worth noting that the Tea Party Republicans in the US Senate seem to be among the few actually interested in protecting our civil rights…

just sayin’

When you have the government this involved in a market, it breeds a certain corruption, or at least enables it.

DDay- do you think this applies to healthcare? If so, how? if not, why not?

Center for budget and policy priorities and kaiser say $76 billion in new forced STATE spending if all expand Medicaid.

In AZ, that is $3 billion over 9 years alone…

That would be a lot of teachers and police officers… Or a lot higher taxes on all AZ residents…

And, services are being cut every year for Medicaid patients…

I wonder about the ever more entrenched 2 or 3 tier system where Dem politicians hide behind Medicaid for the poor, even though there is almost no care.

Glass houses and stone alert-

Jesse Jackson, jr.

Jane Harmon

Just 2 dems off the top if my head.

If the Republicans had passed the hc law
We would have taken to the streets on the mandate and Medicare cuts AND the cave on real abortion restrictions

You all overthink this.

Republican governors do not think the ACA will actually make hc more affordable or provide better access to care.

They do not want responsibility when it fails.

FDLers should remember that the formal position of this blog’s founder was that the bill was bad and should NOT become law.

Fact- the exchanges will not lower costs or increase access.

find a single hc expert on either side that thinks so.

Thus the IPAB issue — Obama administration claims no cuts to benefits — but they DO CUT PAYMENTS — as DDay correctly points out — cut the payments below a certain level — disappearing access to health care…

David- Democrats of course have their own problems here— they denied that there were any cuts of any kind to Medicare during the hc debate and throughout the 2010 election cycle.

For better or for worse, both sides (frankly Dems more than Rs) have demonized the other side by calling a slowing in the rate of growth as a “cut”.

On the Medicare spending issue, Democrats are far more guilty of hypocrisy on the cut issue over the last few years… and I would expect to start seeing some ads attempting to exploit this if the issue continues.

As you remember the politics of the hc debate– the general approach of stakeholders was to ‘be at the table or on the menu’ — and leadership of trade organizations (think AARP, e.g. which stands to make billions in new Medigap policies with MA cuts) were frantically cutting deals that did not reflect the wishes of many members. The AHA was certainly no exception.

Polls universally show that younger voters seriously doubt that Medicare and social security will be there for them.

I, for one, think that attempting to shamelessly pander with promises of no changes has a high probability of backfiring at the polls… not to the level of a complete swing, but enough to make an impact in the election.

The difference- if Iran came to Israel with an offer of real peace tomorrow- the Israelis would take it.

Iran would not even sit down with Israelis– just look at the beyond disgusting, despicable, repugnant behavior of some of the Muslim country’s athletes’ behavior toward Israel’s athletes.

John-

If we are to take people’s words seriously, and hold them to account– how is Israel and the West to respond to Iran’s repeated (even this week) intent to annihilate Israel and wipe it from the Earth?

Would you not consider that this is more damaging to peace and stability?

What kind of ‘reset’ to better align with Islamic countries ought the US have in order to accommodate Iran’s goals?

Fact- medicaid is third tier hc (there are several recent studies showing no better or worse than no insurance for much of care…)

We should be screaming that Medicaid condemns the poor to less access to care- normally we progressives are on te right side of a ‘separate but equal’ debate.

Except that leader author works for HHS… And the unique disclaimer on the article screams ‘me thinks the lady doth protest too much’

No different than Jon gruber singing hcr praises while on payroll…

The future is MEDICAID for ALL… Run by a handful of insurance/hospital conglomerates.

Each of which will have annual revenues LARGER than the defense budget.

Truly, the Democratic party died yesterday.

At the risk of heresy… I am still unable to understand how we talk about ‘austerity’ when we borrow over 40 cents of every dollar spend and our DEBT to GDP ratio has just exceeded 100%.

disclosure matters.

Let the viewer/ listener decide.

Transparency can not just be for ‘the other guy’.

200k is real money for those of us not in the 1%

Don’t forget NBC allowing Ed Schultz to receive $200k from unions.

Disclosure, at the minimum, is good, regardless of political point of view.
WSJ, CNBC, Bloomberg has it better.