Tag: Supreme Court

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Health Care Politics

More Americans To Suffer If Supreme Court Repeal Health Care

Thanks Republicans!!!

Sarah Lewis is fed up with American health care: “I’ve completely removed myself from the system,” she said. “I don’t want to be a patient anymore.”

Lewis, a 55-year-old single mother of two daughters, has been through the wringer. It started with a diagnosis of anal cancer in September 2010. Then came the denials from her insurance company, the fights with the insurer, the hospitals and the doctors over money, and the debt collectors chasing at least $20,000 that she owes. Not to mention the grueling chemotherapy and radiation therapy that, so far, have saved her life. She ultimately gave up on health insurance this year.

“I’m hoping that I don’t get sick again or anything happens because I’m trying to stay out of the system because the system failed me,” said Lewis, who lives in Dover, N.H., and was self-employed as an book indexer but has not worked since she got sick.

The system will likely fail Americans like Lewis again and again, if the Supreme Court overturns President Barack Obama’s health care reform law next week. Without its rules that will prohibit health insurance companies from discriminating against people with pre-existing conditions starting in 2014, Lewis and others who are sick or have suffered serious illnesses in the past can be shut out of the health insurance market. As many as 122 million working-age Americans have pre-existing conditions that could get them rejected by health insurance companies, according to a Government Accountability Office analysis issued in March.

[More]

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Health Care Politics

No Matter What The Supreme Court Decides About Healthcare, Americans Will Be Unhappy

Poll Results

A new Pew Research Poll found that the public is unlikely to be satisfied with the Supreme Court’s upcoming ruling on the 2010 Affordable Care Act – no matter what the Court decides. Whether the Court decides to uphold the entire law, overturn the entire law, or reject the “individual mandate” while allowing the rest of the law to remain in place, fewer than half of Americans say they would be happy with the decision.

The public’s expected reactions track along partisan lines. Most Democrats would be happy if the law is upheld, while most Republicans would be happy if it is thrown out.

But the other widely discussed possibility – that the court could reject the part of the law that requires individuals to have health insurance while keeping the rest – does not satisfy either side. Among Democrats, 35% would be happy with this outcome, while 56% would be unhappy. Republicans, who have consistently opposed the individual mandate, are not much happier: 43% would be happy if the court strips only this provision, while 47% would be unhappy.

 

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Citizens United Politics

Ex Supreme Court Judge Criticizes Citizens United Ruling – Corporations Are Not People My Friends

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens leveled new criticism on Wednesday against the court’s landmark 2010 ruling on campaign financing, saying it had allowed corporations to ramp up spending and non-voters to influence the outcome of elections.

Stevens, who dissented from the “Citizens United” ruling, said it had increased the importance of cash in contested elections, opened the floodgates for foreign campaign spending and put corporations or other out-of-state speakers ahead of voters interested in local issues.

The Supreme Court split along conservative-liberal ideological lines in making the 5-4 ruling in 2010, giving corporations the constitutional free-speech right to spend freely to support or oppose candidates in federal elections.

The ruling triggered a massive increase in spending by wealthy individuals and corporations in federal campaigns ahead of this year’s November 6 presidential and congressional elections.

[Yahoo News]

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Citizens United Politics

The Supreme Court Will Reconsider ‘Citizens United’

The Supreme Court has agreed to take a case that justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer say will give it a chance to rethink its infamous Citizens United v. FEC decision. The court is being asked to look into a Montana Supreme Court decision stating that its law restricting corporate election spending in state elections is fine, because it “arises from Montana history,” UPI reports. Essentially, Montana is arguing that Citizens United only applies to federal laws and elections, not state ones.

Two Montana corporations are asking the court to make a summary judgment to the contrary; their lead counsel argues that otherwise, “free speech will be seriously harmed,” because states anywhere could “ban core political speech.” But Ginsburg and Breyer earlier wrote that the case “will give the Court an opportunity to consider whether, in light of the huge sums currently deployed to buy candidates’ allegiance, Citizens United should continue to hold sway.”

