Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Oh, and to hell with pre-existing conditions ban too

by digby

I’ve been hearing a lot of people suggesting that Mitch McConnell has seen the writing on the wall and will not fight the ACA in the Senate. Maybe so. But he sure has a funny way of putting it:

The senior senator from Kentucky, who himself enjoyes government-subsidized insurance as a federal employee, toldthe National Review on Tuesday that the party would do little to help the 129 million people who could be denied insurance because they suffer from a pre-existing condition should the law be repealed. “I’m not convinced that issue needs to be addressed at the federal level,” he said, before praising Republican governors for refusing to implement a provision of the law that expands health coverage to lower-income residents through the Medicaid program.

During the interview, McConnell also confirmed that he planned to repeal Obamacare’s main provisions — like the individual mandate — through reconciliation, a process that allows the Senate can pass budget-related bills with a majority vote

He also said this:

Is there anything more specific on Medicare and Medicaid?

I’m hoping that the states will advantage of the option not to add massive numbers of new people to the Medicaid rolls. I’ve had a couple of town-hall meetings in hospitals this week and I’ve had a number of them over the past year. In Kentucky, we can’t handle the Medicaid patients we already have. Our health-care providers are completely distraught at the notion that, in my state for example, 400,000 people would be added to the Medicaid rolls, with 30 percent of Kentuckians receiving free health care. They can’t handle it. They can’t handle the Medicaid they have now and they certainly can’t handle this. I don’t know what our state government will decide to do, but some governors are saying “thanks, but no thanks,” now that they have the option.

On a final note, what’s your message to conservatives and tea-party activists who are suspicious of Republican leaders and their commitment to repeal?

Boy, I don’t know how they could be suspicious on this issue. Every single Republican in the House and Senate voted against Obamacare. I must have made 125 speeches about it on the floor. If there is any area where I don’t think conservatives of any stripe should be concerned, it would be this one. We’ve been clear and unambiguous about Obamacare from the beginning to the end — all of it. And I led the fight in the Senate, so I know what I’m talking about.

Again, that’s a funny way of saying that they aren’t going to repeal it if they can.

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The luckiest man in world

by digby

Here’s an excellent question. How does one get a hundred million in their IRA?

He may have generated a return of of 30% a year to reach $100 million. Or, in a possibility Kleinbard calls troubling, Romney may have rigged the system. “Complete disclosure would clairfy it,” Kleinbard says. One possibility is that Romney put the money into funds he controlled, then sold them at prices he set. “The question is, did he set the prices at an honest, fair market value? Or did he lowball the prices?”

You have to love the idea of Mitt even having an IRA. It was designed for middle and upper middle class types to save money for retirement not for vulture capitalists worth hundreds of millions to defer taxes — and possibly rig their returns. But hey, whatever works right?

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The Rwandan example

by David Atkins

Tina Rosenberg in the New York Times has another reminder about the dramatic benefits of universal health insurance, this time in post-massacre Rwanda:

Its most impressive gains, however, have been in health. AIDS has been cutting life expectancies in Africa and is widespread in Rwanda. Yet life expectancy at birth in Rwanda has increased from 48 to 58 — in the last 10 years. Deaths of children under 5 have dropped by half in five years; malaria deaths have dropped by roughly two-thirds. “Of all countries in Africa Rwanda is probably getting the closest to having health for all, health access for all,” said Josh Ruxin, a longtime resident of Rwanda who is the founder of the Access Project, a Rwandan-run health program.

One key reason that Rwandans are so much healthier today is the spread of health insurance. In 1999, Rwanda’s health facilities sat unused, as the vast majority of people couldn’t afford them. In response, the Health Ministry began a pilot project of health insurance in three districts. In 2004, the program began to spread across the nation. Now health insurance — called Mutuelle de Santé — is nearly universal. Andrew Makaka, who manages the health financing unit at the Ministry of Health, said that only 4 percent of Rwandans are uninsured.

Mutuelle is a community system — premiums go into a local risk pool and are administered by communities. Until last year, Mutuelle’s premiums were about two dollars a year. This system turned out to be untenable — even two dollars a year was too much for a lot of people. (If you are a rural farmer with an income of some $150 a year, you have to spend every penny on food.)

Last year Mutuelle adopted a sliding scale. For the wealthiest, premiums essentially quadrupled, to about $8 a year. Each visit to a clinic has a co-pay of about 33 cents. If you need to go to the hospital, you pay a tenth of your hospital bill…

But now the poorest — as judged by their communities — pay nothing. The Health Ministry says that the poorest 25 percent of Rwandans get free care.

One of the marks of a truly great country is to heed the experience of others, and to learn by example when others have success. Like truly great people, a truly great nation never stops learning and attempting to improve itself.

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A New Declaration of Independence

by digby

This is one for our time:

The unanimous Declaration of the world’s Normal People (we know who we are),

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for the Normal People of this Planet to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with their Leaders, and to give getting along without Leaders a real Shot, courtesy requires that we should declare the causes of this long-overdue separation, just so we’re all on the same page.

read on …

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As American as apple pie

by digby

Following on David’s founders quotes below, it’s appropriate to also point out that “leftism” and criticism of capitalism is as deeply woven into the fabric of American culture as chauvinism and Jesus.

