GOP Invites "Pitchforks and Torches" Blowback With Sham "Health Care" Bill

While the GOP House denizens practically broke their arms patting themselves on the back for barely passing (217 to 213) their foolish "American Health Care" bill - to repeal Obamacare and install their own non-version, millions of citizens saw this travesty for what it really was: A blatant giveaway to the richest 1 percent in terms of nearly $600 b in tax benefits.  So to ensure the wealthiest got their even larger bite of the good life, even basic  health services (ER admission, mental health care, maternal care, etc.) had to be cut for those barely hanging on - the sickest and most vulnerable among us.

To be sure, as a number of pundits have observed, the GOOPrs had basically only two unattractive options : 1) piss off their hardcore base of Trumpies by failing on their pledge to repeal and replace Obamacare - this when the GOP had total control of government, or 2) forcing Repub "moderates" based in swing districts to vote for a deeply unpopular bill that will definitely put many of their seats at risk next fall. Indeed, after this "moral atrocity" - to use Nancy Pelosi's term  - I am fully convinced the Reepos will lose their House majority in 2018.

This latest chapter in the Repukes' tax reform saga (which is what this bill is really about) is how cheaply the GOP moderates could be bought off. All Paul Ryan and the right wing extremists had to do is mollify them using the promise of an "$8 billion"  slush fund by which states could fund exchanges to permit acceptance of pre-existing conditions.  This reminded me of how cheaply the "moderate" climate change skeptics could be bought off by the specious nonsense that CO2 is "just a trace gas that helps plants grow".   No acknowledgement at all of the thermal properties of CO2 that enables it to trap long wavelength (e.g. infrared) radiation even at concentrations of 200 parts per million. (As shown by Gale Christianson there has never been an ice age when CO2 concentrations have reached 200 ppm or greater.).

But the most vile aspect leading up to the vote came from those like Alabama's Mo Brooks who insisted that "good people don't get pre-existing conditions". Tell that to all the young children that get cancers of the brain or leukemia - kids barely  4 or 5 years old. What does Brooks and his ilk believe they did to deserve those cancers? Rob a kiddie bank or utter a curse word?

Brooks' codswallop is part of the larger, loopy, quasi-religious trope that noble and goodly people prosper on account of their "goodness" and hence can afford their health care because they "earned" the jobs to pay for it via their righteousness. This helps explain the belief of many conservatives - such as one who blurted to Adam Schiff that "if people can't afford their health care they shouldn't have any."  This despite the fact the U.S. was a signatory to a UN Declaration making health care a human right in 1994.

All of which is pointing to even more hostile, recriminating town meetings as the assorted Reepos go home to their constituencies over the next two weeks. Will they be prepared for the pitchforks and torches that come out after this week's moral travesty? I doubt it. But they should be given their bill gives several hundred thousand of the richest parasites an added enormous tax break while gutting the health care of tens of millions. The belief, one every bit as stupid as the one of climate skeptics that CO2 is a "good gas" - is that giving this largesse to the wealthiest will generate economic growth.

None of the nitwits seem to process the fact we're in an ongoing crisis of aggregate demand, whereby GDP support is falling because too many normal, working mortals have much less to spend. The answer wasn't to give more to those who don't spend because they have it all, but to those who need financial support - especially to pay for their health care.

Allowing the states to "take over" is merely political posturing and a blatant dodge since the states - given the choice - will do nothing, as in nada. Why would they when most are on shoestring budgets and even here in Colo. we've been told we're facing over a $1.3 b deficit and so cuts need to be made - to school funding, health care and public services.

So no, there's no doubt the people are smart enough to see through this sham and the inevitable blowback will haunt these Reeptard nitwits for the next year into next fall's midterms. And I'm asserting that even before the Congressional Budget Office has scored this latest iteration of the original farce - which is likely to show an even more forlorn rating. Even The Denver Post editorial today expressed "surprise that so many House Republicans voted for an overhaul of Medicaid and the health system before a more recent budget update".  Well, bottom line, they didn't give a damn. It kind of reminded me how the vile GOOPs rammed through the "Medicare Modernization Act"- a huge corporate welfare bonanza- back in 2003.

Some pundits have opined that this bill will face "uncertain prospects" in the Senate, but I look for McConnell and company to try to ram it through - with very minor changes - using budget reconciliation (where only 51 votes are needed). The Reeps have been too desperate for a massive tax cut to the rich for too long, and this travesty of a House bill gives them a leg up that the Reep Senate isn't likely to sacrifice at this stage. Oh yeah. they'll tweak it a bit but the basic heinousness will remain and up to 124 m Americans with "pre-existing conditions" could pay the price. Meanwhile more than 24 m could lose their Obamacare via the Medicaid cuts alone by 2020.

