One of the best things to come out of the final vote on health care reform wasn’t necessarily all of the improvements to coverage and the extended access to health insurance and quality care to millions, but the fact that the American people are finally coming down to the end of the debate and – as with many policies – are happier now that it’s all over than they were before.

And now that people are talking about the improvements to American health care in general that have come with the passage of the bill, it’s getting even more popular – the poll numbers both of the bill and of the President are proving the point. From The Washington Post:

One of the predictions that I and many others had about the health-care reform bill was that it would become more popular after passage than it was before passage. Voters like success, the media covers winners more positively than losers, and people take their cues from outcomes. The first poll taken entirely after the House vote bears that out: 50% were enthusiastic or pleased while 42% were angry or disappointed. Similarly, 49% thought this a good thing for the country while 40% thought it bad.

The poll is a Gallup poll, and as they say, that’s a sharp improvement over the pre-passage numbers. On 3/9, they asked whether you’d advise your representative to vote for the bill. About 45% said yes, while 48% said no. So there’s been a flip from plurality opposition to plurality support. This is, of course, just one poll, amd soon we’ll know if it’s a general trend.

There’s a fabulous graph over at The Washington Post that makes these numbers clear, but the data is as plain as day – the American people realize – and always have realized – that this bill will benefit them and be a boon, not the so-called “armageddon” that the radical right has been trying to paint it as. With time, even those folks who rely the heaviest on it (the “keep your government hands off my Medicare” folks) will not only come to accept it, but probably take it for granted; making the tea party thugs’ calls for “repeal” not only unacceptable but unfathomable.

Here’s to the American people – we won a huge victory.

[ Health-Care Reform More Popular After Passage than Before ]
Source: The Washington Post

phoenix is the author of Not So Humble and an unabashed progresssive who isn’t afraid of any or all of the labels thrown at him. Head over to Not So Humble to read more!

This post was originally published at Not So Humble. Click here to read the post in its original habitat!

I’ve written about the racism and homophobia that exists in the Tea Party several times, and how in fact their so-called leadership (as much as anyone can “lead” a group of thugs with torches and pitchforks) are driven by and funded by racist and far-right fringe groups, some of whom have openly called for the death of the President. Never has it been more front and center than this weekend, where protesters both for and against the health care legislation that passed the House yesterday faced off in DC. What do you do when you’re out of steam, never had any ideas to begin with, and are fueled by pure hate and ignorance? Show it off, of course:

Demonstrators outside the U.S. Capitol, angry over the proposed health care bill, shouted “nigger” Saturday at U.S. Rep. John Lewis, a Georgia congressman and civil rights icon who was nearly beaten to death during an Alabama march in the 1960s.

The protesters also shouted obscenities at other members of the Congressional Black Caucus, lawmakers said.

“They were shouting, sort of harassing,” Lewis said. “But, it’s okay, I’ve faced this before. It reminded me of the 60s. It was a lot of downright hate and anger and people being downright mean.”

Lewis knows what’s up. He’s faced far more hatred than this bunch of glorified trolls, but it’s just another example of the cancer that the right-wing has in their ranks – one that they desperately need to remove if they expect anyone to take them or the mainstream Republican party (if there is such a thing anymore) seriously in any election.

But it didn’t stop with racism:

Protestors also used a slur as they confronted Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., an openly gay member of Congress. A writer for Huffington Post said the crowd called Frank a “faggot.”

Frank told the Boston Globe that the incident happened as he was walking from the Longworth office building to the Rayburn office building, both a short distance from the Capitol. Frank said the crowd consisted of a couple of hundred of people and that they referred to him as ‘homo.’

“I’m disappointed with the unwillingness to be civil,” Frank told the Globe. “I was, I guess, surprised by the rancor. What it means is obviously the health care bill is proxy for a lot of other sentiments, some of which are perfectly reasonable, but some of which are not.”

“People out there today, on the whole, were really hateful,” Frank said. “The leaders of this movement have a responsibility to speak out more.”

This, everyone, is the ugly, horrible face of conservative America. The worst part is that they don’t see anything wrong with their hatred and ignorance, and have absolutely no desire to join the rest of the American community in any kind of intelligent, civil discussion. Heaven forbid they educate themselves – willful ignorance and hatred feed on this mentality, and if they had to enlighten themselves, they’d be in a world of trouble.

[ Racism, Homophobia Dominates Tea Party Protest Over Health Care Bill ]
Source: TruthOut

phoenix is the author of Not So Humble and an unabashed progresssive who isn’t afraid of any or all of the labels thrown at him. Head over to Not So Humble to read more!

The health care debate is coming to a very dramatic close, and with any luck, by the end of this week Americans will wake up to a health care system that may not be perfect and may not be a panacea, but may be light years better than the system they went to bed with the night before.

Of course, whenever any change is on the wind that bodes well for the American people –and naturally ill for the Republican party– the GOP starts trotting out myths and lies to try and make the people believe that somehow this isn’t in the best interest of the American people.