With the celebration this month of the 100th anniversary of Woody Guthrie’s birth, festivals, academic symposia and new collections of his music are bringing renewed attention to “This Land Is Your Land,” one of the U.S.’s unofficial anthems. And it is becoming more widely recognized that some versions of the song featured lyrics not normally associated with patriotism — words reflecting Guthrie’s communist beliefs.

What may not be so well-known is that “This Land Is Your Land” belongs to an American tradition of patriotic pieces made by critics of capitalism. The authors of the Pledge of Allegiance and “America the Beautiful” also took a distinctly leftist view of the U.S. economic system.

I hate to tell you wingnuts, but we are Americans too.

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Everything he does makes me nervous

by digby

Watch out:

I would have thought that was a cute picture if I weren’t convinced that old Mitt was about to shove that ice cream in the kids face as one of his “practical jokes.”

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Trevor Thomas is in “Vogue” in Michigan

by digby

Hmmm. It looks as though one of the good guys might be pulling ahead. From Gaius Publius at Americablog:

You read the headline correctly. Trevor Thomas, real progressive and candidate for western Michigan’s 3th-district House seat, may easily have a substantial lead over anti-woman Dem candidate Steve Pestka.

(Yes, in this year of Dem fundraising on the “War Against Woman” theme, Pestka is blatantly anti-woman — click to see why.)

Mlive.com has the Trevor–Pestka polls story (h/t Towleroad):

A leading national pollster says underdog Democrat Trevor Thomas can move into a substantial lead in his primary showdown against Steve Pestka, if Thomas can raise the money to spread his message in the district.

Mark Mellman’s firm says a recent 400-person survey of registered Democrats shows Thomas with lower name recognition and overall favorability rating than Pestka.

But when presented with what the firm and the Thomas camp say is a fairly worded description of both men, Thomas surges to a 22-point lead from a 21-16 point deficit.

“Trevor Thomas has a fantastic opportunity to defeat Steve Pestka in Michigan’s 3rd Congressional District in what begins as a close race with a huge number of undecided voters,” Mellman wrote in a memo to the Thomas campaign. “Our poll confirms Thomas has a powerful set of messages at his disposal if he can raise the funds to get that message out.”

Thomas is a great candidate and would be a major addition to the progressive caucus.

As you may know, to help him raise the funds needed Howie has generously donated his own signed Madonna “Vogue” gold platinum record to the cause. [Update: you cannot buy one of these anywhere.] (She’s a Michigan homegirl, you know…) Tomorrow is the day when one lucky Blue America contributor to Trevor’s campaign will win it.

It’s not too late to jump in. The winner will be chosen randomly, it doesn’t matter if you donate a dollar or a hundred dollars. (And anything you can do to help Trevor win his race is already “winning.”)

Donate here for a good cause (and if you’re a Madonna fan,to win a signed gold record.)

Much more on Trevor, here.

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“Deriving their just power from the consent of the governed” (as long as they can prove to Republicans that they’re worthy)

by digby

Happy 4th of July everybody:

One would have thought that after 2000, Americans would have gone out of their way to secure the franchise for the people, made voting simpler, ensured the integrity of the count. Instead we are doing this.

Who’s winning again?

Sorry for the bad mood on the 4th, but well … it’s bad. Democracy itself is under attack. I don’t think Thomas Jefferson had this sort of thing in mind when he wrote the great document.

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Founding fathers quotes you probably haven’t heard

by David Atkins

On July 4th, enjoy some of the less famous quotes from the founders of our country.

Thomas Paine:

Every proprietor, therefore, of cultivated lands, owes to the community ground-rent (for I know of no better term to express the idea) for the land which he holds; and it is from this ground-rent that the fund prod in this plan is to issue.
The property owners owe rent to those who do not own property for the privilege of cultivating the land, and taking away the natural ownership that all people have…

To create a national fund, out of which there shall be paid to every person, when arrived at the age of twenty-one years, the sum of fifteen pounds sterling, as a compensation in part, for the loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property: And also, the sum of ten pounds per annum, during life, to every person now living, of the age of fifty years, and to all others as they shall arrive at that age.

James Madison:

There is an evil which ought to be guarded against in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity by … corporations. The power of all corporations ought to be limited in this respect. The growing wealth acquired by them never fails to be a source of abuses.”

Benjamin Franklin:

All the property that is necessary to a Man, for the Conservation of the Individual and the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right, which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Publick, who, by their Laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire and live among Savages. He can have no right to the benefits of Society, who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it.

Benjamin Franklin again:

Finally, there seem to be but three Ways for a Nation to acquire Wealth. The first is by War as the Romans did in plundering their conquered Neighbours. This is Robbery. The second by Commerce which is generally Cheating…

And finally, a better-known quote from Thomas Jefferson:

“I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government in a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”

Bunch of commies.

Enjoy your 4th of July!

Update: Jon Schwartz at A Tiny Revolution has another great one, this time from John Adams:

[P]ower always follows property. This I believe to be as infallible a maxim in politics, as that action and reaction are equal is in mechanics. Nay, I believe we may advance one step farther, and affirm that the balance of power in a society accompanies the balance of property in land. The only possible way, then, of preserving the balance of power on the side of equal liberty and public virtue is to make the acquisition of land easy to every member of society; to make a division of the land into small quantities, so that the multitude may be possessed of landed estates. If the multitude is possessed of the balance of real estate, the multitude will have the balance of power, and in that case the multitude will take care of the liberty, virtue, and interest of the multitude in all acts of government.

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