So the affordable care act is deemed to be constitutional by the highest court in the land,with the republican appointed chief justice siding with the majority, win for the American people right?
Well not if you are a republican, like medicare, Medicaid, social security and every other federal plan which aids the poor and dispossessed, republicans have taken to the airwaves with fear-mongering and lies, “it’s a tax , it’s a tax, the president has visited a monumental tax on the American people”. The only thing is that it is a total lie.
The US Supreme Court has ruled that the Affordable Care Act (Obama care) is unconstitutional under the commerce clause. Chief Justice Roberts sided with Associate Justices, Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy, and Alito.
Hence the initial euphoric shrieks and cries of joy coming from the right when networks like FOX and CNN announced the decision without digging deeper into the ruling.
The ruling went further however, the court ruled that under the taxing authority the law is indeed constitutional.
The old republican nay-sayers were immediately on the doom and gloom message, “Obama has just imposed a massive tax on the American people”. Leading the charge was Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell the old curmudgeon from Kentucky, remember him? yes the same Mitch Mc Connell whose sole responsibility is to make president Obama a one term president, not look after the people’s business, remember him?
Other Senate obstructionists like Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn a medical Doctor and others were out trumpeting the tax narrative.
One thing the lame stream media does not bother to ask is, “do you gentlemen and gentle ladies at the top of the federal food-chain have good medical insurance”? “Do you have to visit emergency rooms to get medical care”? Do you get dumped from Insurance plans because you have pre-existing conditions”? “Do your kids have to forgo insurance because they are not working”?
The truth is, what passes for media are just corporate entities in the pockets and owned by the very people republicans represent, so don’t hold your breath waiting for those questions. Conversely what you may well hear is the same media trumpeting the campaign talking points of the Romney campaign. David Gregory in an interview on the NBC Sunday morning talk show “Meet the Press” all but told ‚rather than ask House minority leader Nancy Pelosi it was a tax. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032608/.
The real issue is, why do republicans who are paid by tax dollars, paid very well, have top-tier medical Insurance , better than the average American with health Insurance, but does not want the middle-class and the poor to have health insurance?
And of course those of you who are familiar with these blogs know that my next question then becomes as always, “how does republicans manage to convince people to militate and vote against their own self-interest”?
Mitt Romney President Barack Obama
Like other significant legislation which has moved this country forward, ending slavery, ending Jim Crowe, school integration, and other social programs I articulated above , republicans have fought tooth and nail to prevent progress.
True to their (modus operandi), a group of republican Governors Wisconsin’s Scott Walker, Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal, South Carolina’s Nicky Haley, Florida’s Rick Scott, and New Jersey’s blow-hard Cris Christie has pontificated that they will not abide by the law, in essence they will not move to set up exchanges as dictated by this affordable care act.
This means that American citizens living in these states without health insurance, will be precluded from getting the care they need, because their republican governors have decided to put politics and far right lunatic ideology over common sense, their health and ultimately their very lives.
What these governors will not acknowledge is that whether they decided to obey federal Law or not, it will be enacted, the federal government will step in to set up the exchanges whether these ideologues agree or not, so as they pontificate about not needing the federal government intervening in their states, by default, they are actually inviting federal authority into the aforementioned states.
One wonders if states like Louisiana with its poverty and low percentage of health insured, New Jersey a blue state, really want this kind of posturing from their elected leaders?
Jindal Walker Haley
Scott Christie
Let’s look at the facts, experts have said even if we argue that it is a tax as it is deemed constitutional, only about 1 – 2 % of people who have no insurance, will pay a of what amounts to about $95.
The truth is, there is evidence that this whole health care idea came out of the ultra-conservative think-tank Heritage Foundation, and is the cornerstone of Romney-care the signature accomplishment of Mitt Romney republican candidate for president in the state of Massachusetts
This presents a conundrum for Romney, as former contender Rick Santorum alluded during the primaries Mitt Romney was the worst candidate republicans could field to go up against the president, exactly because of Romney-care.
It was no surprise then that despite the all out assault by republican elected leaders and their plants in the lame-stream media, by Monday morning July 2nd senior Romney campaign adviser Eric (etch-a-sketch)
Fehrnstrom was on MSNBC telling NBC’s Chuck Todd that Romney agrees with the president and democrats that the penalty in the law which would penalize so-called free riders is not a tax but indeed a penalty. I wonder how Mitch McConnell, Coburn and others will remove the egg from their faces?
Romney knows fully well that he will be totally incapable of articulating a path forward being the creator of Romney-care, in support of which he stated emphatically and categorically that the penalty was not a tax.
Obviously the obstructionists in the House Senate and lame-street media did not get the memo.>
I really get that a country which is still majority white could resist the emancipation of slaves, the removal of Jim Crowe laws, school integration, and the civil rights act.
I get that, but how is getting insurance when you had none a bad thing?
Most democrats correctly believe that the government have a right and indeed a duty to help the most vulnerable, not with hand-outs but with hands-up.
Most republicans conversely believe that government should have no role in helping the poor,dispossessed or helpless, they fundamentally believe that those roles should be left up to charities , churches, and other NGO’s and for those who cannot access help from the aforementioned/Well tough, they are out of luck.
Republicans fundamentally espouse the narrative that those who are not rich or well-off are sloven sloths who failed to take advantage of the greatest system in the world as they see it, Capitalism.
On that basis, those people are probably better off not getting any help , in other words they have no use for the poor.