For readers interested in further analysis, columnist Michael Hiltzik offers a handy guide to “all the horrific details”

Excerpt:

'Under the GOP plan, Medicaid expansion, which currently provides coverage to some 10 million low-income Americans, would be killed as of 2020. It also converts Medicaid into a block-granted program, stripping more than $800 billion from the program over 10 years. Because block-granted program can’t keep up with the needs of beneficiaries, this means that states would have to respond to fiscal stringencies by cutting benefits or throwing enrollees out.'

Cheers to the Democrats who sang “na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, hey, hey, goodbye” to GOP members facing reelection in 2018. Will they pay a price?   I'd lay Vegas odds of three to one that they will and it'll be steep.

See also these articles:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/richard-eskow/72629/how-many-people-will-die-for-each-rich-american-s-trumpcare-tax-cut

And:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/robert-reich/72628/the-moral-travesty-of-trumpcare

Excerpt:

'House Republicans say they have protected people with pre-existing health problems. Baloney. Sick people could be charged premiums so high as to make insurance unaffordable. Trumpcare would even let states waive the Obamacare ban on charging higher premiums for women who have been raped — which actually occurred before the Affordable Care Act.
 
America has the only healthcare system in the world designed to avoid sick people. Private for-profit health insurers do whatever they can to insure groups of healthy people, because that’s where the profits are. They also make every effort to avoid sick people, because that’s where the costs are'

And:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/steven-rosenfeld/72630/why-the-gops-vote-to-repeal-obamacare-could-send-a-democratic-majority-to-washington-in-2018

The Phony Texas Voter ID Kerfuffle

Colorado College students yell 'Obamanos!' in 2008 as they march to the polls. Being allowed to show just student photo IDs allowed them to vote - though most came from out of state. 

After we moved from Barbados back to the U.S. in January, 1992, my first voting experience in the country was to cast a vote for Bill Clinton as President in November of that year. But first I had to register to vote in the state of Maryland. Since I’d turned in my drivers’ license for good (legally blind) I had to use another form of ID and that became my U.S. passport which I’d had for nearly 21 years (since entering the Peace Corps).

So it was no biggie. Later, I found it more convenient to get a Maryland alternative (non-drivers’) ID featuring my photo and current address. The process to get it was relatively simple, and entailed going down to the DMV and bringing three acceptable forms of preliminary ID which included: 1) My passport, 2) a copy of my birth certificate, and 3) evidence of a bill paid in my name – with address shown. Total cost was $50. The ID was good for 4 years, and could then be renewed.

On moving to Colorado, in 2000, we learned the ID requirements were even lower and only required a form of paid bill (e.g. utility) with one’s name on it. A passport could also be used. Some 8-10 years later, as Repubs grabbed the state legislature, these laws tightened up and you had to have a verifiable drivers license for an ID – or an alternative non-drivers’ ID with photo (like in MD).

The law by 2008 required you to present SIX different previous or preliminary documents, including Passport or military ID, previous drivers’ license or other state ID, birth certificate or stamped (notarized) copy of such, paid bill, and two other forms (e.g. athletic club photo ID, and –or medical, insurance ID). Total cost $100.  The good thing is that student photo IDs were still   allowed, mainly for out-of-state students attending colleges in Colorado but not residing here. This enormous student vote was major in helping Obama take the state in 2008 (after which, student IDs were disallowed).

The issue then becomes: a) Should special photo ID be required to vote, especially given the statistics for voter fraud (meaning one voter impersonating another) are vanishingly small? and b) If such ID is required should it not be such to encourage the greatest voting participation as opposed to the least?

Evidently Texas, supported by a Supreme court take, has answered yes to (a) and no to (b). Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in issuing a stout rebuttal, has noted the Texas law is “discriminatory”

“The greatest threat to public confidence in elections in this case is the prospect of enforcing a purposefully discriminatory law, one that likely imposes an unconstitutional poll tax and risks denying the right to vote to hundreds of thousands of eligible voters.”

I could not agree more – and Texas ought to be ashamed, but I doubt they will be. What does Ginsburg mean by an “unconstitutional poll tax”? She means that, historically, certain segments of the populace were prevented from voting by imposing a tax at the pools – usually in the vicinity of $1.50 per person, but often larger – up to $5  - used to turn away poor black voters in the Jim Crow south. The idea was to suppress the vote, namely the African-American vote.

