Ten years ago, on March 21, 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, known simply as the Affordable Care Act, or even more simply as Obamacare. Ten years that included dozens and dozens of attempted repeals from Republicans and court cases, and three years of Trump sabotage, the law has held. That’s largely because of Republican ineptitude—they couldn’t replace it if their lives depend on it, Joan McCarter noted at DailyKos (3/23).
Now that lives DO depend on it, in perhaps the most urgent way ever, in the midst of a pandemic, the law faces the biggest threat ever, as will be up to a conservative Supreme Court to decide, a court that isn’t responsive to the will of the people, and doesn’t have to be because they’re not elected. Right now, in the middle of this pandemic, one thing could happen to keep our current healthcare system (as deficient as it’s proving to be) intact: Trump could withdraw the challenge to the law. That’s what both Democratic front-runner Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are calling on him to do.
In a letter to Trump (3/23), Biden wrote “At a time of national emergency, which is laying bare the existing vulnerabilities in our public health infrastructure, it is unconscionable that you are continuing to pursue a lawsuit designed to strip millions of Americans of their health insurance and protections under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), including the ban on insurers denying coverage or raising premiums due to pre-existing conditions.”
Pelosi celebrated the ACA, telling Trump to “abandon his lawsuit seeking to strike down the Affordable Care Act.” Instead of trying to destroy the law, she said, he should “urge the 14 states who have refused to expand Medicaid, to do so.” That would bring millions more people into health coverage and save lives.
In Sunday’s now-regular press conference substituting for a political rally (3/22), Trump was asked, “Given that people are losing their jobs now and need health care more than ever would you consider rethinking your position” on the lawsuit? Trump, being Trump, said of course not. “And what we want to do is get rid of the bad health care and put in a great health care. And we will always—I will say this, I can make this commitment to you, the Republican Party is fully backing preexisting conditions.”
That is, of course, a lie. Even now, Trump is allowing junk insurance plans that DON’T cover preexisting conditions to be sold as long-term plans. Then he lied some more, in the least coherent, third-grade level he knows how: “[W]e’d like to get rid of bad healthcare. Now we are running the bad healthcare much better than it was ever run and we’re making it better. But it could be much better than it is. And so what we want to do is terminate it, have a great healthcare. But we will only do it with preexisting. We will back preexisting conditions. Okay?”
Not okay. Nothing under Donald Trump is okay.
But at least Americans in 36 states have some access to expanded Medicaid. Millions of people all over the country has affordable health insurance plans that DO cover their preexisting conditions. Lives have been saved, thanks to the Affordable Care Act and the Democrats who have been fighting to keep it. Yes, it absolutely must be improved, and yes, single-payer is the ultimate solution. But in the near term, saving what we have is paramount. (Joan McCarter, DailyKos.com)
HOSPITALS SCRAMBLE TO FACE COVID-19, FEMA CAN’T SAY HOW MANY MASKS ARE ON THE WAY. Pete Gaynor, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) administrator who is coordinating the federal government’s coronavirus pandemic response, managed to sidestep very reasonable and pertinent questions about how many masks are actually being sent to hospitals across the nation as healthcare workers plea for supplies on not one, but two major shows this Sunday. Let’s check out the clips, Marissa Higgins noted at DailyKos (3/22).
On ABC’s “This Week” (3/22), Martha Raddatz asked Gaynor to break down how masks are available via a stockpile handled by the federal government, and when that stockpile would make its way to states. Her overall points: If there is still a stockpile, what’s the hold-up on getting supplies out? Isn’t it urgent now? What type of mask are we talking about, anyway? And, as she voiced the question everyone is wondering, “How are we in such bad shape at this point in terms of supplies?”
Reasonable questions, to which Gaynor offered mostly vagueness. “All those supplies, to all the demands, all the asks, all the governance, every day, we are—we’re prepared to go to zero in the stockpile to meet demand,” he replied. When asked for details on which masks, he said, “It is hundreds of thousands of millions of things that we’re shipping from the stockpile. I can’t give you the details about what every single state or what every single city is doing.”
“We find more and more masks to ship,” he said. “We are trying to focus those shipments on the most critical hotspots of the country, places like New York City, Washington state, California.”