Writing for the New York Times in an Op-Ed piece, Paul Krugman, faithful and brilliant, hits the hammer home with some health care myths that Republicans would rather not have the light shed on them this late in the game:

…

The first of these myths, which has been all over the airwaves lately, is the claim that President Obama is proposing a government takeover of one-sixth of the economy, the share of G.D.P. currently spent on health.

Well, if having the government regulate and subsidize health insurance is a “takeover,” that takeover happened long ago. Medicare, Medicaid, and other government programs already pay for almost half of American health care, while private insurance pays for barely more than a third (the rest is mostly out-of-pocket expenses). And the great bulk of that private insurance is provided via employee plans, which are both subsidized with tax exemptions and tightly regulated.

The only part of health care in which there isn’t already a lot of federal intervention is the market in which individuals who can’t get employment-based coverage buy their own insurance. And that market, in case you hadn’t noticed, is a disaster — no coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions, coverage dropped when you get sick, and huge premium increases in the middle of an economic crisis. It’s this sector, plus the plight of Americans with no insurance at all, that reform aims to fix. What’s wrong with that?

The second myth is that the proposed reform does nothing to control costs. To support this claim, critics point to reports by the Medicare actuary, who predicts that total national health spending would be slightly higher in 2019 with reform than without it.

Even if this prediction were correct, it points to a pretty good bargain. The actuary’s assessment of the Senate bill, for example, finds that it would raise total health care spending by less than 1 percent, while extending coverage to 34 million Americans who would otherwise be uninsured. That’s a large expansion in coverage at an essentially trivial cost.

And it gets better as we go further into the future: the Congressional Budget Office has just concluded, in a new report, that the arithmetic of reform will look better in its second decade than it did in its first.

Furthermore, there’s good reason to believe that all such estimates are too pessimistic. There are many cost-saving efforts in the proposed reform, but nobody knows how well any one of these efforts will work. And as a result, official estimates don’t give the plan much credit for any of them. What the actuary and the budget office do is a bit like looking at an oil company’s prospecting efforts, concluding that any individual test hole it drills will probably come up dry, and predicting as a consequence that the company won’t find any oil at all — when the odds are, in fact, that some of the test holes will pan out, and produce big payoffs. Realistically, health reform is likely to do much better at controlling costs than any of the official projections suggest.

Which brings me to the third myth: that health reform is fiscally irresponsible. How can people say this given Congressional Budget Office predictions — which, as I’ve already argued, are probably too pessimistic — that reform would actually reduce the deficit? Critics argue that we should ignore what’s actually in the legislation; when cost control actually starts to bite on Medicare, they insist, Congress will back down.

But this isn’t an argument against Obamacare, it’s a declaration that we can’t control Medicare costs no matter what. And it also flies in the face of history: contrary to legend, past efforts to limit Medicare spending have in fact “stuck,” rather than being withdrawn in the face of political pressure.

This is the real fear Republicans have, I think – they’re frightened that if Democrats pass real health care legislation, they’ll never be able to repeal it because they’ll be stuck being the force in American politics trying to “take away health care” like they did with sCHIP – and that cost them dearly. It’s one thing to vote for a sweeping health care bill, especially when the status quo is unacceptable and the lives of thousands of Americans is on the line. It’s another thing to be an incumbent who has to go to their jurisdiction and say “yes, I voted/sponsored/authored a bill to take away your health coverage.”

So while we push to get this done, what does Krugman close with? Some words I wholeheartedly agree with:

So what’s the reality of the proposed reform? Compared with the Platonic ideal of reform, Obamacare comes up short. If the votes were there, I would much prefer to see Medicare for all.

For a real piece of passable legislation, however, it looks very good. It wouldn’t transform our health care system; in fact, Americans whose jobs come with health coverage would see little effect. But it would make a huge difference to the less fortunate among us, even as it would do more to control costs than anything we’ve done before.

This is a reasonable, responsible plan. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

And there you have it. If anyone could have a final say, I would say that Krugman should have it. Let’s get this thing passed.

[ Health Reform Myths ]
Source: The New York Times

phoenix is the author of Not So Humble and an unabashed progresssive who isn’t afraid of any or all of the labels thrown at him. Head over to Not So Humble to read more!

When devonwalker penned this masterpiece elsewhere here at Alternet, I stood up and took notice, partially because the matter of privilege is something that keenly interests me. And when he noted that of all of the groups who play the so-called “Race Card,” it’s the white male that’s it’s greatest offender (mostly by pretending that others do it so they can do it themselves) by leaps and bounds:

As he says, and I absolutely adore:

In recent months the race card has been getting plenty of play. It should be of no surprise that it’s not Blacks, Asians, Hispanics or Eastern Indians for that matter, who are using it to their advantage. It’s been white folks, and lots of them, on the left and right who are throwing around terms like race-baiting and racism to degrade those that disagree with them politically.

I will not take sides in this, even though I must admit there is something alarmingly “racist-like” about the whole teaparty thing. I will just say this, unless you have been denied a job, followed around in a convenience store as if you were going to steal something, been called a “wetback,” or a “chink,” had someone mock you because of your accent, been harassed by the police, been denied a place to live, been mistaken for a gang member, or have suffered a socially constructed form of segregation or oppression, then you are not allowed to play the race card.

