Obamacare Rolls Out Even As GOP Seeks Defund/Delay/Destroy Poison Pill Provisions In Budget and Debt Ceiling Talks

Yesterday marked the beginning of the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) health exchange rollout. While some refer to this as Obamacare with derision (and there are polls that indicate that people have a much more favorable view of the term ACA than Obamacare even though they refer to the same program/law), the purpose of the law is to provide access to affordable health insurance for more than 20 to 30 million people.

The rollout yesterday was not without its hiccups. Some people were met with overloaded servers so that they couldn't complete the registration, and there were some bugs in the process.

That is to be expected with any rollout of any major software/website. It shouldn't be a surprise given how the Republicans have sought to defund, delay, and destroy the ACA at every opportunity.

They've attempted to repeal the ACA more than 40 times in the House alone.

Years of litigation over the constitutionality of the law was concluded with a landmark decision that found the central provision, the individual mandate, constitutional. The GOP claimed that this was unconstitutional, even though the GOP and the Heritage Foundation had made the individual mandate a central part of their alternative plan to Hillarycare when that proposal was rolled out in the early 1990s. Republican Mitt Romney made the individual mandate part of the MassCare program.

But, the moment that the Obama Administration made it a central tenet of the ACA, the GOP savaged it as an affront to personal liberty. We'd have to have collective amnesia to follow the Republican argument and logic. We'd have to ignore that the ACA is modeled on the very successful MassCare, which has reduced the number of uninsureds in Massachusetts by expanding access to affordable health insurance.

Then, we get to the claims by the Tea Party extortionists who think that this is some form of socialism or worse.

The government created health exchanges where private insurance companies offer policies that include minimum levels of coverage that protect against catastrophic health costs to the individual that would otherwise bankrupt them or deny them further insurance. Insurance companies were instrumental in shaping the law, which is why the taxes and fees imposed by the act were written the way they were. Insurers wanted to be part of this - and they're going to be key facilitator to the Obamacare's success. Obamacare created an entirely new market that didn't exist before. That's a market capitalism failure. Obamacare sets up a situation where insurers can profit from millions of new insureds and their premiums (including the subsidies that help those who are eligible afford the insurance).

At the same time, insurance companies can no longer deny policies due to preexisting conditions or include lifetime limits. That's key to millions of people across the country who have had diagnoses for mental health issues, cancer, and other chronic conditions. Someone who was diagnosed with cancer as a child or young adult will no longer be denied insurance because of their cancer diagnosis. Someone who was diagnosed with lung or kidney disease that needs ongoing care will no longer be denied insurance.

People who are under the age of 26 can still be covered on their parents' insurance. That eliminates a period of time when many are in college and allow their insurance coverage to lapse (before the ACA, many insurers didn't allow dependents to stay on parents' insurance beyond age 21).

People with small businesses can now find insurance for themselves or their employees because the purchasing power of the exchanges helps reduce the costs to them.

And for those who think insurance costs are going up solely because of ACA have amnesia because health costs have been soaring for years (and this chart goes back decades). This isn't a new trend that began suddenly in 2009. It has been going on for decades as the cost of health care outraced the rate of inflation.

With this as the backdrop, the Tea Party extremists and the GOP have conspired to shut down the government with the extortionist demand that Democrats defund, delay, and ultimately destroy Obamacare in exchange for a short continuing resolution that allows government to continue operating. Thus far, Democrats have been resolute in defeating the GOP efforts, and some in the GOP are realizing that this is a losing hand and that they've screwed themselves and the nation of an opportunity to actually reform some of the problems with the ACA. The GOP's extremism in seeking defunding, delaying, or destroying Obamacare puts Democrats in position of having to defend the entirety of the program. They're willing to do this, even as some parts of the program should be further reformed. But a better situation than before the ACA is not the opposite of the perfect. The GOP claims that ACA needs to be repealed ignores the fact that the health insurance situation in the nation was a disaster and bleeding hospitals dry for indigent care.

Some Republicans are beginning to realize the damage being done to their party. This includes Rep. Peter King, who announced he was running for President, but also suggested that the government shutdown is the result of a cadre of extremists in his party who refuse to view the President as legitimate and are looking to roll back every single one of the President's achievements. They're willing to burn the government to the ground to achieve their ends.