He also stressed that people without symptoms shouldn’t be asking for tests, though it remains to be seen how so many celebrities and GOP officials have gotten tested, all while allegedly not having a single symptom.
“You’ve still got some in the stockpile, I wonder why that stockpile hasn’t been depleted?” Raddatz asked. “Have you seen the urgent pleas from healthcare workers?”
“I am well aware of the high demand for these items,” Gaynor replied, effectively clarifying nothing.
“My focus is today,” he added.
HOSPITALS FEAR THERE AREN’T ENOUGH VENTILATORS FOR COVID-19 PATIENTS. US hospitals bracing for a possible onslaught of coronavirus patients with pneumonia and other breathing difficulties could face a critical shortage of mechanical ventilators and health care workers to operate them, the Associated Press reported (3/17).
The Society of Critical Care Medicine has projected that 960,000 coronavirus patients in the US may need to be put on ventilators at one point or another during the outbreak.
But the nation has only about 200,000 of the machines, by the organization’s estimate, and around half are older models that may not be ideal for the most critically ill patients. Also, many ventilators are already being used by other patients with severe, non-coronavirus ailments.
Hospitals are rushing to rent more ventilators from medical-equipment suppliers. And manufacturers are ramping up production. But whether they can turn out enough of the machines at a time when countries around the world are clamoring for them, too, is unclear.
The other problem is that there are only enough respiratory therapists, specialist nurses and doctors with the ideal type of critical care training in the US for about 135,000 patients to be put on ventilators at any one time, the critical care organization said.
Postponing non-emergency surgeries in the event of a big surge in coronavirus cases could help free up some ventilators as well as anesthesiologists and nurse anesthetists to deal with the crisis, Kaplan said.
US Defense Secretary Mark Esper said (3/17) the Pentagon will provide 2,000 specialized ventilators to federal heath authorities to help handle the outbreak. He said the machines are designed for use by troops, and the military will need to train civilians how to use them.
President Trump said (3/16) the government is seeking to acquire more ventilators. But he angered some when he said governors should take matters into their own hands if they can obtain the equipment more quickly elsewhere.
DEMOCRATIC VOTERS STILL LIKE MEDICARE FOR ALL. Large majorities of Democratic voters in the three states that held primaries on March 17 supported a single-payer health care system similar to that proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders: 70% in Illinois, 72% in Florida and 76% in Arizona, according to Associated Press polling in those states in the week leading up to the election. And support for a public option — former Vice President Joe Biden’s preferred plan, which would allow people under 65 to buy into Medicare — was even higher: 87% in Illinois, 89% in Florida and 91% in Arizona support that.
TRUMP GETS BOOST IN POLLS, BUT WHY? President Trump is getting a bump in the polls over his recent handling of the coronavirus pandemic but analysts warn that the uptick does not yet represent a meaningful shift in support behind the president, Jonathan Early reported at The Hill (3/22).
Two new surveys released March 20 found majority support for Trump’s handling of the health crisis. One survey showed Trump’s job approval rating moving past the 50% mark, a rarity since he took office.
Together, the polls indicate that voters have been encouraged by the president’s new tone and aggressive posture in dealing with the health and economic crises facing the country after a widely-panned Oval Office address March 11.
“Presidents tend to get a bump in wartime as Americans rally around the flag, so it would be no surprise that in a time of crisis the president’s approval rating took a turn in a more positive direction,” said Tim Malloy, the polling director for Quinnipiac University.
However, experts also note that the data is limited. The US is facing a potential long-term health crisis and likely economic recession, which could completely alter the political landscape in the weeks and months before the November general election.
At the moment, only the Harris Poll shows Trump’s overall job approval rating over the 50% mark.
That bump has not been reflected in polling averages, such as FiveThirtyEight’s job rating aggregator, where Trump’s approval was at 43.7% while disapproval was 51.7% (3/23). Several other surveys have put the president in the 46-47 percent range.
“Looking at poll averages, there is no clear impact on Trump’s overall approval rating and that’s what’s most politically relevant,” said Mark Mellmann, a Democratic pollster. “We aren’t seeing the kind of rally around the president effect, that we see in cases of international crisis. That’s measured by the overall approval rating.”
Still, the new surveys are a positive sign for the president, whose response to the pandemic has been widely criticized in Washington, including by former Vice President Joe Biden, the likely Democratic presidential nominee.
