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Politics

Rep. Blackburn pushes false myth that health reform will ‘diminish’ Medicare benefits.

By Faiz Shakir on Aug 10, 2009 at 7:05 pm

Republicans have been trying to defeat health reform by scaring seniors that their Medicare benefits will be cut if the bill passes. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) have made the false argument in recent weeks. Today, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) repeated the myth in a phone interview with Memphis’ ABC affiliate. She offered a host of vacuous, Frank Luntz-approved talking points before making this statement:

Our seniors are saying, look don’t diminish Medicare. We have been paying into Medicare. That is pre-paid for us. It’s been coming out of our paycheck for 40 years. And they don’t want that Medicare to be diminished.

Watch it:

Of course, it’s ironic that conservatives who have long argued for killing Medicare are now proclaiming to be the protectors of it. “Nobody is talking about cutting Medicare benefits. I just want to make that absolutely clear,” President Obama has said. The health reform bill would not “diminish” Medicare benefits. “To the contrary, reform would simply eliminate waste and unnecessary subsidies to insurance companies.” In addition, The Gavel notes several provisions in the House bill that strengthen Medicare:

Phases in completely filling in the “donut hole” in the Medicare prescription drug benefit (where drug costs are not reimbursed at certain levels), potentially savings seniors thousands of dollars a year.

Eliminates co-payments and deductibles for preventive services under Medicare.

Limits cost-sharing requirements in Medicare Advantage plans to the amount charged for the same services in traditional Medicare coverage.

Improves the low-income subsidy programs in Medicare, such as by increasing asset limits for programs that help Medicare beneficiaries pay premiums and cost-sharing.

Update

A new ad from a right-wing group called the 60 Plus Association claims, “The government — not doctors — will decide if older patients are worth the cost” if health reform passes.

Politics

President Clinton: ‘Cash-for-clunkers’ has ‘worked like a dream.’

By Faiz Shakir on Aug 10, 2009 at 6:21 pm

“This cash-for-clunkers deal has worked better than everybody dreamed it would,” President Bill Clinton said today at the National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas, sponsored by the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Clinton argued that the theory behind cash-for-clunkers should now be applied to electric cars as well. He added:

This thing has worked like a dream, maybe because we didn’t raise the mileage standards for what you have to buy. But the point is — it proves that the American people will bite if it makes good economic sense.

Watch it:

Despite the overwhelming success of the program, cash-for-clunkers has been panned by the media and conservatives who want to argue that the success of the effort proves government “can’t run” programs.

Yglesias

Endgame

By Matthew Yglesias on Aug 10, 2009 at 6:14 pm

At a background briefing at the White House today, a senior administration official promised to send anyone who writes mean comments on this blog to the Obamacare Death Panel Gulag:

— What does “lust” look like and why.

— Not good:”[W]e’re living through the only major, sustained fall in global trade since 1970.”

— Not sure why the Washington Post keeps lying to its audience.

— Green development would be greener, without so much parking.

— How Steven Harper could help Barack Obama.

I’m increasingly obsessed with Ida Maria. Here’s “I Like You Much Better When You’re Naked”.

Yglesias

State-Building in Afghanistan to What End?

By Matthew Yglesias on Aug 10, 2009 at 5:28 pm

afghanpatrol

Marc Lynch is asking good questions about what we’re trying to do in Afghanistan:

Suppose the U.S. succeeded beyond all its wildest expectations, and turned Afghanistan into Nirvana on Earth, an orderly, high GDP nirvana with universal health care and a robust wireless network (and even suppose that it did this without the expense depriving Americans of the same things). So what? Al-Qaeda (or what we call al-Qaeda) could easily migrate to Somalia, to Yemen, deeper into Pakistan, into the Caucasas, into Africa — into a near infinite potential pool of ungoverned or semi-governed spaces with potentially supportive environments. Are we to commit the United States to bringing effective governance and free wireless to the entire world? On whose budget? To his credit, McChrystal adviser Steve Biddle raises all of these questions in his excellent American Interest article from last month — but in my view goes wrong by limiting the policy options to either full withdrawal or full commitment to COIN.

I think this is right on. You sometimes hear things said about Afghanistan that appear to imply that the safety of the United States of America requires us to secure effective physical control over 100 percent of the land area on earth. After all, anyplace that’s not perpetually under the control of the U.S. military or an allied military “could” become a “safe haven” for terrorists. This is when you need to reach for your modus tollens and conclude that the strategic objectives are being framed poorly. The United States cannot secure effective physical control over 100 percent of the land area on earth and no country on earth has ever done this. Any reasonable definition of national security just can’t lead to this conclusion.