You need to take it out of your wallet and relinquish it to the first minority you see on the street.

I’ve written somewhat extensively on the topic of race and ethnicity, specifically with regard to the so-called “race card,” and several times to debunk the notion of the race card as a weapon of choice among minorities. In its own way, the race card is itself a construct of privileged white Americans who feel threatened by – instead of encouraged by – the rise of a diversified America.

We can see these people as they stand in front of the camera and shout into it at all of us on the evening news, draped in American flags and motivated by talking points and poor understanding of American history, not to mention short memories. They call themselves the “Tea Party” these days, but in the past they were good old fashioned lynch mobs, or if they really felt like it they wore hoods and called themselves the Klan.

There is also the convenient and self-serving manner that many tend to play the race card and twist it to their own advantage. If you don’t believe me, consider this: The term racebaiting is wielded more frequently on the far right: Think Rev. Al Sharpton, President Obama, Tavis Smiley and Dr. Cornel West.

Dismissing the “racist” accusations has become an effective strategy for racists. Look here, they’re just waiting for someone to call them by their name. And finally because there are minorities out there who actually might need to use it from time to time its currency has already been devalued enough.

This is how it works these days, on message boards in the seedy underbelly of the Internet to mainstream Sunday-morning politicking – there’s a business around denying racism exists anywhere but the minds of minorities, and business is good. As long as any abuse exists, privileged white Americans who are determined to protect it instead of acknowledge it can stand up and claim that every black person they know thinks they’re being discriminated against but isn’t, so that somehow justifies their own discrimination.

Similarly is the mindset by the well-meaning people that because they acknolwedge their privilege they somehow are allowed to continue enjoying it and behaving as though their actions aren’t racially motivated; only to violently defend themselves when called out on it.

It’s unfortunate all around, and devonwalker nails the topic perfectly.

[ White Men Need to Have Their Race Card Revoked ]
Source: AlterNet

phoenix is the author of Not So Humble and an unabashed progresssive who isn’t afraid of any or all of the labels thrown at him. Head over to Not So Humble to read more!

This is the kind of issue that Democrats and the media should be highlighting. The same as with SCHIP, Republican roadblocking is going to not just cause people to suffer, like it did when the Republicans decided to block funding for children’s health (where’s that tidbit in the recent health care debate – it would seem that if we just looked back to the GOP’s track record on health care and health reform, it would be clear they have absolutely no credibility), but this time it will endanger the living situations, health, and safety and security of thousands of Americans across the country who are depending on the federal government to bolster the social safety net that it exists to provide.

The latest bit of obstruction being staged by a Senate conservative, done in the name of limiting federal spending, is going to end up costing cash-strapped states millions of dollars as well as potentially causing millions of workers to lose their unemployment benefits.

Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., earlier today continued his blockage of an extension of federal unemployment insurance benefits that are due to expire this weekend. Meanwhile, the Senate has adjourned until Monday, with no votes scheduled until Tuesday.

That means that states will now start cutting off payments to people receiving federally funded extended unemployment benefits, paid to people who have exhausted their standard 26 weeks of unemployment benefits. A total of about 5 million people depend on those benefits today. They won’t all be cut off at once, but several hundred thousand stand to lose benefits effective this weekend, according to the National Association of State Workforce Agencies—the trade group for state unemployment offices—and that number will grow each week that Bunning and his conservative allies in the Senate succeed in blocking action on a benefit extension.
Unemployed people will also lose a $25-a-week add-on to their unemployment checks that was authorized under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act stimulus bill.

The human cost is obvious: People who have been searching for work unsuccessfully for six months or more are suddenly going to lose their only means of income. And that’s going to be a lot of people in a state like Bunning’s Kentucky, where the unemployment rate is 10.7 percent, compared to 9.7 percent nationally. Nationally, 6.3 million people have been out of work for more than 27 weeks, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

If it wasn’t clear before, this is a perfect example of the conservative mindset versus the mindset of any other rational human being. Whereas the rational person sees the down and out and says “There but for the grace of God go I,” the conservative says “I’ve got mine, you can go to hell – and stay away from my tax dollars while you’re at it,” which happily enjoying and ignoring the privilege that allowed them to stand in the position they’re in.

It’s simply appalling that this kind of story isn’t making nightly news, and Senator Bunning isn’t in front of cameras being pressed to justify his procedural maneuvers. He’d likely stand and stammer about government debt and budgets and so on – all so-called “conservative values” that he more than likely voted several times to ignore when the tide was in his favor, but suddenly now that it’s not and the gratitude of the American people would go to the opposing party, he’s not so interested in fulfilling the duty he was sworn in to uphold as he’s interested in partisanship.

And as usual, the American people are the people who have to suffer for Conservative obstructionism.

[ Conservative Unemployment Roadblock Will Cost States Millions ]
Source: The Campaign for America’s Future

phoenix is the author of Not So Humble and an unabashed progresssive who isn’t afraid of any or all of the labels thrown at him. Head over to Not So Humble to read more!