Brian Beutler reveals a very interesting conundrum for right wing extremists in his latest piece over at Salon.com. When Healthcare.gov actually starts working, GOP will have to choose between politics or their constituents' health. With the bugs being ironed out at healthcare.gov, Beutler points out what the future holds.
A working site that can service nearly a million people a day destroys that excuse. Some conservative groups have been craven and reckless enough to actively discourage people from enrolling in Affordable Care Act coverage. Elected Republicans have generally used their influence more subtly, by drawing attention to the hassles and supposed dangers of using Healthcare.gov. Manipulation vs. direct appeal. They’ve also maligned an administrative solution President Obama devised that will allow carriers in some states to reissue canceled policies.
But the real fix for 70 percent (or so) of people whose policies have been canceled is to get new, subsidized coverage through exchanges, or to enroll in Medicaid. Once Healthcare.gov is working at high capacity, they’ll owe people with canceled coverage more than just the play-acting they’ve offered for the past month.
Democrats will be helping these people find such coverage. Will Republicans?
No, they won't. And that's why I say we should take Reince Preibus's advice: Stamp the ACA right to our foreheads and run proudly on it in 2014. That's exactly what I would do if I was up for reelection next year.
Saturday, November 30, 2013
More Regulation, Less Gun Deaths
Boston Children's Hospital and JAMA Internal Medicine recently conducted a study that shows that there is an association between more regulations and less gun deaths in states in terms of mortality rate per 100,000 people. Here is their map with fatalities over a four year period.
Take a look at the states that have the weakest legislative strength and then compare to the mortality rates. This is for overall as well as for suicides and homicides individually. See a pattern? Policymic.com offers an excellent summary of the study if you don't want to wade through all the data from the link above.
Of course, further studies are needed to clarify the cause and effect relationship between these two variables but there is a connection which is not what the Gun Cult would have us believe.
Take a look at the states that have the weakest legislative strength and then compare to the mortality rates. This is for overall as well as for suicides and homicides individually. See a pattern? Policymic.com offers an excellent summary of the study if you don't want to wade through all the data from the link above.
Of course, further studies are needed to clarify the cause and effect relationship between these two variables but there is a connection which is not what the Gun Cult would have us believe.
Friday, November 29, 2013
Minnesota Wins!
If you want a good barometer on how what sort of government policies work the best, compare the states of Minnesota and Wisconsin. That's what this recent piece in the New York Times did and the results speak for themselves. In 2010, voters in each state chose a specific path to improve their economic conditions. Minnesotans chose Democrats to run their state and Wisconsin chose Republicans. Minnesota's unemployment rate was at 6.7 percent and Wisconsin's was at 7.1 percent.
As the article notes, a month after Mr. Walker’s inauguration in January 2011, he catapulted himself to the front ranks of national conservative leaders with attacks on the collective bargaining rights of Civil Service unions and sharp reductions in taxes and spending. Once Mr. Dayton teamed up with a Democratic Legislature in 2012, Minnesota adopted some of the most progressive policies in the country.Minnesota raised taxes by $2.1 billion, the largest increase in recent state history. Democrats introduced the fourth highest income tax bracket in the country and targeted the top 1 percent of earners to pay 62 percent of the new taxes, according to the Department of Revenue.
The result?
Today, Minnesota is essentially at full employment at 4.8 percent while Wisconsin's unemployment rate stands at 6.5 percent. Wisconsin lags behind Minnesota in job creation and economic growth. Wisconsin ranks 34th for job growth. According to Forbes’s annual list of best states for business, Wisconsin continues to rank in the bottom half. Along with California, Minnesota is the fifth fastest growing state economy, with private-sector job growth exceeding pre-recession levels. Forbes rates Minnesota as the eighth best state for business.
So, why is it working in Minnesota?
Higher taxes and economic growth in Minnesota have attracted a surprisingly broad coalition. Businesses complain about taxes, but many cheered Mr. Dayton’s investments in the Mayo Clinic, the new Vikings stadium, the Mall of America and 3M headquarters. The lion’s share of Minnesota’s new tax revenue was sunk into human capital. While the state’s Constitution required that half of the new revenue balance the budget in 2013, Mr. Dayton invested 71 percent of the remaining funds in K-12 schools and higher education as well as a pair of firsts: all-day kindergarten and wider access to early childhood education. Minnesota was one of the few states that raised education spending under the cloud of the Great Recession.