In the case of the Texas Voter ID law, LA Times columnist Michael Hiltzik has pointed out that getting satisfactory ID that meets the state’s criteria could cost $75 to $175, “much higher than the $1.50 poll tax outlawed by the 24th amendment in 1964.”  The reason is because for some reason Texas disallows normative PHOTO IDs such as student IDs (you receive while attending university) or Veteran’s Administration IDs – which most other sane states permit. So this is totally nuts.

It’s also ridiculous given the Supreme Court suspended the Wisconsin Voter ID law which was not terribly different from Texas. So what gives?

I believe the court is simply trying to appease Governor Rick Perry, who will likely be running again for President and they don’t wish to antagonize all his core voters that may be for it.  If Perry's elected (God forbid!)  they'd also welcome to the Court more conservos appointed by him. Why else allow this Texas’ nutso ID law to go through but not Wisconsin’s?

In the real and sane world neither of these absurd laws would be proposed because voter fraud is not of such incidence that a photo ID is needed – and even if it is – then just allow ALL forms to be accepted, including for students and veterans, for god’s sake.

The argument has been made in some quarters that “any idiot can get an ID” but this is not strictly true. I saw many people turned away, for example, when I went to file for my Colorado alternative ID – because they lacked one of the six forms of preliminary documents needed.  Even Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Richard Posner, a conservative, admitted he “has never seen his birth certificate and does not know how he would go about ‘scrounging’ it up.” (This was after court colleagues repeated the canard that “anyone can scrounge one up”).

Well, to be honest, many Americans have drivers’ licenses – which qualify – but 20 million (like me) do not. So what are they supposed to do?  Well, they are obliged to bring the preliminary documents in to their DMV, including birth certificates, passports or other verifying materials. But what if they have no passports, and (like most African Americans) were home-birthed so lack birth certificates? Then they are up the creek, so to speak. Or disenfranchised, certainly in Texas.

Even if they DO have all the documents why the hell should they have to shell out up to $175 each for the ID? This may be money they need for meds or groceries – certainly for many impoverished African-Americans as well as poor seniors. That forced payment (which is what it is if they want to exercise their vote) then indeed amounts to a poll tax  - to use Justice Ginsburg’s term.

If we really want people- citizens to vote in this country, we need to stop with these cynical games that defeat the very foundations of our society which is supposed to be a democracy. (Okay, if you want to be technical, allowing the exercise of democracy in A Republic)

Sadly, states like Texas are more interested in how they can suppress the votes than enable them – which, I guess – kind of makes Texas a fascist dictatorship.

The Cowardly Backdoor Efforts to Cut Social Security

Incredibly, austerity measures passed by Congress have shut down numerous Social Security Administration field offices in the past year--even though those field offices are funded out of Social Security's trust fund.

Unknown to many older citizens (and younger) the Social Security System has been under covert attack by the “fix the debt’  ghouls and GOP austerity vampires in Congress since 2010. Since they’ve not been able to get their way with the chained CPI (Obama had the good sense to table it) they’re now using a cowardly ‘end around’:  cutting Social Security Admin. budgets in order to shut down access to Social Security offices.

 Make no mistake these are the same dastardly vermin  who held our nation’s credit hostage, threatened to shut down the government, and forced congress through a nauseating series of self-inflicted crises. They have even gutted the IRS to the tune of nearly $8b over the past 4 yrs., thanks to phony attacks and GOP anti-tax hysteria– thereby limiting the agency’s power to go after tax avoiders and other tax scofflaws. They are, in effect, denying revenue to this country when it needs it the most.

When at long last the shrill cries to cut S.S. benefits subsided, the assorted array of GOP congressional and Tea party rats decided to  adopt cowardly, invisible tactics unseen by most Americans. This entailed rejecting fourteen of the last sixteen Social Security administration budget requests, despite the fact that Social Security is not in debt, has not engendered any debt and pays its own freight via the payroll tax!  Thus, the GOOPr congress is acting as if there is no payroll tax at all.

 

Bear in mind, the payroll tax was created explicitly by FDR to ensure the system’s sustainability along with having current workers pay in to support already retired workers. True, in 2011, the Dems suddenly became morons and decided to cut payroll taxes by 2.4%, - but when we on the Left yapped on them, they came back to reality. Despite two years of this nonsense, it wasn’t nearly enough to justify the GOOPs’ current tactics.

