Republican Rejection Of Reality

Krugman and Friend

Paul Krugman comments on the extreme ideological obsession Republicans have in two areas, health care and monetary policy, and their utter refusal to accommodate reality in either area. He gauges right‑wing views based on the hate mail in his inbox, a source most of us small-time blog owners don't have in anything near the quantity Krugman sustains:

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... is what I see a lot in my inbox (and in my reading): the furious insistence that nothing resembling a government guarantee of health insurance can possibly work.

That’s a curious belief to hold, given the fact that every other advanced country has such a guarantee, and that we ourselves have a 45-year-old single-payer system for seniors that has worked pretty well all this time. But nothing makes these people as angry as the suggestion that Obamacare might actually prove workable.

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Indeed that is a curious belief, and a simple, compelling debunking. We already have such a system, which unfortunately we have limited to old people, and even the success of that system sends some right‑wing nut‑jobs shrieking about socialism and "death panels" (hearing Palin's atrociously stupid phrase, I can't help imagining Captain Kirk delivering the line, "Scotty! it's all those tribbles, hiding behind the death panels!"). Putting aside the wingnut demagoguery, the only thing that is "wrong" with the concept of Medicare for all is that it puts the insurance companies out of business.

And Krugman on inflation:

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As I said, the other issue where I see this kind of enraged denial is monetary policy. There are a lot of people on the right who know, just know, that the Fed is debasing the dollar and creating runaway inflation. This belief doesn’t seem to have been dented at all by five years of failed predictions of inflation just around the corner.

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I believe Krugman is as tired of the endless nut‑job repetition of fantasy horror stories as I am. And I think someone as inclined to accept actual socialism for some obvious governmental functions as I am would recognize it if it ever arrived in the morning email.

Krugman's conclusion:

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On both the healthcare and inflation fronts, what you have to conclude is that there are a large number of people who find reality — the reality that governments are actually pretty good at providing health insurance, that fiat money can be a useful tool of economic management rather than the road to socialist disaster — just unacceptable. I think that in both cases it has to do with the underlying desire to see market outcomes as moral imperatives.

And I suppose there have always been such people out there. What’s new is that these days they control one of our two major political parties.

Damned if they don't. As Americans seems stuck in a permanent two‑party system, they can't really afford one party comprising unbridled economic right‑wing extremists. But I don't see how we get rid of them any time soon.

Boehner Fails, Falls Upward, Successfully Enrolls In Obamacare

Josh Marshall, editor of TPM:

Late last week Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) made a big show of trying but failing to sign up for Obamacare because of the notoriously buggy website. (Actually he appears to have been using the DC exchange site.) He even did a special tweet noting his hopeless situation. Not terribly surprising given the frustrating experiences so many have had.

Actually, it turns out he had successfully enrolled and got a call confirming that about an hour after his tweet. But it gets better.

According to Scott MacFarlane, a reporter for the local NBC affiliate in Washington, reports that a DC Health Care exchange representative actually tried to contact Boehner by phone during the enrollment process but was put on hold for 35 minutes, after which time the representative finally hung up.

Boehner is really a royal son-of-a-bleep, isn't he?

AFTERTHOUGHT: last week, I had a 100% successful encounter with a different federal government website, and I now have a Medicare card in my pocket. Yes, I made two phone calls to the SocSec-Medicare help line, but both were content-related, as the website itself worked flawlessly. Boehner's experience just goes to show that if you want government to fail, it can be made to fail. My experience shows that it doesn't have to.

Medicare Application: One Small Step For A Man...

... hardly a giant leap for mankind, but at least one man has taken one step toward getting into the Medicare system. I ran into only one technological glitch in the application process: I had to pause my sign-up to ask Stella a question about our current insurance; when I came back to sign in again, there was a mysterious obstacle. When the help line called me back (better than waiting on the phone for the advertised 55 minutes), I explained the problem. Try again, they said; although I had already tried three times, I did as they asked, and it worked. I'm guessing there was something keeping my previous session alive, though for the (session) life of me, I couldn't have told you what it was. Perhaps it had to do with the partial Social Security sign-up one must do even if signing up only for Medicare.

