This is irritating:
asked Ipsos to send over a partisan breakdown of the data. Key points:
* Eighty percent of Republicans favor “creating an insurance pool where small businesses and uninsured have access to insurance exchanges to take advantage of large group pricing benefits.” That’s backed by 75 percent of independents.
* Fifty-seven percent of Republicans support “providing subsidies on a sliding scale to aid individuals and families who cannot afford health insurance.” That’s backed by 67 percent of independents.
* Fifty-four percent of Republicans favor “requiring companies with more than 50 employees to provide insurance for their employers.” That’s backed by 75 percent of independents.
* Fifty two percent of Republicans favor “allowing children to stay on parents insurance until age 26.” That’s backed by 69 percent of independents.
* Seventy eight percent of Republicans support “banning insurance companies from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions; 86 percent of Republicans favor “banning insurance companies from cancelling policies because a person becomes ill.” Those are backed by 82 percent of independents and 87 percent of independents.
* One provision that isn’t backed by a majority of Republicans: The one “expanding Medicaid to families with incomes less than $30,000 per year.”
“Most Republicans want to have good health coverage,” Ipsos research director Chris Jackson tells me. “They just don’t necessarily like what it is Obama is doing.”
I don’t know if you blame this on Democratic and media incompetence or Republican agitprop. But I do know one thing- if the wingnuts get their way and ACA is gutted, these same people will be blaming the loss of all these perks they like on… Obama.
Valdivia
I just love how the media seems to be an innocent little non participant in the fact that no one knows what is in the fucking bill! I mean all those months of disinformation by the Palins of the world and them repeating it and no effort whatsoever to call bullshit on lies and now they are surprised no one knows they are losing everything they want in health care reform? gah!
Mike Goetz
I think Roberts hates Scalia, and will throw in with Kennedy and the liberals to uphold ACA 6-3.
BGinCHI
Media slacktards who have healthcare are lazy in reporting the details.
Another step forward in the Fuck You Society.
JPL
A visit to the emergency room is so cost effective…
MTiffany
Can’t it be both?
Mark S.
Most people really are too stupid to vote.
Ash Can
Now, if a white guy, preferably with an “R” after his name, had signed the bill into law, that would be a different story.
Baud
If there is a bright side to public ignorance about the bill, it’s that, if the Supreme Court does not strike it down, Romney will be forced to talk about the specific when people are actually paying attention. In light of his craven response today to the Arizona immigration ruling, I don’t think it’s something he wants to do.
BGinCHI
@Ash Can: It was. His name was Mitt Romney.
FlipYrWhig
What Republicans don’t like about the bill is how it uses their hard-earned money to give free medical care to moochers and layabouts, you know, press one for English, using food stamps with a manicure, nudge nudge, ahem. The details mean nothing. It’s the spirit of the thing that they feel so strongly about.
David Koch
Oh c’mon.
Obama supported a payroll tax cut and it prompted them to oppose a tax cut for the first time evah.
Whenever a republican is in office and engages in massive increases of Big Government spending, like St Reagan and Dubya, they’re silent. The minute a Dem takes office, it’s the biggest issue forevah.
If a Dem supported scrapping Roe v Wade, within months they would become pro-choice. They reflexively engage in tribalism.
FlipYrWhig
@JPL: See my earlier comment. This is what they object to: using an infinitesimal amount of their money for helping people who aren’t them.
Davis X. Machina
As I have said on numerous past occasions, sell your Federalist Papers to some unsuspecting AP US Government student and get a big foam ‘We’re #1’ finger with the proceeds. Red, of course.
That’s all the political theory you need to understand America.
Hunter Gathers
@BGinCHI: And the Human Pansy refuses to mention it. He might have to take a side, and we all know that Captain Wussy wouldn’t take a side on the position of the existence of gravity. He’d just blame it on Obama and government spending.
Steve in DC
They don’t like liberals, that’s always been the case. Liberals voting is voter fraud, liberals in office are illegitimate, liberal programs are socialist and evil, liberal laws are not constitutional.
