I went to a picnic night before last. Sherrod Brown was the speaker and special guest. The event was held on the grounds of a UAW hall, so perhaps unsurprisingly Brown’s talk was probably 75% auto rescue/manufacturing/trade and 25% Obamacare.
He started with the transportation bill, which is finally headed to Obama’s desk. He spoke about how difficult it is to get past the Tea Party House, because “they believe transportation is a state issue, which might surprise Dwight D. Eisenhower”
The transportation bill was the most contested part of the package. Prominent conservative groups urged Republicans to vote against it, while the U.S. Chamber of Congress pushed for passage.
The House voted 373-52 in favor of the bill, which was supported by every voting Democrat, while 52 Republicans opposed it
While it’s all well and good for Tea Party theorists to stand their ground on whatever it is they believe about state sovereignty and the enumerated powers, the rest of us live in the modern world and the wheels ‘o interstate commerce have to spin.
On the health care law, Brown hit on the benefits to senior citizens and those with employer-provided health insurance very hard. Makes sense with this audience, who are mostly either union members or on Medicare. In my experience, those WITH health insurance are going to be our biggest challenge on the law. I think there’s a more generous way to look at this than “greed”. They have health insurance, and they are worried that it will be taken away. If one has what one needs, “change” can appear to be all downside risk. They have also been brutally misinformed on this law, because misinforming them on this law benefitted Republicans politically in 2010.
This is Connie Schultz, who is a journalist and author and Brown’s wife. She is showing off their new dog in this photo. His name is “Franklin”, after FDR:
This is Angela Zimmann, who is running for Congress and something of a “natural” at campaigning, IMO:
PeakVT
“they believe transportation is a state issue, which might surprise Dwight D. Eisenhower”
He probably knows – but feels he can’t say – the real reason: a good trans bill might help the economy, which might help Obama.
Linda Featheringill
I was surprised that Congress managed to pass a transportation bill. But they did. It’s undoubtedly not as good as it should be but we’re probably lucky to get as much as we did.
Nice post, Kay. I enjoy your pictures. With apologies to OWS, “This is what democracy looks like.”
:-)
David in NY
Agreed. But has anybody put together a list of what the law does for you, by category: have insurance from employer, or am employed in firm with more than 50 employees that does not provide insurance, make less than $30,000 per year(? medicare extension limit), am self-employed? Also a list of what it doesn’t do, no death panels etc. I’d like to see it, if so; if not, would somebody do it, quick?
Kay
@Linda Featheringill:
These things are more fun than big events. A mayor introduced him, and the introduction went on and on and on. He started with “Sherrod was an Eagle Scout” and then (literally!) every single thing Sherrod has done since. Brown kept doing these false starts toward the microphone, but the intro was NOT COMPLETE yet, the mayor was simply resting between paragraphs :)
shortstop
@David in NY: Quite a bit of that is at healthcare.gov.
David in NY
@shortstop: Thanks.
General Stuck
It was hilarious, this morning listening to Todd interview some campaign official for the Romney campaign, and Chuck trying to get him to say “so Gov Romney agrees with Obama that the penalty isn’t a tax” and the guy would not say that. Instead he kept repeating the mantra that Romney agreed with the dissenters on the high court, that is was not a tax, like Romney had said when he passed the Mass Individual Mandate.
So now, the wingnut POTUS candidate is at odds with Mitch Mcconnell howling at the moon that it was a tax, and Obamacare was the biggest tax hike in like forever. bunch of clowns, then we get to immigration, and all the other FUBAR that is today’s republican party on issues.
Joel
Medical loss ratio kicks in today… But of course, ACA is just a corporate giveaway, so what do I know.
Choicelady
@David in NY: You can also see the cost with subsidies that is on a sliding scale linked to income up to 400% of the Federal Poverty Leel ($90K for a family of 4). Oddly enough one of the best sources for that is the chart on Wikipedia under Affordable Care Act. But healthcare.gov ALSO lets you find access to the High Risk Pool via either your state or the federal program (usually much cheaper than the state one) using the dark blue tab at the upper left of the main page. There has been, until now, NO money in ACA for telling people how to get coverage. That will change, but it’s been one of the ways the plan has been disadvantaged. Millions to recruit for the military. Not a dime for health care PR.
