Believing Healthcare Reality, Instead of Rightwing Spin

Sometimes, polling shows just how wide of reality people's perceptions are. For example, in 2003 the Program on International Policy at the University of Maryland and Knowledge Networks found that Americans were poorly informed about the facts of the Iraq war, with Fox News viewers knowing the least. Basically, they called people up and asked them if they believed three false statements; that evidence of links between Iraq and al Qaeda had been found, that weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq, and that world public opinion favored the US invasion of Iraq. 80% of Fox viewers agreed with at least one of those statements. In fact, the more you watched Fox, the more likely you were to get the facts wrong. In other words, Fox News was obviously misinforming their audience to support the network's pro-war bias.

Yesterday, Gallup put out a poll that showed a similarly misinformed public. And while they didn't track which news source they relied on, they did track the respondents political affiliation.

A majority of Americans say the U.S. healthcare law that the Supreme Court recently upheld as constitutional will make things better for those who do not have health insurance and for those who get sick. At the same time, Americans say the law will make things worse rather than better for taxpayers, businesses, doctors, and those who currently have health insurance. Americans are about evenly divided on the impact of the law on hospitals and on themselves personally.

Americans' views of the implications of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), measured in a July 9-12 Gallup poll, are nuanced. Although Americans are fairly evenly split in their views of how the law will affect them personally, they have widely differentiated views of its impact on various other groups and entities in society. The results thus provide support for both proponents of the law, who argue that it will help those in need, and for opponents, who argue that it will place a burden of cost and more bureaucracy on taxpayers and businesses.

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Romney's Healthcare Plan: Just Passing the Buck

It's time once again to discuss "repeal and replace." That's the Republicans' so-called plan to deal with the terrible problem of Obamacare. They want to repeal the whole damned thing, then replace it with something a lot better. Here's Mitt Romney's campaign website on the big plan to replace the Affordable Care Act:

On his first day in office, Mitt Romney will issue an executive order that paves the way for the federal government to issue Obamacare waivers to all fifty states. He will then work with Congress to repeal the full legislation as quickly as possible.

In place of Obamacare, Mitt will pursue policies that give each state the power to craft a health care reform plan that is best for its own citizens. The federal government’s role will be to help markets work by creating a level playing field for competition...

Mitt will begin by returning states to their proper place in charge of regulating local insurance markets and caring for the poor, uninsured, and chronically ill. States will have both the incentive and the flexibility to experiment, learn from one another, and craft the approaches best suited to their own citizens.

So Mitt's plan is that he doesn't actually have a plan. He'll hand out money to the states with block grants -- which are more likely to be spent plugging budget holes than on health care -- and that's about it. He's passing the buck and calling it a "plan." All he promises to do is return the health care market to its previous completely screwed up and unsustainable status quo -- then it's up to someone else to get us out of this mess Mittens has made.

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Insurance Companies to Paul Ryan: We Don't Want the Medicare Business

The Republican-controlled House will vote on Rep. Paul Ryan's budget plan today, despite the fact that this thing is dead in the water. The support from some House Republicans has been noticeably weak to nonexistent and high-profile Senate GOP are now arguing deficit reduction can't be taken seriously if the party is unwilling to even discuss tax increases.

So bad news all around for the future of Paul Ryan's fantasy-economics porn. Even if it gets past all these hurdles, President Obama will veto it and that'll be the end of it. The votes aren't there to override. It's been fun pointing out how ridiculous this thing is, but it begins the process of dying today.

But that's not going to stop me from piling on. Because Ryan's plan is the perfect expression of principles of today's Republican Party -- socialism in reverse, a seeming disgust with the unemployed and the struggling, and a complete and total misunderstanding of even the most basic economic principles. It isn't a budget proposal, it's a big "screw you!" to the very notion that government should serve the people and a slap in the face of the idea that we're all in this together.

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Reality-Based Budgeting

The budget deficit is a multi-generational problem. At least, that's the impression you get if you listen to some in Washington or pretty much any random talking head. If we don't get crazy with the budget scissors, our children and our grandchildren will pay the price. If we do nothing, the nation will be... I don't know, in flames or something.

But yesterday, Annie Lowrey at Slate crunched the numbers and found the real consequence of doing nothing -- eliminating the budget deficit in eight short years.

So how does doing nothing actually return the budget to health? The answer is that doing nothing allows all kinds of fiscal changes that politicians generally abhor to take effect automatically. First, doing nothing means the Bush tax cuts would expire, as scheduled, at the end of next year. That would cause a moderately progressive tax hike, and one that hits most families, including the middle class. The top marginal rate would rise from 35 percent to 39.6 percent, and some tax benefits for investment income would disappear. Additionally, a patch to keep the alternative minimum tax from hitting 20 million or so families would end. Second, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Obama's health care law, would proceed without getting repealed or defunded. The CBO believes that the plan would bend health care's cost curve downward, wrestling the rate of health care inflation back toward the general rate of inflation. Third, doing nothing would mean that Medicare starts paying doctors low, low rates. Congress would not pass anymore of the regular "doc fixes" that keep reimbursements high. Nothing else happens. Almost magically, everything evens out.

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