Think about some common parental fears:
- My child will be gay and/or want to marry someone of a different race.
- My child will get pregnant, or make someone pregnant, and an abortion will be needed.
- My child will have a childhood illness like Juvenile Diabetes or Epilepsy, or have a traumatic injury, that they will carry into their adult life.
Of these three fears, voting for a world where (1) and (2) are no big deal can be easily rationalized away:
- I will raise my child the right way and they won’t be gay, or marry someone from a different race. So, I’m free to vote for racist homophobes because this issue doesn’t affect me.
- If a pregnancy does happen, I know there will never be enough votes to overturn the right to an abortion, and I know I’ll always have enough money to buy one, so my pro-life vote doesn’t matter.
But it’s pretty hard to wish away (3). You can’t control whether your child is going to fall from a swingset and hit his head, or be run over by a car, or have a pancreas that doesn’t work right. If health insurance is denied for people with pre-existing conditions, anyone’s child runs the risk of losing healthcare, long after the parent has passed from the scene.
The minute Obama signs the bill, the Democrats can say that health insurance cannot be denied for a pre-existing condition, and that they had to fight every single Republican for this right. That message is simple, it hits people where they live, and it addresses a universal concern.
The commercials cutting from a kid with diabetes to John Boehner yelling “Hell No You Can’t” are probably already being made. They will be the Willie Horton ads of the 2010 election.
r€nato
That kid with diabetes will be considered ‘fair game’ by CNN’s Erick Erickson.
El Cid
It’s gonna be real funny when you get rural white conservative trailer park residents who get their kids health insurance for the first time and don’t have to worry about them getting kicked off and get help paying for it then have to listen to Republicans tell them how much Obama hurts Americans.
daryljfontaine
… and you’re leaving out the whistles and bells?
Except without being race-baiting examples of attack ad fuckery.
D
Pangloss
I woke up this morning disappointed at the lack of totalitarianism that I thought I was getting with the health care passage. Where is my totalitarianism?
MeDrewNotYou
I’m still aglow in the
post-sexpost-vote glow. Remember the episode of South Park the day after the election? I’ve been singing “Celebrate good Obama (and Pelosi), come on!”Let them campaign on repeal, we’ve got the Willy Horton ads that you won’t be ashamed of on your deathbeds.
AB
That’s a lie, that child was used blatantly in support of a public option and is now being used to mock us.
… too soon?
r€nato
There are all sorts of labor laws – the abolition of child labor, the 40 hour work week with overtime pay, workplace safety – which came about due to unions.
Good luck trying to convince a typical right-winger these days of that fact. They insist on believing that these laws just magically arose out of nowhere, with nobody pressuring the government to pass such laws and regulations. They just kind of happened.
Someday, long after the rancor and hysteria have faded away, future conservatives just being born now will insist that Democrats had nothing to do with benefits of health care reform and Republicans didn’t really oppose it. It just kind of happened.
In its own way, that will be a victory – that HCR is so beneficial and uncontroversial that people will forget how it came about, and Republicans will act like they were for it all along.
rob!
The commercials cutting from a kid with diabetes to John Boehner yelling “Hell No You Can’t” are probably already being made.
God, I hope so. Dems are so weak-kneed when it comes to that stuff. Here’s their best chance to feel confident, be tough, and stick it to the Republicans in a big, meaningful way.
If The Dems manage to keep the House and the Senate, after all the promises of REVOLUSHUN made by the GOP, then the Teabaggers will be seriously demoralized.
They already don’t trust the GOP much; if they see all their protests, spitting, and epithet-hurling accomplished nothing, then they’ll go back to their Klan rallies, drowning their sorrows in their beer and complaining about the Gubberment.
Keith G
A quick OT notice to dog people:
Diane Rehm is doing a 1 hr prog on the latest on dog training and psych at 11 EDT wamu.org
Bill E Pilgrim
@El Cid: No funnier than the number of tea baggers you see complaining about having to protect their precious Medicare against something called “socialized medicine”.
And by “tea baggers” I do mean members of Congress like Michelle Bachmann, who used those exact words the other day.
Cognitive dissonance is more like a buzz for them than a disturbance, is all I can figure.
Eric U.
I wish the dems would make ads like that, but they don’t. I always wanted the Dems to make ads about the fact that bush stayed on vacation for a month after he was warned about 9/11 and was holding a copy of my pet goat when the towers fell, but they didn’t. I know that would have been vicious, but Purple Heart bandaids, bitches.