One recommendation to anyone else about to face medicare.gov for initial sign-up: don't try to learn everything before you try to do anything. It isn't possible; it is exasperating, and it isn't necessary. I tried yesterday only to end up a basket case; I abandoned the attempt for the day. If you try reading the entire "Medicare and You" pamphlet as an introduction, you'll end up screaming in frustration. Being led by dialogs through the process today worked pretty well when I got around to trying it. And there appears to be no penalty for not having all your ducks in a row before you start the process: they'll tell you what they need that you've forgotten.

Now I have to decide on some options and pick a plan. I have an idea, but I'm waiting for some info from Stella's brother, who just went through the same process. I'll let you know what happens.

Obamacare As Kludge

Paul Krugman discusses how Obamacare and Medicare got where they are with the "help" of the GOP and concludes:

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No, the assault on Medicare is really about an ideology that is fundamentally hostile to the notion of the government helping people, and tries to make whatever help is given as limited and indirect as possible, restricting its scope and running it through private corporations. And this ideology, at a fundamental level — more fundamental, even, than vested interests — is why Obamacare ended up being a big kludge.

... For now, the priority is to get this kludge working, and once that’s done, America will become a better place.

In the longer run, however, we have to tackle that ideology. A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn’t have to be that way.

Your economic wellbeing,
GOP model

The GOP ideology Krugman refers to pitches the same shit Republicans have been pitching for decades. It's no more true now than it was in my childhood; it makes no more sense regarding Medicare and Obamacare now than it ever did about Republican plans (if one can dignify, e.g., Paul Ryan's fantasy with the word "plan") for the economy.

If the GOP withers and goes to ground, America may become healthy for the short time (IMHO) before global climate change hammers us for good and all. But if the GOP continues its minority rule by a relatively small group of crazies in one chamber of one branch of government, we aren't going to last even that long. People driven to the desperation of joblessness, homelessness and hunger aren't as particular about whether their approaches to redress are good for the whole society or not, and even Republicans, whatever they may actually believe, cannot live in the chaos that will inevitably ensue.

Raise Medicare Age To Save Cost? No Significant Savings, Says CBO

TPM's Sahil Kapur:

Raising the Medicare eligibility age to 67 saves far less than previously projected, a revelation that makes the policy far less attractive in upcoming deficit reduction negotiations in Congress.

The long-debated policy now cuts the deficit by just $19 billion over a decade, according to a report released Thursday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Last year, the same policy -- of gradually lifting the eligibility age by two months every year until it reached 67 -- was found by the CBO to save $113 billion over the same time period.

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Part of the reason for the low savings is Obamacare. Moving 66- and 65-year-olds off Medicare means they'll likely be eligible for federal subsidies or the expanded Medicare program under the 2010 law. But a larger part of the reason for the dramatic drop since last year, according to one expert, is that the CBO appears to have fixed a technical error.

"They were previously basing their estimates of the average costs of the 65-66 year olds who would no longer be on Medicare on the average costs of ALL 65 and 66 year old Medicare beneficiaries," said Loren Adler, the research director at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, "which includes disabled and end stage renal disease beneficiaries who are clearly far more expensive than your average 65 or 66 year old."

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(Bolds mine. - SB)

There was little enough reason to increase the Medicare eligibility age before the discovery of this error. Now you'd have to be crazy to support it... oh, wait; one could say "now you'd have to be Republican":

A top House Republican budget aide declined to comment.

Right. Admit your insanity by silence rather than admit the truth.

How Would A Government Shutdown Affect You?

Of course, if you're a federal worker, you may (or may not) be furloughed, and you will be informed Friday about your status for Monday. Some essential services will be continued... national security, etc. But some of us will still feel the effect:

Not all of government would cease to operate. Services considered critical to national security, safety and health would go on as usual, such as border patrol, law enforcement and emergency and disaster assistance. Social Security and Medicare benefits would keep coming, for example, but there likely would be delays in processing new applications. [Bolds mine. - SB]

Oops... that last clause applies to me. I had just begun gathering my documents in preparation for a trip to the local SSA/Medicare office (it's near our house, and in-person often works better) when I read about this... I suppose I won't know until tomorrow afternoon, or maybe even Monday. It really gives me a sense of confidence :-( in the government programs that are supposed to provide me a livelihood and health care before too long...

(Yes, folks, I finally gave up and created a post category for "Government Shutdown"! Is that my expression of... what did Obama call it... "the oh-dash-it-all of hope"?)