An ABC News-Ipsos survey (3/20) found 55% of Americans approve of the president’s management of the crisis, compared to 43% who disapprove. That’s a near mirror-image flip from the same poll a week earlier, when 43% said they approved and 55% disapproved.
Voter attitudes broke largely along party lines, with 86% of Republicans approving and 30% of Democrats saying they approve. But Trump’s numbers among Democrats have doubled over the previous week.
After initially downplaying the threat of the virus, the president has been holding daily press conferences from the White House briefing room that have been broadcast live by news outlets, though his frequest misstatements have caused some journalists to question the wisdom of broadcasting Trump without fact checking.
Trump has been surrounded by top administration officials and experts, including Vice President Mike Pence, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Dr. Deborah Birx, the coronavirus task force coordinator.
WHITE NATIONALISTS SEEK TO WEAPONIZE COVID-19 PANDEMIC. For the “accelerationists” of the white nationalist movement — the nihilistic young bigots and misogynists who “just want to watch the world burn”—the coronavirus pandemic is “truly a gift.” At a bare minimum, they see the current emphasis on “social distancing” and “sheltering in place” as a prime opportunity to reach more young people online for recruitment.
And some of them, it seems, are intent on making it into a weapon. According to a report from Hunter Walker and Jana Winter at Yahoo News, neo-Nazi terrorists on a Telegram chat channel discussed finding ways to turn the contagion into a bioweapon, including spreading the disease through spray bottles, spreading their spit, and contaminating objects in public places.
“Violent extremists continue to make bioterrorism a popular topic among themselves,” reads an intelligence brief by the Federal Protective Service, which covered the week of Feb. 17-24 and was distributed to law enforcement around the nation. “White Racially Motivated Violent Extremists have recently commented on the coronavirus stating that it is an ‘OBLIGATION’ to spread it should any of them contract the virus.”
The brief makes clear that federal investigators are monitoring white nationalist activity on Telegram, an encrypted platform whose privacy settings have made it immensely popular with the radical right. On a Telegram channel devoted to promoting “siege culture”—a terroristic worldview first popularized by neo-Nazi author James Mason—and “accelerationism”—which embraces the goal of destroying human civilization, viewed as a plague on the planet—the participants eagerly embraced the idea of contracting and then deliberately spreading COVID-19. Most were affiliated with the neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen Division.
The brief reported that white supremacists “suggested targeting … law enforcement and minority communities, with some mention of public places in general.” They discussed a number of methods of spreading the pandemic, primarily targeted at their perceived enemies: Seeking out personal contact with anti-fascists, wiping “saliva on door handles” and spitting on elevator buttons at local FBI offices, and leaving the germs behind in “nonwhite neighborhoods.” (David Neiwert, DailyKos 3/23)
THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX: GIVING STEVEN MNUCHIN A $500 BILLION DEBIT CARD. Chalres P. Pierce writes at Esquire.com (3/23): “As the ‘rasslin’ match in the Senate goes on, return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear—namely, 2017—when we all could hang out together and would socially distance ourselves only for petty personal reasons, and Steve Mnuchin was still merely the nominee for Secretary of the Treasury. It was clear throughout his confirmation hearings that a) Mnuchin richly deserved having been called The Foreclosure King in his days as a banker, and b) that he considered telling the whole truth about things to be largely a suggestion. As we wrote back then:
“There is no question that Mnuchin at the very least barbered his testimony before the Senate Finance Committee. He said that his company did not engage in the loathsome practice of robo-signing mortgage foreclosures. It did. He tap-danced around how he’d used a tax shelter in the Cayman Islands to help his clients dodge their taxes. He claimed he didn’t realize that real estate he owns that was valued at nearly $100 million was an “asset” when he failed to report said holdings on his disclosure forms. Who among us has not forgotten $100 million in real estate, I ask you.”
During those hearings, Pierce noted, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and some of her Democratic colleagues from the Senate Finance Committee arranged hearings at which some of the victims of Mnuchin’s chicanery were allowed to tell their stories.
