Five years after President Obama signed the landmark Affordable Care Act, the law that’s come to be known as “Obamacare” has survived a Supreme Court challenge, stumbled through a rocky website rollout, weathered massive political misinformation campaigns, withstood dozens of repeal attempts, and ultimately extended health care to millions of Americans who use d to be uninsured.
But even after five years under Obamacare, widespread misperceptions remain about what the law does, Tara Culp-Ressler noted at ThinkProgress.org (3/23). According to new polling conducted by Vox.com, the people who don’t understand how Obamacare works are less likely to know how it’s affecting them. Unsurprisingly, some of this information gap tends to fall along party lines.
So, on Obamacare’s fifth birthday, ThinkProgress recounted how health reform is faring:
• 16.4 mln people have gained insurance, either by purchasing private plans on the new state-level marketplaces or by gaining public insurance through the Medicaid expansion. That translates to a 35% reduction in the national uninsured rate, which is the largest drop in the number of Americans going without health care over the past four decades. One of those who got insurance through the ACA after his wife lost the insurance that had covered their family is Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).
• Health reform costs less than expected. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in March announced that implementing Obamacare over the next ten years will cost $142 bln less than the nonpartisan agency had previously predicted. That represents an 11% reduction from an earlier CBO projection released at the beginning of this year — and stands in sharp contrast to Obamacare opponents’ dire predictions about how the law was going to cripple the economy.
• Employers aren’t cutting their workers’ benefits. Over the past several years, several high-profile restaurants and corporations have blamed Obamacare for their decision to cut back on workers’ hours, leading to serious concerns over the health care reform law’s potential impact on hourly workers. But the dire predictions that Obamacare would lead to a “part time economy” haven’t come to fruition.
Employers have not cut benefits due to the health law, according to a new survey conducted by benefits consultant Mercer that was released in March. Mercer found that the average enrollment in company’s health plans was essentially unchanged between 2014 and 2015, hovering around 74% of all workers. And previous research from the Center for Economic and Policy Research has confirmed that employers aren’t cutting back on workers’ hours to avoid the law’s coverage requirements for full-time employees.
• Americans aren’t getting their plans cancelled. Obamacare opponents claimed that the law was going to result in tens of millions of Americans receiving cancellation letters. It’s true that some private market enrollees were required to purchase more substantive plans, since their former policies didn’t meet the minimum standard for benefit requirements established by the health reform law. But — in contrast to the dire predictions that every American who liked their plan would not be allowed to keep it — they ended up representing just a tiny portion of overall insurance policyholders.
Just about 2.2% of the Americans who purchased coverage on the private market had their policies cancelled last year, according to a report from the nonpartisan Urban Institute that was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. That works out to be about 400,000 people. The researchers said there was no evidence to suggest a “significant number of policy cancellations” in 2014, and they don’t expect this to be a big issue moving forward, either.
• Early evidence suggests the law is making people healthier. According to a recent analysis from the New York Times, there isn’t enough data yet to definitively say that Obamacare is making the nation healthier, which is perhaps the law’s “loftiest and hardest to demonstrate” goal. But there is some preliminary evidence that this is starting to happen among some populations.
Young people who have been able to remain on their parents’ plans until the age of 26, for instance, are reporting better mental and physical health in the aftermath of health reform. Research suggests that young Americans have been able to increase their use of mental health services under the law. A different study released this week found that the states that agreed to expand Medicaid to extend coverage to additional low-income Americans are seeing a huge surge in diabetes diagnoses, suggesting that the law is allowing previously uninsured people to go to the doctor and get screened for health conditions that otherwise would have gone unchecked.
Meanwhile, the 24 states that refused to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act will miss out on $423 billion in federal health care dollars through 2022, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Urban Institute reported in August 2014. Under the law, the federal government picks up all the costs of the expansion through the first three years, and then its share gradually drops to 90%.