Proposed Medicare Changes: Getting Some Seniors' Skin In The Game Grave

Digby at Hullabaloo explains the underlying arguments for three or four different ways that Medicare costs can be shifted onto seniors themselves. The proposal seems to have emerged from Sen. Bob Corker (R‑Tenn., and you thought Bill Frist was bad) and Rep. Eric Cantor (R‑Va., now there's a man to make your skin crawl), and is based on the notion that Medicare recipients premeditatedly consume more medical care than is really necessary because they are insulated from the costs by Medicare.

Holy (bleep)! Only a Republican... nah. Obama seems to believe that, too: Force seniors to have some "skin in the game" and they'll use less medical care.

Taxpayers' worst enemy? Really?

Republicans... and of course Obama and some Democrats... want to make seniors pay more of their medical care costs.

Right. Seniors will have more skin in the game; they'll also die sooner, unless they are independently wealthy. Remind me... what demographic does the Republican Party represent? And what party is Obama a member of? Really? Are you sure?

But it's all OK because it wouldn't kick in until 2016... by which time Obama is (presumably) leaving office and newly minted seniors won't know what hit them.

Read Digby's entire post; it examines several aspects of the bipartisan "kill Medicare" movement in detail, and reminds me why I am no longer a money-giving, card-carrying member of the Democratic Party. Would Rmoney have been worse on this issue than Obama is turning out to be? Maybe, but not by much. Digby's conclusion:

Basically, if this is part of some big budget deal (Grand Bargain) it means they're making Medicare recipients pay down the deficit. They don't anticipate any blowback from the Democrats since it's a Democratic president who's proposing it and they figure that since it will go into affect in 2016, after the president is out of office, the dumbshits who enter Medicare after that won't know the difference and he won't get blamed. It's all good.

Seniors are old and decrepit; I speak from personal experience. There's no way seniors could go on a rampage nationwide, starting riots in every major city, holding members of Congress hostage until they cease this utter bullshit and treat the cohort that paid most of the nation's bills over the past 40 years or so like they were human beings. Oh, no, they could never do that... [/snark]

Just What We Need

Krugman:

So, is my timing good or not? Right after I warn about the risk that Democrats, including the president, might betray the mandate they seem likely to get for preserving the safety net, we learn that Senate leaders are at work on a plan based around, well, you guessed it:

[Krugman then quotes Jonathan Weisman at NYT, who examines possible outcomes of attempts to avert the sadly misnamed "fiscal cliff" triggered by last year's budget negotiation failure, and finds an outcome distressingly similar to Bowles/Simpson. - SB]

Just to say, this would be politically stupid as well as a betrayal of the electorate. If you don’t think Republicans would turn around and accuse Democrats of cutting Social Security — probably even before the ink was dry — you’ve been living under a rock.

Bowles/Simpson 'Nest Egg'
Social Security Plan

Yes, Mr. President, that would be politically ill-advised.

If you want to risk your lead in the polls for a real-world result that no one with an income under a half-million bucks a year wants to see, by all means, let this misbegotten effort go forward.

If, on the other hand, you want to keep the "votingest" part of your base... senior citizens... talk to the "Senate leaders" with whom you have the most influence and attempt to avert this catastrophe.

AFTERTHOUGHT: Dean Baker, co-director of CEPR (Center for Economic and Policy Research), has cross-posted an article on CEPR and TruthOut titled "Does President Obama Want to Cut Social Security by 3 Percent?" Sadly, given Obama's repeated advocacy of Bowles-Simpson, the answer appears to be yes:

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One of the items in the Bowles-Simpson plan is a reduction in the annual cost-of-living adjustment of roughly 0.3 percentage points. This would be accomplished by using a different index that, by design, would show a lower measured rate of inflation. It is important to recognize that this is an annual cut that would accumulate over time. After a retiree has been receiving benefits for 10 years the cut would be 3.0 percent, after 20 years it would be 6 percent. If a typical retiree lives long enough to get benefits for 20 years the average benefit cut over their years of retirement would be 3 percent.

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Baker notes that these are not the only cuts to Social Security in Bowles-Simpson, which, remember, has Mr. Obama's support:

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... The plan also would gradually raise the age at which retirees receive full benefits to 69. It also phases in a reduction in benefits for workers whose earnings averaged more than $40,000 a year over their working lifetime.