Christina Clifford was one of those people who, when her business cratered during the 2008 recession, applied to Mnuchin’s bank to modify the loan on her condominium in California. Twice, Clifford went through the application process. Both times, the bank said it had not received her paperwork even though it cashed the checks she’d sent along with it. Then, the bank foreclosed and gave her five days to move. “So, basically, all the work I did was null and void,” Clifford said. “It was a nightmare.”...
Besides Clifford, the witnesses included Colleen Ison-Hodroff, an 84-year old widow from Minnesota who got played on a reverse-mortgage by a OneWest subsidiary that demanded she pay the full balance a few days after her husband’s funeral, as well as Heather McCreary and Sylvia Oliver, both of whom are currently going through the loan-modification maelstrom. Oliver was able to make the trip only because she got a 30-day extension of a foreclosure that was scheduled for Wednesday.”
Pierce concluded, “So, as Mitch McConnell fusses and fumes, try to remember that the guy behind these stories of poisonous economic deceit and persiflage is the guy to whom the Republicans want to hand a half-trillion bucks to dole out with practically no oversight at all, and that he now works for the king grifter in the White House whose only really financial expertise can be summed up by the question, ‘Me some too, yes?’ There is no reason for any thinking person to vote to give Steve Mnuchin a blank check. I wouldn’t buy an apple from the man.”
MAYBE DON’T GIVE WILLIAM BARR THE POWER TO TAKE A CHAINSAW TO HABEAS CORPUS DURING A PANDEMIC. Betsy Woodruff Swan of Politico discovered that The Justice Department has quietly asked Congress for the ability to ask chief judges to detain people indefinitely without trial during emergencies — part of a push for new powers that comes as the novel coronavirus spreads throughout the United States.
Documents reviewed by Politico detailed the department’s requests to lawmakers on a host of topics, including the statute of limitations, asylum and the way court hearings are conducted. Politico also reviewed and previously reported on documents seeking the authority to extend deadlines on merger reviews and prosecutions, Swan reported (3/21). In one of the documents, the department proposed that Congress grant the attorney general power to ask the chief judge of any district court to pause court proceedings “whenever the district court is fully or partially closed by virtue of any natural disaster, civil disobedience, or other emergency situation.
The proposal would also grant those top judges broad authority to pause court proceedings during emergencies. It would apply to “any statutes or rules of procedure otherwise affecting pre-arrest, post-arrest, pre-trial, trial, and post-trial procedures in criminal and juvenile proceedings and all civil process and proceedings,” according to draft legislative language the department shared with Congress. In making the case for the change, the DOJ wrote that individual judges can currently pause proceedings during emergencies but that their proposal would make sure all judges in any particular district could handle emergencies “in a consistent manner.”
Charles P. Pierce noted at Esquire (3/23), “Just as it’s crazy to hand someone with a track record like Steve Mnuchin’s a half-trillion bucks to dole out, who in their right mind would hand someone with a track record like Bill Barr’s an open invitation like this to take a chainsaw to habeas corpus? The reaction among Democrats in the House was instantaneously agog. The reaction among civil libertarians was volcanic.”
“Not only would it be a violation of that, but it says ‘affecting pre-arrest,’” Norman L. Reimer, executive director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, told Pollitico. “So that means you could be arrested and never brought before a judge until they decide that the emergency or the civil disobedience is over. I find it absolutely terrifying. Especially in a time of emergency, we should be very careful about granting new powers to the government.” Reimer said the possibility of chief judges suspending all court rules during an emergency without a clear end in sight was deeply disturbing. “That is something that should not happen in a democracy,” he said.
Pierce commented, “Everything about this administration* is sui generis, and that especially includes its incompetence and venality. That has to be paramount in considering everything this administration* says and does. It’s not, “Do you want anyone to have these powers?” It’s, “Do you want these guys to have these powers?” Do you want someone making decisions who’s thinking like the guy described by Gabriel Sherman in Vanity Fair?
“According to two sources, [Jared] Kushner has told Trump about experimental treatments he’s heard about from executives in Silicon Valley. ‘Jared is bringing conspiracy theories to Trump about potential treatments,’ a Republican briefed on the conversations told me. Another former West Wing official told me: ‘Trump is like an 11-year-old boy waiting for the fairy godmother to bring him a magic pill.’”
Pierce concluded, “When you’re already at the bottom, the slippery slope looks like a mountain.”
