Get Over It, Obamacare Is Here To Stay

In 2010, the GOP kicked some electoral butt as a result of Obamacare, now they're about to get their butts kicked if they keep up efforts to appeal it.  The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is here to stay, and it is and always was the signature accomplishment of the Obama administration. To quote Joe Biden, it's a "big F**KING deal."

How does it work?

The Affordable Care Act is officially known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, but has become known as the "Obamacare."  Obamacare was the classic "law by committee." President Barack Obama took a hands-off approach to the crafting of the law and allowed Congressional Committees to craft differing versions of a law whose main goal was to cover as many Americans as possible.  The result which is by no means perfect was light years ahead of the messed up system that was in place.

Despite attempts for a single payer system or even a system with a "public option," the overall plan is still primarily a private insurance company based system.  Most Americans (excluding those over 65, disabled, or covered under the Children's Health Insurance Program {CHIP}) have some form of employer-based healthcare.  Obamacare made it mandatory for employers with over 50 fulltime employees (30 hours or more a week) to offer "affordable" and "minimum essential coverage." The rest of the public (excluding the aforementioned seniors and the disabled) fell under mandated Obamacare insurance.

Without getting into the specifics of federally run exchanges and state-run exchanges, Obamacare gave monetary subsidies to individuals making between 100 and 400 percent of the federal poverty level (around $12,000 a year per individual and an additional $4000 for each dependent.)  The Advanced Premium Tax Credits amounted to large "gifts" to the health insurance companies which allowed individuals to pay reduced premiums for health insurance.  The subsidies allowed millions of people the chance at health coverage.  This was the "carrot."  The "stick" was the individual mandate (a monetary penalty if you didn't buy health insurance.)

If your income is under 133 percent of the poverty level (about $16,000  a year for an individual or $32,000 for a family of four) you are eligible for Medicaid (the Medicaid Expansion.)  If you make over $48,000 as an individual or $96,000 for a family of four, you do not get any financial help buying insurance, but you still have to purchase health insurance or face a financial penalty assessed by the IRS on your next year's taxes.

All of this, by the way, is paid and did not increase the deficit.

The Supreme Court mucks it up

As soon as Obamacare became the "law of the land," Republicans (the guys and gals who abhor the courts "making" laws) filed legal challenges to strike down Obamacare.  The thrust of their argument was that the mandate to buy insurance was an unconstitutional use of power by the federal government.  It was argued that the Commerce Clause did not allow Congress to force people to buy health insurance, which, of course, lead to the crazy legal discussions by the late Justice Antonin Scalia about the federal government forcing individuals to buy broccoli.

In the end, Chief Justice John Roberts saved the day, by declaring Obamacare good to go constitutionally, but not under the Commerce Clause, but he reasoned that the individual mandate was a "tax" and Congress certainly has the right to tax.  He also threw a bone to the conservatives by saying that states were not required to enact the Medicaid expansion, because that was a bridge too far constitutionally.  A number of states (those controlled by Democratic legislatures or Governors,) took the federal money and expanded Medicaid.  Those under Republican control said "we don't want your stinkin' money" and shafted its poorest residents by refusing to expand Medicaid.  The number of states expanding Medicaid has steadily increased, and currently 37 states and the District of Columbia have expanded Medicaid (the most recent few by popular referendum.)


The Supreme Court may get another chance to muck things up if the case which is working its way through the federal court system makes its way to Washington. Before the GOP got its butt handed to them in the 2018 election, Republicans repealed the individual mandate as part of their tax "reform" legislation.  This afforded those diehard Obamacare haters to file suit which basically says that since there is no more individual mandate, there is no tax, and thus the whole of Obamacare is unconstitutional.  A federal judge in Texas agreed, but his ruling is on hold pending appeal.

Repeal and Replace

Repeal and Replace has been the mantra of Republicans for years when it comes to Obamacare.  While this slogan carried some weight when the GOP first coined the phrase, it no longer excites crowds, except for true believers.  This lack of favor came for two major reasons --- Republicans had no "replacement" and Obamacare now usually polls at least fifteen points on the positive side.  It seems like people are happy with the law's prohibition of discriminating against people with pre-existing conditions, keeping children on their plans until age 26, the subsidies, and the elimination of junk insurance plans.  The jury is also in on premium costs because even though health insurance costs continue to rise, the rate of increase has slowed dramatically.