Texas, which leads the nation in the rate of uninsured, at 24% in 2012, and has made draconian cuts in health care spending at the same time it refused Medicaid expansion, will lose almost $66 bln in funds that could pay for Medicaid expansion to cover 1 mln working poor. Florida, which is tied for the country’s third-highest rate of uninsured, will lose a similar amount. George, sixth in uninsured, will lose almost $34 bln, and North Carolina stands to miss out on $40 bln. Joshua Holland noted in an article at BillMoyers.com (8/14/14), “The citizens of these states are paying for the Affordable Care Act — with the wealthiest paying a surcharge on both high incomes and investments. Yet the politicians who represent them are steadfast in their refusal to expand coverage for their constituents.”
Public health researchers also estimated that between 7,115 and 17,104 Americans would die from illnesses that could have been prevented if those 5 mln working poor Americans had received medical care under Medicaid, according to a study published in Health Affairs in January 2014.
One of those whose death was blamed on the Republican resistance to Obamacare was Charlene Dill, a 32-year-old mother of three who was denied treatment for her heart condition which she would have received if Florida Republicans hadn’t refused to expand Medicaid. On 3/21/14, she died of heart disease in a stranger’s house in Kissimmee, Fla., trying to sell Rainbow vacuums. She was one of an estimated 2,000 Floridians who died, among the 750,000 Floridians who were denied medical care because of the partisan opposition to the Affordable Care Act.
US Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) told Orlando Weekly that Republican resistance to Medicaid expansion “has put the GOP’s appalling disregard for human life on full display.” But Dill’s death didn’t shame Florida Republicans into accepting the federal funds to expand Medicaid.
In Texas, health providers are trying to recover from budget cuts in 2011 when the Legislature slashed family planning funding by two-thirds. The state Department of State Health Services expected about 180,000 Texas women to lose access to birth control and cancer screenings and 100 clinics were forced to close their doors. Two years ago, lawmakers successfully excluded Planned Parenthood from the network of providers that are authorized to provide family planning services to women on Medicaid, leaving those patients scrambling to find new doctors. On top of that, harsh restrictions on abortion passed in 2013 have led to another round of clinic closures, Culp-Resser noted at ThinkProgress.org (3/10).
Particularly in rural parts of the state, impoverished women have lost all access to basic health services. The clinics that remain open are so burdened with patients that waiting lists can stretch for more than six months.
In Texas, closing the Medicaid coverage gap for more than 1 mln working poor Texans would create 303,140 jobs and would save local taxpayers $4.4 bln annually on uninsured health costs, the Center for Public Policy Priorities reported (3/24).
ROUNDUP ‘PROBABLY’ CAUSES CANCER, UN AGENCY FINDS. The most popular weed-killer in the US — Monsanto’s Roundup — “probably” causes cancer, according to a new report from the World Health Organization. The report published 3/19 in the journal The Lancet Oncology, focuses on glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, a popular product used mostly in commercial agriculture production. Roundup is particularly good for genetically modified crops, which can be bred to resist damage from the product while it kills the weeds surrounding it.
In the US, glyphosate is not considered carcinogenic, Emily Atkins noted at ThinkProgress.org (3/22). The Environmental Protection Agency’s current position is that “there is inadequate evidence to state whether or not glyphosate has the potential to cause cancer from a lifetime exposure in drinking water.” In the wake of the WHO’s report, however, the EPA said it “would consider” the UN agency’s findings.
COSTA RICA ELECTRICITY FOSSIL-FREE IN FIRST QUARTER. Costa Rica got 100% of its electricity from renewables for 75 days straight this year, the state-run Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) announced (3/16).
The Central American country hasn’t had to use fossil fuels at all so far in 2015, due to heavy rains that have kept hydroelectric power plants going strong since 1/1/15. Wind, solar, biomass, and geothermal energy have also helped power the country this year. “The year 2015 has been one of electricity totally friendly to the environment for Costa Rica,” ICE announced in a press release.
Reliance on renewables has allowed the country to lower electricity rates by 12% and ICE predicts that rates will continue to drop for Costa Rican customers in the second quarter of the year.