CLIMATE AND POLICY EXPERTS CALL FOR GREEN STIMULUS BILL TO PUT AMERICANS BACK TO WORK. Progressive climate and policy experts called for a “Green Stimulus to Rebuild Our Economy,”with at least $2 trillion to create millions of family-sustaining green jobs that would lift standards of living, accelerate a transition off fossil fuels, ensure a controlling stake for the public in private-sector bailout plans, and help make our society and economy stronger and more resilient in the face of pandemic, recession and climate emergency in the years ahead.
This stimulus should be automatically renewed annually at 4% of GDP per year (roughly $850 billion) until the economy is fully decarbonized and the unemployment rate is below 3.5%. It should cut across all sectors of the economy. A Green Stimulus would make short-term interventions, restructure political and economic power towards workers and communities, and build toward deep long-term change.
For more information, see the letter and call to members of Congress.
CHILD ABUSE CASES INCREASE AT TEXAS HOSPITAL AMID COVID-19 QUARANTINE. A Texas hospital that usually sees about eight child abuse cases a month reported six cases during the first week of the coronavirus emergency and resulting school closures and self-quarantines, according to NBC DFW, Lauren Floyd noted at DailyKos (3/22). All the affected children were 6-years-old or younger, and the incidents were reported by the Cook Children’s Hospital in Fort Worth, which is located about 30 miles west of Dallas. “Thursday night, we had one child admitted with unfortunately, life-threatening injuries, which they succumbed to, as well as four other children in the emergency department at the same time who were treated and released,” Dr. Jayme Coffman, a child abuse medical director at the hospital, told NBC DFW. “It was like, we have to reach out to the community.”
Although it’s impossible to directly link the cases to COVID-19 impacts, Coffman said, “it’s hard to think that it’s just coincidental.” Shellie McMillon is a chief program officer at the Alliance For Children, a nonprofit working to protect children from child abuse. She said educators and other school workers are the largest groups of those who report suspected child abuse. “They’re usually with kids a good portion of the day,” McMillon told NBC DFW. “Now that kids are not in school, they’re at home – a lot of times, they don’t have that, what we call a trusted adult, to maybe tell about what’s going on.”
The National Child Abuse Hotline nonprofit said in a Facebook post on Thursday: “With schools closing and families staying home, abusers and predators may have more direct contact with their victims.” That’s exactly what social workers across the country fear, according to ProPublica. An unidentified Northeast child protective services worker shared with the news site a list of fears that kept her up at night. She listed: “That my families will literally run out of food, formula, diapers. That some of them may die for lack of treatment. That some children may be injured or harmed through inadequate supervision as their desperate parents try to work. That stress may lead to more child abuse.”
KY LEGISLATURE RUSHES STRICTER VOTER ID BILL THROUGH LEGE. With virtually no notice, Kentucky Republicans revised their photo voter ID bill to make it much more restrictive and passed it out of the legislature (3/19) before the final bill version was even made public—and after Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear had ordered the state capitol closed to the public to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus. Because Republicans can override Beshear’s all-but-certain veto with just a simple majority, this bill will almost certainly become law, Stephen Wolf noted at DailyKos (3/23).
Before the coronavirus hit crisis levels, Republicans had passed different versions of the bill in each chamber, with the state House offering a less strict alternative to the Senate’s. Republicans, without warning, then unveiled a compromise version that eliminated a House provision letting voters who lacked a valid photo ID provide a sworn statement explaining in their own words why they couldn’t obtain ID, instead limiting voters to a list of pre-approved excuses. The final bill also bans a number of IDs from other states, which could effectively function as a poll tax as some previously eligible voters would have to pay to obtain a Kentucky ID.
Perversely, these stepped-up requirements come at the same time that the state has closed driver’s license offices and county clerks’ offices to slow the virus, making it impossible for many voters who lack a valid ID to obtain one. Voting rights advocates are all but certain to sue once Republicans pass the bill into law.
This voting restriction comes despite the fact that Kentucky, which has postponed its primaries to June over coronavirus fears, is nowhere near ready to handle voting amid the pandemic. Kentucky is one of just a handful of states that not only requires an excuse to vote absentee by mail but also offers no in-person early voting.
From The Progressive Populist, April 15, 2020
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