People need to remember that. It’s like we somehow forgot that Clinton was perceived as a usurper and his agenda was tanked on health care and then the government shut down. Plus he was accused of trying to sell us to the UN, drug running, murdering people, and all sorts of far out crap far more crazy than “lol birth certificate”. What’s going on now is deja fucking vu.
They fucking know what they are losing in this, they don’t care. They’d have been OK with it had a Republican given it to them, but if it comes from a Democrat they are going to spit it back out and throw a fit.
MomSense
Banging my head on my desk…
BGinCHI
@Hunter Gathers: I thought his position was that gravity was only a theory.
Ash Can
If the SCOTUS shits the bed on ACA, I hope that Obama calls a press conference and explains in detail what benefits from ACA had already kicked in and were therefore rescinded, what benefits would have kicked in when in the upcoming months and years, and what would have to happen to get any of those benefits back.
Baud
@MomSense:
Hope you have insurance.
Valdivia
Slightly OT but not so much. Did any of you see this NY Post story about how Obama’s refusal to extend the tax cuts for the Galtian Lords is causing droves, I mean catastrophic droves of them to renounce their American citizenship?
Ash Can
@BGinCHI: The trouble is, the crux of the SCOTUS ruling has to do with whether the federal government can do what Romney did. I should have been more clear and specified a white Republican president.
scav
@Valdivia: Self-deporting, are they?
dedc79
@Valdivia: Didn’t you hear? Fleeing the country to avoid paying taxes is the highest form of patriotism…
Davis X. Machina
This. Is. All. You. Need. To. Know.
Ash Can
@Valdivia: Good riddance.
Hunter Gathers
@BGinCHI: One of his hacks said it was just a theory. When he was asked about it, Mittens just went off on some weird tangent combining the ACA, horse dressage, the estate tax and religious freedom. Then sparks started shooting out of his neck bolts, forcing Ann Romney to press her husband’s reboot button, which is located deep within his ass.
Valdivia
@scav:
takes hat off for wonderful use of right wing talking points to hoist them on their own petard.
BGinCHI
@Ash Can: Right. But it’s worth asking: did MA GOP folks mount a serious legal challenge that went all the way to the SC?
mclaren
These issues are all trivial. You people should be worrying about the really big ones coming down the pike — when will the supreme court bring back slavery, and extend it to all races in a glorious display of post-racial comity?
How long before martial law gets extended from the current federal buildings/airports/seaports/land borders to the rest of the country?
When will all liberals or suspected liberals be required to wear a yellow star, the better for police to identify and beat/tase/pepper-spray them to death on sight?
These are the things you need to worry about. Health care is already gone, stick a fork in it, it’s done.
Valdivia
@dedc79:
this is the one thing that I keep thinking. wow, how thin is their commitment to America First right?
@Ash Can:
hey I fought tooth and nail to be a citizen and these guys just throw it overboard so yeah, exactly.
BGinCHI
@Hunter Gathers: Who would make a robot with a deep ass?
I just don’t get Mormonism.
MomSense
@Baud
Is head banging a pre-existing condition?
BGinCHI
@mclaren: I think the Hyperbole Shift button is stuck on your keyboard.
Betsy
@Hunter Gathers: STOP! You’re killing me.
Maude
@Valdivia:
Let them go to Syria.
We don’t need people like that in this country. They don’t appreciate anything.
The more that leave and reject the US, the better.
Zach
I really don’t think Republicans have any clue how many people benefit from Medicaid and that, given relative low frequency voting in that population, it’s a pretty awesome target for Democrats. Mitt Romney’s economic proposal promises $200 billion in annual Medicaid cuts. That’s $4,000 per Medicaid beneficiary per year in lost benefits. And that’s not only his promised cut and does not include the several million people cut from Medicaid by repealing Obamacare. $4,000/year is larger than the tax cut Romney promises for everyone below the top quintile (and that’s for every “tax unit” / family and not every individual). I don’t know why I haven’t seen an Obama campaign or Priorities USA ad point to this part of Romney’s plans yet… I guess they’re waiting for the Obamacare decision. If Obamacare’s upheld, I’m sure we’ll see a huge campaign to promote it very soon.