Source: Newser

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Health Care Mitt Romney Politics

Ed Gillespie – Romney’s Campaign Advisor – Lobbied For The Individual Mandate

Ed Gillespie – Mitt Romney’s new campaign adviser – was a lobbyist for a federal individual health insurance mandate two years before President Obama embraced the idea, the Washington Examiner reports.

Gillespie wasn’t just one of CAHR’s lobbyists, he was their Republican headliner, touted in their press releases.

So while Romney can make a federalist distinction about himself — that he supports some state health-insurance mandates, but not federal health-insurance mandates — Romney advisor Gillespie (who did not immediately return my call or email seeking comment) seems stuck admitting he was a for a federal-level mandate when insurers were paying him to be for it, and is against it now that Obama is defending it.

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Health Care Nancy Pelosi Politics Repeal

Nancy Pelosi Predicts Health Care will Survive Supreme Court

In a vote of 6 to 3, the Supreme Court will uphold President Obama’s healthcare reform law, the top House Democrat predicted this week.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said she’d respect whatever the high court decides, but forecasts the verdict would fall for the Democrats.

“I’m predicting 6 to 3 in favor,” Pelosi said during a long interview Tuesday with The Paley Center for Media in New York City, without specifying which justices would rule on which side.

The detailed prediction is something of a change for Pelosi, who has long said the Democrats’ reform law is “ironclad” constitutionally, but has also warned that speculation about Supreme Court decisions is just that — speculation.

Source: The Hill

Categories
Politics Repeal

President Obama Confident Supreme Court will Uphold the Affordable Care Act

While the Judges on the Supreme Court lose sleep over the upcoming health-care decision – they’re not really losing sleep. We already have a pretty good idea what this historically activist court will do – President Obama chimed in today for the first time with his opinion on what he believe the Court will do.

“Ultimately, I am confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress,” Obama said at a news conference with the leaders of Canada and Mexico.

Conservative leaders say the law, which once fully implemented will require Americans to have health insurance or pay a penalty, was an overreach by Obama and the Congress that passed it.

The president sought to turn that argument around, calling a potential rejection by the court an overreach of its own.

“And I’d just remind conservative commentators that, for years, what we have heard is, the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism, or a lack of judicial restraint, that an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law,” Obama said.

“Well, this is a good example, and I’m pretty confident that this court will recognize that and not take that step,” he said.

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health care law Politics Repeal

Here are Five Ways the Health Care law Helps Young Adults

Republicans have been on a successful campaign to repeal the Affordable Health Care Law, the signature piece of legislation passed by the Obama administration. They have managed to bring their case all the way to the Supreme Court and now a decision on the future of the law is expected sometime in June.

But one thing Republicans cannot deny – although they will try – is the immediate help the law is bring to both Seniors and young adults. Listed below are just some of the benefits young adults are presently experiencing because of the Affordable Health Care Law.

  1. Young adults can stay on their parent’s health insurance up to the age of 26. This is the case even if they’re married or live on their own. This provision resulted in 2.5 million young people gaining coverage. For young adults, this new protection means that they will have the freedom to make career choices based on what they want to do, not on where they can get health insurance. And for parents, it means they can breathe a little easier knowing their children are covered.
  2. The law offers free prevention benefits that keep people healthy. Now, young adults can receive recommended preventive  services, like flu shots, HIV and cancer screenings, contraceptive counseling and FDA-approved birth control, with no cost sharing. Visit  www.healthcare.gov/prevention for a full list of services and plan dates.
  3. Coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. For people who have been uninsured for six months and can’t buy private insurance because of a pre-existing condition, they may be able to join the Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan. And under the new law, no plan can deny coverage to people under age 19 because of a pre-existing condition. To find out about plans available in your State, please visithttp://www.pcip.gov.
  4. Insurers cannot put limits on coverage. In the past, some people with cancer or other chronic illnesses ran out of insurance coverage because their health care expenses reached a dollar limit imposed by their insurance company. Under the health care law, insurers can no longer impose lifetime dollar limits on essential health benefits and annual limits are being phased out by 2014. Also, insurance companies can no longer drop people when they get sick due to a mistake you made on your application.
  5. Starting in 2014, there will be more options through the Affordable Care Act for coverage for young adults. New Affordable Insurance Exchanges, tax credits and the improvements to Medicaid will result in at least 30 million more insured people, including as many as 10 million young adults. For young adults, lacking affordable health care will soon become a thing of the past.
Categories
Domestic Policies trayvon martin

