exactly embrace being an eponym like Obama did.
I wonder if we are going to see a bigger split between the Reagan Republicans and the populists. Two days ago, Sean Hannity explained the opposition as:
But this morning, Trump tweeted: “Democrats are smiling in D.C. that the Freedom Caucus, with the help of Club For Growth and Heritage, have saved Planned Parenthood & Ocare!”
Hannity has been a big Trump supporter, but I wonder if he will have to choose between Reagan/Freedom Caucus/Heritage Foundation side and Trump.
“We have always been at war with Eastasia.”
But now, they have invaded our capital and burned it to the ground, thus falling into our trap!
Oh lord. It was the bane of my existence when my first husband (who was disabled through chronic illness) would be put in observation status. I feel like I get questions about MOONs all the time now, and frankly I don’t know as much about it as I should.
My understanding currently is that the IRS has announced they will not bounce tax filings just for not including information about whether the person had insurance. My understanding is that this is a de facto revocation of the requirement to have insurance, and they cited the EO as a reason for this change. So that’s already happening for tax year 2016.
Honestly, I think if anyone assures you someone will or will not have standing to sue on such a matter they are being foolish. Standing is really hard to predict. I’ve seen suggestions that insurance companies could have standing, that consumers who do not leave the market could have standing, and that no one could have standing.
Also, I should have mentioned this:
There is a really goofy part of some libertarian beliefs that somehow a court can make people whole in the absence of regulation. This is an excellent example of an area where a lawsuit would be so incredibly slow, even if successful, that any damage that was going to be done would already have been done. If insurance companies think that the lack of the mandate is going to kill their pools, they just won’t offer plans. And then things can die long before a lawsuit is concluded.
Of course, one tiny advantage of our current dysfunctional informational universe is that lots of people have no idea what the IRS may or may not be doing re: the mandate. If people think it’s going to be enforced, they may choose to abide by it. If people don’t trust Trump not to change it up, or don’t trust the IRS not to change it up, etc., they may choose to abide by it. Having it not officially changed but changed in this weedy administrative way might greatly lessen the effect of the change.
If I had to guess, it would be whatever mood the functionary who assessed the report was in that morning, and colored by his personal political beliefs and moral inclinations. Arbitrary, for lack of a better word.
However, if we were to treat people according to their needs without trying to assess their personal responsibilities, it would be quite a bit simpler. We should take care of folks, and leave our judgement out of it. Over my pay grade, of that much I am sure.
Ya THINK?
:D:p
In a surprising moment of clarity and candor, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) said that the House moved too fast on the ACA repeal bill. Cotton said 18 days was not enough time to get such a big piece of legislation done, and he said that the Republicans needed to emulate the “careful and deliberative” approach the Democrats took in getting the ACA through initially.
Uh. Ya THINK?
“Who knew health care was so complicated?”
Apparently, Trump wasn’t the only one.
But-but-but I- I thought the Democrats just “rammed through” Obamacare, and it was just awful, and they had to “vote for the bill in order to find out what was in the bill” and-and-and- SOCIALISM! Death panels!
Gosh, now I’m all confused.
The White House thought they had the votes until someone double checked Betsy DeVos’ math.
Here’s what Democrats should be doing: start drafting a comprehensive bill to fix what’s wrong with the ACA. Get buy-in from the health care field by involving them from the start. Start promoting the bill in town halls and in ads. Run on it in the 2018 midterms. Let people see what they would get when Democrats regain the majority. Given a clear choice between the hastily contrived Republican bill and the carefully crafted Democratic alternative, Democrats will come on top. You can’t waste your time in opposition by merely being against everything, you have to propose realistic alternatives- something Republicans did not do.
What history of the Democrats makes you think they’ll ever do that? They spent all of 2010, 2012, and 2014 running away from both the ACA in particular and Obama in general. Got slaughtered for it, too. I don’t remember any sort of pitch before the 2006 midterm either, other than that Bush really sucks. I haven’t really changed my opinion on Democratic leadership in twelve years.
Mainly because the ACA and Obama are both immensely more popular now than they were in 2010.
This is what I keep saying. Dems need to actually start DOING instead of just talking about doing.
Keith Ellison was on tv this morning saying that he wants to make changes to Part D to ensure the gov’t can negotiate drug prices. It’s a good place to start. Now fucking START!
I have copied this, and sent it to both of my state’s Senators. I’ve also sent it to a couple of FB friends who have large followings.
Um… apparently 8 years wasn’t enough time either.