A crucial issue related to this is that people always seem to forget that the 9/11 plot was substantially hatched in Germany. The train station bombings in London and Madrid didn’t have anything to do with Afghanistan or Pakistan. There’s no reason to think that constructing an effective terror plot requires control over an expansive geographic region. And by definition, to carry out an act of anti-western terrorism you need to be in the West. You can’t hijack a civilian jetliner in the Hindu Kush and you can’t blow up a European train station from Mogadishu.

Economy

Potential Swine Flu Redux Underscores The Need For Paid Sick Leave

By Pat Garofalo on Aug 10, 2009 at 5:18 pm

Today, the Washington Post reported that “the United States and other northern countries have been racing to prepare for a second wave of swine flu virus.” “While flu viruses are notoriously capricious, making any firm predictions impossible, a new round could hit the Northern Hemisphere within weeks and lead to major disruptions in schools, workplaces and hospitals,” the Post noted. On Meet the Press yesterday, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was asked if he anticipates any school closings in the fall due to swine flu and made the following observations:

The experts basically say if the child appears sick or if you appear sick, stay home until the symptoms go away…[R]emember, a lot of parents have to work and missing a day of work to take care of the kid or worse leaving the child home unsupervised puts the child in danger and hurts the family.

Watch it:

President Obama was in Mexico today to meet with Mexican President Felipe Calderon, and the virus was one of the topics of discussion. Reuters reported that “a senior Obama administration official said the goal was to ensure that the people of the three countries are fully informed about steps to mitigate the spread of the virus.” Indeed, flu concerns have “prompted a flurry of activity by federal, state and local officials, including intensifying flu virus monitoring and making plans to distribute vaccine and antiviral drugs and other treatments if necessary.”

All of this preparation is great, but it doesn’t address the simple fact that one of the most effective ways to combat the spread of a flu virus is to simply have sick people stay away from work and/or school. But this is made much more difficult due to the fact that America is alone in the industrialized world in not guaranteeing at least some paid sick leave for workers.

Almost 50 percent of private-sector workers in the U.S. have no paid sick days, including 76 percent of low-wage workers and 86 percent of food service workers. These workers can’t stay home to take care of themselves, and certainly can’t stay home to care for a sick child or a child whose school has been closed as a precaution against the flu.

There are currently two bills before Congress that could rectify this situation. One, the Healthy Families Act, would guarantee up to seven paid sick days (and would allow the use of sick days to care for ill family members). The provisions in the Healthy Families Act have also been placed into Rep. Lynn Woolsey’s (D-CA) Balancing Act of 2009, which incorporates a whole host of health and leave initiatives aimed at working families.

Three cities — San Francisco, Milwaukee and Washington — have taken matters into their own hands and “adopted legislation requiring employers to provide paid sick days to their employees.” Bloomberg has also expressed an openness to doing the same in New York City, for large employers. But with a second round of swine flu potentially coming this fall, it’s time for Congress to make guaranteed sick leave the law of the land.

Related Posts

Media

Sunday Show Panelists Claim That Obama Has Never ‘Opposed His Liberals’

By Ian Millhiser on Aug 10, 2009 at 4:54 pm

Yesterday, panelists on both ABC’s This Week and Fox News Sunday uniformly asserted that President Obama never does anything to upset “his liberals.”  (Amusingly, ABC and Fox both forgot to include an actual liberal on their panels.)  ThinkProgress has compiled a brief montage of their claims. Watch it:

Such claims that Obama never defies progressives may accurately reflect the views of right-wing activists and Beltway pundits, but they have no basis in reality:

  • Stimulus: Progressive economists — including at least one Nobel Prize winner — warned that the President’s stimulus package was too small to lift the sinking economy.  Similarly, progressives consistently warned the President not to replace highly-stimulative spending with ineffectual tax cuts.  Nevertheless, the President rejected progressive pleas for a more substantial package and brokered a deal with made tax cuts almost one-third of the stimulus. Obama allowed much of its final form to be dictated by a handful of Senate Republicans.
  • Bank Nationalization: Many progressives unsuccessfully urged Obama to nationalize the failing banks, rather than risk making future bailout payments to an industry whose recklessness nearly destroyed the nation’s economy.
  • Cap and Trade: Many of President Obama’s campaign promises for a robust cap-and-trade system have been watered down by a coalition of so-called “Brown Dog” Democrats loyal to Big Coal.
  • Single-Payer: The House Progressive Caucus prefers a single-payer system to the almost-exclusively private insurance-driven system proposed by the President.
  • Judicial Nominations: President Bush stacked the federal courts with young right-wing ideologues — one of whom even compared Social Security to “cannibalism.”  President Obama’s nominees, however, have been older and far more moderate than President Bush’s, and at least one has been actively opposed by disability rights advocates.
  • Executive Power: President Obama embraced several Bush-era assertions of power, including signing statements and aggressive use of the state secrets doctrine to avoid disclosing information in court.
  • Torture: President Obama initially opposed a commission to investigate Bush-era torture policies. His Administration also opposes prosecuting Bush Administration officials guilty of torture.
  • GLBT Rights: Despite campaign promises to repeal bigoted laws like DOMA and Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell, President Obama is “moving slowly” in carrying out this promise.  This, despite the fact that Obama has the power to unilaterally suspend DADT.