In 2009, Costa Rica announced its goal of becoming carbon-neutral by 2021. Already, Costa Rica gets about 88% of its total electricity from renewable sources. Hydroelectric plants supply the bulk of that electricity — 68% — while geothermal plants provide about 15%, wind power provides 5%, and solar and biomass also contribute slightly to the country’s energy mix.
Part of the reason why Costa Rica can devote so much funding to environmental issues is that the country abolished its military in 1948, allowing it to divert funds that would have gone towards defense needs to the environment, healthcare, and education, Katie Valentine noted at ThinkProgress (3/21).
TED CRUZ LITERALLY UNBELIEVABLE. Teabag Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who kicked off his presidential campaign (3/23), has a record for telling falsehoods almost unmatched among elected officials. Ana Marie Cox at TheDailyBeast.com (3/22) noted the irony that Cruz recently released a short video that’s the best evidence yet for what a Cruz presidential campaign might be like. “It’s called ‘A Time for Truth,’ and the title has to be intentional irony,” Cox noted, since Cruz’s record for publicly-asserted falsehoods checked by PolitiFact is the second-highest among Republican presidential candidates, with 66% of his 44 checked statements rated either “Mostly False,” “False” or “Pants on Fire” and only one statement rated “True.” The only other “leading” contender with a higher untruthfulness rating is Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon who has a 100% “False” rating — but that’s based on only one assertion that PolitiFact has checked — that people choose to be gay.
SANDERS BUDGET FAILS BUT DEMS HAVE HIS BACK. The Senate nixed a measure (3/24) by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to spend $478 bln over six years to rebuild crumbling roads & bridges, transit systems, airports and waterways, broadband Internet infrastructure, the electric grid and other projects and support millions of good-paying construction jobs — by eliminating tax loopholes for the wealthy.
Sanders, the ranking member from the Democratic caucus on the Budget Committee, cited a 2013 report by the American Society of Civil Engineers that said the US needs to spend $1.3 tln above current spending levels by 2020 to return the country’s infrastructure to a state of good repair.
The tax loopholes targeted by Sanders’ amendment let corporations and wealthy Americans shift jobs and profits overseas, often to offshore tax havens like Cayman Islands. Nearly $100 bln is lost annually offshore, according to the US Treasury.
But Paul Hogarth noted at DailyKos.com (3/24), every Senate Democrat present voted in favor, making it a 45-52 party-line vote in the Repub-controlled Senate. “This is important, because way too many Democrats vote with Republicans on awful bills like gutting Wall Street reform—or kill good legislation like restoring food stamp cuts—that it gives cover to Republicans who can claim with a straight-face that they are being ‘bipartisan.’”
On 3/25 the House rejected 96-330 the People’s Budget—an alternative budget proposed by co-chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. It would create 8 mln new jobs, raise the minimum wage and protect vital services like Social Security. Instead, on a 228-199 vote (with all Dems and 17 Repubs voting against), the House approved the Budget Committee’s proposal, which calls for repeal of the Affordable Care Act and $5.5 tln in unspecified cuts to programs such as food stamps, educational Pell Grants, Medicaid, deductions for education and the child tax credit.
NET NEUTRALITY LEGAL BATTLES START. New federal rules are supposed to be published in the Federal Register before they can be challenged in court, Joan McCarter noted at DailyKos.com (3/24), but the net neutrality lawsuits have begun.
A tiny Texas-based broadband provider and a major telecom trade group fired the first shots in what’s expected to be a drawn-out legal war over the FCC’s new “net neutrality” rules that would ensure equal access to the Internet by reclassifying Internet service providers as utilities.
Alamo Broadband, which serves about 700 customers south of San Antonio, on (3/23) asked the 5th Circuit US Court of Appeals in New Orleans to “hold unlawful, vacate, enjoin, and set aside” the net neutrality order, telling the court that the commission overstepped its authority, Politico reported (3/24). USTelecom, which represents industry giants like AT&T and Verizon, took a similar action Monday in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
“Big telecom has very, very deep pockets for this fight,” McCarter noted. “Big enough to fight on two fronts — in the courts and in Congress. What they don’t have is a solid legal foundation for these cases. In the court decision that led to the previous net neutrality order being overturned — which resulted in these new reclassification rules — the court made clear that reclassification would be key to giving the FCC the authority to enforce open internet rules, as did a previous ruling from the Supreme Court. The FCC is on solid legal footing in terms of its authority to take this action, and that should be the primary concern of courts.”
