We have been seeing leading Democrats going public recently with their views that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or “Obamacare” was a political blunder or a simply poorly drafted mistake. This included the third-highest ranked Democrat, Chuck Schumer, who said that it was a mistake to even try to pass the legislation in the first term when most Americans did not place health care as a priority for action. Now the highest ranked Democrat, Senate majority leader Harry Reid, is saying that the Obama Administration may have doomed Democrats in Congress with its poor management and blunders in the rollout of the program.
Reid told the New York Times: “We never recovered from the rollout because the election became one that was directed toward the president. We couldn’t overcome that.”
What is curious is that at the time many Democrats adopted largely a denial approach that borders on delusion. There were no widespread calls from Democrats for Sebelius to be fired, the subject of a past column. The rollout failure was one of the most costly in the history of his country and there were ample indicators of the coming failure. I still remain unsure why the Democrats were not more open about such views at the time. As they plunged in the polls, there continued to be a circling of the wagons around the Administration on what was a legitimate criticism of its management.
In the end, I am not sure whether it was the rollout alone that doomed the Democrats given other issues like immigration. With the defeat of Landrieu, there is not a single national-level Democrat in any office in the Deep South. The Democrats are now at their lowest level of representation since World War II in Congress. That seems more than just the rollout. Schumer blames the ACA itself, but there still appears division among the Democrats as to the cause.
Good grief Pogo. The ACA is far from socialized Soviet style health care than can even be imagined. Wow Pogo. Since when is a big fat kiss to PRIVATE health insurance companies socialist? Seriously that is simply unbelievable to anyone with a head on their shoulders. Or are you saying the PLANNING was only “Soviet” like? Surely that must be it.
Taking over healthcare was never about anything except power.
They cared only about socializing 1/6th of the economy.
Problem was, having never studied economics, they applied Soviet planning and thought things would be fine.
They never imagined how badly they might screw things up, how their seemingly intricate planning wouldn’t survive the first 100 yards on the battlefield.
Reid is wrong. Obamacare could never Have rolled out any differently.
The entire design is a kudzu of flaws.
It could not ever ever ever work.
All they can do now is try to make Frankenstein stumble ahead, and kill as few important people as possible.
Jettexas, sadly I think Texas doesn’t treat their folks well. I have friends in Austin, visited there a couple of times, loved it, loved the house concerts, of course they wer all liberals, lol.i have two friends hat are Milwaukee teachers, very dedicated, they took a hit with Walker, but they still teach. They have to pay more for their health insurance and pension, BUT it’s still better than most any red state down south. So I hope we northerners don’t race to the bottom anytime soon, no matter what party is in power.
Leej,
“No jobs bills from Boehner but still creation of jobs every month bringing the unemployment level down from 10+% tp under 6% (and those who want to sat people have left the workforce, that does not moot the fact that there has been continuous job creation for over 58+ months straight.)”
I have to ask the question, since when is it the governments job to create jobs?
LOL! Groty, seriously? My son is a white man, I love him very much. My three sons in law are white men, I’m very fond of them, even the one conservative, go figure. My white man son works in the trades, belongs to a union and is a liberal Democrat. We all like him and we will keep him, thank you very much.
Pelosi lied to me.
She said I could quit my day job and start painting pretty pictures, or write or make photographs, because Obamacare would set me free.
But my insurance rates doubled and my deductible quadrupled.
And my day job got cut to less than 30 hours, so I had to find two more jobs to pay for it all.
So all my paintings are sad; I call it my Blue Period.
Pogo – at least it isn’t your Black Period. 😉
It is perfectly obvious that Democrats hate white men. They only mention white men to portray them as oppressors and villains. And Democrats hold a special hatred for the white men who make a living in the oil, gas, coal and pipeline industries. Democrats want to destroy the livelihoods of millions of white men who work in those industries. It is no coincidence that Democrats have lost the energy states of Texas, Alaska, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Louisiana, etc. as they pursue their anti-white man agenda.
They decided to pursue policies that appeal to mega-billionaire environmental zealots rather than white working class men. The problem is that Tom Steyer may be able to write Democrats huge mutli-million dollar checks, but he only gets one vote. Unfortunately for Democrats, all those working class white men they hate so much who work in oil, gas, coal and pipeline industries all get a vote, too.
From the report in the above link:
“Only seven applications in the IRS backlog contained the word “progressive,” all of which were then approved by the IRS, while Tea Party groups received unprecedented review and experienced years-long delays. While some liberal-oriented groups were singled out for scrutiny, evidence shows it was due to non-political reasons. (pp. 32-35)”
Lee:
Didn’t you know that the claim that the IRS targeted Liberal groups, too, was completely debunked by the Oversight Committee?
http://oversight.house.gov/release/new-oversight-report-debunks-myth-liberal-groups-targeted-irs/
You’ve been Grubered. 🙁
@Inga ~ I think you are right, I don’t know if it’s Texas or a school district. My 19 yr old daughter is a teacher’s assistant at Dallas ISD and her pay is barely above poverty level. She is a full-time college student as well and on Deans List. She has to live with me, to make ends meet. She recently went to the dentist, has coverage through ACA in that and her bill was over $2,400 dollars. She is on the AA insurance for her healthcare but dental or eye care.
My teacher friend and her partner are having some financial issues because of the cost of insurance they both have to pay. Their great people and I am unable to see them as much as I used to because they work all of the time. She works with a implanted pain pump as well.