None of this means that Obama is a bad president. To the contrary, his economic policies are beginning to pull the nation away from the brink of an economic collapse caused by decades of right-wing policy, and his health care plan will protect millions of Americans from the insurance industry’s tactics.

If anything, the Obama Administration teaches that even an effective President must constantly be pressured to keep his promises. Although Obama has yet to make a big push on GLBT rights, pressure from gay rights groups convinced him to grant benefits to the same-sex partners of federal employees and to pledge to overturn DADT by the end of his first term.  Similarly, under pressure from progressives, President Obama tacitly endorsed a torture commission and agreed that Attorney General Holder should have discretion to confront past abuses.  And the President backed off plans to nominate a CIA Director opposed by many progressives because of concerns about his views on torture.

Simply put, these Sunday show pundits have an axe to grind against “liberals.” But the reality of the Obama Administration’s actions thus far is one that defies such simple-minded criticisms.

Yglesias

Lee Hamilton Has Some Doubts About Afghanistan

By Matthew Yglesias on Aug 10, 2009 at 4:44 pm

Lee Hamilton has a slightly odd op-ed on Afghanistan that ends with provocative questions it doesn’t answer:

Strategically, there are two broad and fundamental questions to be answered. First, how will our departure impact our regional and security interests over the next decade and longer? And second, is this type of war really the best use of American power and resources in today’s world?

That really is a fundamental question. And it’s a good one. And as Spencer Ackerman explains, Hamilton has an interesting relationship with the President:

Unfortunately, that’s the end of Hamilton’s op-ed, which, if anything, signifies that establishment foreign policy is starting to become comfortable throwing those questions out but isn’t yet comfortable offering answers. But still. Hamilton isn’t just any greybeard, he’s one President Obama respects and listens to, as one of Obama’s top foreign policy advisers, Ben Rhodes, worked for Hamilton for years. Hamilton endorsed Obama at a critical period in the primaries. Just before Obama’s inauguration, Hamilton hosted a dinner for him with a number of foreign-policy luminaries. Michael Cohen is right to see something changing.

That said, every indication I’ve seen is that the administration is preparing to wade deeper into its commitment to Afghanistan, not to start thinking about Hamilton’s question.

Yglesias

Lindsey Graham: Public Provision of Health Insurance is Terrible, Except When It’s Popular

By Matthew Yglesias on Aug 10, 2009 at 4:01 pm

160px-lindsey_graham_official_senate_photo_portrait_2006

Lindsey Graham talks to Ezra Klein about his opposition to the creation of a “public option” for people currently languishing on the individual health insurance market:

My belief is that no private-sector entity can survive over a long period of time competing against the government. The public option will be written by politicians. It will be generous. Nobody in my business worries about the bottom line. Eventually, the public option will dominate the marketplace because the political forces in the public sector are different than the economic forces in the private sector. Eventually, the private sector will give way.

Ezra asks the natural followup question: If government provision of health insurance is so terrible, why not scrap Medicare?

If you could start from scratch, would you scrap Medicare?

No! Medicare was a safety net for those seniors who couldn’t afford coverage. I buy into the idea of everyone having health coverage. You can have the public-private partnership in retirement. You can have a government-run system for those who are needy. But above that it’s best for the private sector to cover people. There’s still a government role. Look at the Wyden-Bennett bill. The government helps people buy their health care in the private sector. To me, that’s proper. I don’t mind helping people be covered in retirement. We’re not going to get rid of Medicare and there’s no reason to get rid of it. We just need to be sure it’s a well-run program and we can afford it.

This is nonsense. Medicare is not a means-tested program. It covers all senior citizens. It’s not a program of narrowly targeted subsidies to the very poor. It’s a public sector health insurance program. And Graham’s ideology clearly commits him to condemning it. But he doesn’t want to because it’s too popular.