The basic reason for passing Obamacare was to increase the number of individuals with health coverage.  Health insurance would no longer be a luxury only for those who could pay the bill.  Hard working individuals would now be able to go to get medical care without having to "tough it out" and pray for the best or get medical care and then seek bankruptcy protection.  At least 20 million people now have health insurance who wouldn't without Obamacare, and the GOP and President Donald Trump have no plan to cover these people.  Health Savings Accounts ain't gonna do it.

Where do we go from here?

Obamacare is here to stay, and thankfully so.  Millions of Americans now have health insurance who could never afford it.  One of the groups who benefit the most from Obamacare are those "small business people" the GOP loves to canonize.  It is not uncommon for a family health insurance plan to cost as much as $3000 a month, that $36,000 a year for those of you scoring at home.

A small businessman (making $60,000 a year) with a family of four would have to pay about $2000 a month for a family health insurance plan.  Under Obamacare, that small businessman would now get that same coverage for about $400 a month.  Now he can make that business grow and not have about being forced into bankruptcy by health insurance premiums or bills from an unexpected illness.

President Trump has promised a "really good" health insurance plan both on the campaign trail and now since he's instructed the Justice Department to join GOP Attorneys General in support of striking down Obamacare.  He recently said, the GOP will become the "party of healthcare."  This ain't gonna happen if you don't have a plan.  Trump's die-hard bases might take him on his word about healthcare, but a good majority of the American people won't.

Buzz and I are in agreement with a vast majority of the American people.  Fix Obamacare and don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Obamacare is not perfect, but it is so, so much better than what we had before.  Millions of more Americans are covered, and that's a great start.  Let's start tweaking it to cover even more Americans.

The Trump Mandate

Courtesy of thekenyonthrill.com

The results of the 2016 Presidential Election came as a surprise to many of us, Buzz and I included, but does President-Elect Donald Trump have a mandate.  We asked Buzz to run some numbers to start.

Presidents who lost the popular vote, but won the Presidency

John Quincy Adams -- 1824

There is no record of the popular vote prior to the election of 1824, but what a year to start counting.  In the election of 1824, there was only one major political party --- the Democratic-Republican Party.  The Federalist Party of George Washington was by now on the ash heap of history.

There were no primaries and no conventions, so four Democratic-Republican candidates appeared on the ballot.  Here are the results:

Andrew Jackson               99 EV        153,544 votes
John Quincy Adams         84 EV         108,740 votes
William H. Crawford         41 EV           40,856 votes
Henry Clay                       37 EV          47,531 votes

Since none of the candidates received a majority of the electoral votes, the election of the President was thrown into the House of Representatives, of which Henry Clay was the Speaker.  The Twelfth Amendment provides that the House of Representatives will select the President among the top three candidates in electoral votes.  Each state gets one vote.

When the election was held in the House, Adams won 13 states, Jackson won 7, and Crawford won 4, thus Adams was elected.  In what would become known as the "corrupt bargain," Clay threw his support behind Adams.  In return, Clay was appointed to the stepping stone office of Secretary of State by Adams.  (Adams, James Monroe, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson all held the position prior to being elected President.)

Rutherford B. Hayes -- 1876

In an election that ended Reconstruction in the South, Samuel J. Tilden, the Governor of New York received 4,288,546 votes or 50.9 percent. Ohio Governor and former Union Civil War General Rutherford B. Hayes received 4,034,311 or 47.9 percent.  Tilden thus became the only person ever to receive a majority of the popular vote and lose the Presidency.

The electoral count stood at 165 votes for Hayes and 184 votes for Tilden, one shy of a majority.  20 electoral votes were contested from four states.  Congress created a fifteen member electoral commission, which ultimately voted 8 to 7 to award all twenty contested electoral votes to Hayes.  Hayes was elected the 19th President.

