COVID-19 & Healthcare

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The TanMan, Weeper of the House John Boehner, just lost control of the GOP caucus he ostensibly leads in the House to an interloper from the Senate, Texas demagogue Sen. Ted "Calgary" Cruz, who has mesmerized the Tea Party faction of the GOP caucus with his hair-brained scheme to defund "ObamaCare" by a threat to shut down the government. Ted Cruz Is Making Life Miserable For House Republicans:

For the last few weeks, House Speaker John Boehner has been trying to find a way to convince his caucus to vote for a bill that keeps the
government open after Sept. 30 without picking a fight over Obamacare. But a minority of his caucus has been insisting on defunding Obamacare, egged on by outside conservative groups and a handful of far-right Republican Senators, most importantly Ted Cruz (Texas).

On Wednesday, the TanMan gave in to demands from the radical Tea Party members of his GOP caucus, and agreed to proceed with the hair-brained scheme of "Calgary" Cruz to shut down the federal government. The tail is wagging the dog. Shutdown looms as House targets health-care law:

House Republican leaders announced Wednesday morning that they would
take a risky double-barreled attack on President Obama’s health-care
law, making it the cornerstone fight over government funding due to
expire Sept. 30 and the effort to lift the Treasury’s borrowing
authority.

Speaker John A. Boehner, flanked by his leadership
team, told reporters that the stopgap government funding bill that they
will advance Friday would yield to conservative demands of including a
rider to block funding for the law commonly known as Obamacare.

In addition, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor laid out his
party’s legislative grab bag of requests that will be attached to a bill
that would lift the debt ceiling, including a delay of the health law,
an overhaul of the tax code and approval of an energy pipeline running
from Canada to the gulf coast.

Obama immediately rejected that
strategy and, in a meeting with the nation’s top executives, said he
would oppose any effort to defund the health-care law or negotiate over
the debt limit.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Thomas Mann and Norm Ornstein recently wrote at Salon, Brighter future for politics and policy requires a different Republican Party:

First, today’s sharply polarized and strategically focused political
parties fit poorly with a constitutional system that anticipates
collaboration as well as competition within and across separated
institutions. As we initially wrote, parliamentary-style parties in a
separation-of-powers government are a formula for willful obstruction
and policy irresolution. The continuation of divided party government
and the promiscuous use of the filibuster after the 2012 election have
largely frustrated the policy direction affirmed by majority electorates
and supported in polls of voters taken since the election.

Second,
the Republican Party continues to demonstrate that it is an insurgent
force in our politics, one that aspires to rewrite the social contract
and role of government developed and affirmed over a century by both
major political parties. The old conservative GOP has been transformed
into a party beholden to ideological zealots, one that sees little need
to balance individualism with community, freedom with equality, markets
with regulation, state with national power, or policy commitments with
respect for facts, evidence, science, and a willingness to compromise.

These
two factors—asymmetric polarization and the mismatch between our
parties and governing institutions—continue to account for the major
share of our governing problems. But the media continues, for the most
part, to miss this story.

by David Safier

A little venting about a few items in the Sunday Star, in print and online.

First, the big news of the day is that the U.S. and Russia have reached a deal to rid Syria of its chemical weapons. It's still a work in progress and no one knows how all this will work out, but it's big news, no? So the Star decides to put a decent, factual story about the deal from the Washington Post on page 5: "Deal reached to seize Syria's chemical arms." What the Star put on the front page is an AP analysis which readers see before they come to the story: "Chemical-arms deal puts Russia back at Mideast table." Before readers know the details in the page 5 story, they learn on the front page that Obama has given away the political farm to Putin. The deal, according to the analysis, means Obama gets some cover for the "White House waffling" on the airstrikes while it "restore[s] Moscow to its place as a pivotal Mideast player."

Man, the U.S. lost big on this by deciding not to bomb Syria — a move that wouldn't get rid of Syria's chemical weapons — and working together with Russia to try and destroy Syria's chemical arsenal. At least that's the AP take on the story — a take the Star thinks is more important than the facts of the story itself.

About that AP analysis: Like lots of what comes out of the AP, it has a strong anti-Obama slant. It backs up its assertions by quoting two experts. One is Jonathan Adelman, professor at the University of Denver Korbel School of International Studies. You can also find him listed as part of the speakers bureau for the Jewish National Fund. Nothing wrong with that, of course, except that it means Adelman views the Mideast through the lens of what's best for Israel, not through a more objective, global perspective. The other expert is R. Nicholas Burns, professor of international relations at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Not mentioned is that Burns was appointed by George W. Bush to serve as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs under Condoleezza Rice. So we have an ardent supporter of Israel and someone from the previous Republican administration to serve as the only experts in the article on the Mideast and the U.S./Russia balance of power. Not exactly a balance of "expert opinions."

Second is the Star's choices on coverage of Obamacare.

By Craig McDermott, cross-posted from Random Musings The meeting schedule from the publicity flyer:   AHCCCS Community Forums General – Sessions for Families, Advocates, and Community Partners Tuesday, October 8, 2013 1 – 3 p.m. Casino del Sol Conference Center 5655 West Valencia Road Tucson, AZ 85757 RSVP: ForwardTucson@AZAHCCCS.gov   Friday, October 11, 2013 1 … Read more

by David Safier I hope and expect to see more stories like this one on the healthcare.gov website in the coming weeks and months.   Malik is 23, which means he may be able to stay on his parents' plan until he's 26, and if not, he can choose from a number of health care … Read more