Davis X. Machina
@General Stuck: It doesn’t matter if Romney calls it “Lester” and McConnell calls it “Johan Nepomuk Hummel”. Romney’s the R candidate. None of this shucking and jiving will matter come November.
Issues aren’t the reason GOP voters are going to vote GOP — the party’s been on both sides of most of them within living memory, sometimes within the week. Tribe, race, religion, region… in other words, brand loyalty.
General Stuck
@Davis X. Machina:
the GOP base can only deliver 45 percent of the vote, tops. Stuff matters to varying degrees, to enough voters needed for him, or Obama, to win in likely a very close election. No one in my memory of presidential candidates comes close to Romney grade duplicity, at times outright mendacity. It is the main reason he still has lower ‘likeable” numbers. And a fair number of voters outside the tribal tent, they vote for someone they like, over don’t like, at a higher rate.
attica
May I be totally shallow and post that I sorely covet Connie Schultz’s hair? It’s a magnificent mane. Thanks.
Randy P
@shortstop: Thank you for posting that. I’m going to start dropping that link into conversation. With wingnuts I may add “please explore it and let me know when you find the part that is taking away your freedom”.
This may cause them to accidentally read the provisions of the law.
Kay
@Joel:
Brown addressed that. “There is a little-know part of this law that will help you…”
I’m so familiar with the thing that I thought it was going to be something obscure and known-only-to-Senators, but he was talking about the MLR.
tamiedjr
@attica: I want to know what kind of dog that is.
kansi
I am thrilled that ACA will be implemented, after all. However, perhaps selfishly, I am interested in what it means for me and my family. I have worked at a Catholic school for more than 20 years, and make considerably less than 30 thousand a year. (I love what I do, crazy me!) My only real compensation is in benefits for me and my family. Will ACA allow my employer to drop health coverage and face no repercussions, because, as a religious institution, they would not be subject to a TAX?
NeoOstrakon
I think the free rider argument is a good one. “you are paying for it anyway, the costs get passed to you when so many people use emergency rooms as primary care.” Everyone understands this is a bad way to do things.
PurpleGirl
@kansi: I think the bigger problem is that you could lose insurance because the Catholic bishops think that having to provide for contraceptive care goes against their religious liberty. (Or something like that.)
kansi
@PurpleGirl: I agree and it’s so crazy! That would most likely be their justification. We were already warned last fall that this might be an outcome, but now, with the tax ruling, I wouldn’t be surprised if they claim their tax exempt status prohibits the government from any action against them.
Chris
@PurpleGirl:
Or just to better filter out the bullshit, “having to respect other people’s freedom infringes on my freedom.” The conservative’s eternal lament.
Hypatia's Momma
@Chris:
“Tolerate my intolerance, you hypocrites!”
Frankensteinbeck
I am very interested in this transportation bill. It’s exactly the kind of thing the House has been making a giant fuss rejecting. Why did this one go through? Has something changed?
Frankensteinbeck
@Chris:
To the narcissist, no one else can have rights. It’s not even that other people ‘don’t have rights’, the idea is gibberish. It can’t be considered. This leads very quickly to ‘Not giving me my way in everything, including venting my anger however I want or living in a world where everyone agrees with me, is violating my rights’. Tribalism is just narcissism where they think the whole group is an extension of themselves.
Mnemosyne
@kansi:
I think that would be a difficult argument for them to make, because right now churches can only claim “religious liberty” exemptions for actual religious personnel (ie priests, ministers, nuns, etc.) There was a recent Supreme Court case where they decided against a teacher who was teaching at a (I think) Lutheran school, but it turned out that she was a “called teacher” who had special religious training and had gone through a religious ceremony, so she was considered a para-minister by her church.
The RCC is going to try to claim that every teacher, professor, doctor, nurse and custodian that works for a Catholic institution counts the same as a priest or nun, but I don’t think they’re going to get very far with it.
shortstop
@Davis X. Machina:
This really cannot be stated too often.
@Randy P: You’re welcome! It’s really a very useful source, especially as you dig into the tabs.
Xboxershorts
It was interstate commerce (or lack thereof) which prompted the 13 states to toss the Articles of Confederation and adopt the Constitution.