What’s Really Obstructing Obamacare? GOP Resisters

[babylonsister]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/11/02/what-s-really-obstructing-obamacare-gop-resisters.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thedailybeast%2Fpolitics+%28The+Daily+Beast+-+Politics%29


What’s Really Obstructing Obamacare? GOP Resisters
by Michael Tomasky Nov 2, 2013 5:45 AM EDT
Republicans at all levels of government have put up roadblocks to undermine the Affordable Care Act rollout. It’s an orchestrated resistance with only one very ugly precedent.


So we’re a month into the Obamacare era. What does your average American know about it? That the website is mess, and some number of Americans have suddenly lost their coverage after Barack Obama assured them that wouldn’t happen. These things are true, and a person would be quite wrong to deny this is deeply problematic.

But I wonder how many Americans know the other side of the coin. There are already numerous success stories out there. And then there’s the side of the story that has certainly received coverage but not nearly as much as it deserves to, which is the way—did I say way? Ways—the Republican Party is trying to make sure it fails. Todd Purdum wrote a piece for Politico yesterday on the GOP’s “sabotage” of the law. It was a terrific article, but he didn’t say the half of it.

All across the country, Republican governors and insurance commissioners have actively and directly blocked efforts to make the law work. In August, the Obama administration announced that it had awarded contracts to 105 “navigators” to help guide people through their new predicaments and options. There were local health-care providers, community groups, Planned Parenthood outposts, and even business groups. Again—people and groups given the job, under an existing federal law, to help people understand that law.

What has happened, predictably, is that in at least 17 states where Republicans are in charge, a variety of roadblocks has been thrown in front of these folks. In Indiana, they were required to pay fees of $175. In Florida, which under Governor Rick Scott (who knows a thing or two about how to game the health-care system, you may recall) has been probably the most aggressive state of all here, the health department ruled that local public-health offices can’t have navigators on their premises (interesting, because local public health offices tend to be where uninsured people hang out). In West Virginia, Utah, Pennsylvania, and other states, grantees have said no thanks and returned the dough after statewide GOP elected officials started getting in their faces and asking lots of questions about how they operate and what they planned to do. Tennessee issued “emergency rules” requiring their employees to be fingerprinted and undergo background checks.

snip//

The administration’s cockups are a legitimate story. I’ve never said otherwise. My first column about the website was quite tough on the administration and on Obama personally, when I wrote that I found it shocking that he apparently wasn’t riding herd on staff to make damn sure the thing worked. I said on television, to some host’s surprise, that yes, I did hold him accountable for the mistakes.

So I get why that’s a story. But the sabotage is a story, too. A huge one. It’s almost without precedent in American history, and the precedent it does have includes some of the ugliest chapters in this nation’s history. It gets coverage, yes. But not nearly the coverage it deserves. As is so often the case—as with Benghazi, as with Fast and Furious, as with the IRS—the bigger scandal is on the Republican side.

[gopiscrap]

1. exactly

[BlueCaliDem]

2. Anyone still has any doubt that Fox "News" Channel is NOT the only pro-RW propaganda outlet?

So far, only MSNBC's progressive bloc are reporting the facts on both sides of the PPACA. But they're in the minority and they're only accessible through premium programming.

The vast majority, FREE, outlets like CNBC, NBC, ABC, CNN and all their affiliates at the local and state level, are out in force to highlight, even exaggerate the problems with rolling out the PPACA as a concerted effort to bring down this president and his legacy while, at the same time, there's a complete blackout of the Republicans' prominent role of purely political obstructionism in it all.

[Johonny]

3. They key obvious thing to me is when I hear the GOP complaints on ACA

I haven't heard a single solution other than to repeal it. It is medicare part d all over again. Which party eventually tried to fix the problems in that system... not republicans.

The problem with ACA is that it like every policy it requires a functioning government to act to continue to improve, change, and implement good policy. That simply isn't possible when the house of representatives is more like a grade school than a governing body. Hey GOP talking head idiot, it is your job to fix it. Stop whining and get your * to work and fix the policy. Particularly stop whining about things you helped create by throwing money wrenches in the process. The problems in the system aren't impossible to solve and frankly were foreseen by many people. Yet they votes what 40+ times to repeal it and zero times to augment it with corrective measures to address these problems. There's your problem.

[IronLionZion]

4. uninsured in blue states will be so much better off than the folks in red states

with both access to health coverage and financial security. GOP really do not want people to get decent health insurance. Eventually some people in red states may notice they got screwed and they are going to be pissed.

In some ways its good to have people see dramatic difference in the quality of life under Dems vs Repubs.