Why is not working in Wisconsin?
Mr. Walker’s strategy limited Wisconsin’s ability to invest in infrastructure that would have catalyzed private-sector expansion, and he cut state funding of K-12 schools by more than 15 percent. Per student, this was the seventh sharpest decline in the country.
I'm pretty optimistic about the state in which I grew up, however. The numbers speak for themselves and, if the Democrats put up a good candidate, Walker will be gone and left to pursue his dreams of 2016.
As the article notes, a month after Mr. Walker’s inauguration in January 2011, he catapulted himself to the front ranks of national conservative leaders with attacks on the collective bargaining rights of Civil Service unions and sharp reductions in taxes and spending. Once Mr. Dayton teamed up with a Democratic Legislature in 2012, Minnesota adopted some of the most progressive policies in the country.Minnesota raised taxes by $2.1 billion, the largest increase in recent state history. Democrats introduced the fourth highest income tax bracket in the country and targeted the top 1 percent of earners to pay 62 percent of the new taxes, according to the Department of Revenue.
The result?
Today, Minnesota is essentially at full employment at 4.8 percent while Wisconsin's unemployment rate stands at 6.5 percent. Wisconsin lags behind Minnesota in job creation and economic growth. Wisconsin ranks 34th for job growth. According to Forbes’s annual list of best states for business, Wisconsin continues to rank in the bottom half. Along with California, Minnesota is the fifth fastest growing state economy, with private-sector job growth exceeding pre-recession levels. Forbes rates Minnesota as the eighth best state for business.
So, why is it working in Minnesota?
Higher taxes and economic growth in Minnesota have attracted a surprisingly broad coalition. Businesses complain about taxes, but many cheered Mr. Dayton’s investments in the Mayo Clinic, the new Vikings stadium, the Mall of America and 3M headquarters. The lion’s share of Minnesota’s new tax revenue was sunk into human capital. While the state’s Constitution required that half of the new revenue balance the budget in 2013, Mr. Dayton invested 71 percent of the remaining funds in K-12 schools and higher education as well as a pair of firsts: all-day kindergarten and wider access to early childhood education. Minnesota was one of the few states that raised education spending under the cloud of the Great Recession.
Why is not working in Wisconsin?
Mr. Walker’s strategy limited Wisconsin’s ability to invest in infrastructure that would have catalyzed private-sector expansion, and he cut state funding of K-12 schools by more than 15 percent. Per student, this was the seventh sharpest decline in the country.
I'm pretty optimistic about the state in which I grew up, however. The numbers speak for themselves and, if the Democrats put up a good candidate, Walker will be gone and left to pursue his dreams of 2016.
Thursday, November 28, 2013
Thankful For Social Media
What am I thankful for today? Social media. Why?
Remember back about 20 years ago when cigarettes were generally accepted? Many of my friends smoked and, while people knew it was bad for them, they still did it without much of a social stigma.
But now there is a pretty big stigma and people that smoke are generally thought of as white trash and really pretty dumb. Sure, there were laws passed on cigarettes and higher taxes but the pushing out of normality regarding cigarettes was generally a cultural shift. Everyone goes outside, even in their own homes, to smoke. People that smoked were generally older and some of them died. Younger people either quite or didn't pick up the habit. In short, we grew out of it. And that's exactly what's going to happen in the next twenty years with guns.
In fact, with social media like Facebook and Twitter, it's going to happen much sooner. We are going to grow out of Gun Cult thinking and into a more rational approach to the (very much limited) 2nd amendment. The recent revelations about Adam Lanza show that we don't have a choice. The annual culling of our citizens is going to stop and it will be because of the new media.
Thanks, new media!
Remember back about 20 years ago when cigarettes were generally accepted? Many of my friends smoked and, while people knew it was bad for them, they still did it without much of a social stigma.
But now there is a pretty big stigma and people that smoke are generally thought of as white trash and really pretty dumb. Sure, there were laws passed on cigarettes and higher taxes but the pushing out of normality regarding cigarettes was generally a cultural shift. Everyone goes outside, even in their own homes, to smoke. People that smoked were generally older and some of them died. Younger people either quite or didn't pick up the habit. In short, we grew out of it. And that's exactly what's going to happen in the next twenty years with guns.