Benjamin Harrison -- 1888

Twelve years later, Benjamin Harrison defeated incumbent President Gover Cleveland, 233 EV to 168 EV, but Cleveland won 5,534,488 votes (48.6 percent) to Harrison's 5,433,892 votes (47.8 percent.)  Cleveland would avenge his loss four years later, and thus become the only person to serve two non-consecutive terms as President.

George W. Bush --  2000

The election of 2000 came down to, in the words of the late Tim Russert, "Florida, Florida, Florida."  The election of the "hanging chad" was eventually decided by 537 votes in Florida when the United States Supreme Court, in a five to four decision, with no precedential effect, stopped a Florida recount.  George W. Bush defeated Vice President Al Gore 271 to 266 EVs.  (One elector from Washington, D.C. abstained.)

Gore received 50,999,897 popular votes (48.4 percent) to Bush's 50,456.002 popular votes (47.9 percent.)  Bush went on to be re-elected by a majority popular and EV in 2004 over Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts in 2004.

Donald Trump -- 2016

Donald Trump will now be the fifth person elected President without winning the popular vote.  Currently, he is losing the popular vote somewhere in the neighborhood of 61.5 million (46.7 percent) to Hillary Clinton's 62.8 million (47.7 percent.)  He currently leads the EV count 290 to 232, with Michigan's 16 electoral votes probably going to Trump.  There are still a few million votes yet to be counted, primarily in California.

So when all is said and done, it looks as though Trump will end up with a little over 46 percent of the vote.

Mandate or no?

Bill Clinton

Former Senator Bob Dole (the Senate Republican leader at the time said ,  "(h)e didn't get a majority," Mr. Dole said in an interview shortly after the 1992 Presidential election. "The country obviously didn't want Bush, but they weren't ready for Perot and they had plenty of doubts about Clinton. They want change. Well, we want to be responsible and deliver change, whatever that means, but we're skeptical, so we'll wait and see."

Clinton did receive a majority of the EVs, 370 to 168, but only received a purality of the popular vote.  Clinton defeated incumbent George H. W. Bush 43 percent to 37 percent in a three way race.  Texas billionaire H. Ross Perot got 19 percent of the vote.  

Clinton came to office as a new centrist Democrat, and attempted some liberal policies (Hillarycare, among them,) but got quite a wake up call in 1994, when the GOP picked up 54 seats in the House and 8 seats in the Senate, to gain a 35 seat and a 4 seat majority in the House and Senate, respectively.  Clinton suffered through a GOP Congressional majority for the rest of his Presidency.

Clinton pivoted, and much to the dismay of many liberals, governed from a center left position.  He changed the welfare system as we knew it, signed the Defense of Marriage Act, and also signed the 1994 crime bill, among other not so liberal legislation.  Clinton realized that the "mandate" he received in 1992 wasn't that much of a mandate.

George W. Bush

George W. Bush began to reach across the aisle after being sworn in as the 43rd President in 2001, No Child Left Behind education reform among the bi-partisan measures he steered through Congress.  Much of that changed after 9/11, when the country forgot about the 2000 election and turned their eyes to national security.  

In 2005, after his defeat of Kerry, Bush was unable to use his "political capital" to radically reform Social Security.  So even when you win a majority of the popular vote, moving the Washington establishment is not an easy task.

Trump's mandate

So can Trump turn a 46 percent popular vote pluraity, albeit a clear electoral majority, into a mandate?  Considering, the election of 2016 is only nine days away, and he has not even named one cabinet member, it is too early to tell.

Republicans in Congress have waited eight long years to reverse the Obama revolution, and remember it is much easy to be the loyal opposition than it is to govern.  It is also important to remember that the GOP is not a singular force.  Where the GOP had a common enemy in the Democrats and Obama, they may not be all on the same page with Obama gone and the Democrats in the minority in both Houses of Congress.

We have already begun to see some cracks in the wall, no pun intended.  Republicans, Trump included, have been chanting "repeal and replace" the Affordable Care Act  (Obamacare) since its adoption in 2010, but the "replace" component is anybody's guess.  Trump said multiple times during the campaign that he would "repeal and replace (Obamacare) with something terrific."

