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A Long Time Coming


Harry Truman first proposed a National Health Care Program on November 19, 1945, and thanks to a surprising vote from Judge John Roberts the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has been upheld in the Supreme Court.  This is a great victory!

Comments

  1. HOORAY! And with Roberts writing the decision, it's reassuring that we aren't _entirely_ sliding into a truly right-wing state.

    As someone who will soon be without insurance after graduating, I wish there were a single-payer option or a statewide insurance pool, but at least insurance companies can't deny me coverage while I wait to get old enough for medicare.

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  2. I imagine there are a lot of Republicans that want to recall Judge Roberts right now. Sadly, this became a purely partisan issue and I am glad to see that the chief justice could see past that, unlike Kennedy and Alito, who should have known better.

    I think the 26 states that sued against Obamacare were all led by Republican governors. This must be a very bitter pill to swallow ; )

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  3. The Republicans thrive--perhaps even subsist in large part--on bitter pills. It is in their nature to be loud and wrong about so many things. And this just in, Eric Cantor has scheduled another vote in the House to repeal the ACA.

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  4. Ezra Klein, another one of my favorites, makes an interesting point. Even with the Court's decision, it will still be up for a vote in November.

    If Obama wins, it will be implemented in 2014 and (like Medicare) it will probably become popular and difficult to eliminate after that. Plus -- my hope -- it should form the floor not the ceiling to ensure that everyone has access to health care.

    If Romney wins he will work to eliminate it. And like all the other rights that people get motivated to vote against, this could be a real motivator.

    I'll be doing a lot of get out the vote calls this November.

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  5. Cantor can schedule all the votes he wants, but this may just be the issue that ultimately kills the Republicans in November. They tried so hard to vilify this health care act and ultimately it was held up by their conservative chief justice, pretty much declaring all their obstructionist efforts on this bill null and void.

    What gets me is that the provision they are so adamantly against is the one that will help bring health care costs down the most, by closing the gap on uninsured and underinsured Americans. So much for being fiscally minded.

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  6. Interesting how flip-flop Romney now opposes the type of program that he created in Massachusetts.

    BTW, this is the face of "Obamacare":


    http://cdn.front.moveon.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Obamacare-face-full.jpg


    Thankfully, she will now live as will many others.

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  7. The arrogance of people like Boehner, Cantor and Mitch the Village Idiot never ceases to amaze me. To hear them tell it, they know best about everything--social issues, financial issues, personal issues, you name it. Oh, and Romney. He's another know-it-all.

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  8. I don't know why, but McConnell reminds me of an undertaker when he speaks, and Boehner like someone they've just pulled out of the bar at the local country club to speak to the local news.

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  9. Reading some of the responses by the right has been fun and newspaper letters even more fun.I saw a print copy of the Orange County Register(CA) and they were priceless.Everything from the standard we are socialist europe now to welcome comrade to the communist states of America,true Americans have no reason to celebrate this July 4th to Obama threatened Roberts in public statements so much he caved in etc.Orange County is the home of wealthy repugs living on their trust funds totally in touch with reality.

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  10. It must really hurt to have Roberts support the Affordable Care Act. Of course, the rightwingnuts are jumping all over the statement Roberts made where he called it a "tax." Oooooh! like a long needle stuck in the ass. Persons face "penalties" for a variety of things, including not carrying PIP auto insurance.

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  11. A party in denial,

    http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/louisiana-gov-bobby-jindal-refuses-implement-obamacare-despite-152429092.html

    if you read down to Virginia governor McDonnell's comments, he basically admits he hasn't even read the ACA to know what it entails. This is political grandstanding of the worst kind.

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  12. The auto insurance analogy is obvious, and I haven't heard of any wingnuts selling their cars and relinquishing their licenses in protest.

    We did have a group of people down here in Atlanta who tried to claim that requiring them to get a license to drive was unconstitutional. They also objected to paying their bills now that the U.S. currency is not based on the gold standard. As goofy as these people are, they're right at home in today's Republican party.

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  13. I'm going to sell my car and move to Canada.

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  14. I saw a funny quip on facebook about conservatives flocking to Canada, noting the universal health care and universal gay marriage they have there. Not exactly nirvana for a conservative ; )

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  15. Americans are nuts. Before long the call will be keep the insurance industry out of my Obamacare.

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  16. One hopes so, but my guess is very few Americans have even bothered to look at the ACA to know what it entails. It is a relatively innocuous piece of legislation, hardly the "great socialist evil" the GOP talking heads have been vilifying. It falls far short of the single payer system most civilized countries have, so the insurance companies can breath easy. The persons Obama hopes to pick up are the roughly 10% uninsured citizens out there, but even here there are exemptions.

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  17. I'm hoping it picks me up since I'm soon to be one of those 30 or 40 million without insurance. But because of the delay, the exchanges and pools of private insurance are not available until 2014.

    Montana is working on its own clinic system, but we have a governor's race coming up so who knows how that will shake out. That's definitely a race I will want to be working on since Steve Bullock, the Democrat, fought against Citizen United.

    This is far, far from perfect legislation, and really is a gift to the insurance industry. But as I said earlier hopefully this will be the floor they can build on the same way LBJ built on civil rights. (Will probably wrap the book up in the next day or so. Wish some of our policy people were also reading it!)

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  18. I see it is a base to build something better. An Obama victory and Dems maintaining control of the Senate is tantamount and the DNC should be making every effort in supporting its candidates on the campaign trail.

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  19. I had an argument with a guy on the golf course yesterday who accused me of liking to pay taxes. That was the issue as far as he was concerned: one either likes or does not like to pay taxes. The only way I could support Obamacare is because I like to pay taxes. I responded by saying that I agreed to pay taxes because otherwise many of the government services I depend on would go unfunded. "And that's the problem in this country," he said, "too many people think the government owes them something." I am not sure if people like this have ever really thought about what they are saying.

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  20. I'm a big fan of Josh Kornbluth who used to have a pro-taxes website, which I couldn't find now. Maybe instead he's putting all his energy into one of his plays, Death and Taxes.

    Here's a nice interview with him from a few years back:

    "This knee-jerk animus against taxation itself, against government itself and the public itself, it all started here in California," Kornbluth figures. "We burned down our own libraries and public schools; then we found out we couldn't put out the fire because we defunded the fire department...."

    http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/04.14.04/kornbluth-0416.html

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  21. I just saw the sad news of the passing of old NYTimes forum friend Avoice in Los Angeles today.His real name was Andrew Krzemuski and was a wealth of info on the seamier side of LA and an attorney of some note.

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  22. A voice in the wilderness and a continual thorn in the side of Mick Sussman. Ah, those were the days.

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  23. Yes his one man army to "Bring Back the Search Feature" drove Mick nuts.He had a rare wit and a very colorful collection of friends.

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  24. We've been hacked by an anonymous robot ...

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  25. I appreciated the compliments but there was something a little odd about those two anonymous posts. Removed ; )

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  26. Does anyone object if I start deleting these? The first two were sort of funny, but this could get annoying fast .... And we already have too many "real" anions.

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  27. Thanks, Gintaras. Yes, s/he compliments ours and thousands of others out there. Just saw that you got the two others ... I'll get this one.

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