(Matt Davies via GoComics.com)
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Couple upbeat opinions to start the week. Noam Scheiber, at TNR, thinks “Obamacare Actually Paves the Way Toward Single Payer“:
… In the heat of the political back-and-forth with Republicans bent on the program’s destruction, this whole Obamacare adventure can feel a little hopeless. But when you look at the big picture, the underlying political logic is clearly toward more generous, more comprehensive coverage over time. Once the previously uninsured start getting insurance, the natural upshot of cataloguing the law’s shortcomings isn’t to give them less insurance, as my colleague Alec MacGillis pointed out last fall. It’s to give them more. Republicans are in some sense playing into the trap Obamacare laid for them.
Medicaid expansion is a case in point. Under Obamacare, uninsured people who earn up to 138 percent of the poverty level (just under $16,000 for a single person in 2013), can qualify for Medicaid, at least in states that opt into the law.3 This has a few key political consequences, as Pollack notes. First, it transforms the political constituency for the program. Historically, Medicaid has served extremely poor, frequently minority, patients who either don’t vote or support Democrats when they do. That meant the GOP had no hang-ups about squeezing it. But there will likely be millions of white working-class voters on Medicaid in the coming years. (Even in some conservative states, like Arkansas, Kentucky, and West Virginia.) Once that happens, something tells me Republicans will become more charitably-disposed to the program….
Jon Chait, at NYMag, says that “After Obamacare Is No Longer Doomed, It Will Become A Scandal“:
Obamacare — actual, real, Obamacare, with doctors and cards and everything — has been operational for nearly a week now. It has been … extremely boring. It does not look like Stalinist collectivization. There aren’t even any beheadings. It looks like regular medical insurance, except several million more people now have it than before…
Obamacare is a gaping wound in the Republican psyche, representing not only the rise of a majority moocher class but a potential symbol of a successful Obama presidency. Health-care reform, George F. Will has ludicrously if representatively declared, amounts to Obama’s “single” achievement. If it lives, it will vindicate his presidency as a liberal Reagan, rather than the reprise of Jimmy Carter (or George W. Bush) Republicans wish him to be…
***********
Apart from watching the GOP clowns attempt the rhetorical equivalent of juggling flaming torches during a pie fight, what’s on the agenda for the “real” workday start of the new calendar year?
Hal
This is something I have always thought about the ACA. When the bill was making it’s way through Congress, so many people on the left kept saying kill the bill, start over, we need single payer. I completely agreed about single payer, but if you can barely get through Obamacare as is, how the hell was single payer ever a possibility? The ACA was the first step. I hope people remember that come midterms and 2016.
Also, I posted this in a previous thread, but it seems more appropriate here. Two posts I saw a facebook about the horrors of socialized medicine and the coming dictatorship remind me there is a long way to go, or I just know stupid people. Hopefully it’s the latter.
and:
amk
It would have been so much easier to let the stupid sink with that boat.
Patricia Kayden
Anyone with a brain can figure out that if the Republicans really thought that the ACA was bad, they’d have quietly criticized it from the sidelines instead of trying to repeal it over 40 times and shutting down the government to defund it. Their fear is that it will be successful and go down in history as one of President Obama’s signature accomplishments.
Ditto immigration reform.
NotMax
Hardly the biggest (or the hundredth biggest) problem, but somehow, somewhere, misplaced my one and only coffee scoop.
For more than 30 years, it automatically was put back into the coffee can, but mysteriously is now not there.
I think it may have eloped with Mr. Cole’s mustard.
Elizabelle
Obamacare is in.
Liz Cheney is getting out.
Good way to start a Monday, weather notwithstanding. Good morning all.