Buzz and I are all for "terrific," but your opinion of "terrific" and our opinion of "terrific" may be quite different.  We think "terrific" should include free deep muscle massages from a talented masseuse with every colonoscopy, but including that in a replacement law might be problematic.

Obamacare has some very popular provisions.  People like that fact that insurance companies can't throw you into an expensive high-risk pool for having a pre-existing condition or deny coverage all together, and that children can remain on their parents' insurance policy until they're 26.  They are also very happy with the subsidies which make health insurance much more affordable.

Trump has never really specified what really "terrific" means, although he has said that he supports "single payer" in the past.  As far as the Republicans in Congress, they run the gamut from repealing and replacing it with nothing to some type of modifications that involve unspecified "free market" solutions.  When there's a pig in the parlor, burning down the house to rid yourself of the pig is rarely the best solution.

We also see problems pursuing policies that would include building a "wall" and making "Mexico pay for it," appointing a special prosecutor to "lock up" Hillary Clinton, banning all Muslims from entering the United States, and "bomb and take oil from ISIS."  They may just be campaign hyperbole, but this subtlety may be lost on a lot of people who voted for Trump.

A good portion of the American electorate has voted for change, but there are a million different definitions of what that change encompasses.  

One of the major dilemmas of running a campaign that is rich on platitudes and short on substance is that platitudes are hard to convert into actual policy and legislation.  Make America Great Again may be a great slogan to put on a hat, but it's difficult to translate that into legislation, especially when it means something different to almost everyone who hears it.

Buzz and I will wait and see.  We will withhold judgment for the moment, but we will also be waiting for our free massages.

Obamacare is here to stay, so get over it ODS sufferers

Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act) is here to stay, so why can't the GOP get over it?  It may not be the perfect fix for our ridiculous healthcare insurance now in place, but it is a good start.

Too many people just couldn't afford healthcare coverage under the old system, so something had to be done.  We do have a safety net for the very poor (Medicaid) and the elderly (Medicare,) but the working poor are shit out of luck.  Democrats have been trying for 60 plus years to get something done, only to be thwarted time and time again by the GOP.  And, the crazy part about it is the GOP has never proposed a realistic alternative.

The World Health Organization has ranked the United States 37th among nations of the world in overall health care quality, behind countries like Malta, Andorra, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Chile, despite spending more per capita than any other nation.  These countries all have universal healthcare systems.  The United States does not.

It's been said sarcastically that we do have universal healthcare in the United States:  it's called the emergency room.

The problem is not that we don't have some of the best hospitals, some of the best doctors, and certainly some of the best hi-tech equipment, procedures, and techniques.  The problem is that we have a great health system if you can afford to pay for it.  Everyone else is stuck in emergency rooms and health clinics.

When someone with healthcare insurance gets sick, they go the doctor's office.  When someone without healthcare insurance gets sick, they tough it out and only end up seeking care when the problem has worsened to the point of seeking care in the local emergency room.  Sometimes the tough it out path works, after all, whatever doesn't kill ya, makes ya stronger.  The problem is many illnesses can't be toughed out and do end up killing you, but usually only before involving a lot of expensive end of life medical procedures that cost a fortune.

Buzz and I have heard many times from our conservative friends that if we provided free healthcare coverage for everyone, all those "takers" in society would be filling up doctors' offices for unneeded treatments.  After all, if colonoscopies were free, who among us wouldn't be getting one a week, or who wouldn't be asking their doctor to perform invasive, exploratory surgery every time they had an ache or pain.  Come on, if you really like going to the doctor and been probed inside and out, we have a few websites to recommend.

Quite to the contrary, if healthcare were free to all, we would be a healthier nation as a whole.

We've also heard from our conservative brethren the "who's gonna pay for it" line.  Well Obama Derangement Sufferers, that's what Obamacare tries to fix.

While the program is not perfect, single payer is the real answer, it is a good start.  If you are poor and are fortunate enough to live in a state with an enlightened governor or legislature who have accepted the Medicaid expansion, the poorest of our citizens (133% of the poverty level) qualify for medicaid.  If you make less than 400 percent of the poverty level, you qualify for some kind of subsidy.  If you make more than that, guess what?  You can afford insurance and you should have it.