The outcome? The S.S.A. has been forced to close dozens of field offices around the country, thereby limiting access to seniors whose only way may be face-to-face appearance with administrators.   Meanwhile, the Senate Special Committee on Aging held a hearing after a bipartisan report showed Social Security has closed 64 field offices since 2010, the highest number of closures in a 5-year period in history. (Denver Post, June 19, ‘Agency closes field offices’, p. 18A)

 

Interestingly, as the article also points out (ibid.):

“The closings came as applications for retirement and disability benefits are soaring”.

 

In other words, these rabid rats and scum balls are adopting the exact same back-handed methods they did with injured vets seeking VA care. In that case, the miserable fuckers declined to approve $24b to expand VA facilities for care – thereby creating the recent crisis we beheld. Now, having succeeded there, they’re going after vulnerable seniors needing Social Security!

According to the Post article, again echoing what’s gone on with vets seeking care in the VA system:

“Seniors seeking information and help from the agency are facing increasingly long waits, in person and on the phone.”

Is this American? No, it is fascist to the core!

Blogger R. J. Eskow wrote on the Huffington Post that:  “many disabled and elderly Social Security recipients depend on field offices, and the workers in them.” And as Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times said, “They haven’t been able to cut benefits, so they’re doing the next best thing: making it hard for you to know what you’re due, and harder to get it when it comes due.”

The bottom line is, Americans came together to create the Social Security system to provide a basic, reliable foundation for retirement and disability. Closing field offices and making it more difficult to access benefits information is an attempt to dismantle that foundation. It’s time we get going to stop it. Readers interested in signing on can go to this link:

 

https://www.care2.com/news/member/774550352/3780474

 

There are also other links - from assorted organizations -  that can be found via Google!

Abby Huntsman: Is She A Moron - Or Does She Just Play One On 'The Cycle'?

Once more the question is elicited as to whether Abby Huntsman is a born 'n bred moron, or just plays one in her assorted tube appearances - now mainly on MSNBC's 'The Cycle'. It's one thing to emulate or be a moron in a 'one off' as I pointed out in a post last April, referencing her appearance on Bill Maher's 'Real Time' and  having to be schooled by Sen. Bernie Sanders on Social Security, i.e.why cuts to that program hurt millions of seniors.  But it's another to be a moron 5 days a week and especially to repeat the mistakes she did last year on Social Security.

This time Abby was publicly 'spanked' by long time Social Security expert, Michael Hiltzik in the LA Times, e.g.
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-abby-huntsman-20140314,0,489874.story#axzz2w9RuRdqG

He therein referenced  how Huntsman went on an extended rant about Social Security last Thursday on MSNBC's "The Cycle."

As usual, the little uninformed dope got almost everything wrong, which makes me wonder why one of her co-hosts didn't shut her up or change the subject earlier, instead of letting her babble on confirming her moron I.Q.  and her incompetence as a political or economic commentator. One of her first howlers was claiming Social Security is "going bankrupt" which shows she doesn't know what bankrupt means, or the law as it applies to Social Security. In fact, if the little moron knew anything she'd know Social Security has NO creditors, hence cannot go 'bankrupt'. Au contraire,  it is Social Security which is a creditor to the   GOVERNMENT  - which has borrowed from it relentlessly over the past forty years.

 The following data shows how much has been raided each year from 2000 through 2011, the data from the same Trust Fund sources and GAO:

Year:  ................Amount raided

2011.................$67.0 billion

2010.................$87.0 billion

2009...............$137.0 billion

2008...............$180.2 billion

2007...............$186.0 billion

2006...............$185.5 billion

2005..............$173.5 billion

2004..............$151.1 billion

2003.............$155.6 billion

2002.............$159.0 billion

2001.............$163.0 billion

2000.............$151.8 billion
----------------------------

TOTAL:  $1.79 TRILLION  (and $2.63 TRILLION since 1990)

Now, any person with more than a minimal number of neurons would realize that it doesn't matter if you fill a one gallon bucket with a cup every day (equal to 6 oz.) if there are massive holes in the bottom that let out 5 oz. in the same time! 

Also evident from this is that the  low worker-to -beneficiary ratio is a red herring meant to deflect attention from the REAL problem which is the yearly raids on monies received from payroll taxes and intended to go to future beneficiaries! So long as these raids continue unabated, NO solution or "re-tooling" of the program will work, including Abby's brilliant "solution" of increasing the retirement age -- by as much as 10 years -- because life expectancies are about 20 years longer than they were in 1935.

