No Pain, No Gain ;O): political

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Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Health Care: Political Football Returns to Partisan Scrum

In ruling that the Affordable Care Act was constitutional but amounts to a tax on Americans who decline to buy insurance, the Supreme Court kicked the divisive issue of health care back into the partisan scrum of Washington politics. The early kicking and scratching from both sides on Sunday's talk shows suggests that the issue will loom large in the November elections, whether the American people like it or not.

The Supreme Court decision should have put the matter to rest, White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew argued on Fox News Sunday, clearing the way for the debate about jobs and the economy that are front-and-center in most peoples’ minds.

Repeating a theme he stated on CNN's State of the Union, Lew said Republicans who want to repeal the health care legislation will have to explain to the public why they are against popular provisions such as barring insurance companies from denying coverage to those with pre-existing conditions, or letting children remain on their policies until they are 26 years old.

As for the unpopular penalty for refusing to buy health insurance that the Supreme Court labeled a tax, Lew insisted that the experience of Massachusetts with a similar mandate suggests that it will only affect one percent of the public.

“This law says that if you can afford insurance and choose not to get it, becoming a free rider and burden on those who do buy insurance, then you have to pay a penalty and your fair share,” said Lew.

Vicki Kennedy, widow of late Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., said that her husband would have been very pleased but not surprised by the Supreme Court decision on a law that is popular in its particulars, if not in its entirety.

“Health care reform was the cause of my husband’s life, and he believed it was a moral issue that defined who we are as a society and country,” she said on ABC’s This Week. All three branches of the federal government have now affirmed, she said, that affordable health care is a fundamental right, and not a privilege.

Not so fast say Republicans. “Obamacare” is a job-killing, European-style takeover of health care by the federal government that amounts to the “single worst legislation of modern times,” responded Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., speaking on Fox News Sunday. Not only will it cost nearly 1 million jobs, he argued, but it siphons $500 billion from Medicare, and takes a “meat axe” to an American health care system that is already the finest in the world.

If Republicans win a majority in the Senate in November, McConnell said, he would repeal the Affordable Care Act through a process of “reconciliation” that requires just 51 votes, as opposed to requiring a filibuster proof “super majority” of 60. “The Supreme Court made clear that the [penalty for refusing to buy health care] is a tax, and as such, it is eligible for reconciliation,” he said.

But when pressed by host Chris Wallace about the GOP's alternative, McConnell responded: "That is not the issue" -- a response that the Democratic National Committee made sure to highlight in an e-mail to reporters.

Despite their disappointment that the Supreme Court found the Affordable Care Act constitutional, Republicans clearly sense that they have been handed a potent issue for this fall’s election.

Health care has made this “the most important election of our lifetime,” argued House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., speaking on This Week. The choice before the American people, he said, is between two fundamentally irreconcilable philosophies that embrace a government–driven society on the one hand, and a free economy and personal liberty on the other.

“We disagree with the notion that our rights come from the government,” said Ryan. “According to the Declaration of Independence, those come from God and nature.”

View the original article here

Monday, March 19, 2012

Health-care law activists to reach for broad political targets at Supreme Court hearings

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Health-care law activists to reach for broad political targets at Supreme Court hearings

View Photo Gallery — ?Both supporters and opponents of the Affordable Care Act are organizing efforts to raise support for their respective sides when the Supreme Court hears oral arguments on the health-care law in late March.

Text SizePrintE-mailReprints By N.C. Aizenman, The Washington Post

Expect demonstrators to brandish placards reading “Hands off my health care!” and demanding a repeal of the 2010 health-care law. Expect doctors in white lab coats and patients who have suffered at the hands of insurance companies to hold news conferences lauding the law’s consumer protections and pleading for its preservation.

When the Supreme Court holds three days of hearings on the constitutionality of the law next week, supporters and opponents will be reaching for broader political targets.

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Backers see a moment to educate and sell Americans on a law that continues to confuse and divide them, and that has become a key issue in the presidential campaign.

Opponents will direct their energy toward Congress, the potential next front in the fight if the court upholds the law.

“Even if some of the law is [ruled] constitutional, it doesn’t mean it has to stay in place. It can be changed, it can be amended,” said Jennifer Stefano, director of the Pennsylvania chapter of the conservative organization Americans for Prosperity and who is organizing several hundred protesters from her state.

The two sides’ differing goals are reflected in the types of events each is planning.

A coalition of several dozen groups in favor of the law, ranging from advocacy organizations such as Families USA and Health Care for America Now to faith leaders, physicians associations and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), are seeking to maximize their exposure to media outlets across the country.

They will bring in 27 talk-radio hosts who broadcast to 48 states, setting them up in a building across the street from the court. A steady stream of guests have been scheduled including members of Congress, prominent policy advocates who favor the health-care law, and at least a dozen of whom the activists have dubbed “real people” with stories about how the statute directly benefits them.

They also will be made available to other journalists at a nearby media tent and will headline news conferences on the court steps each morning before the hearings begin.

The plan has the backing of the Obama administration, which recently hosted a meeting to help activists coordinate their efforts.

The SEIU and other groups in the coalition are reaching out to their membership to round out the news conferences with a crowd of placard-waving supporters. But organizers say their emphasis is on creating multiple opportunities for those with the most compelling perspectives to communicate directly with the public.

“The whole purpose is to humanize this,” said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA.

It’s an effort that has kept the group’s director of communications, Dave Lemmon, at his Washington office late into the evening over the past several weeks.

On a recent morning, he sat with another staffer whittling down a list of doctors and nurses interested in speaking at the first morning news conference, which is intended to highlight views from the medical community.

Next came a meeting with a second staffer to look over a draft speech by a young Montana woman whose father died after repeated denials by his insurance company delayed a bone marrow transplant. The appeals process could be considerably streamlined under the health-care law.

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