Skittles and Broccoli

Every once in a while, a week comes along that brings clarity and definition to the world and enables us to find meaning in the beautiful things that make up our lives.

Perhaps next week will be such a week.

For the parents of Trayvon Martin, this was a week that saw the world finally notice the tragedy that befell their child. It’s a story that is easily told but terribly difficult to understand:

The circumstances – an unarmed teen carrying Skittles, a gated suburban community and a man with no official authority – along with simmering economic frustrations in the nation’s African-American community turned the death into a social touchstone. Social media, black radio and cable television drove the debate about racial profiling and the state of black males, helping give rise to an indelible image that seems to be everywhere: Trayvon Martin and his hoodie.

It shed light on the Florida Stand Your Ground Law, which essentially allows people with guns to decide who’s a threat and who’s not, and to allow suburban vigilante justice in the guise of neighborhood watch. And as more evidence comes out about what might have happened on that fateful night, more questions are raised. Finally, what about Wrigley, the company that makes Skittles? That’s complicated. Sales are up, but for all the wrong reasons.

As if the Martin story wasn’t complicated enough, this was also the week of health care. Ironic, no?

Enough words have been senselessly killed since Monday in an effort to describe, analyze, parse, interpret, divine, enunciate, explicate and pontificate on what exactly the justices meant, when it’s fairly clear that the conservatives would rather make love to a broccoli stalk than rule the law to be constitutional.

And the broccoli bit is the heart of the problem. Is it just me or did anyone else get the sense that Antonin Scalia didn’t merely complain about having a 2,700 page law to leaf through, he never actually read any of the briefs related to it? How else to explain his repetition of the broccoli conundrum that was standard fare in the mainstream press for the past 6 months? Or his mis-citation of the Cornhusker Kickback, which was troubling enough for a man of his intellect?  I thought the justices were supposed to focus on the law, not repeat the talking points that radiate from all corners of the Cable News/Twitter/Blogosphere Axis.

At least we’ll know the outcome of the health care law at the end of June. After that, President Obama and Mitt Romney can adjust their campaigns and move forward with their lives.

Trayvon Martin’s parents might not get that kind of closure for many months after that. And they’ll always have more questions than answers.

Justice indeed.

Please join me on Facebook at  www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives and Twitter @rigrundfest  

 

Categories
Politics

Initial Report on Health Care Reform – It’s Not Looking Good

Based on the some of the questions asked today by the more Conservative majority in the Supreme Court, political analysts are suggesting a possible bad outcome for the Health Care Reform passed over a year ago by the Obama administration.

The New York Times Reports: With the fate of President Obama’s health care law hanging in the balance at the Supreme Court on Tuesday, a lawyer for the administration faced a barrage of skeptical questions from four of the court’s more conservative justices.

“Can you create commerce in order to regulate it?” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy asked the lawyer, Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr., only minutes into the argument.

Justice Antonin Scalia soon joined in. “May failure to purchase something subject me to regulation?” he asked. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. asked if the government could compel the purchase of cellphones. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. asked about forcing people to buy burial insurance.

The conventional view is that the administration will need one of those four votes to win the case, and it was not clear on Tuesday that it had captured one.

