Comments on: Healthcare.gov

Healthcare.gov

mccarty.tim — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 14:28:48 -0800

On July 1st, the US Department of Health and Human Services launched the website Healthcare.gov to explain changes that will occur by 2014 because of healthcare reform. It describes the reforms, and also suggests options for those who need insurance. Meanwhile, there are 80 signatures on a congressional petition by Rep. Steve King (R-IA) to repeal the bill via the House. The petition was started with the support of the Heritage Foundation.

By: blucevalo

blucevalo — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 14:32:04 -0800

I'm not picturing 218 signatures materializing, no matter how psyched King says he is about the 80 who've signed so far. Now, come back in November, and it might be a different story.

By: filthy light thief

filthy light thief — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 14:43:06 -0800

The Heritage Foundation: making me loathe that cheeky retro font since 1973.

By: ND¢

ND¢ — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 14:43:55 -0800

I think the phrase "to repeal the bill via the House" is a bit misleading. First, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is a federal statute, not a bill. Second, it's not like if 218 house members sign this discharge petition the PPACA is no more.

By: mccarty.tim

mccarty.tim — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 15:01:19 -0800

Okay, if a mod wants to fix the language, go for it.

By: Thorzdad

Thorzdad — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 15:03:01 -0800

Now, come back in November, and it might be a different story. Honestly...I'm beginning to think that November is going to mark the point where, after a brief two-year breather, the country dove even deeper down the batshitinsane conservative rabbit hole. It's just going to get ugly. "I really miss the moderate Bush years" ugly. I can't find it right now, but, which Congresscritter has already announced that, if the Republicans take a majority in the mid-terms, that he will launch a Watergate-style investigation of the Obama administration?

By: hippybear

hippybear — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 15:03:52 -0800

Why do they even need a petition? Can't a house member just draft a bill, put it forward into the agenda, get it voted on, etc etc? What is the point of that petition other than grandstanding for the mid-term elections, seeking to appease the Teabagger voters?

By: mygothlaundry

mygothlaundry — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 15:09:41 -0800

What a lovely site. They just told me that if I need health care I can probably find a charity clinic that might take care of some of my healthcare needs. That's so sweet. I adore waiting in line outside for three hours to maybe see one of the doctors at ABCCM if they have enough and aren't too busy. When I'm there I also get to hear about Jesus, which is just so kind. Things are so different now that we have healthcare in this country. It's not like it was before at all. Thanks, US government for once more really looking out for my needs! so so fucking sick of hamburgers but sometimes it's just all there is to eat

By: ND¢

ND¢ — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 15:12:15 -0800

Yes its grandstanding and playing to the teabaggers, but no a house member cannot just draft a bill and bring it to a vote on the floor. A discharge petition is a means of bringing a bill out of committee and to the floor for consideration without a report from a Committee and usually without cooperation of the leadership. They are used when the chair of a committee refuses to place a bill or resolution on the Committee's agenda; by never reporting a bill, the matter will never leave the committee and the full House will not be able to consider it. A successful petition "discharges" the committee from further consideration of a bill or resolution and brings it directly to the floor. To learn more about obscure procedural mechanisms of government, visit your local wikipedia.

By: mccarty.tim

mccarty.tim — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 15:17:28 -0800

So, is there any real chance that they're going to repeal the bill? I mean, between ending pre-existing conditions and closing the donut hole (it's still doing that, right?), it sounds like a lot of people are going to end up liking and/or needing this bill. It sounds to me like the whole "repeal" thing is just a gambit to win more votes in November, and by then people might not even care anymore. I'm not saying the Democrats won't lose seats. I just don't think people are going to hate this bill enough to want it gone by the time Republicans take back (some of) the House.

By: vorfeed

vorfeed — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 15:18:47 -0800

I'm not picturing 218 signatures materializing, no matter how psyched King says he is about the 80 who've signed so far. And even if they do, the bill still has to pass the House. This may as well be on Facebook: "Do you wanna tell Obama NO on HALTHCARE? [ ] YES <3 [ ] NO :((( [ ] ASK AGAIN IN NOVERMBER!!! Share this with a Representative!"

