COVID-19 & Healthcare

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Neoconfederate "states' rights" Tenthers who are Tea-Publican Governors and legislators, like we have here in Arizona, are threatening not to participate in the "expanded Medicaid" provisions of the Affordable Care Act on ideological grounds. "We hate Obama! We hate the federal guvmint!"

They also object to covering more people under expanded Medicaid on the ground that it will cost taxpayers too much money. This is code for access to medical care is a privilege, not a right, and should be rationed according to the ability to pay. Medical care is only for those who can afford it. If you can't afford it, the GOP healthcare plan is simple: "Let them die!" How this comports with their alleged Christianity, I don't have a clue.

The first three years of expanded Medicaid is 100% covered by the federal government. Thereafter, the state share would gradually increase to around 10%. Suzy Khimm at Ezra Klein's WonkBlog has this important factoid. The truth about Medicaid’s cost to states, in three charts:

What would happen to state budgets if all states went ahead with the Medicaid expansion? The Congressional Budget Office says that it would increase state spending on the program by $73 billion by 2022—the equivalent of a “2.8 percent increase in what states would have spent on Medicaid from 2014 to 2022 in the absence of health reform,” the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities explained.

That said, this is an aggregate look at the expansion: the budgetary impact on states will vary considerably, depending on how far a state has gone already to cover its low-income residents. The Urban Institute has a state-by-state breakdown of the impact, available here. (.pdf).

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Let's take a trip in Mr. Peabody's WABAC machine (or the hot tub time machine for those of you not old enough to remember Mr. Peabody), all the way back to 2010. Remember when Tea-Publicans ran for Congress saying they wanted to "repeal and replace Obamacare"?

The Tea-Publican House proposed and passed "Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act" (H.R.2) in 2011, which promptly died in the Senate. Tea-Publicans have scheduled another symbolic vote to repeal "Obamacare" on July 11 when Congress returns from its 4th of July recess, which will also promptly die in the Senate.

What Tea-Publicans have not done is propose any alternative healthcare plan (that may be because "Obamacare" is their plan, until they attached Obama's name to it and disavowed it). Tea-Publicans and Willard "Mittens" Romney have been loathe to divulge any details of a "replacement" healthcare plan.

That is because the "replace" part of "repeal and replace Obamacare" was always a lie. They never had any intentions of replacing it with anything. They are happy with the status quo of our broken healthcare system.

The GOP and Mittens do, however, have the Tea Party healthcare plan: "Let them Die!" Remember during the "Survivor – GOP Presidential Primary" debate when Wolf Blitzer asked Ron Paul about how "society should respond if a healthy 30-year-old man who decided against buying health insurance suddenly goes into a coma and requires intensive care for six months — are you saying that society should just let him die?" To which the Tea-Publican audience responded with an enthusiastic "YEAH!" followed by laughter. Audience at tea party debate cheers leaving uninsured to die | Yahoo! News.

This is the replacement healthcare plan from the GOP and Mittens, folks — "Let them Die!" Remember all that crazy talk fom the Tea Party and their Queen, the Quitta from Wasilla Sarah Palin, about "death panels"? Well they are the "death panels" (a bit of psychological projection on their part).

Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Those Tea-Publicans, always given to hyperbolic exaggeration. They have to describe everything in apocalyptic terms that just makes them look foolish. Ezra Klein debunks the latest GOP lie: No, ‘Obamacare’ isn’t ‘the largest tax increase in the history of the world’ (in one chart): Since the Supreme Court decision, Republicans have been … Read more

By Michael Bryan

I opined that Obamacare being sustained by the Supreme Court may have been a victory for conservatives in the long term. I discovered someone who laid out the case more eloquently than I ever could, Dr. Marcia Angell, a senior lecturer at Harvard Medical School, who recently posted at HuffPo. Her views are required reading, so I have reposted here in entirety. Enjoy:

The Supreme Court's decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, puts me in mind of the old proverb: Be careful what you wish for. Democrats on a victory lap should watch their step, because John Roberts may have given Mitt Romney a gift. The impact on the health system will be much smaller than the political fallout, because with or without Obamacare, the American health system will continue to unravel — quickly if Romney is elected, slowly if Obama is re-elected.

First the policy, then the politics:

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Arizona Republic should just drop all pretense about being an objective news organization and return to its roots and original masthead, The Arizona Republican. It is, and has always been, the media arm of the Republican Party in Arizona.

On Friday, the Republican published a series of opinions decrying the Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Care Act. So much sturm und drang, so much conservative bedwetting. One unsigned opinion in particular caught my attention. So, we'll be penalized with higher taxes:

The decision affirms that on June 25, 2010, President Obama signed a health-care law that levies a substantial, new set of taxes that, according to congressional estimates, perhaps 75 percent of people earning less than $200,000 per year will pay.

Note the imprecise source citation "congressional estimates." I did a Google search for the source of this claim and, surprise, it comes from Stephen Moore of Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal, one of the most unreliable sources in the business. And why is this opinion not properly attributed to Stephen Moore? Here is the original. Political Diary: The ObamaCare Tax – WSJ.com:

According to Congressional figures 70% to 75% of the "tax" falls on those who earn less than $200,000 per year, and that is 8 million non-rich people. So Mr. Obama argued this was a mandate and a fine to enforce the requirement to buy health care.

Well, that changes everything. The Republican would have you believe that 75 percent of all Americans earning less than $200,000 will be paying more in taxes. That is not what Stephen Moore said. He is saying that of those people who opt to pay the penalty (tax) rather than purchase healthcare insurance, 70% to 75% of them will earn less than $200,000 per year. And that is a relatively small number. This is the game of "fun with facts and figures" to lie to you from The Arizona Republican.

Stephen Moore is an unreliable source, so I am sure as hell not going to take his word for it. It turns out that FactCheck.org has run its fact check of the "ObamneyCare" tax. FactCheck.org : How Much Is the Obamacare ‘Tax’?:

How Many Will Pay?

In his opinion, Chief Justice Roberts cited an estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that 4 million would pay, and cited that as a further reason to consider the assessment a tax rather than a penalty. “Congress did not think it was creating four million outlaws,” he suggested.

However, since then, CBO has increased its estimate. In an estimate released in March of this year, CBO projected that the tax would yield $6 billion for the government, up from the $4 billion it estimated two years earlier. That’s a 50 percent higher total, and would seem to imply that CBO now expects about 6 million will be paying. But CBO didn’t give a specific figure for the number of persons it now expects to pay.

– Brooks Jackson