The court’s four more liberal members – Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan – indicated that they supported the law, as expected. Justice Clarence Thomas, who asked no questions, is thought likely to vote to strike down the law.

Categories
Politics Repeal

Things I Know – The Health Care Law will be Upheld By the Supreme Court

I know that the Affordable Care Act will be upheld by the Supreme Court.

How do I know this?

Because before it was a good Democratic idea it was a good Republican idea. I’m sure the GOP vetted the law as an alternative to the Clinton health care plan. I’m sure that Mitt Romney and his attorneys vetted their Massachusetts plan before they proposed, passed and signed it. I also know that the Obama Administration is not “rolling the dice” on the law in the months just before the election. They have reasonable, rational motives in doing so because they know that the law, if the court relies on precedent, will be upheld.

I know that the Tim Tebow trade will end up to be a disaster for the Jets, and that the entire nation, Puerto Rico, Guam and American Samoa will enjoy watching the nuclear meltdown that will occur next season.

How do I know this?

The team just signed Mark Sánchez to a contract extension and has now traded for another, more charismatic player who manages to confound the football experts with his unorthodox style and steely determination. The Jets have also said that Tebow will be involved in the offense during the season. What other backup quarterback gets that kind of promise? Answer: A quarterback who will be given every available chance to take the job from the starter. All Mark Sanchez has to do, assuming he keeps his job coming out of training camp, is to throw a couple of interceptions or lead the team to two first half field goals (only) in the season opener, and you can bet that everyone from Billy Graham, Jr. on down to the local church ladies will be calling for his head. And St. Tim will be ready. This won’t be a season; it will be a reality show. As a triumphant Giants fan, I can’t wait.

I know that Mitt Romney will be the Republican nominee for president in 2012. So do you. So does the general media. So does the right wing media. So does Intrade. So do the Vegas odds-makers.

How do I know this?

Mitt is the only rational, reasonable Republican candidate of the bunch. He’s said some gaffey-type things, but most people are either shrugging them off or comparing them to the scary-ee things that Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul are saying. Remember your history lessons. The United States doesn’t elect radicals to the highest office in the land. Of course, the Democrats thought Barry Goldwater was a far right kook and the Republicans thought that Walter Mondale was a socialist, but they were both wrong. Mitt’s a moderate who ran a liberal state in a moderate way and achieved some moderate success in Massachusetts. He’s not a religious zealot and he doesn’t have the anger issues that the other candidates have. Of course, how can you be angry when you make about $20 million dollars per year?

These are but three of the things I know. I welcome what you know. If you’re really in the know, you’ll go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives and Twitter @rigrundfest  

Knowledge is power.

Categories
Health Care Politics Repeal

Americans are Believing the Right-Winged Propaganda about the Health Care Law

The right winged propaganda machine is succeeding.  A new ABC News / Washington Post poll reveals that a majority of Americans have bought into the lie and now believe that the health care law signed by president Obama should be repealed.

When asked about the individual mandate in the law, two thirds of those who answered the question say that it should be overturned or the entire law must be thrown out.

Two-thirds of Americans say the U.S. Supreme Court should throw out either the individual mandate in the federal health care law or the law in its entirety, signaling the depth of public disagreement with that element of the Affordable Care Act.

This ABC News/Washington Post poll finds that Americans oppose the law overall by 52-41 percent. And 67 percent believe the high court should either ditch the law or at least the portion that requires nearly all Americans to have coverage.

The case against the President’s Health Care Law goes before the United States Supreme Court next week where Republicans will argue that the law is unconstitutional because it requires American to purchase health insurance. No other alternative policies are suggested, so if the law is repealed the status quo takes effect again and the gouging of Americans by greedy insurance companies will once again be accepted.

Business as usual.

The poll was conducted by telephone March 7-10, 2012, among a random national sample of 1,003 adults.

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