The government shutdown is a minor trifle compared to the fact that the same Republican extremists are pushing poison pill provisions into the debt ceiling argument. They refuse to accept anything less than a defund/delay/destroy Obamacare for raising the debt ceiling, despite the fact that this Congress has already appropriated the funds. It is an incontrovertible fact that granting the hike does not authorize any new spending and failing to grant it does not cut spending.

These facts, and the fact that the polling doesn't favor the GOP, doesn't faze the Tea Party extortionists who think that if they take this to what they think is the logical conclusion that the Democrats will cave and they'll get the delay they seek. The polling suggests otherwise, but the GOP and its leadership are unwilling to confront the Tea Party cadre and put down this nonsense once and for all. In fact, expect the extremists to take the brutal punishment they're getting in newspaper opeds and editorials today as a badge of honor in rattling the mainstream media's cage.

However, House Speaker John Boehner can't or wont take those sensible measures because the Tea Party threatens to primary anyone who isn't sufficiently conservative enough. These extremists think that if only they have enough pure conservatives that they can succeed in taking down President Obama and his signature achievement in health care reform. Heck, there are reports that the Speaker wont allow a clean CR to come up for a vote because of the fear it might pass. That would effectively put Boehner in the extremist camp because he's catering to the very extremists who are shutting down the government.

Yet, he might be pushing this now, because if the debt ceiling isn't increased, it will result in damage that both sides acknowledge - a loss in credit ratings, increased borrowing costs, and tremendous damage to the US economy.

After all, if the leadership in the House drops the Hastert Rule, a bipartisan continuing resolution to fund government would happen today. If they adopt the Gephardt Rule, the nonsensical debt ceiling negotiations would be an afterthought since the budget appropriations process would allow for a concurrent increase in the debt ceiling to cover the contingency of the government spending more than it takes in revenue. In doing both, Speaker Boehner would marginalize the tyranny of the minority TP Extortionist camp, allow Congress to focus on the business of governance, and signal that the TP movement is nothing more than a bunch of nihlists who are willing to torch government in furtherance of a goal of denying access to health insurance for millions of people.

Cross posted at LGF. (Edited to add more link attributions to buttress the argument)

Newt Gets No Love From Fellow Republicans

Delusions of grandeur and an overly inflated ego are what Newt Gingrich is all about. That's not just my assessment, but those of Republican Peter King, who represents parts of Queens and Long Island. He was among the Republicans who came in the class of 1994 that led Newt to become Speaker of the House.

“What I don’t get is why anybody is surprised by anything this guy does,” Rep. Peter King was saying yesterday afternoon, on his way to a Fordham-St. Joseph’s basketball game. “All Newt ever cared about was Newt. He’s the single most narcissistic guy I’ve ever met in politics — and boy is that ever saying something.”

Pete King, a Republican out of the 3rd Congressional district, out of Nassau and Suffolk counties, and somebody who was right there when Gingrich was Speaker of the House, was just getting started.

“(Gingrich) puts himself in a different universe from everybody else,” King said. “He actually does compare himself to de Gaulle and Churchill, and Reagan. And Margaret Thatcher. I believe the guy is suffering from some messiah complex, one where he believes it’s his destiny to save America and lead America.

“I know the guy a long time, and I can tell you that he absolutely doesn’t care if bringing Romney down destroys his own party. And remember something about these attacks: They aren’t coming from the left, whatever liberal wing there is in our party. They’re coming from a right-wing conservative like Gingrich. It would be like Democrats attacking Obama on health care.

“But Romney’s campaign hits Newt in Iowa, and now he’s willing to pull the whole house down on top of Romney and everybody else to get back at him. So at least one thing about the guy never changes: He can’t take it. When he was Speaker, he’d say anything he wanted about Democrats, call them corrupt and evil. Then one of them would come back at him, and he’d cry.”

Gingrich is a smug phony. So are those just discovering his true character, what a political scrub he is and always has been, even as he wants you to think he is smarter than everybody else in the room. Rick Perry joins Gingrich in these attacks on Romney now, talking about “vulture capitalism.” But Perry is like some third goon in on a hockey fight. He didn’t have the guts or the brains to go after Romney this way until Gingrich did.

Gingrich is more than willing to damage what chances the Republican party has to win in November all because he thinks he is entitled to win the nomination over Romney and thinks that Romney has done him wrong. Newt can't manage to get ahead of even Ron Paul in the first two races, and yet thinks he's entitled to being a front-runner. His chances keep slipping further and further away, but that's not going to stop Gingrich from continuing his attacks on Romney's business experience while at Bain Capital.