Valdivia
@Ash Can:
I saw somewhere that Halperin (I know!) says Team Romney is going to be super aggressive when the ACA ruling comes down, just like he was very aggressive on RomneyCare during the primary. I am assuming this means they will aggressively not answer every time someone asks questions. Did I miss the Romney defends himself aggressively bit from the primary?
More to your point: I do hope Obama Team has a plan about this.
@Maude: I just think how can they even be so public about this, do they just don’t care any more or think it will be some sort of leverage to get their way?
Maude
@Zach:
A lot of Medicaid dollars go to nursing home care.
We aren’t in the general election campaign yet.
Ash Can
@BGinCHI: IANAL, but I believe that states have a clear legal right to mandate the purchase of insurance. if they didn’t, I’m sure we would have seen lawsuits fly years ago over state-mandated auto insurance. I don’t see how such a legal argument could make it past the county courthouse, let alone all the way to the SCOTUS.
MomSense
Thank you Hunter Gathers and BGinChi for the laughs!!
lamh35
Booman has some interesting and optimistic analysis on the ACA ruling. Here is his post and his response in comments. It’s a good read for those of us fretting over SCOTUS ACA decision. Any legal guys who agree/disagree with Booman’s analysis?
Will ACA Decision Come Today?
by BooMan (this is from before it learning that decision should be on Thursday).
Martin
@Zach: When to describe stuff like that, please take pains to illustrate what are benefits cuts vs payment cuts. You can cut Medicaid without cutting benefits by cutting what gets paid to care providers. That’s tricky to do, but it’s doable. Cutting benefits is a different matter. And in the case of Medicaid, the government can cut costs by simply shifting costs to the states, and reducing the match. Sometimes that makes sense to do, oftentimes not.
Its difficult for Obama to talk about Medicaid cuts because Medicare and Medicaid cuts are both signature parts of his plans – not by cutting benefits, but by cutting payments. It’s hard to wrap those distinctions into 140 characters, so the media is blissfully unaware that any sort of distinction exists.
lamh35
ETA: Please edit if it’s too long and too much of a quote…thx
@lamh35:
So someone in comments wrote that they were nervous after finding out that Roberts wrote the ACA decision (can anyone tell me if this is true?). Booman wrote a longer more detailed explantion of his reasoning:
BooMan on Mon Jun 25th, 2012 at 10:59:29 AM EST
Ash Can
@Valdivia: That’s my question, too. “Aggressive” how? Will he run faster and plow through crowds at a higher speed and knock more people down in his rush to get away from reporters?
Culture of Truth
Another pundit notes that Roberts split with Scalia and sided with Kennedy and the liberals on Arizona. You can read anything into that.
mark k
its no media “incompetence” dammit! Are you crazy? They are bought and paid for and are very competent at backing the conservative establishment every step of the way.
Incompetent? Come on! open your eyes.
BGinCHI
@Ash Can: OK, yeah. I keep forgetting that distinction.
Hunter Gathers
@BGinCHI: The android factories on Kolob are staffed by some very strange individuals. You don’t want to know the true function of the magic underwear. Hint – it has nothing to do with sex – Mormons actually reproduce using a cloud of spores.
slim's tuna provider
I have been working on my “grand theory of why mo’peoples don’t want to vote for crap that would benefit them.” it’s not going too well. I find the argument that the media has sold out to be unsatisfying.
Something that I find more promising is in the recent findings that a shocking number of Americans think their local economy is great, but that EVERYWHERE ELSE is fuXXored. This comports with anecdotal evidence of people I know plainly refusing to admit sh!^ is fuXXored in their lives. kid graduated from law school, can’t find a job? no problem… no health insurance? pluck will see us through! it’s deeply mindboggling and i can’t explain why people are like this…
BGinCHI
@Hunter Gathers: It must really depress the robot-building community to watch Romney in action. So far to go, they say.
Culture of Truth
Issa was on tv yesterday admitting that if the law is struck down the GOP will panic and re-insure people pronto.
MomSense
@lamh35
I was the commenter who became nervous/freaked out when I saw ScotusBlog report that Roberts wrote the opinion. I do admit that I am far too emotionally wrapped up in all of this because I dedicated significant time and energy to getting it passed but my first reaction was that it indicated that it was a 5-4 to overturn with Roberts providing some cover for Kennedy by writing the decision himself.