Zifnab
Let’s hope so. The last thing we need is the Democrats going into September and October repeatedly apologizing for doing the right thing.
Mike Mundy
Government hands off of my Obamacare!
Warren Terra
I completely understand what you’re doing here, but you might want to clarify that in expressing Fear #1 you’re portraying some hypothetical reactionary dinosaur, not describing your own feelings.
r€nato
@rob!: The supposed GOP comeback this fall has been so overhyped, that to the extent they make any gains, they will be disappointingly small.
And the GOP will learn nothing – they will not listen to voices like that of David Frum. They will insist that they only problem was that the party was insufficiently purified.
Sentient Puddle
I sure hope so. Seeing an elected official so high up the totem pole insisting on giving such an impassioned floor speech that was totally and utterly wrong…well, it rubbed me the wrong way, to put it politely.
Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@r€nato: Same with civil rights legislation, according to high school history books. Had nothing to do with black folks demonstrating and getting hosed and shot at. The fed gubmint, out of the goodness of their collective hearts, just decided it was the right thing to do. Just happened.
Svensker
Nahgunnahopen. That would be smart politics and thinking ahead.
Zifnab
@Svensker: The Digbys and the Kossacks and the MoveOn-ers would be happy to make an ad like that and broadcast it from sea to shining sea.
I don’t doubt ads like that will get made. I’m just wondering which Democrats will actually embrace them and which will author Congressional Resolutions condemning them.
mistermix
@Warren Terra: Actually, I think all parents fear this to some extent, not because they hate the gays or are afraid of other races, but because their child’s life will be harder if they are black or gay.
The difference is the degree of fear. Reactions to it are on a continuum from “boy I hope they don’t have to deal with that, but I’ll support them whatever they do and work for a world where this isn’t a big deal” to “I’ll disown the little shit”.
Robin G
Agreeing with the various people that are saying the Dems don’t have the best history of seizing easily winnable, simple to understand messages. (Upperdown, anyone?) On the plus side, with the election team back in the White House, anything is possible.
Also, quit harshing my buzz.
Brian J
As I mentioned earlier today, a Libertarian friend of mine railed against what happened last night, but it seemed to be more rooted in a value judgment than anything else. The same seems to be true of everyone else who doesn’t like what happened, or mostly everyone. After all, there are some who would probably have supported an expansion of MSA/HSA-style programs, with the subsidies to go along with it, and maybe some limited government intervention for the truly catastrophic cases.
But most of the right? Not so much, I imagine. And what is their alternative? I am not sure, besides, “That’s not my problem.” I guess that’s a legitimate, if cold and selfish, response, but it doesn’t really address the underlying problem, which is that there are things that are beyond people’s control.
I can understand how someone would be against a lot of social welfare programs because they don’t want undeserving people to take advantage of them. I probably wouldn’t agree, because I think abuse isn’t that widespread, or if it is, that it can be fixed, but I get where they are coming from.
But what is someone’s response to a mother who has lost her job and her health insurance and then who has a kid who has advanced medical problems? What about when someone who is healthy and gets cancer and who has all sorts of problems with getting insurance or trying to lead a normal life? Simply put, they don’t seem to have responses to such problems.
I’d also like to ask why they keep bringing up the chance that, if the system does eventually become controlled mostly by the government, care will be denied based on the prejudices of those in control. That’s like them saying, “Just wait until our bigoted friends are in power!” It’s like an embarrassed admission that they know people will discriminate and there’s nothing they can do to stop it.
horatius
I demand evidence that there exist two braincells combined among the entire Democratic political consultant community to put such an ad together.
Lisa K.
@r€nato:
The fact is that they HAVE listened to David Frum, and that is why they are the mess they are. David Frum wants to continue the KKK-inspired policies, he just does not want supporters of same visible wearing the hoods like they were this weekend. It turns normal people off.
Warren Terra
@El Cid:
R’s will say what they’ve said for a generation: government aid poor whites deserve is going to undeserving black folks instead, so vote your hates and fears.
garage mahal
My 8 yr old daughter got Type 1 diabetes 2 yrs ago. It’s a cruel and heartless affliction, could be worse of course, but after last nights vote I damn near cried. Over the past few months this blog has been one my few oasis’s from the fever swamps from the right, and FDL/BTD axis constantly pissing in my cornflakes. I will fucking celebrate this.
Eric U.
@El Cid: I grew up in an area where rural white trailer park dwellers are on public assistance or have close family members that use public assistance to survive. And they happily vote Republican and see no conflict, mostly out of some level of racism.