By: eriko

eriko — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 15:28:44 -0800

Can't a house member just draft a bill, put it forward into the agenda, get it voted on, etc etc? They can, but it will immediately be sent to a committee, tabled and ignored. (Brits: Tabled means the exact opposite in the US as it does in the UK.) However, if you can get 218 signatures on discharge petition, then the committee's work is discharged and the bill comes immediately to the floor of the House.

By: thewittyname

thewittyname — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 15:31:03 -0800

Despite their rhetoric, most Republicans in Congress were loathe to sign on to a complete repeal effort because they know parts of the bill (like banning rescissions and allowing children to use their parent's health insurance up to age 26) were too popular to oppose without ramifications. However, many outside right-wing interest groups, along with a few core conservatives in Congress like King, have grown even more opposed to the bill over time. The tipping point here has been that both the Heritage Foundation and the US Chamber of Commerce have announced that signing this petition will be a factor in their scorecards/voting guides for this year's election. Since these ratings carry real weight with the Republican base, many members of Congress have now signed on. IMO, this won't translate over into any real legislative action. Not even in the Republican party's wildest dreams do they capture the 2/3 majorities in both chambers necessary to override Obama's certain veto of a repeal bill.

By: octothorpe

octothorpe — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 15:35:18 -0800

The healthcare bill is based on a plan by the freaking Heritage foundation in the first place. But a Democrat enacts it and now they're against it.

By: mccarty.tim

mccarty.tim — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 15:41:29 -0800

Source octothorpe?

By: homunculus

homunculus — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 15:43:16 -0800

Steve King's Sixth Sense

By: ND¢

ND¢ — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 15:44:16 -0800

I'm really going to need people to stop referring to the federal law titled the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act as a bill. Previously.

By: Skygazer

Skygazer — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 15:44:53 -0800

Thorzdad: Honestly...I'm beginning to think that November is going to mark the point where, after a brief two-year breather, the country dove even deeper down the batshitinsane conservative rabbit hole. Well that's the narrative the GOP and the Tea Baggers are desperately wanting to put out there, but if there's any rabbit hole the batshitinsane conservative movement is going down it's one of inarticulate enraged extremism and irrelevance. The GOP is coming apart at the seams trying to hold on to it's 30% wacko-base and shedding any sort of center presence. They're ideologically and intellectually bankrupt and have shown themselves again and again to be the party of the powerful, the wealthy and the corporations, with the latest bit of lunacy going to Rep. Joe Barton who apologized to BP. I'm not saying it's going to be easy or anyone should rest on their laurels, but really who the hell does the GOP or the TP movement represent now? Certainly not the youth vote, or the Hispanic vote or women voters or people in creative industry. They represent a evolutionarily challenged block of old angry white racists who have no idea what they want other than to "TAKE THEIR COUNTRY BACK!" Blah blah...blah.... They're in a quandary. They can't move to the middle and alienate the base and they can't move any further into complete outer space batshit territory without alienating anyone with half a brain.

By: octothorpe

octothorpe — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 15:56:23 -0800

mccarty.tim: "Source octothorpe?" Nancy Polosi.

By: treepour

treepour — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 17:46:02 -0800

I've been completely apathetic about politics since prop 8. Sorry, but it was so unbelievably demoralizing to have the the gay marriage victory taken away, and it was doubly demoralizing to hear Ken Starr argue successfully that, in effect, minority rights are just as quaint of a notion as civil rights have become post 9/11. But I'm derailing a bit. My point is that my first thought upon learning that healthcare reform passed was "Oh, I wonder how long its going to take to reverse it and/or completely eviscerate it through less obvious means." The only political/cultural battle that seems worth fighting to me nowadays is the battle against the incursion of fundamentalist religion into American politics, civil society, and education. That's the real cancer undermining our democracy, IMO, and I don't expect anything to get better in the long run (indeed, I expect things to get much worse) until secularism takes the reigns of political and social discourse away from the theocrats.