Elizabelle
Not linking to it, but Chris Cillizza at WaPost has something along the lines of “Can Obama ever recover after his low poll ratings.” Effing tool.
satby
High temp today will be -9, the wind has been howling all night and the drifts around my house are almost 3 feet high. I let all the dogs out at 5am, and now we’re all huddled in the house where we belong.
raven
@Elizabelle: If that pisses you off flip on Joe and watch Nicole Wallace shriek that “We did not go into Iraq because of oil”!!!
Elizabelle
@raven:
I was going to tune in Morning Dumb to see if they were fileting Mary Cheney, but TV was still on PBS from last night.
Clifford the Red Dog it is.
Hal
@NotMax: That happens to me every once in awhile and it drives me insane. I’ll be ranting in my kitchen to myself about the universe and how I put this damn thing in the same spot every day so wherethefuckisit!!! I still don’t know what happen to my one and only wooden spoon.
SiubhanDuinne
Now this is a good way to start the week: Liz Cheney is dropping her Senate bid, citing … I can’t even type this without guffawing … “family reasons.”
mai naem
@raven: I saw that! The lady doth protest too much, me thinks. Also, remember when they used to say the Afghan war was about a natural gas pipeline from one of the ‘stans and sure enough, towards the end of the Bush admin, the major oil cos. were dividing up the the natural gas pipeline.It’s always follow the money with most wars.
tybee
it’s 62 degrees outside right now. supposed to be 20 by morning.
gonna be some weird weather today.
Glocksman
Morning Joe isn’t all that great, and all too often no one calls him on his BS.
The problem is that it’s the only morning show that isn’t mostly celebrity fluff.
Randy P
@tybee: 40s here in the Philly burbs, supposed to be rain all day and get back down to the single digits tonight and tomorrow.
Elizabelle
@Elizabelle:
Not awake yet.
Fileting Liz Cheney.
It was Mrs. Mary Cheney that started the end of that campaign.
Why did the Cheneys think Liz could win? (Yes, I know we are speaking of an architect of our glorious Iraq War.) But why did they think Enzi was vulnerable? To a carpetbagger, yet.
MomSense
Speaking of Obamacare, the Toyota ad on this page with the two gun shot sounds almost sent me to the ER. I don’t think I need my morning coffee after being surprised by that sound.
I would not be surprised if over time we see a gradual expansion of Medicare and Medicaid as we continue with ObamaCare as insurance companies want to shift some of the more expensive to insure groups out of their pool and as changes to Medicare reimbursement continue to extend the solvency of Medicare.
And as the exchanges improve and consumers become more familiar with them, consumers are not going to need brokers and insurance companies won’t want to pay commissions out of their 15-20%.
mai naem
@Elizabelle: They’re the Cheneys. Hell, Dick always failed upwards. Think about it, do you think any other politician would have gotten away with shooting somebody else in a shooting partay? I don’t think even Dubbya would have gotten away with it.
MikeJ
@Elizabelle:
They didn’t. Enzi will be over 75 at the end of the next term. Cheney just tried to move her self to the front of the line. Republicans always take the person whose turn it is. She just put her quarter on the video game called Wyoming.
aimai
@MomSense:
One thing that Obamacare has really, really, changed is that an enormous swathe of the country is now aware of health insurance–what it covers and what it costs. Keeping the private insurance model with premiums which are more or less individualized (to your age, location, family size, etc…) really quantifies for people just how much this costs and how unfair it is that some people get charged so much and other people so little for such a wide array of services. This is the first time in my life that Americans (not generic American politicians) have had a public conversation about this or had it shoved in their faces.
I believe we will get to Health Care as a utility with a few more Democratic presidents and house/congress. But once we do? White working class voters will forget who got it for them and go back to bitching, just like the tea party took Medicare and the white guy in Kentucky takes Medicare, Medicaid, and disability for himself and his 40 year old disabled daughter and still trashes that dark skinned “other” who is a moocher and a taker.
MomSense
@raven:
So oil wasn’t in “the war will pay for itself” calculation they kept telling us before it started? Didn’t Wolfowitz assure us of this?