I may have to install the pie filter just for BTD.
Does anyone have a link to a comparison of what was passed last night to the Clinton HCR that was defeated in ’94?
Grumpy Code Monkey
@AB:
It’s never too soon to mock the firebaggers. If they’re going to bitch because we won by a safety instead of a touchdown, and then complain about the signs in the bleachers, then they deserve mockery.
I don’t begrudge anyone who feels that the current bill doesn’t go far enough (it doesn’t), but acting like it’s a total defeat is childish. Keep pushing for improvements, but don’t act like a douchebag about it.
Warren Terra
@mistermix:
I’m sure all parents do fear social difficulties – but I’m also sure you don’t think “raising your kid right” means they won’t be gay or date other races.
CalD
Speaking or the Party of (hell) No. Did anyone else catch it when that call/response thing Republicans had going during Boehner’s closing rant went off the rails?
LOL.
BenA
11-dimensional cheese aside… what I think Obama does as well as anyone in politics I’ve ever seen is make lemonade when he gets handed lemons. He takes advantage of every situation. A group of people we really have to thank for this is the insurance companies themselves. They thought HCR was dead… and it might very well have been… except for outragous premium increases immediately after the Scott Brown victory.
Their outragous greed had as much to do with last night as any other factor.
Brian J
@Eric U.:
Brad DeLong has been calling it RomneyCare and also describing how it resembles with Bob Dole and Howard Baker were proposing in 1994. Because what’s communist now was free market then, you know?
Sly
I’d personally go with a shot of a Senior flipping through some sheets of paper and breathing a sigh of relief, followed by the statement “Thanks to Health Reform, I don’t have to worry about these prescription drug bills anymore.”
Cue the “Hell No!”
Fade to black.
This message has been brought to you by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
r€nato
@BenA:
I am pretty sure that the anti-HCR lobby wants to kick in the ‘nads over and over and over for eternity, those idiots in CA who proposed a 39% premium increase.
r€nato
SociaIism is defined by mandating citizens to buy a product from a private corporation, you know.
Brian J
@CalD:
As I said last night, when Bohener said that the Republicans were locked out of the decision making process, I have never been more convinced they are living in a different world.
ericblair
@Brian J: But what is someone’s response to a mother who has lost her job and her health insurance and then who has a kid who has advanced medical problems? What about when someone who is healthy and gets cancer and who has all sorts of problems with getting insurance or trying to lead a normal life?
It’s Gawd’s will, so the mom and kid must have done something to deserve it. See? Easy. Like the two-year-old with leukemia: the kid must have barfed on the carpet one too many times and now Gawd has to go medieval on her ass.
Nothing is impossible if we only have the self-righteousness to ignore reality.
slightly_peeved
Dear America,
this is an awesome idea.
Please do your best to implement it for as long as possible.
Regards,
The rest of the world.
Brian J
@BenA:
I have to say, the one thing that worries me more than anything else is people attributing increases in premiums to the bill passage last night. Maybe, in some sense, it will have caused it, because coverage might be better, but it’s something that needs to be, you know, proved. That of course won’t stop Republicans from attributing anything bad that happens, whether it’s layoffs at a mining company, terrorism, Mitch McConnell tripping on the sidewalk, excessive rain in Seattle, to the bill’s passage, and since most people aren’t going to stop and question it, we have to be vigilant.
Zifnab
@BenA:
Obama was always going to come back to health care. They spent the majority of 2009 writing the damn thing. They sure as hell weren’t going to just forget about it because they lost Ted Freak’n Kennedy’s Senate seat.
That said, I don’t think the insurance companies really won or lost anything for the sake of this reform. They’re going to pick up over 30 million new customers in the next five years, largely subsidized by the federal government. This is Medicare Advantage writ large. Short term profits are going to soar. Long term profits? That will be another story. But then the CEOs at the mega-corps haven’t been concerned with long term profits in over a decade. It’s not surprising that they’d sign on to a windfall today in exchange for insurance restrictions five or ten years down the line.
Lewis Thomason
The only fear that I had for my children was that they would turn into Republican right wing christians,thats worse than gay.
Zifnab
@r€nato: This is the beginning. Once you’ve got the insurance mandate and the rescission rules on the table, there’s no going back. You’re going to be hard pressed finding voters to back repeal of the latter and the insurance industry won’t allow you to repeal the former.
Now the only question is cost. Either the government relaxes the mandates on minimum coverage, allowing insurance companies to sell useless policies at cut-rate costs. Or the government sets it’s own hard price / police floor via mandates. Or the government sets a soft price / policy floor via a public option.