In fact, with social media like Facebook and Twitter, it's going to happen much sooner. We are going to grow out of Gun Cult thinking and into a more rational approach to the (very much limited) 2nd amendment. The recent revelations about Adam Lanza show that we don't have a choice. The annual culling of our citizens is going to stop and it will be because of the new media.
Thanks, new media!
Good Words
Just as the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say “thou shalt not” to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills. How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This is a case of exclusion. Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving? This is a case of inequality. Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape.
Human beings are themselves considered consumer goods to be used and then discarded. We have created a “disposable” culture which is now spreading. It is no longer simply about exploitation and oppression, but something new. Exclusion ultimately has to do with what it means to be a part of the society in which we live; those excluded are no longer society’s underside or its fringes or its disenfranchised – they are no longer even a part of it. The excluded are not the “exploited” but the outcast, the “leftovers”. (Pope Francis, EVANGELII GAUDIUM, November 2013)
Perfect for Thanksgiving Day. Not so perfect if you are conservative. Cue the ad hom and other assorted logical fallacies.
Human beings are themselves considered consumer goods to be used and then discarded. We have created a “disposable” culture which is now spreading. It is no longer simply about exploitation and oppression, but something new. Exclusion ultimately has to do with what it means to be a part of the society in which we live; those excluded are no longer society’s underside or its fringes or its disenfranchised – they are no longer even a part of it. The excluded are not the “exploited” but the outcast, the “leftovers”. (Pope Francis, EVANGELII GAUDIUM, November 2013)
Perfect for Thanksgiving Day. Not so perfect if you are conservative. Cue the ad hom and other assorted logical fallacies.
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
So That's What Happened To James O'Keefe
I haven't heard much lately from James O'Keefe these days except the begging for money to continue his "truth seeking" and here's why. Boy, conservatives really pick some winners with which to hitch their wagons! The rape barn story has been out for awhile but this is the first I've heard of it. Seems like a similar MO to the CNN dildo boat story.
I'm looking forward to his next big expose!
I'm looking forward to his next big expose!
That Old Time Corporate Religion
The United States Supreme Court has decided to hear two cases about corporations who don't want to pay for their employees' birth control:
The lead plaintiff before the court is Hobby Lobby, a chain of more than 500 arts and crafts stores with more than 13,000 employees. The owners are conservative Christians who object to some forms of birth control and contend that the mandate thus abridges their religious rights in violation of both the Constitution and federal law.Their argument is basically that corporations are people and have religious rights. The entire argument is specious: can the corporation go to church? Take communion? Be baptized? Get married? Have souls? Go to heaven?
The idea that a corporation is a person is sheer nonsense. Corporations are legal fictions that exist only on paper. People are born, not incorporated in Delaware. If you're a believer, you believe that God created you. Corporations are completely secular creations of government, granted their existence by an act of Congress. Corporations aren't even in the Constitution. They certainly aren't in the Bible.
Unlike people, corporations can be bought and sold, which means that Hobby Lobby's "deeply held religious beliefs" could go completely out the window if the owners decided to sell the business or died in a car accident. The sheer ridiculousness of corporate religion becomes apparent when you consider publicly held corporations like Exxon or GM.
The purpose of corporate entities is to allow individuals to evade personal legal and financial responsibility for the actions of the corporation, on the theory that they can take financial risks that will benefit the economy at large while protecting their families' future. For example, corporations can declare bankruptcy and that fact will not appear on the personal credit reports of the corporate officers who made the decisions that caused the bankruptcy.
The provisions of the ACA apply to the corporation, not to the owners of Hobby Lobby. Those provisions may violate the religious beliefs of the owners, but they are not the corporation: it is an entity independent of them, which they can sell and divest themselves of any responsibility. If Hobby Lobby is claiming that the corporation is just an extension of themselves, then their business is not a corporation, but rather a partnership. In other words, they have willfully made incorrect corporate filings.
So, if the owners of Hobby Lobby want the legal and financial shield against personal liability that incorporation provides, they need to accept all the secular responsibilities that running a legal entity created by government entails. Otherwise, they should acknowledge that they're just a partnership and accept full personal responsibility for all legal and financial liabilities of the company.
Corporations should not even have the legal standing to make the argument about the free exercise of religion. The Supreme Court should rule that if Hobby Lobby doesn't want to pay for birth control coverage, it should reorganize as a partnership and file another lawsuit.