She added, “The FCC might ask for a dismissal of these cases, since they are indeed premature. That would mean just a delay in the onslaught of lawsuits.”
SENATE SEAT OPENING IN INDIANA, RACE SHAPES UP IN FLORIDA. Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) announced (3/24) that he won’t seek re-election in 2016, creating the possibility that former Sen. Evan Bayh (D) will reclaim that seat.
Coats, who took over Dan Quayle’s seat, had served one term from 1989 to 1999 before stepping down to become a lobbyist. Bayh, a former governor, was elected to the seat and served one term, announcing his retirement only days after Coats announced he would seek his former seat in 2010, Jeff Singer noted at DailyKos.com (3/25),
Now the two may swap spots yet again, Singer noted. Bayh refused to rule out a comeback bid, and he’d make a potent candidate if he decided to get back in the game. He’s sitting on a $10 mln war chest, has universal name recognition thanks to his service both in the Senate and as governor, and possesses a good chunk of crossover voter appeal — something any Democrat needs to get elected statewide in Indiana.
Bayh is no progressive and many of his fellow Indiana Democrats were cheesed off at his unexpected departure in 2010, a move that allowed his seat to fall into Republican hands, Singer noted. On the flipside, a Bayh return would instantly put this contest in play, and that would heal a lot of wounds. It would also delight the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which needs four pickups (or five, depending on the presidential outcome) to retake the Senate.
Bayh is evasive about his plans. On 3/25, Bayh’s longtime confidant Dan Parker said that Bayh “is not a candidate for United States Senate in 2016.” But when Parker was asked if Bayh would run later, he only repeated that the former senator “is not a candidate.”
If Bayh continues to not be a candidate, other Dems who might step up include former US Rep. Baron Hill, who has been flirting with a bid against Republican Gov. Mike Pence, but Politico’s Kyle Cheney quotes him saying that he’s “interested in” a Senate run, but needs to talk to his allies first. A party strategist also tells The Hill that former Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson is taking a look at running. Peterson was last seen losing his 2007 re-election campaign in a complete shocker, so Democrats may prefer someone else.
Other potential Democratic candidates include former Rep. and 2010 nominee Brad Ellsworth, state Rep. Christina Hale, Hammond Mayor Tom McDermott and state Superintendent of Public Instruction Glenda Ritz. In February, McDermott and Ritz did not rule out gubernatorial bids, though neither sounded incredibly enthusiastic, Singer noted.
Meanwhile, Republicans are likely to see an intense, and very possibly bitter, primary of their own. Coats touted his chief of staff Eric Holcomb, who announced he would take a leave of absence from the senator’s office to consider a campaign. The Hill’s Cameron Joseph reports that Holcomb has been building alliances across the state in preparation for Coats’ departure. But Holcomb shouldn’t expect a clear primary field if he does jump in. Rep. Marlin Stutzman sought this seat in 2010 and he confirmed that he “will be taking a serious look at running again,” appealing to teabaggers.
Some of Stutzman’s fellow Hoosier House members are sniffing out this seat as well. None were elected before 2010, so none of this very junior crop of congresscritters is going to intimidate the rest. *Roll Call*’s Emily Cahn quotes a source close to Jackie Walorski who says that the congresswoman is “strongly considering jumping in,” though Walorski hasn’t said anything on the record yet. “During her time in the state legislature, Walorski had a reputation as an ultra conservative, but she’s emerged as a pretty anonymous member of the House rank and file, with a voting record that’s pretty close to the midpoint of the GOP caucus,” Singer wrote. “If she runs, it’s anyone’s guess if we’ll see the return of the Wacky Jackie of the past, or a continuation of this new model.”