First, Abby ought to be forced to read the Sunday NY Times Business section and the main story on the gap in longevity between the upper class rich in a Virginia suburb, and the poverty stricken in McDowell, West Virginia. The latter, on average, live ten years LESS than the former.   This resonates with the point made by Hiltzik that  "life expectancies are very sensitive to social and economic status".  But, if Ms. Butt Brain has her way, virtually none of the poverty stricken seniors would see a single dime.

Second, one doesn't even have to delve into the senior poverty demographic to see what the elderly are still up against.  That is, because of the widespread practice of age-ism by companies (often letting workers go at age 50-55 before they can amass sufficient savings)  the senior American is faced with a yawning gulf between what he needs in any retirement scenario and what he actually has.

The AARP Magazine (March, 2014, p. 49) referenced this and noted, for example, that even in an ideal condition, a 55 or older American who's successfully saved via  his 401k will have about $269,500 total put away. However, though this sounds like a hefty sum one must bear in mind that $220,000 of that will be "needed to cover medical expenses for a 65-year old couple entering retirement." That leaves roughly $49,500 to live off another 25-30 years and we aren't even including possible nursing home stays - say if the senior falls and fractures a hip. In other words, if Abby's genius idea of adding ten more years to collect benefits was realized the couple would be in the shitter.  They'd likely have to use the money saved for living expenses, and - if they got seriously ill - have to beg, borrow or whatever from their kids to get help. Don't forget here that Medicare, which idiots call an "entitlement",  actually only pays a fraction of medical expenses. For major operations it's only 80% and it pays nada, not one dime, for dental work - which is no mere "luxury" when one is older. (Poor nutrition exacerbates many existing health problems and creates others.)

But according to The Center for Retirement Research at Boston College (ibid.), the typical account size for a worker now nearing retirement is  only $42,000. Worse, 55% of current workers have no employment based saving at all, usually because they have been stuck in low wage scut jobs that pay minimal wage only and haven't been able to escape.  AARP's own analysis found that three fourths of Americans between 55 and 64 have less than $30,000 socked away. According to the article:

"It all adds up to a $6.6 trillion gap between what we have and what we need."

In other words, if Social Security doesn't help to fill that gap, millions of seniors will be in penury. Indeed, the effects will even rebound on Huntsman's own Millennial generation if her nutso ideas are adopted.  Her idiotic claim that we need to cut Social Security, or else there will be "nothing left when it comes time for millennials to retire" is the most blatant exposure of her stupidity. In truth, we need to EXPAND Social Security benefits. (The best way is simply to increase the FICA payroll tax threshold, say to $650,000.)

But even if we don't,  the truth is that Social Security as it is can pay out full benefits through 2033, and 75 percent of benefits through 2087.  In other words, even when Abby is a doddering old lady of 104 she will be able to collect 75% of what seniors do today.

Little Miss Abby whines and whines about "all the spending" but if she pulled her head out of her ass long enough she'd grasp and see that the federal budget game isn't stacking her Gen Y bunch against my Boomers, but rather BOTH our groups against the Military Industrial Complex, which is sucking us all dry. See e.g.
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-military-industrial-complex-still.html

She believes the enemy of her Millennials getting their S.S. due is greedy seniors, but in fact it is the Military -defense contractor budget that insists on propping up an empire with 4,400 bases scattered across the globe.  These fools seemingly don't understand it wasn't so much barbarians that brought down the Roman Empire but military overstretch.

The next time Abby or any other overpaid, blabbering bimbo thinks of playing the "generational war" meme they need to be reminded of the following:

- Seven million children currently live with grandparents - who depend on Social Security to care for them

- 8.5 million other children (including college kids that find themselves jobless and live at home) who live with elder parents that depend on Social Security to make do.

- The tens of millions of 50-plus Americans who, through their tax dollars and Social Security monies, pensions, provide voluntary contributions to support public schools, child health programs, grandparent guardianship programs as well as other charities that care for homeless kids (e.g. Covenant House).

 Concocting war between the generations, pitting young against old, therefore serves no useful or moral purpose. It is merely a cheap, malicious tactic to deflect attention from the REAL problem: the malignant growth of the Military Industrial Complex to the detriment of all of us outside it!

If Abby  Huntsman can't finally get this into her hard head, maybe NBC- MSNBC needs to find another more appropriate venue for her.  Say like hosting Saturday morning kiddie cartoons!

See also:
 http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/thom-hartmann/54880/abby-huntsman-promotes-the-wall-street-banksters-big-lie