Alan: Poor life choices much more common on the right side of the aisle.
"Red State Moocher Links"
On the other hand, Obamacare is not awesome...
just a helluva lot better than what we had before.
(The GOP made damn sure the ACA was as inefficient as possible -
part of its long-term strategy to repeal and defund.)
***
"Where's The Train Wreck?"
***
Off the Obamacare deep end: The worse-the-better caucus is hurting GOP's case. "It doesn't take much for some conservatives to shout 'betrayal' these days, but the latest example is especially obtuse. House GOP leaders are rushing to quell a micro-rebellion on the right for having repaired a small corner of ObamaCare's economic damage. It's going to be a long three years until there is a new President if harm reduction now constitutes health-care treason. In the latest 'doc fix' for Medicare payments last week, Republicans tucked in a provision repealing an arbitrary $2,000 cap on deductibles in small-business health insurance. In a rational world beating White House industrial policy and allowing more consumer choice would qualify as a modest conservative victory. But some Republicans have convinced themselves that the only tolerable change to ObamaCare is to make it worse....We support repealing ObamaCare as much as anyone, but that shouldn't mean refusing to make the law less destructive to the businesses that create the most jobs. The GOP ought to run on what progress the party is making against an implacable White House, not apologize for it." Editorial Board.
COHN: The latest evidence that Obamacare is working. "It's impossible to say how big an impact the Affordable Care Act is having on the uninsured. But it's getting impossible to deny that it's having an impact at all. The latest evidence comes from the Gallup organization, which surveys respondents about insurance status. According to Gallup, the percentage of adults without health insurance has been falling since the middle of last year. Now, Gallup says, it's down to 15.6 percent. That's the lowest rate that Gallup has recorded since late 2008. These tracking surveys on the uninsured are far from precise. Among other things, people answering these surveys aren't always sure of their own insurance status. Nobody should treat them as gospel. But Gallup also found the most dramatic change in insurance status among low-income and minority populations, which would be consistent with implementation of a law that has its most dramatic impact on people with the least money." Jonathan Cohn in The New Republic.
House Republicans are slowly giving in to Obamacare. "A week and a half ago, when House Republican leaders realized that their own conservative members might align to defeat legislation protecting Medicare physicians from a big automatic pay cut, they took the unusual step of cutting them out of the tangle altogether....I wonder how many of them knew at the time, or know now, that the leaders used the same doc fix bill to smuggle a bipartisan Obamacare fix through the House uncontested. The tweak itself is relatively minor....When the Associated Press laid it all out on Sunday -- including the fact that GOP leaders sought the fix at the behest of powerful business organizations -- Matt Drudge freaked out and accused Republican leaders of 'expanding Obamacare.' Republican leaders rejected that interpretation, noting that what they actually did was repeal a provision of the law, in a way that redounds to the benefit of small business owners. But Drudge has a point, too. The change will make expanding coverage under Obamacare marginally easier. And to the extent that it helps small business owners, it weakens the already splintering coalition of interest groups and movement leaders who support repealing the law in its entirety." Brian Beutler in The New Republic.
PONNURU: Obamacare isn't failing. Now what? "The higher-coverage alternative seems like a better bet for the law's opponents, both from the perspective of winning the 2016 elections and that of actually enacting an alternative. It seems unlikely that Congress would pass legislation to strip coverage from millions of people. Even if opponents of Obamacare eventually agree on that point, devising an alternative is only the beginning. It will still be necessary to strike at the Affordable Care Act's weak points. The tax on people who don't buy insurance is one of them. It is both the law's least popular feature and a window into its coercive heart. Congressional Republicans should keep pressing on this issue. One way of doing so: Replacement plans should make sure to include an amnesty for anyone who runs afoul of that tax. That's my advice, free of charge, for Obamacare opponents in politics -- especially any of them who are thinking about running for president." Ramesh Ponnuru in Bloomberg View.
House Republicans are slowly giving in to Obamacare. "A week and a half ago, when House Republican leaders realized that their own conservative members might align to defeat legislation protecting Medicare physicians from a big automatic pay cut, they took the unusual step of cutting them out of the tangle altogether....I wonder how many of them knew at the time, or know now, that the leaders used the same doc fix bill to smuggle a bipartisan Obamacare fix through the House uncontested. The tweak itself is relatively minor....When the Associated Press laid it all out on Sunday -- including the fact that GOP leaders sought the fix at the behest of powerful business organizations -- Matt Drudge freaked out and accused Republican leaders of 'expanding Obamacare.' Republican leaders rejected that interpretation, noting that what they actually did was repeal a provision of the law, in a way that redounds to the benefit of small business owners. But Drudge has a point, too. The change will make expanding coverage under Obamacare marginally easier. And to the extent that it helps small business owners, it weakens the already splintering coalition of interest groups and movement leaders who support repealing the law in its entirety." Brian Beutler in The New Republic.
PONNURU: Obamacare isn't failing. Now what? "The higher-coverage alternative seems like a better bet for the law's opponents, both from the perspective of winning the 2016 elections and that of actually enacting an alternative. It seems unlikely that Congress would pass legislation to strip coverage from millions of people. Even if opponents of Obamacare eventually agree on that point, devising an alternative is only the beginning. It will still be necessary to strike at the Affordable Care Act's weak points. The tax on people who don't buy insurance is one of them. It is both the law's least popular feature and a window into its coercive heart. Congressional Republicans should keep pressing on this issue. One way of doing so: Replacement plans should make sure to include an amnesty for anyone who runs afoul of that tax. That's my advice, free of charge, for Obamacare opponents in politics -- especially any of them who are thinking about running for president." Ramesh Ponnuru in Bloomberg View.
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