I also want to say that I am really very angry that we are having to suffer through this nonsense at all. That the PPACA doesn’t pass constitutional muster is plain politics and total BS.
Maude
@Valdivia:
They never understood what it is to be a US citizen.
I am grateful I was born in the US and am a citizen.
I’ve lived outside the US and even though it was a nice country, there weren’t the US Constitutional protections.
On the lighter side, they didn’t have Corn Flakes or peanut butter.
PZ
It’s because Obama isn’t sufficiently Burkean…
piratedan
and in the both sides do it stakes, a late entry…. Mr. John Cole
Who says the Dems haven’t been promoting it?
jaysus kee-rist man, haven’t you been watching the news for the last three years? Obama and Dems could hold a press conference regarding the news that they’ve found a cure for the common cold and the media lede will be:
Dem proposals will have severe effect on drug companies profits….
followed by:
some scientists say that having minor illnesses are actually beneficial for your continued…..
ending with….
Republicans expressed outrage today at the new government imposed “wellness mandate”
for fucks sake….
Chris
@Steve in DC:
Yep.
And that’s why this bipartisan myth is such a fucking crock. These people hate us. Personally. There’s no way to compromise with people whose number one objective is to destroy you.
beltane
@Culture of Truth: This is a little too much like examining the entrails of a bird for signs of the future. Meanwhile, I’ve got a friend with a number of pre-existing conditions who was able to get health insurance (and treatment for his brain tumor) thanks to Obama’s health care reform who is now freaking out. What will happen to him if the law is overthrown?
mai naem
You can blame everything on Obama’s color. He just should have gone all Michael Jackson and bleached himself head to toe. And he should have called himself Barry O’Bama and converted to Catholicism.
Brachiator
Worked for Bobby Jindal.
JGabriel
@Valdivia:
Good fucking riddance. It’s a relief to have unpatriotic asswipes like these reveal themselves and leave the country — I hope we pass laws that will empty their American accounts, tax them up the wazoo, and prevent them from ever returning.
.
joes527
@Martin: Payment cuts are benefit cuts once removed.
Martin
@BGinCHI: Uncanny Valley has few easy exits.
Davis X. Machina
@beltane:
A massive uptick in his freedom. And is anything more important than that?
Comrade Dread
@MomSense: I’m not freaked out. I’m entirely pessimistic.
My wife depends on the pre-existing condition coverage provided by the law, and she may very well lose her insurance by week’s end.
She asked me why anyone would fight this law, and I had no reason to give her other than Republicans suck and would rather someone die without insurance if they can’t afford it or are denied coverage by a corporation.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@BGinCHI:
It’s easy: It’s the Scientology of the 19th Century.
Oh wait, I don’t understand Scientology either.
General Stuck
OT
gniwnuts Unbound
PA wingnut law maker guy tells truth. All angels ordered to fly nap of the earth.
Personal foul. 15 yards and loss of down.
waratah
@lamh35: I read the live blog of ScotusBlog and they said there has only been one time that a decision was leaked and that was years ago.
I would think that no one will know for sure until the decision is announced.
Martin
@joes527: Done poorly, yes, they are. What we should have learned with the mandate is that ensuring critical services are provided by the private sector is like building an arch. You need to get each piece to support each other so that together it holds. That’s why losing the individual mandate is such a big problem (losing any of the components individually is a problem, that’s not the only key one.)
Payment cuts can work if they’re propped up against something else. That could be something as simple as a mandate to provide those services for simple things, or it could be more complex like expanding the pool of participants to allow the service to scale or providing other cost offsets.
But it’s not nearly as simplistic as you suggest, as your suggestion inverted is the GOP argument: “Benefits are tax handouts once removed.”
JGabriel
Does anyone else think Scalia’s over-the-top anger at Obama this morning could indicate that Scalia’s pissed because he didn’t get his way on other decisions too? Like ACA?
I’m not sure, but it seems possible that Scalia’s outburst this morning could mean good news for the health care act.