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Sixty-nine is an age to which many people simply do not live, especially people in lower socioeconomic classes with less access to health care during their working years. And reducing benefits for workers who earned an average of over $40,000 a year... really a very modest income by today's standards... seems grossly unfair in light of tax cuts for the oligarchy that have been passed since G.W. Bush took office in 2001.

If Mr. Obama wants the support of Morgan Stanley board member Bowles and retired wealthy Republican Sourpuss, er, Senator Simpson, I'm sure he's got it. If he wants the votes of a substantial majority of seniors in November, I'm not so sure. Perhaps he needs to rethink the matter.

CPPP: If Rick Perry Accepted Texas Participation In ACA, Texas Uninsured Count Would Be Cut In Half

According to a new report, Choices and Challenges, issued by the Center for Public Policy Priorities (press release [.pdf], full report [.pdf]), thanks to "Gov. Goodhair" Perry's rejection back in July, along with other Republican governors, of his state's full participation in all parts of the Affordable Care Act, we are losing an opportunity to cut Texas's uninsured rate in half.

In other words, half of the people in Texas who have no medical insurance now would be able to obtain insurance, if Gov. Perry would relent on his heartless commitment to... well, to whom, exactly? His refusal is even bad for the state's health care industry! ThinkProgress put it this way back in July:

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Perry’s announcement is an especially harmful move because Texas will benefit more from the Affordable Care Act than any other state. Texas was recently ranked worst in the country for health care delivery by the federal Agency for Health Care Research and Quality, scoring “weak” or “very weak” in nine of 12 categories. Perry’s office discounted the study as overly broad, and has argued that Texans’ real problem is personal health choices, not lack of health insurance.

More than 25 percent of Texans – 6,234,900 people – are uninsured, the highest rate in the nation. ...

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Between Perry's dismissal of people's need for medical insurance (reminiscent of the CEO of Whole Paycheck a few years ago) and Mitt Rmoney's remarks about the 47% who are dependent on the government, this seems to be "National Republican Blame‑the‑Victim Week." They really are proper bastards, aren't they?

So WTF are Perry and three other Republican governors thinking? Matthew DeLuca at The Daily Beast attempts to answer that question:

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Perry may not like the idea of expanding Medicaid,  ... Some studies show that without the Affordable Care Act, the number of uninsured Texans could climb all the way to one third of the population.

Health care is one of the state’s biggest industries, and hospitals in Texas are likely to push hard in the coming months to get the Lone Star State to take Obamacare into its warm embrace. ...

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Let me insert a note: a quick glance does not show any change in Perry's position since July (ThinkProgress Aug. 27, Dallas Morning News Sep. 17). Resuming DeLuca:

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The Affordable Care Act is supposed to go into full effect in 2014, but Perry says he will not implement the expansion of Medicaid or creation of a state health-care exchange prescribed by the law. ...

“To expand this program is like adding a thousand people to the Titanic,” Perry said Monday on Fox News. “You don’t expand a program that is not working already.”

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Could we please arrange for a deck chair for Gov. Perry? His disinclination to implement federal law (even if he is legally entitled... can I say "entitled" about a Republican?) reminds me of the Tea Party, or worse. Say, could we arrange for the TP to make up the rest of the "thousand people"?

Krugman On Rmoney/Ryan's 'Vouchercare'

Krugman at the NYT:

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But back to the big lie. The Republican Party is now firmly committed to replacing Medicare with what we might call Vouchercare. The government would no longer pay your major medical bills; instead, it would give you a voucher that could be applied to the purchase of private insurance. And, if the voucher proved insufficient to buy decent coverage, hey, that would be your problem.

Moreover, the vouchers almost certainly would be inadequate; their value would be set by a formula taking no account of likely increases in health care costs.

Why would anyone think that this was a good idea? The G.O.P. platform says that it “will empower millions of seniors to control their personal health care decisions.” Indeed. Because those of us too young for Medicare just feel so personally empowered, you know, when dealing with insurance companies.

Still, wouldn’t private insurers reduce costs through the magic of the marketplace? No. All, and I mean all, the evidence says that public systems like Medicare and Medicaid, which have less bureaucracy than private insurers (if you can’t believe this, you’ve never had to deal with an insurance company) and greater bargaining power, are better than the private sector at controlling costs.

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George Carlin said it very well: "The invisible hand of Adam Smith seems to offer an extended middle finger to an awful lot of people." I wonder if the late lamented Mr. Carlin ever met Mitt Rmoney or Paul Ryan.