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Wednesday, March 17, 2010

When even the American Enterprise Institute says Republicans are hypocrites....
Posted by Jill | 5:27 AM
Norm Orenstein, right there in the Journal of the AEI:
Any veteran observer of Congress is used to the rampant hypocrisy over the use of parliamentary procedures that shifts totally from one side to the other as a majority moves to minority status, and vice versa. But I can’t recall a level of feigned indignation nearly as great as what we are seeing now from congressional Republicans and their acolytes at the Wall Street Journal, and on blogs, talk radio, and cable news. It reached a ridiculous level of misinformation and disinformation over the use of reconciliation, and now threatens to top that level over the projected use of a self-executing rule by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. In the last Congress that Republicans controlled, from 2005 to 2006, Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier used the self-executing rule more than 35 times, and was no stranger to the concept of “deem and pass.” That strategy, then decried by the House Democrats who are now using it, and now being called unconstitutional by WSJ editorialists, was defended by House Republicans in court (and upheld). Dreier used it for a $40 billion deficit reduction package so that his fellow GOPers could avoid an embarrassing vote on immigration. I don’t like self-executing rules by either party—I prefer the “regular order”—so I am not going to say this is a great idea by the Democrats. But even so—is there no shame anymore?

Orenstein even has to ASK if there's no shame among the politicians on his side of the fence? The answer is obviously "No."

Here's what I don't understand: If opposing health care reform is such a sure-win for the Republicans this fall, why don't they let it pass, then run on a "repeal" message? Is it perhaps because...
The number of middle-income earners covered by employer health insurance fell by three million from 2000 to 2008, and government programs and the individual market aren't picking up the slack. The total number of uninsured middle-income earners rose from 10.5 million to 12.9 million, representing 16.2 percent of the income bracket -- a bigger increase than for any other income group.

"It really underscores how the problem of uninsurance is not something simply affecting lower-income Americans but is increasingly affecting the middle class," said Brian Quinn, the foundation's research and evaluation office. The most recent Census Bureau estimate puts the total uninsured population at 46.3 million.

Just 66 percent of people in families earning between $45,000 and $85,000 are insured through an employer plan -- 52.7 million people, down from 55.5 million eight years prior -- a drop of nearly seven percentage points.

People who earn less money were more likely to lose employer coverage, but also more likely to be covered by a government program like Medicaid. According to the report, only about half of the decline in employer-sponsored coverage for middle-income earners was offset by government insurance programs.

Those who missed the safety net have been flung into the cold-hearted individual market, where insurance companies deny coverage based on preexisting conditions and charge exorbitant, ever-increasing premiums. (Insurance companies, whose executives earn million-dollar salaries, routinely plead that other industries within the health sector have much fatter profit margins.)

"For a lot of middle class Americans, the individual market is not a real option," said Quinn.

The Republicans are the ones talking about the best health care system in the world and opposing any kind of reform other than that contained in the Paul Ryan Roadmap Off a Cliff: tax cuts to buy health insurance on the individual market -- IF you can get it. If the Democrats can't make hay off this kind of social Darwinism (the only kind of Darwinism Republicans believe in), they deserve to lose Congress. The problem is, their fecklessness takes the rest of us down with them.

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4 Comments:
Blogger casey said...
Hello Jill,

The Republicans and some of the spineless Dimocrats are dragging us down to HELL with only one stop "Twilight Zone" to prepare us for H#LL.
3/18/10, 10:56 AM  
Blogger Scribble A Day said...
Please fix the spelling in your header: I want to send a link to some Repub co-workers who were just this afternoon griping about the health care bill (not that I'm in total agreement with the bill, but we have to do something, and my co-workers are in the 'hands off insurance' camp) and I don't want them to see Insitute instead of Institute when I do. Especially since I criticize their spelling and grammatical errors so often.
Aside from that, I love the post.
3/19/10, 5:12 PM  
Blogger Jill said...
Done. But jeez...I post at 5:30 in the morning when I haven't even had my coffee yet.
3/19/10, 7:25 PM  
Blogger Scribble A Day said...
And you truly do a Brilliant job. I love your posts.
3/19/10, 10:08 PM  
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