Valdivia
@Elizabelle:
omg. that again? I thought his numbers went up when he was in Hawaii anyway?
WereBear
Perhaps the Bush family would have shown some signs of shame, as they are doing with keeping W hidden away. The Cheneys let family matters spill out as a campaign gimmick. They truly are a toxic bunch.
Elizabelle
@Valdivia:
Good morning. I’d link, but it’s Cillizza.
And bam pow to the bigamist boyfriend. What a dolt.
WaPost did have a good article on the Koch Bros and their web of anonymous donors. Warm up the blood on what will be a cold day in the DC area.
MomSense
@aimai:
I agree that people finally have information about what insurance costs and this will be a good thing in the long run. I do worry about the people who have been excluded from Medicaid expansion by Republican governors and legislatures. They are in a dire situation and have been largely abandoned by the media. It is interesting to see how media coverage of and messaging by politicians and political groups has revealed so much about how we regard class and race. It is pretty clear that our media do not give a shit about poor people.
BillinGlendaleCA
@MomSense: But the hospitals do care, they don’t want to provide uncompensated care.
Exurban Mom
OMG. Frank Luntz is a whiny baby. Proof?
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/01/the-agony-of-frank-luntz/282766/#comments
MomSense
@BillinGlendaleCA:
I hope they are applying pressure!!
Valdivia
@Elizabelle:
:D wam pow indeed. I have a friend who has a list of men I have dated who he wants to drone. I know that may sound callous but he is fiercely protective of me.
Warming the blood will be good tonight and tomorrow will be freezing! Stay warm
OzarkHillbilly
The expected high today has risen all the way to 0 degrees. Not going anywhere. Think I’ll bake some bread and just keep the wood stove humming. Towards the end of the day I suppose I will have to venture forth and throw frisbee for the Woofmiester. Funny as hell last night, I would throw it and there would be an explosion of snow then he would come back with the frisbee grinning ear to ear his black face covered in snow.
And yes, he does smile. Labradors can do that.
Baud
This should have been written four years ago.
dmsilev
@SiubhanDuinne: ‘Family reasons’ is correct for why Chemey is dropping out. The reason is that she and her parents are a set of demon-spawn vampires who shrivel in sunlight.
Elizabelle
I am excited about the possibilities of Obamacare, which is absolutely a gamechanger, and I hope its positive effects will upend a few House and Senate races this fall. I hope Obamacare’s presence will help us reach some occasional voters and convince them how important it is to vote for change they would like to see.
That said, would you believe I still have not signed up personally? That’s my task this week; will let Richard Mayhew and you all know how it goes.
WereBear
@Elizabelle: I wish you the best on this insurance venture.
Here in NY, I have been arguing with an otherwise incredibly sensible person about the economics of it all. Her husband works construction without any healthcare; and at least when he was injured it was covered under workman’s comp, or she agreed it would have been a world of hurt.
However, she thinks a bronze plan with a high deductible is a waste of money at $300 a month. I would call it a godsend.
SiubhanDuinne
@Exurban Mom:
So many shitstains, so little Clorox….
WereBear
And in other news, my Chromebook is coming up on its second year and showing signs of continuous high use. Though the balky keyboard keys have fixed themselves, and when it mysteriously locks up, at least I can reboot to exactly where I left off, right down to the comment I was in the middle of making!
Even though I did get a new laptop to work on my book, a discussion with Mr WereBear revealed he thinks the Chromebook is worth replacing when it does reach the non-revival point. It has turned into my “read myself to sleep”/”take to the coffeeshop”/”catch up on my email”/”turn this waiting room into a first draft” device.
Even if there’s no wifi.
R. Porrofatto
I wonder if George Will agrees with George W. Bush that the best moment of all in his presidency was when he caught a 7-pound perch in his lake. That’s an achievement, too.