The latter is the most functionally appealing, although you know the Republicans will chase after the former with the most zeal. But the former is unsustainable, so I’m betting we’ll see Grayson’s Medicare For All at some point in 2011 or 2013 at least make it up to a vote.
Brian J
@slightly_peeved:
That’s funny, but seriously, can he really make that claim without feeling that he’s lying? I wonder, because aside from simply letting them write the bill–which would be okay, you know, since they won so many seats in 2006 and 2008 and their presidential candidate performed so well in 2008–or burying his face in their crotches, I am not sure how else the president could have tried to let them be involved. The fact that they kicked the basketball into oncoming traffic day after day isn’t our problem; it’s theirs.
Jamey
Cue Nelson Muntz.
The moaning and lamenting from the GOP isn’t nearly loud enough to suit my tastes.
BenA
@Zifnab:
You’re probably right that Obama was going to come back to health care reform… but the premium increases certainly had as much to do with the events that played out over the last month as anything.
As to the windfall for insurance companies then why fight it tooth and nail? I understand that the status-quo for them was a dream scenario for them, but if they were going to see this huge windfall in short term profits… etc.
If this windfall of new customers was going to offset their losses from coverage caps and rescission… you’d have thought they would have been more willing to accept the carrot?
Sentient Puddle
@CalD: I know, it was incredibly jarring. If you’re trying to rouse the chamber into a call/response like that, you probably should be sure that the response you’re intending is going to be the one that’s most prevalent.
slightly_peeved
@Brian J:
I agree – it’s a bullshit claim. They had every chance to contribute – they simply had nothing to offer.
BenA
@Zifnab:
With you on this… and that ultimately might be why the insurance companies were fighting the reform tooth and nail… because it’s on step closer to a public option or medicare for all.
orogeny
Does anyone know….is it common for insurance policies to cover abortion? I’ve checked with my provider (through my employer) and have asked several friends who work for different companies and none of us have a policy that covers abortion. Is this just a coincidence or do most employer-provided insurance policies exclude abortion?
Brian J
@Zifnab:
That’s why this is so important. Now that we have set a new standard for what is acceptable, we can continue to improve and make this better. That might involve more government involvement in a direct way, or it might not. I am not sure. But suffice it to say, unless this country takes a sharp, sharp turn to the right, we won’t be going back to what was like for decades before this. And even then…
It’s an incredible achievement, and the Democrats have every right to be proud.
Zuzu's Petals
I’m so glad Obama is gonna get out there and do some serious PR for the bill. Important to keep running with the momentum.
As for ads, I would bet the GOP will be working the individual mandate angle pretty relentlessly. It has Big Brother written all over it in the teabagger mind. So the Dems had better be ready to respond.
Zifnab
@BenA:
They wanted an even better deal. Every concession made – from dropping the public option to weakening individual regulations within the bill to weakening the state-wide insurance markets – saved them billions collectively. If they can strangle a few more concessions out of the bill before it passes, it’s always worth it. And if the bill fails, it’s not like the insurance industry can’t drop another half a million clients by jacking up rates again.
Jamey
And that’s the world I wanna live in–the one in which Republicans are given their own version of a birthday cake to trash, so they don’t ruin the real one. (h/t Marge Simpson)
Zuzu's Petals
@CalD:
Did he actually think the GOPers were gonna shout back with “NO we didn’t read the bill!” ?
Original Lee
The cognitive dissonance is amazing. I have a friend who has a rare, expensive-to-treat, chronic condition, which prevents her from working. She in fact gets Social Security benefits because she has been unable to work since she developed this condition. Both of her kids have asthma and severe food allergies. Her husband works in retail for a big box chain and has pretty decent health benefits through his employer. This past summer, her husband was hanging onto his job by his fingernails, and I expected her to be worried about what would happen to their health care if he was laid off. Instead, she threw her energy into opposing the health care reform bill and is still spending huge amounts of time trying to get us riled up about the incipient communist state we are living in. So sad when people you thought of as sensible and intelligent go off the rails like that.
sukabi
listened to some of the callers last night to C-Span… there are some horrifyingly STUPID people out there…
bemused
@Brian J:
No, they never have any solutions when asked those kind of questions. I’ve never met an R yet that didn’t immediately change the subject because they don’t have a stock talking point ready they’ve gotten from Faux world. Rightwing callers to liberal radio shows do the same damn thing. Without a beat, they jump to a completely different issue. They’re robotic.
gil mann
Yeah, this a real windfall for the Dems capable of getting a simple message across. Good for both of ’em.