By: hippybear

hippybear — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 17:58:56 -0800

By: vapidave

vapidave — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 18:37:12 -0800

Nope. The first round exhausted everyone and there have been no effects from the bill yet so there is nothing to point to and the BP disaster was timed by fate to demonstrate the nature of corporations. Immigration might have been something to point to for the R party but then Arizona went nuts. They are struggling more than I have seen. But that's not what I want to say. "Honestly...I'm beginning to think that November is going to mark the point where, after a brief two-year breather, the country dove even deeper down the batshitinsane conservative rabbit hole." What I want to say is stop being such a fucking Democrat. I suffer from the same affliction but you know maybe things can get better. I'll join you in looking for our new windmill if we can get to that point.

By: webhund

webhund — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 21:59:15 -0800

"I'm not picturing 218 signatures materializing, no matter how psyched King says he is about the 80 who've signed so far. Now, come back in November, and it might be a different story." Actually, the numbers would be a lot higher than than, blucevalo. Setting aside for a minute the fact that this thing will never see the light of day beyond a sub-sub-sub-committee, let's assume the thing somehow does pass the House with 218 signatures and let's assume (because we can make our assumptions as kooky and wacko as King) that it somehow also passes the Senate and ends up on Obama's desk. What's he going to do? Veto the damn thing ASAP. Which means, the only way this could ever become law would be through a veto override, which would require 290 votes in the House and 66 in the Senate. FWIW, the CRS says only 10% of all legislation since the formation of these United States is enacted through a veto override. (King is a laughingstock around these parts of Iowa (I'm not in his district), but he's still an utter embarrassment to us. I remember when Iowa used to get on The Daily Show for progressive things like gay marriage; now it's just Krazy King's ridiculous statement-o-the-day.)

By: paulinsanjuan

paulinsanjuan — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 01:23:59 -0800

" Last year, a $1 million lifetime cap on health care expenses meant nothing more than fine print on an insurance policy to Jim Bucher. "I never thought I'd hit that," Bucher said. "Who's going to spend a million dollars?" That was before his 6-year-old son, Landon, was diagnosed with leukemia in July." This is a pretty good article talking about some of the substantive changes that will take place this year with health care reform.

By: treepour

treepour — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 01:30:19 -0800

Bust out of that mindset. Otherwise, "they" have won. They have won (temporarily at least). We can theoretically take it back, but I'm not sure we can do so through direct political action or social demonstration. As I said further down in my comment, I think the battleground has shifted from liberal-conservative to secular-religious, and I don't see any progress being made in the former until real progress is made on the latter.

By: mccarty.tim

mccarty.tim — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 07:18:25 -0800

Trust me. We will eventually win on gay marriage. The younger generations don't care about gay marriage. Even the religious young adults generally don't see the point in the government enforcing their definition of marriage, unless they're really into regurgitating talking points from Pastor and the FRC. I think it's very likely that most states will have gay marriage within 5 years. Within 10 years, I expect nearly all states in the union will have legalized gay marriage, to be followed shortly by legislation or a supreme court decision to bring it to all 50 states. Society has recently accepted that gays are people, too, and it's just taking a while for the conservatives and the government to catch on. The conservatives are losing. They know it. They are terrified. Don't lose hope, because that's our greatest weapon against them, and they're doing everything they can to squash it.

By: vapidave

vapidave — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 18:05:40 -0800

Oops. Thorzdad I had only read until about 7 comments beyond yours before I posted mine. I apologize for piling on there. I hope I wasn't too offensive. And as to what mccarty.tim said directly above I agree. Of course it can't happen soon enough but the evidence that homosexuality or sexuality period is becoming less of an issue, especially to younger people, is overwhelming.