.
Comrade Dread
@JGabriel: I don’t know. But I’m sure SCOTUS is loving the attention their getting.
All of us peasants sitting at the foot of the mountain waiting for John Roberts and the others to descend from Mt. Sinai with their decision.
We need to amend the constitution to turn justices out every 8 years or so.
waratah
@JGabriel: My first thoughts were that that Scalia has some mental problems.
Villago Delenda Est
Obama is…
…wait for it…
NEAR!
What it boils down to. Pure and simple.
Comrade Dread
I don’t know if anyone is watching CNN right now, but apparently the Pope has decided to hire a PR adviser for the Vatican from Fox News.
redshirt
Gads, all this Supreme Court speculation would make a great reality show/
Survivor: Supreme Court
In tonight’s episode, will Anton be able to outplay Kennedy for leadership of the Tribe? Tune in to find out!
BGinCHI
Old dude who is the main SC reporter for SCOTUSblog is a cool cat:
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/06/scotusblog-lyle-denniston-obamacare.php?ref=fpnewsfeed
gwangung
@BGinCHI: Obviously never stopped by Balloon Juice.
Betsy
@slim’s tuna provider: Because unfortunate = damned in weird American Puritan thinking. (Santa didn’t bring you any toys? you must have been a bad boy). We blame people for their misfortune, in this country (this is a self-made, bootstrap, classless, mobile society, after all!)
Ergo, you can’t be caught thinking you’re among the underclass or the downtrodden, because that would be to admit you’re lazy, damned, or undeserving.
Therefore, EVERYTHING’S FINE! Don’t complain, try harder!
Culture of Truth
According to the GOP he will finally have individual control over his health instead of some faceless government death panel.
BGinCHI
@gwangung: I thought maybe he was eemom.
Rafer Janders
Look, it’s very simple. Everyone wants the Bear Patrol, but no one wants to pay for it.
beltane
@Comrade Dread: Saw that this morning. At least the Vatican is being honest about it’s fascist leaning douchiness.
RSA
@Ash Can:
I had the same thought. When a lot of Republicans “don’t necessarily like what it is Obama is doing”, the “what it is” is being President while black.
beltane
@Culture of Truth: He’s had too much of that freedom. If it’s a choice between soc1al1st oppression and suffering from an operable brain tumor that no one will operate on because he doesn’t have insurance, he’d gladly take the soc1al1st oppression.
Ruckus
“They just don’t necessarily like what it is Obama is doing.”
Wrong. They just don’t like that he is trying and possibly succeeding to do it.
Citizen_X
@Valdivia:
“When questions reared their ugly heads
Sir Romney aggressively turned and fled
Aggressive, aggressive Sir Romney”
OzoneR
@Ash Can:
and I guarantee you, the first question asked at the press conference will be about Eric Holder, and if it isn’t, Fox won’t even cover it, and the other networks will break away with it for Kardashian side boob.
Lurker
@Comrade Dread:
I’m hoping the ACA is upheld, myself. If the a-holes on the Supreme Court overturn it, however, consider doing what I did to obtain guaranteed-issue group coverage for yourself and your wife:
I’m a cancer survivor living in California. I’ve been rejected three times by three separate insurers for private individual coverage. An insurance broker helped me and my husband obtain guaranteed-issue group coverage by doing the following:
1) My husband and I had to qualify as a “business.” In California, the minimum number of people who can qualify as a “business” is two people under a general partnership agreement. So the first step was for my husband and I to sign and notarize a general partnership agreement.
2) We then registered our DBA with California.
3) With this agreement and DBA in hand, we opened a business checking account.
4) We applied for guaranteed-issue group coverage from the insurer of our choice.
As you might guess, this is NOT an ideal solution. If my husband or I were to die, the survivor would lose his or her health coverage, since the survivor would no longer qualify as a “business.”
However, it’s working for now. If the ACA is upheld, I’ll participate in the exchanges on 2014. If the a-holes on the Supreme Court overturn the ACA, I’ll keep telling married couples how they can get health coverage despite preexisting conditions.
Again — I hope that the ACA is upheld so that no American has to jump through hoops for health insurance.