Stopping there would just kick the can down the road, though. The Supreme Court should also decide that companies -- partnerships or corporations -- can't pick and choose what laws they obey based on the prejudices of their owners. Today, Hobby Lobby doesn't want to pay for birth control coverage. Tomorrow, a Jew or Hindu won't want to cover drugs that contain stearic acid (made from pig or cow fat), or Jehovah's Witness won't want to cover blood transfusions, or a Christian Scientist won't want to cover any medical care.
If Hobby Lobby prevails in the Supreme Court, what's next? Will they come back and argue that they have the right to fire employees who use birth control, because they don't want their money (the wages they pay employees) to be used to violate their religious beliefs? Will they then claim that they can only hire Christians, because they don't want their money to pay for synagogues and mosques?
We already settled these questions of employment law decades ago. The argument over the birth control mandate is just another variation on the same theme of hiring blacks and Jews, with the ultimate goal of overturning those laws and going back to the bad old days when employers could force employees to do anything they wanted.
The Zimmerman Arsenal
Seminole County deputies have found quite the gun collection in George Zimmerman's home: five guns and more than 100 rounds of ammunition. The guns included the high-capacity, high-tech 12-gauge shotgun that he used to threaten his girlfriend, according to her statement. The also found a semi-automatic assault rifle and three handguns.
I wonder what he was preparing for?
I wonder what he was preparing for?
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Crystal Clear
The release of the report on Adam Lanza inexplicably finds that there is no answer to the question of why he committed mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The media has jumped on board with this line of thought, scratching their heads like the fucking apes they are in wonder at just where things went wrong when it is so completely obvious.
Adam Lanza is a textbook example of what happens when the adolescent power fantasy perpetuated by the Gun Cult and conservatives in general goes very, very dark.
We start with his mother, a "live free or die type" who sought no mental health help for her son. She brought him up in an environment that encouraged anti-government and anti-social behavior, allowing him to stay locked in his room with black garbage bags on the windows and communicated to him only via email. She allowed him access to guns despite the fact that he wrote a book in 5th grade about children being slaughtered and a son shooting his mother in the head. In fact, she was planning on buying him a gun for Christmas last year! Add in the obsession with violent video games and the fact that he was bullied and one can see the perfect cocktail for spree shooting mixed all too well.
There may not have been a criminal motive in the strictest of terms found in this case but it's very clear why it happened. Nancy Lanza was a horrible parent who bought into the myths of the Gun Cult and modern day conservatism. Guns are our God given right and mental health problems should just be ignored and repressed as all that business is just a bunch of liberal, touchy feely nonsense. Young men should be allowed to stomp down the hallway, lock themselves in their room and be rebellious towards all authority!!
It completely astounds me just how fucking stupid Nancy Lanza was in all of this. How many more parents are there like her out there? What kind of a parent doesn't notice the red flag of her son keeping a ledger on all the mass shootings in America? And worshiping Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold? Well, as long as her 2nd amendment rights were protected and our country was saved from the gun grabbers. At least she understood what "infringed" meant!
Adam Lanza is a textbook example of what happens when the adolescent power fantasy perpetuated by the Gun Cult and conservatives in general goes very, very dark.
We start with his mother, a "live free or die type" who sought no mental health help for her son. She brought him up in an environment that encouraged anti-government and anti-social behavior, allowing him to stay locked in his room with black garbage bags on the windows and communicated to him only via email. She allowed him access to guns despite the fact that he wrote a book in 5th grade about children being slaughtered and a son shooting his mother in the head. In fact, she was planning on buying him a gun for Christmas last year! Add in the obsession with violent video games and the fact that he was bullied and one can see the perfect cocktail for spree shooting mixed all too well.
There may not have been a criminal motive in the strictest of terms found in this case but it's very clear why it happened. Nancy Lanza was a horrible parent who bought into the myths of the Gun Cult and modern day conservatism. Guns are our God given right and mental health problems should just be ignored and repressed as all that business is just a bunch of liberal, touchy feely nonsense. Young men should be allowed to stomp down the hallway, lock themselves in their room and be rebellious towards all authority!!
It completely astounds me just how fucking stupid Nancy Lanza was in all of this. How many more parents are there like her out there? What kind of a parent doesn't notice the red flag of her son keeping a ledger on all the mass shootings in America? And worshiping Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold? Well, as long as her 2nd amendment rights were protected and our country was saved from the gun grabbers. At least she understood what "infringed" meant!