In Florida, the Democratic establishment is starting to rally around Rep. Patrick Murphy (D) in his challenge of Sen. Marco Rubio (R), who is expected not to seek re-election if he runs for president. After former Gov. Charlie Crist and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz took their names out of contention, the DSCC and Minority Leader Harry Reid are making their preferences clear, Singer noted, and Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) praised Murphy, although he noted that he will not make an endorsement in the expected primary. Rep. Alan Grayson (D) also is considering a race. He told *National Journal*, “Patrick’s entry into the race doesn’t really factor into mine at all.” The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, he said, “hasn’t endorsed anybody, Harry Reid hasn’t endorsed anybody, and it’s not terribly relevant if [they] did, because while we’d all like to have the support of the party, it’s the voters who decide these things, not the party. ... This race isn’t about who Harry Reid wants to be the next senator from Florida.”
Public Policy Polling surveyed potential matchups in the Florida Senate race and found both Murphy and Grayson competitive against possible Republican opponents. The hypothetical primary starts off virtually tied, with Grayson edging Murphy just 22%-21% despite being better known.
REPUBS PROPOSE WEAKER OVERTIME RULES INSTEAD OF PAID FAMILY LEAVE. Republican senators have reintroduced the Family Friendly and Workplace Flexibility Act that would give employers flexibility in giving their workers an option to take paid leave instead of overtime pay. Currently, private-sector employees can only be paid for extra time on the clock, not use the hours to accrue time off. House Republicans passed a very similar proposal last year.
While Republicans tout it as a way to give employees more flexibility, it could weaken already weak rules that require workers to be paid extra for working extra hours, thus ensuring that workweeks don’t grow out of control and employees are compensated fairly. Currently, 21.7 mln people are exempt from overtime pay because of loopholes in the law and likely wouldn’t be able to take advantage of the Republican proposal. Meanwhile, opponents have argued that while workers would in theory opt voluntarily to get time off instead of the extra pay, employers would end up with the power to coerce their workers to choose time off.
Employers had to pay their workers more than $136 mln in back wages last year after denying them overtime pay. But it’s estimated that employers rob employees of more than $50 bln in wages every year by denying overtime and other labor law violations. The vast majority doesn’t get reported, but even those who do report wage theft often don’t recover any money.
The Republican plan came less than a week after Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) re-introduced the Family and Medical Insurance Leave (FAMILY) Act, which would create a national paid leave program like ones in place in California, New Jersey, and Rhode Island.
CAL 'MIRACLE' OUTPACES TEXAS. For years, business lobbyists complained about what they derided as “job killer” laws that drive employers out of California. Rival state governors, notably former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), made highly publicized visits to the Golden State in hopes of poaching jobs, Kevin Drum noted at MotherJones.com (3/23).
But new numbers from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics tell a different story. Total jobs created in the 12 months ending 1/31 show California leading other states. California gained 498,000 new jobs, almost 30% more than the Lone Star State’s total of 392,900 for the same period.
“Them’s the breaks,” Drum noted. “There’s no more ‘Texas Miracle’ for either [Sen. Ted] Cruz or Rick Perry. We’re in the middle of a California Miracle right now.
“So how is Sodom on the Pacific pulling this off? Actually, that’s pretty easy to answer. California was hit hard by the housing bubble, while Texas wasn’t. So California’s economy took a big hit during the recession and the slow recovery, while Texas did pretty well — aided and abetted by a rise in oil prices.
“Now everything has turned around. California is rebounding strongly from the housing crisis while Texas is suffering from the global collapse in oil prices. There is, frankly, nothing very miraculous about either story. It’s just the business cycle at work in a fairly normal and predictable way.”
CAL, GREAT PLAINS DRYING UP. Plagued by prolonged drought, California now has only enough water to get it through the next year, according to NASA. In an op-ed published 3/12 by the *Los Angeles Times*, Jay Famiglietti, a senior water scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, painted a dire picture of the state’s water crisis. California, he writes, has lost around 12 mln acre-feet of stored water every year since 2011. In the Sacramento and San Joaquin river basins, the combined water sources of snow, rivers, reservoirs, soil water and groundwater amounted to a volume that was 34 mln acre-feet below normal levels in 2014. And there is no relief in sight.
