The New Democrat

Source:Michael Moore– should go back to Detroit and leave government to people who know how to govern.

Source:The New Democrat

“Today marks the beginning of health care coverage under the Affordable Care Act’s new insurance exchanges, for which two million Americans have signed up. Now that the individual mandate is officially here, let me begin with an admission: Obamacare is awful.

That is the dirty little secret many liberals have avoided saying out loud for fear of aiding the president’s enemies, at a time when the ideal of universal health care needed all the support it could get. Unfortunately, this meant that instead of blaming companies like Novartis, which charges leukemia patients $90,000 annually for the drug Gleevec, or health insurance chief executives like Stephen Hemsley of UnitedHealth Group, who made nearly $102 million in 2009, for the sky-high price of American health care, the president’s Democratic supporters bought into the myth that it was all those people going to get free colonoscopies and chemotherapy for the fun of it.

I believe Obamacare’s rocky start – clueless planning, a lousy website, insurance companies raising rates, and the president’s telling people they could keep their coverage when, in fact, not all could – is a result of one fatal flaw: The Affordable Care Act is a pro-insurance-industry plan implemented by a president who knew in his heart that a single-payer, Medicare-for-all model was the true way to go. When right-wing critics “expose” the fact that President Obama endorsed a single-payer system before 2004, they’re actually telling the truth.

What we now call Obamacare was conceived at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, and birthed in Massachusetts by Mitt Romney, then the governor. The president took Romneycare, a program designed to keep the private insurance industry intact, and just improved some of its provisions. In effect, the president was simply trying to put lipstick on the dog in the carrier on top of Mitt Romney’s car. And we knew it.

By 2017, we will be funneling over $100 billion annually to private insurance companies. You can be sure they’ll use some of that to try to privatize Medicare.

For many people, the “affordable” part of the Affordable Care Act risks being a cruel joke. The cheapest plan available to a 60-year-old couple making $65,000 a year in Hartford, Conn., will cost $11,800 in annual premiums. And their deductible will be $12,600. If both become seriously ill, they might have to pay almost $25,000 in a single year. (Pre-Obamacare, they could have bought insurance that was cheaper but much worse, potentially with unlimited out-of-pocket costs.)

And yet – I would be remiss if I didn’t say this – Obamacare is a godsend. My friend Donna Smith, who was forced to move into her daughter’s spare room at age 52 because health problems bankrupted her and her husband, Larry, now has cancer again. As she undergoes treatment, at least she won’t be in terror of losing coverage and becoming uninsurable. Under Obamacare, her premium has been cut in half, to $456 per month.”

From The New York Times

“Michael Moore marked the start of the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate Wednesday with a blistering op-ed in The New York Times in which he admits something he says “many liberals” have been too scared to say out loud before now: “Obamacare is awful.”..

Source:Secular Talk– Michael Moore is the perfect example of a filmmaker, who should just stick with fiction and making films. Because he’s not good with reality.

From Secular Talk

“Jared Bernstein says on CNBC that Obamacare is not a jobs program (March 8, 2013)”

Source:GOP War Room– former Obama White House adviser Jared Bernstein, on CNBC. But for why, I don’t know.

From GOP War Room

It is easy for Michael Moore living in Los Angeles or Michigan and never working for the Federal Government at least in Washington, to say what the Obama Administration should’ve tried to pass as it relates to health care reform in 2009-10. But as Progressive economist Jared Bernstein said who worked for Vice President Joe Biden during this period, who knows quite a bit about Congress and the Federal Government in general, there were never the votes in Congress for Medicare For All.

There were never the votes even in a Democratic Congress with large majorities in both the House and Senate, for a single-payer, Medicare for all program nationalizing the health insurance industry and eliminating the private insurance system. And telling Americans who tend not to like being told by government what they can do with their own money, that they have to take Medicare and have no choice in where they get their health insurance.

And if you are wondering why the votes were never there for single payer, I just explained why. You think the Affordable Care Act is now unpopular, pass single payer and take away Americans ability to choose their own health insurance. And we are looking at a total Republican Congress right now and not just a Republican House and perhaps a Republican president as well with single payer being repealed and we are back to square one on health care reform.

Single payer never had the votes and anyone who disagrees doesn’t know much about the U.S. Congress. Or Americans in general when it comes to their politics and spends most of their time in the Northeast or Northwest or California living in their socialist utopia’s. And not talking to the rest of the country. But the public option, had a real shot and it did pass both chambers of Congress in late 2009. But then got stripped away from the final bill by the Democratic Senate. Because some Democratic Senators perhaps worried about their reelection possibilities.

The public option is exactly that and would give Americans under sixty-five the ability to pay into Medicare. And use it as their main, if not sole health insurance plan. But at the end of the day, the same people would make that choice and not government telling them what they can have. You could even set up a Medicare public option that the states would like, even Republican governors, by allowing for them to run their own Medicare plan in their state. Which is something that Democratic states are looking into right now and creating their own public options.

The difference between fans and players when it comes to government, is that players have to govern and at the end of the day get something done in a liberal democracy like America. That means working with different people and different factions who do not agree with each other on everything. And coming up with the best plan that everyone can support and agree to and say: “This is a good plan and something that we should do.” Which is a big reason why we got the 2010 Affordable Care Act.