We Are A Nation Of Laws
Hey, waitamintue! I though he was ramming laws down our throats like Stalin and Hitler! Who the fuck is this guy?!?
Monday, November 25, 2013
The Conservative Who Wants to Raise the Minimum Wage
The former publisher of The American Conservative, Ron Unz, is leading an effort to increase the minimum wage in California to $10 in 2015 and then to $12 in 2016. From an article in The New York Times:
Unz isn't some namby-pamby RINO. He led the effort to banish bilingual education in California and ran to the right of Gov. Pete Wilson during his challenge for the gubernatorial nomination in 1994.
If your business model requires that you pay your employees so little that they either starve or go on foodstamps, then your company is on the government dole.
Other companies manage to pay the people who do the actual work a living wage. They're still profitable. They just have a slightly smaller margin than the heirs to the Walton family fortune feel is their God-given due.
Using what he sees as conservative principles to advocate a policy long championed by the left, Mr. Unz argues that significantly raising the minimum wage would help curb government spending on social services, strengthen the economy and make more jobs attractive to American-born workers.Stories about employees of companies like McDonalds and Walmart needing foodstamps, Medicaid and food shelf donations to survive have become commonplace.
“There are so many very low-wage workers, and we pay for huge social welfare programs for them,” he said in an interview. “This would save something on the order of tens of billions of dollars. Doesn’t it make more sense for employers to pay their workers than the government?”
Unz isn't some namby-pamby RINO. He led the effort to banish bilingual education in California and ran to the right of Gov. Pete Wilson during his challenge for the gubernatorial nomination in 1994.
If your business model requires that you pay your employees so little that they either starve or go on foodstamps, then your company is on the government dole.
Other companies manage to pay the people who do the actual work a living wage. They're still profitable. They just have a slightly smaller margin than the heirs to the Walton family fortune feel is their God-given due.
Don't Isolate It
MinnPost had a great piece recently on the achievement gap which pointed out the obvious problem in tackling it-don't isolate it.
Before I am accused of opposition to solving the achievement gap or opposing all forms of educational reform, let me say that I am only pointing out that to solve the achievement gap we need to admit that it is part of a larger struggle against racism that dramatically impacts our educational systems, our employment picture, our health care system, and our public safety institutions.
The latter is particularly true. Black people are more likely to be convicted of a crime and our prisons have an insanely high rate of blacks residing in them.
If we are going to tackle this problem efficiently, we can't just look at the achievement gap as an education problem. It's a societal problem which means the path to a solution is how we handle the interlocking complexities of prejudice and racism.
Before I am accused of opposition to solving the achievement gap or opposing all forms of educational reform, let me say that I am only pointing out that to solve the achievement gap we need to admit that it is part of a larger struggle against racism that dramatically impacts our educational systems, our employment picture, our health care system, and our public safety institutions.
The latter is particularly true. Black people are more likely to be convicted of a crime and our prisons have an insanely high rate of blacks residing in them.
If we are going to tackle this problem efficiently, we can't just look at the achievement gap as an education problem. It's a societal problem which means the path to a solution is how we handle the interlocking complexities of prejudice and racism.
Government Investment Pays Off
Cracking open my Sunday newspaper yesterday, the front page brought me this story about the benefits of government investment. The city government basically paid people to live in Osakis and guess what happened? The town is thriving. Government investment works and our economy would be in much better shape if we took the model of these small town in Minnesota and employed it on a larger scale.
Oh, wait. We can't. Hitler and Stalin...I forgot!
Oh, wait. We can't. Hitler and Stalin...I forgot!
Sunday, November 24, 2013
The Deal
The United States has negotiated a treaty with Iran regarding its nuclear program. These are elements of the deal reached Sunday between Iran on one side and Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany on the other, according to a fact sheet issued by the White House.
The initial agreement will be valid for six months.
URANIUM ENRICHMENT. Iran is allowed to continue enriching uranium to a level of 5 per cent, but will stop enriching at higher levels. Uranium enriched to higher levels will be diluted in order to prevent its use in nuclear weapons. Stocks of lower-enriched uranium will be immediately converted into material that makes it more difficult to turn into weapons material. Enrichment plants will not be expanded, and no new plants will be built.