California isn’t the only place with water problems. Brad Plumer wrote at Wonkblog at WashingtonPost.com (3/12) that the sprawling Ogallala Aquifer in the Great Plains provides freshwater for roughly one-fifth of the wheat, corn, cattle and cotton in the US, including most of Nebraska and parts of eastern Colorado, western Kansas, eastern New Mexico, southern South Dakota, southeast Wyoming and the panhandles of Oklahoma and Texas. But key parts of the underwater aquifer are being depleted faster than they can be recharged by rain.
A recent study in the *Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences* tried to come up with how long Kansas can continue using groundwater for farming. At current rates of use, farming is likely to peak by 2040 or so due to water depletion.
With better conservation techniques, western Kansas could probably stretch things out so that farm production doesn’t peak until the 2070s. But avoiding any sort of peak altogether would require drastic measures — beyond anything contemplated today.
The aquifer is being depleted as much as two feet per year in some counties. And once they drain, it could take hundreds or thousands of years for those ancient aquifers to fully recharge with rainfall.
BLACK VOTERS WIN VOTING RIGHTS CASE. The Supreme Court ruled (3/25) that there can be too much of a good thing in packing black voters into heavily Democratic sets in order to weaken white Democrats in other districts. In a 5-4 decision, with Justice Anthony Kennedy crossing over to vote with the liberal bloc — the court in Alabama Legislative Black Caucus v. Alabama does not necessarily ensure that the state’s gerrymandered maps will be struck down, but it rejected a lower court’s reasoning which upheld the unusual, racially focused method the state used in drawing many of its districts.
As Justice Stephen Breyer explains in the Court’s opinion, Alabama “sought to minimize the extent to which a district might deviate from the theoretical ideal of precisely equal population” with respect to the state’s other districts (a goal Breyer characterizes as desirable). Additionally, the state purported to believe that it was required, under the Voting Rights Act, to “maintain roughly the same black population percentage in existing majority-minority districts.” Thus, for example, after determining that one overwhelmingly black district needed an additional 16,000 voters to comply with the goal of equal population, “Alabama’s plan added 15,785 new individuals, and only 36 of those newly added individuals were white.”
The practical effect of this tactic is that it diminishes African American voters’ influence in the state legislature. Because a black candidate need only win a plurality of the vote in their district in order to win election, many black voters in districts that were over 70% black essentially wasted their vote on a candidate who was certain to win anyway. Had the state’s maps been drawn differently, so that these districts were only 51% black, the African American voters who spilled over into other districts could have influenced the outcomes in those districts as well.
The ruling could have important ramifications, since the strategy followed by Alabama Republicans was replicated throughout the South after the 2010 elections.
As Jason Zengerle wrote in The New Republic (8/10/14), “Prior to the 2010 election, the Alabama House had 60 Democratic members, 34 of them white and 26 black. Afterward, there were 36 Democrats—10 white, 26 black. Meanwhile, in the Alabama Senate, the number of black Democrats remained 7, while the number of white Democrats fell from 13 to 4.” After the 2014 election, there are now only 7 white Democrats in the Alabama legislature—one in the Senate and six in the House.
Ari Berman noted at TheNation.com (3/25) that there are no longer any white Democrats from the Deep South in Congress, following the defeat of Georgia Congressman John Barrow in 2014. Georgia Republicans moved 41,000 black Democrats out of his Savannah-based district to make him more vulnerable to a Republican challenge.
The elimination of white Democrats has also crippled the political aspirations of black Democrats. For years, black Democrats served in the majority with white Democrats in state legislatures across the South. Today Republicans control every legislative body in the South except for the Kentucky House. Before the 1994 elections, 99.5% of black Democrats served in the majority in Southern state legislatures. After the 2010 election, that number dropped to 4.8%, according to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. “Black voters and elected officials have less influence now than at any time since the civil rights era,” the report found.
From The Progressive Populist, April 15, 2015
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