Valdivia
@BGinCHI:
the fact he is getting recognition gives me a happy.
bemused
@Valdivia:
The one percenters’ cut and run.
jayjaybear
@BGinCHI: I have a few nominations for Village Idiot…
shortstop
Can someone explain to me, because I get confused so easily, exactly when the ban on denial for preexisting conditions kicked in?
Valdivia
@Comrade Dread:
I am going to second the insurance broker rec. I used one to get coverage recently and though I don’t have any preconditions issues I used them precisely because of a friend who had a hell of a time getting insured was able to do it with their help,
Lurker
@beltane:
Argh. This is why I’m hoping the law does NOT get overthrown. I know how a married couple in California can get health insurance despite preexisting conditions (see my response to Comrade Dread re: his wife), but I don’t have the best advice for single people.
Valdivia
@Citizen_X:
when yo are rich and white I guess that passes for Leadership!
Lurker
@shortstop:
It’s in effect right now for children as of September 2010. The ban on denial for adults kicks in on 2014. Until then, there’s government-subsidized PCIP plans (thanks to the ACA) to tide adults with preexisting conditions over until 2014.
Southern Beale
Making the nation ungovernable when a Democrat is in the White House: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.
lamh35
@waratah: I don’t believe anyone said they know what the decison would be. Booman’s analysis is based entirely on what the protocol is for who reads/writes the minority/majority decision into record. His analysis based on the rumor or something that says Roberts will/wrote the decison. Obviously no one will know the decision utnil Thursday, but doesn’t stop people with good and bad analysis from gaming out what it might be.
shortstop
@Lurker: Thanks, Lurker.
Terry
@Mike Goetz: That makes some sense.
MomSense
@Comrade Dread
I am so sorry that you and your wife have to suffer needlessly because Republicans decided to put their own greed and power ahead of the well being of other human beings. Before I started volunteer organizing around health care reform, I thought that I had a horrible “war” story to tell about my insurance company but as I met more and more people and heard their stories I realized that it was a matter of life and death and I was relatively lucky. I met people who had lost loved ones, who were themselves living in excruciating pain because they didn’t have access to treatment, or who were only kept alive because of medications that were available to them if they kept their enrollment on Medicaid. There is a woman who haunts my memory because I don’t know where she is living now and I am worried that she may have lost the access to the medications she needed to take every day to keep her alive because of the Medicaid cuts here in our state.
This whole thing is a nightmare and I don’t know what to do about it.
bemused
@scav:
I think a hefty self-deporting fee should be required before they are allowed to leave. And they should not be permitted to return ever, also too.
Davis X. Machina
There’s no great number, perhaps, but no shortage, of real Democrats who are getting ready to party Thursday if the PPACA is stricken.
Mnemosyne
@Davis X. Machina:
Don’t worry, single payer will magically spring up from the ashes. How about some unicorn stew?
ruemara
@shortstop: immediately, as most insurance companies started complying with those provisions in advance, but I see Lurker has answered the question as far as the law itself.
Steve in DC
@Southern Beale:
There is an anecdote about Norquist and the governor of MA. Back under Bush The Lesser Norquist flat out said they would have a permanent conservative majority and control the White House. When he was called on this being bullshit because eventually a Democrat would be elected he flat out said “but they won’t be able to govern as one”.
I think that behavior started with Clinton. Accusing him of murdering his staff, running cocaine, the hysteria was worse in many ways than the idiocy under Obama… and they haven’t fully shut down the government yet… though they could, we’ll see what happens in term two. The thing to keep in mind though is they flat out will not accept governance by a liberal, ever. They don’t even accept liberals as Americans.
shortstop
@ruemara: Thanks, ruemara.
R-Jud
@Mnemosyne:
Ugh, what kind of manic progressive are you? I’ll have Tofunicorn, thank you very much.
Maude
@R-Jud:
With chutney?
mainmati
@Mike Goetz: Could be, god knows Fat Tony is a cynical a-hole but what’s your evidence that Roberts doesn’t like him?
S. Holland
@Valdivia: Amen amen amen!!!
Valdivia
@S. Holland:
thanks :)