Health

The Consequences Of Misinformation: Conservative Smear Machine Scares Americans With Disabilities

By Igor Volsky on Aug 10, 2009 at 3:45 pm

Last Thursday, Mike Sola, whose son has cerebral palsy, disrupted a town hall meeting with Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) by wheeling his son up to Dingell and verbally attacking the Congressman for supporting a bill that would give “no care whatsoever” to Americans with “cerebral palsy.” This morning on Fox News Channel’s America’s Newsroom, Sola suggested that he became concerned about how health care reform would affect his son after reading a New York Post article by Betsy McCaughey — a fiction writer with a knack for passing up her work as truth:

This is a free country. I’m a parent of a handicapped American citizen and the reason I”m so concerned is this. Every American should pull this up on their computer. It’s the New York Post. July 24th edition. ‘Dangerous Doctors’ every American needs to read this and you’ll understand that this ground swell of America’s people has occurred…What you are doing is sentencing our families to death. We lose the right to life. The old people are discarded. Those who cannot fend for themselves are discarded. There is no liberty under you plan, and that’s the problem. The people have seen it, the people know it, you can’t hind it from the American people anymore.

Watch it:

McCaughey’s article argues that health care reform would empower political appointees to deny care to “a grandmother with Parkinson’s or a child with cerebral palsy.” And while anchor Megyn Kelly tried to claim that many of McCaughey’s predictions have “come true,” this latest claim is as false as the rest of McCaughey’s charges.

In reality, rather than empowering political appointees with the ability to make medical decisions, all of the health bills improve care for Americans with disabilities. The legislation in the House, expands Medicaid — the government program designed to meet the unique health care needs of Americans with disabilities — creates an insurance program for long-term care, provides affordability credits to help all Americans purchase health insurance coverage, outlaws the common insurance practice of denying coverage to Americans with chronic conditions and caps the amount Americans have to spend on care. During mark-up of the bill in House Energy and Commerce, the Committee also added provisions to prohibit the secretary of Health and Human Services from reducing adult day care funding and funded a pilot program for home health care specifically for individuals with chronic conditions.

Sola’s use of McCaughey’s article, however, suggests that fact checks do little to blunt the emotional impact of sensationalistic charges. Corporate funded groups like Freedomworks and Americans for Prosperity, along with Betsy McCaughey, Sally Pipes, Rick Scott, Sarah Palin, and Newt Gingrich distort and lie about reform in order to manufacture outrage among Americans. That effort is scaring some and stymieing legitimate efforts for constituents to have real conversations about how best to reform the health care system.

Politics

FLASHBACK: Boehner Believed That Anti-Vietnam War Protesters Were ‘Un-American’

By Matt Corley on Aug 10, 2009 at 3:30 pm

Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) scrunches his face.Earlier today, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) published an op-ed in USA Today condemning the “ugly campaign” this August “to disrupt public meetings and prevent members of Congress and constituents from conducting a civil dialogue” on health care reform. “Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American,” wrote the two House leaders.

Unsurprisingly, the right-wing has responded harshly to the op-ed. For instance, House Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) claimed it was both “reprehensible” and “outrageous”:

“Each public forum should give every participant the opportunity to express their views, but to label Americans who are expressing vocal opposition to the Democrats’ plan “un-American” is outrageous and reprehensible,” Boehner said in a statement. “…It’s time for Democrats to start listening. When we return to Washington in September, Democrats should scrap their costly plan and finally work on bipartisan reforms that give Americans what they are seeking: better access to affordable care.”

But Boehner hasn’t always been so supportive of Americans “expressing vocal opposition” to government policies. In fact, in 1995, he told The New Republic that he thought protests against the Vietnam War were “un-American”:

In 1969 he took a hiatus from college and enlisted in the Navy. “I didn’t know enough about the intricacies of why we were there, but the fact is we were in Vietnam, and I wanted us to win,” he says. “The people with long hair who were protesting against the war I thought were un-American at the time.” His duty to country would keep him away just six weeks. While driving a heavy equipment truck, Boehner aggravated a high school sports injury. “I was in Mississippi four days, five days, cleaning up the mess from hurricane Camille when my back went out. A disk. They did all these examinations and said, You’re outta here.’” He returned to work and school. By the time he graduated in 1977, he was part owner of a plastics and packaging business. [The New Republic, 2/20/1995]

In more recent years, Boehner hasn’t shied away from using the rhetoric of labeling that with which he disagrees as “un-American.” In a speech on the House floor earlier this year, Boehner called the estate tax “un-American.”

As Media Matters has pointed out, Pelosi and Hoyer never actually called health reform opponents “un-American.” They claimed that the tactic of “drowning out opposing views” was. Boehner, on the other hand, once explicitly called Americans who disagreed on policy “un-American.”

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