Oh, sure, there are de facto death panels! but they’re not de jure; that’s a REPTHUGLICAN LIE!!1!
The Unions will probably get waivers from the Cadillac Plan taxes, and other requirements, since they put many Dems in office.
The problem of politicians for sale is widespread in all parties. I don’t blame buyers, I blame the sellers of political favors.
There were never “death panels” this was a right wing lie of the most egregious kind.
Of course there is nothing formally called a ‘death panel’. However, the results of unelected bureaucrats and panels that determine who will get care, how much care can be given and whose aim is to keep costs down, that cause people to die because it isn’t economically efficient are Death Panels.
To determine by an administrative action….not that decision being made by your Doctor…….that your quality of life, age, cost of treatment is too expensive and therefore you should not receive treatment and then die….is a Death Panel.
three different entities have been created by ObamaCare. Multiple Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) have been set-up that will reward doctors for keeping costs under control. The 15-member Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) will limit payments to doctors, hospitals, and healthcare providers, forcing their hand in deciding what to offer. The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) will create templates for what constitutes worthwhile investments in health by private and public providers. This is built into the system that you blindly espouse.
I believe the you leejcaroll have indicated that you have some disabilities? What if a panel of people should decide that it is too expensive to provide you with medication or treatment because you will be taking up too many resources better channeled to the younger and more productive members of society. After all THEY are able to work and pay taxes instead of taking resources.
What if you are elderly and need a hip replacement but because you have only 10 more years, possibly, of life the panel decides that it is too expensive to replace your ancient hip and condemns you to live in pain.
What if you or a family member gives birth to a Downs Syndrome child or other genetically damaged child that will require on going medical help to survive. It is too expensive and besides the kid won’t be able to be employed and will be a drag on society……so……your child or grandchild is withheld treatment and dies.
Death Panels don’ t have to be formally named as such to be just such a thing.
Olly and Jim:
When the USSR imploded, the population had a very difficult time implementing capitalism and self reliance. All they knew how to do was sit on their hands and wait for stale government bread. The rest of the world failed to help them create an infrastructure, and literally teach them how to take care of themselves. Many were completely helpless.
leejcaroll said: More then 150 confirmations have been held up, many of them judgeships leaving many without access to the courts, no surgeon general, which should have been in place during the Ebola situation, etc. This is rep obstructionism of doing the people’s work.
A few relevant facts:
1. Confirmations of judges and the surgeon general are the responsibility of the Senate, not the House.
2. The Democrats have held a majority in the Senate during the entirety of the Obama administration to this point.
3. The Democrats eliminated the filibuster for judicial nominees a year ago.
4. The nominee for surgeon general has been delayed b/c of opposition by up to 10 Democratic senators.
Here is an analysis on the unemployment and underemployment in America:
http://www.njfac.org/jobnews.html
Unfortunately, the census does not track those who gave up looking for work, or took part time instead of full time jobs.
I was never very political before Obamacare, which galvanized me. How many more like me are going to the voting booth, directly harmed by Obamacare?
randyjet:
The one single thing that I liked, in a bill that literally stacked up to 6 feet tall, was the removal of pre-existing conditions.
Technically, that is not really “insurance.” You don’t take your totaled truck to an insurance company, and say you want retroactive insurance that will pay for the wreck. It’s more like health care subsidies but done by a private company.
What we really are saying with this is that people cannot afford the cost of health care unless insurance foots most of the bill.
But I do not condone a bill that wrecks such havoc because of a single thing I like about it.
What makes more sense is DBQ’s suggestion, that we pass a series of very small bills with laser focus on one or two issues at a time, see the result, and pass the next one. These bloated, sweeping bills that create huge government bureaucracies never work out very well.
Also, my premiums doubled, my deductibles increased 1100%, my doctor and surgical facility choice got wiped out, my drug formulary shrank, I lost all off-formulary benefits, and after paying as much as a mortgage now for health insurance, when before I paid a few hundred, I have to pay out of pocket to see a doctor, because they can’t accept what Obamacare pays.
Removing pre-existing conditions does not make up for all that.
What about all the people with cancer who lost their insurance, that worked for every specialist they needed? Now those specialists can’t accept their plan. And if they don’t happen to live near a cancer treatment center that specializes in their cancer, they may very well have lost their chance at remission.
How many people will miss their children’s weddings, never hold a grandchild, or never see their children’s first steps because the government decided they shouldn’t get to choose what kind of health insurance they wanted? The government decided what benefits to give everyone, that all women are so helpless and immobile that they needed 26 forms of birth control without a copay, regardless of how much money they made. And now how many people with cancer, or other serious illnesses, will either die or become bankrupt because they lost their precious insurance that would have paid for the care they needed?
You do not take health care access AWAY from one huge group to try to give it to another. That is not a humane solution to the problem of improving health care for the poor.
The reason why Obama lied that if you liked your plan, you could keep it, is because that was one of the primary fears of the American people when government got involved in health care. The American people did not want to lose their plans, but the Grubers of the world decided to take a Machiavellian approach “for their own good.”
leejcaroll, Took a quick look at your links. All I see are estimates and no real numbers. This is what I thought. Why is it they can tell us how many (40m) where not insured before passing the stupid Obamacare, but they can’t give us a number now?
Jettexas and LeeJ,
It’s called Advanced Directives and this is something that has been going on in nursing homes and hospitals LONG before the advent of the ACA.