by Sunnyjane
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| GOP: Curses! This was supposed to be Obama's Katrina! |
Oh yes, dear readers, the FUBAR surrounding the October 1, 2013, debut of the President's signature legislation website was gleefully panned by GOPers as the end of that dastardly Affordable Care Act. Well, by December 1, fifty thousand uninsured Americans an hour were able to access the site, and the Republican Tea Party echo chamber became just the dark-hole vacuum from which it had originally emerged.
Whaddaya Mean, It's Constitutional?
President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on March 23, 2010; the Supreme Court of the United States found on June 28, 2012, that, except for mandatory expansion of Medicaid in all states, the law was constitutional. And the Republicans still haven't gotten over it.
Mitt Romney said right after the SCOTUS decision that, if elected in November, he would repeal the law on Day One. Now either Romney is totally ignorant of the job he wanted so badly concerning the Constraints of Presidential Powers, or he thought his idiot followers were stupid enough to believe him. Either is a legitimate possibility. But a president cannot simply sign some sort of repeal paper to get rid of a law he doesn't like. It's called Separation of Powers, a little thingy the Founders stuck in the Constitution for a damn good reason: to prevent such an act without a consenting majority vote in both the House and Senate.
And the Hits Just Keep on Coming, But Miss Their Target
Lots of people hate Obamacare -- or so they think. In Kentucky, where one in every five adults has been without healthcare insurance, a public health worker helped a man sign up for the Affordable Care Act. The man was very pleased that he would qualify for either tax credits under KYTECT -- the Kentucky healthcare exchange chosen by their Democratic governor -- or would be eligible to join a Medicaid pool. He said, This is better than Obamacare, I hope. (Can you say Fox News zombie?)
There's a lot of that going around, and Republicans are fueling it:
**It's been popular for the GOPers to warn young people against signing up for healthcare under the new act because they'd be unfairly charged more than older citizens. DUH! That's what any health insurance is based on. However, that hasn't worked out very well for these, um, lawmakers.
**Ted Cruz tried to pull another stunt by tying defunding of the AHA to the $1.1 trillion spending bill. That didn't work.
**California Republicans tried a dirty trick (shades of Karl Rove) by directing people looking for the AHA to go to a fake website that aimed to scare people from signing up. Just as an example, the website told senior citizens that there probably wouldn't be enough doctors. I don't know who they're calling senior citizens; anyone sixty-two or older usually has Medicare. (And just as an aside, why does Medicare spend $29 million a year to pay for penis pumps? No, seriously!)
**Marco Rubio is passing around the lie that the AHA is an insurance company bailout.
**Rand Paul says that his twenty-year-old son was forced to sign up for Medicaid. That, my friends, is bullshit. The Washington Post's Glenn Kessler is doing an on-going investigation on the issue, writing recently: The available evidence suggests this happened because of an error on the part of either Paul or his son, but there are enough uncertainties that a definitive conclusion cannot be reached. Paul earns the [two] Pinocchios because the process he described on television does not match up with the Kynect screen shots.
**John Boehner -- you know him, he's supposed to be the Speaker of the House -- stated this past week that at the up-coming Republican retreat, healthcare will be on their agenda. I think you'll see Republicans come forward with a plan to replace 'Obamacare,' a plan that will actually reduce costs for the American people and make health insurance more accessible. Very timely, John, so very timely.
**The House passed a bill that would require Health and Human Services to provide them with weekly number on ACA instead of monthly numbers. Ain't going to happen.
End Note: President Obama's Up Yours to the Moralists
Whaddaya Mean, It's Constitutional?
President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on March 23, 2010; the Supreme Court of the United States found on June 28, 2012, that, except for mandatory expansion of Medicaid in all states, the law was constitutional. And the Republicans still haven't gotten over it.
Mitt Romney said right after the SCOTUS decision that, if elected in November, he would repeal the law on Day One. Now either Romney is totally ignorant of the job he wanted so badly concerning the Constraints of Presidential Powers, or he thought his idiot followers were stupid enough to believe him. Either is a legitimate possibility. But a president cannot simply sign some sort of repeal paper to get rid of a law he doesn't like. It's called Separation of Powers, a little thingy the Founders stuck in the Constitution for a damn good reason: to prevent such an act without a consenting majority vote in both the House and Senate.
And the Hits Just Keep on Coming, But Miss Their Target
There's a lot of that going around, and Republicans are fueling it:
**It's been popular for the GOPers to warn young people against signing up for healthcare under the new act because they'd be unfairly charged more than older citizens. DUH! That's what any health insurance is based on. However, that hasn't worked out very well for these, um, lawmakers.
**California Republicans tried a dirty trick (shades of Karl Rove) by directing people looking for the AHA to go to a fake website that aimed to scare people from signing up. Just as an example, the website told senior citizens that there probably wouldn't be enough doctors. I don't know who they're calling senior citizens; anyone sixty-two or older usually has Medicare. (And just as an aside, why does Medicare spend $29 million a year to pay for penis pumps? No, seriously!)
**Marco Rubio is passing around the lie that the AHA is an insurance company bailout.
**Rand Paul says that his twenty-year-old son was forced to sign up for Medicaid. That, my friends, is bullshit. The Washington Post's Glenn Kessler is doing an on-going investigation on the issue, writing recently: The available evidence suggests this happened because of an error on the part of either Paul or his son, but there are enough uncertainties that a definitive conclusion cannot be reached. Paul earns the [two] Pinocchios because the process he described on television does not match up with the Kynect screen shots.
**John Boehner -- you know him, he's supposed to be the Speaker of the House -- stated this past week that at the up-coming Republican retreat, healthcare will be on their agenda. I think you'll see Republicans come forward with a plan to replace 'Obamacare,' a plan that will actually reduce costs for the American people and make health insurance more accessible. Very timely, John, so very timely.
**The House passed a bill that would require Health and Human Services to provide them with weekly number on ACA instead of monthly numbers. Ain't going to happen.
End Note: President Obama's Up Yours to the Moralists
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| Amen! |
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