Steeplejack
@WereBear:
Which model of Chromebook do you have? Aren’t there several different ones made by different manufacturers? I’m always looking for recommendations to pass on to friends and acquaintances at different techno-geek levels.
I was flabbergasted a month ago when a friend of my brother’s called me in a dither because he needed some specific hard drive to replace one that died and Best Buy didn’t have it. I told him to go to Micro Center, and after he came back he raved on and on about it. If you’re a computer nerd and you absolutely have to have it today, it’s heaven. (You have to be lucky enough to be where one is located, of course.) I was shocked that he didn’t know about it already. He is the one-man IT department for a small company.
Also turned another acquaintance on to the Chromecast gizmo. He hasn’t been heard from since, as he apparently has gone into a streaming binge-watching coma.
Fred
@NotMax: Check in the back of the bottom drawer where you put all the kitchen crap no one ever uses. Either there or at the back of the top shelf where you keep all the other kitchen crap no one ever uses. If both of those fail don’t dispair, it will turn up within three weeks. I guarantee it.
Nutella
It will turn up immediately after NotMax gives up and buys a new scoop.
bemused
Scheiber writers that once millions of working class workers are on Medicaid, “something tells me Republicans will become more charitably-disposed towards the program..”
Sorry, this does not compute. This may be the first time I’ve seen the words Republicans and charitably-disposed in the same sentence.
WereBear
I have the black Acer that had the optional modem built in, with a limited amount of free 3G from Verizon, every month for two years. They’re now offering a big chunk of Google Drive storage, for two years, instead. (I’ve actually used the phone/internet access, since I live in a rural area. But not enough for me to pay for it.)
Manufacturers are Acer, Samsung, and now HP, with the Pixel really testing the limits of tier pricing with a $1,299-$1,449 price tag. Now really, people, I can get a Mac Air at that price! With AppleCare!
I’m fairly pleased with the Acer; especially since I got the first model out of Beta. Had a trackpad replaced under warranty, and now it’s coming up on two years, and I’m talking Blogger/Commenter levels of use. Nice keyboard feel, and I have probably used it every day since I got it, sometimes for hours at a time. It has been dropped a few times, too, from a couple of feet, onto carpet and hardwood, closed and open, and survived fine. :)
I’ve heard good things about the Samsungs released at the same time as my Acer; they were more expensive, but were considered to be superior in battery life and screen definition. However, consensus was Acer had the better keyboard, FWIW. And why I went with them.
HP? I don’t think so… I hear terrible things about their printers! :)
So, I’m a very happy user, and would recommend in a heartbeat to:
*the young (my 9 year old nephew constantly stole Grandma’s)
*the old (my mother adores hers!)
*the computer newbie (don’t need to worry about viruses, don’t need to upgrade operating system, don’t need to upgrade software)
*the constant traveler (everything is stored on the cloud, and with password enabled, it can fall out of a boat tomorrow and you can pick up exactly where you left off)
*the clumsy (my husband would far rather I have a mishap with a $200 device)
*the broke (you can’t beat the price point, and very few can’t get along with just a browser, there’s so many online options now)
Frankensteinbeck
You know what makes this cartoon truly perfect? Obama is the only person trying to bail out the damn boat, while everyone else stands around judging him.
HinTN
Went to see “Saving Mr Banks” over the weekend. Highly recommend it unless all you can handle are action flicks.
Steeplejack
@WereBear:
Thanks for the detailed info!
WereBear
@Steeplejack: You are very welcome.
At this point, I’m not getting my Chromebook a new skin (underneath the Decal Girl, it’s pristine!) or a new battery (it’s down to four hours instead of six.) But if it lasts another year I might not be surprised.
For instance, my MIL (we got ones for my mother, his mother, and my brother, all thrilled) had a problem with her trackpad, too, and it was out of the year warranty by that time. Yet, a couple of weeks later, it had fixed itself.
Likewise, my keyboard issues wound up self-healing. So I just don’t know!