Cigar
03-25-2014, 11:31 AM
http://media.salon.com/2014/01/cantor_cruz_bachmann-620x412.jpg
Obamacare enrollment could hit 7 million before the midterms; meanwhile, GOP still has no answer for beneficiaries :grin:
It’s a complete accident of legislative and administrative history that the fourth anniversary of the Affordable Care Act should fall the week before the end of the law’s first ever, six-month-long open-enrollment period. But it’s a great coincidence for those of us in the business of cutting through all the hyperbole that accompanies each ACA anniversary, because, for the first time since the law passed, there are real data, and real beneficiaries, to hold the spin up against.
And as I’ve been arguing for months now, the GOP’s position on the law can’t actually withstand on-the-ground realities.
Case in point: Terri Lynn Land — Michigan’s one-time Republican secretary of state, turned Senate candidate — held a first-ever conference call with reporters to trash the ACA on its fourth birthday. But confronted with the question of what happens to people with preexisting medical conditions if the GOP repeals the law (and thus eliminates the individual mandate) — Land’s press aide, Heather Swift, commandeered the call, and tried to take the whole thing off the record.
I wasn’t on the line, but Michigan Information and Research Service posted the audio here. (The call starts at 19:20 and the preexisting conditions question at 39:15.) I think the biggest tell of all is that Land doesn’t seem remotely prepared to address the real human consequences of repealing the law in any meaningful or substantive way. But almost as big is that her staff can’t either. The aide who leapt to Land’s defense made a glaring error after attempting to take the call off the record.
“I can follow up with you more on this with a little bit more policy research, but just off the record the characterization of this question is incorrect,” she said. “It’s not the individual mandate but it’s the guaranteed provision that prohibits the denial of coverage from preexisting conditions. The problem with Obamacare is that it allows people to wait until they’re very sick to purchase insurance, which creates significant and unknown risks to insurers and then the insurance companies would pass that cost on to consumers. So the way that Terri’s plan, and then this can be on the record, the way that Terri’s plan addresses preexisting conditions is continuous coverage and portability.”
more
http://www.salon.com/2014/03/25/republicans_losing_it_over_new_obamacare_data_why_ their_position_is_collapsing/
Obamacare enrollment could hit 7 million before the midterms; meanwhile, GOP still has no answer for beneficiaries :grin:
It’s a complete accident of legislative and administrative history that the fourth anniversary of the Affordable Care Act should fall the week before the end of the law’s first ever, six-month-long open-enrollment period. But it’s a great coincidence for those of us in the business of cutting through all the hyperbole that accompanies each ACA anniversary, because, for the first time since the law passed, there are real data, and real beneficiaries, to hold the spin up against.
And as I’ve been arguing for months now, the GOP’s position on the law can’t actually withstand on-the-ground realities.
Case in point: Terri Lynn Land — Michigan’s one-time Republican secretary of state, turned Senate candidate — held a first-ever conference call with reporters to trash the ACA on its fourth birthday. But confronted with the question of what happens to people with preexisting medical conditions if the GOP repeals the law (and thus eliminates the individual mandate) — Land’s press aide, Heather Swift, commandeered the call, and tried to take the whole thing off the record.
I wasn’t on the line, but Michigan Information and Research Service posted the audio here. (The call starts at 19:20 and the preexisting conditions question at 39:15.) I think the biggest tell of all is that Land doesn’t seem remotely prepared to address the real human consequences of repealing the law in any meaningful or substantive way. But almost as big is that her staff can’t either. The aide who leapt to Land’s defense made a glaring error after attempting to take the call off the record.
“I can follow up with you more on this with a little bit more policy research, but just off the record the characterization of this question is incorrect,” she said. “It’s not the individual mandate but it’s the guaranteed provision that prohibits the denial of coverage from preexisting conditions. The problem with Obamacare is that it allows people to wait until they’re very sick to purchase insurance, which creates significant and unknown risks to insurers and then the insurance companies would pass that cost on to consumers. So the way that Terri’s plan, and then this can be on the record, the way that Terri’s plan addresses preexisting conditions is continuous coverage and portability.”
more
http://www.salon.com/2014/03/25/republicans_losing_it_over_new_obamacare_data_why_ their_position_is_collapsing/