COVID-19 & Healthcare

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Paul Krugman blogs at the New York Times, To The Brink, Again:

If John Boehner
is to be believed — which, admittedly, is a real question — Republicans
are once again willing to push America into default and/or shut down
the government if they don’t get their way. As Greg Sargent
points out, this is amazing — and what’s equally amazing is how this is
being treated as normal. Politics ain’t beanbag; but “I’ve got a bomb
strapped to my chest, and the whole room gets it if you don’t hand over
the money” is not normal tactics, especially if pursued repeatedly.

* * *

To the extent that there ever was an economic justification for this
brinksmanship — the claim that we were on the verge of a debt crisis,
the claim that slashing spending would boost the economy — that
justification has collapsed in the face of declining debt projections
and overwhelming evidence that austerity has large negative impacts in a
slump.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Political scientist and high priest of Beltway centrism, Norman Ornstein, has a must-read opinion today in the National Journal on the Tea-Publican insurrectionists' attempts to sabotage "ObamaCare." The Unprecedented—and Contemptible—Attempts to Sabotage Obamacare:

When Mike Lee pledges to try to shut down the government unless
President Obama knuckles under and defunds Obamacare entirely, it is not
news—it is par for the course for the take-no-prisoners extremist
senator from Utah. When the Senate Republicans' No. 2 and No. 3 leaders,
John Cornyn and John Thune, sign on to the blackmail plan, it is
news—of the most depressing variety.

I am not the only one who has written about House and Senate
Republicans' monomaniacal focus on sabotaging the implementation of
Obamacare—Greg Sargent, Steve Benen, Jon Chait, Jon Bernstein, Ezra
Klein, and many others have written powerful pieces. But it is now
spinning out of control.

It is important to emphasize that this set of moves is simply
unprecedented. The clear comparison is the Medicare prescription drug
plan. When it passed Congress in 2003, Democrats had many reasons to be
furious. The initial partnership between President Bush and Sen. Edward
Kennedy had resulted in an admirably bipartisan bill—it passed the
Senate with 74 votes. Republicans then pulled a bait and switch, taking
out all of the provisions that Kennedy had put in to bring along Senate
Democrats, jamming the resulting bill through the House in a three-hour
late-night vote marathon that blatantly violated House rules and
included something close to outright bribery on the House floor, and
then passing the bill through the Senate with just 54 votes—while along
the way excluding the duly elected conferees, Tom Daschle (the
Democratic leader!) and Jay Rockefeller, from the conference committee
deliberations.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

In the “post policy nihilism”
of the GOP, Republicans are no longer guided by any real policy
“asks,” but rather are chronically positioning themselves only in
opposition to the
president's policies. "Just say no."

The latest example: Three years after campaigning on a vow to "repeal and replace" President
Obama's health care law, House Republicans have yet to advance any
alternative for the system they have voted more than three dozen times
to abolish in whole or in part. GOP yet to detail any alternative to health overhaul:

Officially, the effort is "in progress" – and has been since Jan. 19, 2011, according to GOP.gov, a leadership-run website. [Actually, since 2009.]

But
internal divisions, disagreement about political tactics and Obama's
2012 re-election add up to uncertainty over whether Republicans will
vote on a plan of their own before the 2014 elections, or if not by
then, perhaps before the president leaves office, more than six years
after the original promise.

* * *

The current state of intentions contrasts sharply with the Pledge to
America, the manifesto that Republicans campaigned on in 2010 when they
took power away from the Democrats. That included a plan to "repeal and
replace" what it termed a government takeover of health care.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The lifeblood of any congressional office is constituent services. Helping your constituents resolve problems they may have with navigating government agencies makes them happy and grateful, and it reflects well on you as an elected representative that you know how to get things done.

The Hill reports that ideological extremist Tea-Publicans are actively trying to undermine the federal health care system by refusing to help their own constituents navigate the system:

People regularly call their representatives for help with Medicare,
Social Security and other government programs. Yet, Republicans believe
healthcare reform spells doom for the federal budget, private businesses
and the U.S. healthcare system. They're also enormously frustrated that
the law has persevered through two elections and a Supreme Court
challenge and believe a botched implementation could help build momentum
for the repeal movement.

Some Republicans indicated to The Hill they will not assist
constituents in navigating the law and obtaining benefits. Others said
they would tell people to call the Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS).

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Tea-Publican Party is an anti-government party. They are not interested in sound government policy, they are an insurrection bent on destroying government.

The Tea-Publicans' favorite economic terrorism tactic is to manufacture a crisis to take the country hostage and threaten to kill the hostage unless their extortionary demands are met. They have done this time and time again, without apparent consequence to them for their seditious conduct. The corporate "lamestream media" dismisses insurrection and sedition against the government of the United States as "The new normal" and simply a negotiating tactic. It is not. It is economic terrorism and is not to be tolerated.

I warned you about this back in April, Tea-Publican economic terrorists threaten to take the country hostage, just because they can, quoting Jonathan Bernstein:

The plain truth here is pretty obvious: Republicans love the idea of
extorting concessions in exchange for agreeing to a debt limit hike, and
are determined to do it even when they don’t actually have any real
policy demands. It’s just extortion for extortion’s sake.

That’s what a “post-policy party” really looks like.

The latest Tea-Publican terrorism threat is the “kill Obamacare or else” demand: the GOP will refuse to continue to fund the government and force a governnment shutdown in a last-ditch attempt to coerce Democrats into surrender to their 39 votes (and counting) to kill "ObamaCare."