David Moisan
@r€nato:
Sadly yes. A lot of people conflate Type I and Type II diabetes. Type II is the “bad” one to get because it implies sloth and gluttony (but is a lot genetic).
But Type I has nothing to do with badness as we know (I don’t like illness or disability being “bad” but long story.)
Still, I expect to hear, “oh, if you only raised that child right/given him a good whack/not immunized him with evil government inoculations, then…”
I sit on a disabilities commission and have heard it all and expect to hear more.
Brachiator
@Zifnab:
Sounds like a win-win for everyone. The Republicans won’t be able to claim that health care reform harmed the free market ability of insurance companies to make a profit. And the Democrats will be able to push for future reforms by highlighting the fact that the insurance companies are still reeling in big bucks.
The Republicans main challenge to this will be that health care reform will cost to much, that that the Democratic plans will do nothing to control costs, that it will inevitably become a mis-managed Big Government program, and that it is inherently European and soci a listic, an issue that burns especially brightly with tea baggers, much more than concern about pre-existing conditions.
Corner Stone
If you’re an actual parent then the only fear here is number 3.
Number 2 is a situation that would rightfully concern parents.
Jeff
For all the parent s who’s child is gay or TG or whatever– what is there to be afraid of? They are still the same person they were before– and I for one couldn’t be prouder.
madmatt
They can still deny you for being poor…and thats the problem…no money – no care. Apparently we poor people need to find an extra 8% of our income to give to th escum that make up ins co’s…all with no oversite to make them behave honestly….what a marvellous bill the scum signed!
catclub
Orogeny @ 49
1.All the federal employees’ policies do not cover abortion.
2. There was reporting that the company that covered
the Washington Republican party does cover abortion.
3. There was reporting that the company that covers Focus on the Family (?) covers abortion – although the policy that Focus had, did NOT. Technically this is still too close, and
Focus was criticized for hypocrisy for demanding a greater level of separation of abortion services from the policies to be available under the HCR bill.
Little Dreamer
@catclub:
Interesting, I was reading a piece several months ago about the number of mothers/daughters who frequently protest at abortion clinics and then secretly come in for a procedure but are insistent that the only good abortion is the one they are about to have.
North Dallas Thirty
Actually, as ironically enough “progressives” are pointing out, the whole rant about “pre-existing conditions” is untrue.
Access to the “high risk pool” is limited and the pool is underfunded. It will cover few people, and will run out of money in 2011 or 2012
Only those who have been uninsured for more than six months will qualify for the high risk pool. Only 0.7% of those without insurance now will get coverage, and the CMS report estimates it will run out of funding by 2011 or 2012.
And……
Most provisions in this bill, such as an end to the ban on pre-existing conditions for adults, do not take effect until 2014.
Meanwhile, Republicans already have a solution.
There will be true health insurance plans, which do allow exclusions for pre-existing conditions and which do not have to cover every single eventuality, and then there will be health insurance annuities, which do not exclude for pre-existing conditions and cover every single eventuality — at a much higher price, since the risk and potential for payout is much higher.
People will be allowed to write off from the taxes they actually pay the full expense of a health insurance plan and the equivalent expense of a health insurance plan (not the full amount) for an annuity.
Dr. Morpheus
@Zifnab:
That’s the fight that we take on today now that the foundation has been laid.
Oh, will BTD help or sit on his fat ass and belly-ache?
We know the answer.
Come on BTD, prove our cynicism wrong and help us get Grayson’s bill passed.
tyrese
I doubt that’ll work. The dogs’ll all start howling when they hear her awful, awful voice.
tyrese
they don’t have any cognitive dissonance. In order to have that, you have to realize that two ideas are in conflict. This requires a level of intelligence that Michelle Bachmann types don’t have.
tyrese
Everybody who bitched and whined about Harry Reid can suck a fat one.
Arclite
Arclite
@ Little Dreamer
That’s fascinating. Do you have a link?
LB
@North Dallas Thirty: Not sure how is it a solution. Annuity that you’re proposing will be an equivalent of extremely expensive insurance for those with preexisting conditions. That will be only partially tax-deductible. And why does it need to be coupled to an annuity at all?
On unrelated note, I’m very familiar with #3 on your list. My dad fell when he was 5 and had epilepsy ever since. His employment options were always restricted and he was on full disability since he was 45. Not much fun.