Indeed, Gingrich is doing all he can to turn business experience (something that would ordinarily be considered a positive by Republicans who key in on such experience over political experience or ties) into a negative and making the Democrats' arguments for him.

We'll know more about Gingrich's already less-than-admirable character and judgment after he fails once again in South Carolina's primary. If he does poorly once again, will he pack it in and quit the race, or will he continue to stick around so as to be a thorn in Romney's side? I'm betting on the latter - since Gingrich's oversized ego will not allow him to do anything other than that. He can't admit to himself that he's got no chance to be president and the most he can do is hurt the ambitions of a fellow Republican.

Details Emerging on Port Newark Stowaway Case

The New York Post is providing additional details about the discovery of a stowaway, Asem Haroon, living in Port Newark for the past two weeks who may have ties to the Iraqi insurgency. Apparently, he was recently detained in Colombia, but the circumstances aren't clear.

Evidence suggests he "came here in January in a container or the bow of [an Italian] ship," King said of the bust, first revealed in The Post. "What I find concerning is . . . that he was in a secure portion of the port, left that facility and then got out of the secure part of the facility and went to a building outside of the secure area."

There's also evidence he'd "been detained in Colombia fairly recently," King said, although it's unclear why. The United States has fought against Colombian drug thugs for years.

So far, there isn't much clear about Asem Haroon's story except that he was found in living in a supposedly secured facility - Port Newark - by Port Authority police. Rep. Peter King is demanding a top to bottom review of security, and it also worth noting that funds for securing American ports is wholly insufficient for the task of guarding against stowaways or uncovering smuggled contraband, including arms and materials for terrorists to use in attacks.

Haroon's arrest comes following revelations about intel gathered in the Osama bin Laden raid that suggested that al Qaeda was interested in carrying out mass casualty attacks by blowing up oil tankers, refineries, and Port Newark is situated close to both.

Haroon is in ICE custody.

Georgia Woman Claims Responsibility For Sending Anti-Semitic Ramblings To Rep. King; State Senator Ball

A Georgia woman who professes to be a Muslim has claimed responsibility for sending a package including a pig's foot and racist and anti-Semitic ramblings to New York Congressman Peter King and New York State Senator Greg Ball, both of whom carried out hearings on Islamic extremists and terrorism.

A self-described Muslim claims she mailed a bloody pig's foot to US Rep. Peter King and a Curious George plush toy to state Sen. Greg Ball to protest their hearings on homegrown terrorism.

Curious George was created by Holocaust survivors.

"I thought the letters explain themselves," Jacquelyn Barnette of Marietta, Ga., told The Post. The woman's bizarre anti-Semitic missives -- King's arrived on April 4 -- are also rife with derogatory references to Christians and white people.

Note too that neither King nor Ball are Jewish, but this woman's deranged ramblings pretty much hit on every group other than Muslims for disparagement. Given her admission, watch for the Postal Service police, FBI and local law enforcement pay her a visit and potentially bring her up on charges of relating to making terroristic threats against public officials.

Mixed Messages of Hate Sent To Rep. Peter King's Office

Someone has their bigotry all mixed up in a melange of hate, when someone sent GOP Rep. Peter King a bloody pig’s foot and an anti-Semitic note in wake of his hearings on Muslim radicalization.

U.S. Capital Hill cops said the parcel was intercepted Monday morning at a postal facility in Landover, Maryland, during a routine screening of congressional mail that began after the 9/11 attacks and an anthrax scare.

The severed pig's foot was accompanied by a letter filled with anti-Semitic slurs.

The gory package never reached King's office, and police notified the Long Island Republican about it Monday.

"The package was discovered at a mail facility off the Hill early this morning. We have an active open investigation regarding the incident and are working with postal inspectors," said Capitol Police Sgt. Kimberly Schneider without elaborating.

The threatening mailing came after King launched a series of controversial hearings last month on the "The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community."

It was not clear if the package was mailed in response to the hearings, whichsparked protests from American-Muslims in New York and in Washington.

King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, has been the target of threats since he scheduled the hearing.

King is a Roman Catholic, so whoever sent the attached anti-Semitic statement was clearly confused (besides being a racist loon). Whoever was responsible has a whole lot of hate stored up.