ARAK REACTOR. Construction will stop at the Arak reactor, which is of concern because it would produce plutonium as a side product. Work on making fuel for the reactor will stop Iran will not build a reprocessing facility, so that no plutonium can be separated from the reactor's spent fuel and can thus not be used for a nuclear warhead.
INSPECTIONS. Inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency will get access to additional sites in order to monitor implementation of the agreement. Iran will grant daily access to its uranium-enrichment sites.
SANCTIONS. The six powers will not impose new sanctions. Embargoes will be suspended for the sectors of precious metals, car production, petrochemical exports. The group of six will also allow purchases of Iranian oil at low levels. Tuition fees by Iranian students abroad will be unfrozen. The six nations will improve Iran's access to imports of food and medicines.
Based on these terms, it's pretty clear how desperate the Iranians were to rejoin the world economy. From a financial standpoint, they are really in a bad way and had no choice. As I have said many times, the most powerful weapons the world has are democracies and free markets. There's just too much money to be made.
Obviously, this would have not happened if Iran had not just elected a new leader,President Hassan Rouhani. And, while this isn't cause to run out and declare warming trend between our two countries, it is an important first step towards normalization. Kudos to John Kerry and his team for getting the job done on this one!
URANIUM ENRICHMENT. Iran is allowed to continue enriching uranium to a level of 5 per cent, but will stop enriching at higher levels. Uranium enriched to higher levels will be diluted in order to prevent its use in nuclear weapons. Stocks of lower-enriched uranium will be immediately converted into material that makes it more difficult to turn into weapons material. Enrichment plants will not be expanded, and no new plants will be built.
ARAK REACTOR. Construction will stop at the Arak reactor, which is of concern because it would produce plutonium as a side product. Work on making fuel for the reactor will stop Iran will not build a reprocessing facility, so that no plutonium can be separated from the reactor's spent fuel and can thus not be used for a nuclear warhead.
INSPECTIONS. Inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency will get access to additional sites in order to monitor implementation of the agreement. Iran will grant daily access to its uranium-enrichment sites.
SANCTIONS. The six powers will not impose new sanctions. Embargoes will be suspended for the sectors of precious metals, car production, petrochemical exports. The group of six will also allow purchases of Iranian oil at low levels. Tuition fees by Iranian students abroad will be unfrozen. The six nations will improve Iran's access to imports of food and medicines.
Based on these terms, it's pretty clear how desperate the Iranians were to rejoin the world economy. From a financial standpoint, they are really in a bad way and had no choice. As I have said many times, the most powerful weapons the world has are democracies and free markets. There's just too much money to be made.
Obviously, this would have not happened if Iran had not just elected a new leader,President Hassan Rouhani. And, while this isn't cause to run out and declare warming trend between our two countries, it is an important first step towards normalization. Kudos to John Kerry and his team for getting the job done on this one!
Math Doesn't Lie
The main goal of the Affordable Care Act was to reduce the growth of health care costs and guess what? It's doing just that.
Take a look at the chart below.
According to the report, the overall inflation rate for medical goods and services is at historic lows. The link above also has some very interesting information about readmission rates.
The conclusion?
The majority of experts now believe Obamacare is at least partly responsible for the slowdown. They think it is encouraging permanent, structural changes in medical care—the kind that will generate more and more savings over time. The slowdown's effects are largely invisible. They take the form of premium and tax increases that people will never have to pay. But the effects seem very real—and, if so, they constitute a bona fide policy success, the kind that even many experts once doubted was possible. It may not show up in the polls. But it will show up in people's wallets.
And this would be exactly why Democrats should take Reince Priebus's advice and stamp Obamacare right to their forehead.
Take a look at the chart below.
According to the report, the overall inflation rate for medical goods and services is at historic lows. The link above also has some very interesting information about readmission rates.
The conclusion?
The majority of experts now believe Obamacare is at least partly responsible for the slowdown. They think it is encouraging permanent, structural changes in medical care—the kind that will generate more and more savings over time. The slowdown's effects are largely invisible. They take the form of premium and tax increases that people will never have to pay. But the effects seem very real—and, if so, they constitute a bona fide policy success, the kind that even many experts once doubted was possible. It may not show up in the polls. But it will show up in people's wallets.
And this would be exactly why Democrats should take Reince Priebus's advice and stamp Obamacare right to their forehead.
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