Healthcare costs and health insurance costs have skyrocketed in this country over the last 50 years, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that hospitals and healthcare providers have to charge more to make up the difference for those without health insurance and the fact that preventative care is a lot cheaper than last resort care.

A doctor's office visit may cost you a hundred bucks, and if you need a prescription a few dollars more, but emergency room care when your little problem has turned into a big one costs thousands.  And, if you don't have insurance, guess who pays for that?  The people with insurance.

So ODS sufferers, let's try to do what a majority of Americans want to do with Obamacare, keep it and make it better.

Buzz did not take part in the preparation of this column, he is in Harrisburg lobbying for medical marijuana use in Pennsylvania in hopes of curing his cannaphobia.

See an interesting article with a bunch of facts on the American healthcare system. Why change? The US has the 37th best health care system in the world.

Obama not the first to use comedy to promote his agenda

Millard Fillmore

There has been a lot of criticism on the right about Obama appearing with Zach Galifianakis on Between Two Ferns in a comedy interview to promote Obamacare, even prompting Fox's Bill O'Reilly to say Abraham Lincoln wouldn't have done it.  Well, Bill, we think Lincoln would have done just about anything to save the Union, but Funny or Die wasn't around back then.

We had Buzz run some searches on the Univac 3000, and he found some interesting historical promotions by former Presidents.

In 1975, President Gerald Ford posed nude for a number of low circulation women's magazines in order to promote his WIN or Whip Inflation Now program.  His promotion included an eight page pictorial in the now defunct coupon magazine the Frugal Shopper.  Unfortunately, no copies of the November 15, 1975 edition of the magazine are still in existence.  Apparently, the late Katharine Hepburn purchased all the known remaining copies of the magazine in 1986, but it is not known whether she was a big fan of Jerry Ford or just a very frugal shopper.

Millard Fillmore, our 13th President, actually started a milk carton campaign, not dissimilar to the missing children campaign popularized in the 1980s.  Instead of children, Fillmore and members of his cabinet appeared on milk cartons, with the slogan "Have you seen this man?"  Fillmore discontinued the campaign when it turned out that Postmaster General Samuel D. Hubbard became the most popular milk carton, even surpassing Attorney General John J. Crittenden and himself.

Calvin Coolidge, a man generally regarded as our funniest American President, appeared in the early days of television on a variety show hosted by Henry Ford entitled Spot the Jew Among the Gentiles.  Ford realized the new medium of television would take off someday, but his antisemitic views greatly influenced his attempts at humor and programming.  Coolidge, not much of a campaign strategist didn't realize that there were fewer than 1000 television sets in the country, so his "Keep Cool with Coolidge" campaign failed in helping him secure a third term in the Oval Office.

Abraham Lincoln did in fact promote a "Save the Union" campaign in an early vaudeville act with then General Ulysses S. Grant.  Lincoln played straight man to the often hilarious and irreverent Grant.  The show had moderate success during some of the darker days of the Civil War, but the show fell apart after a performance in Nelson County, Kentucky, when Grant discovered the Jim Beam distillery.

And, finally, Thomas Jefferson, our third President appeared in public service pamphlets promoting abstinence with Sally Hemings.  The public service campaign was in response to a syphilis outbreak after Lewis and Clark returned from exploring the new lands of the Louisiana Purchase.  Jefferson was a widower at the time, so he posed for the pamphlet photo with one of his domestic servants.  The irony of choosing Hemings was that Jefferson fathered a number of children with Hemings.

The truth is one of the first casualties of Obama Derangement Syndrome

Mark Twain once said "a lie will travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes."  In the world of the conservative blogosphere, now the lie makes it way all the way around the world and back again in that same period of time.

The latest example of this is the rumor that the number for information on the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is 1800FUCKYOU.  Hold on to your seats Obama haters, it aint true.

Buzz and I were having breakfast this morning while discussing the hot draft prospects in the WNBA, when we overheard a few customers talking to a waitress.  They told her that the number for Obamacare information is 1800FUCKYOU.  The waitress was a bit incredulous, but decided to give it a try. 

She called the number, and lo and behold, she got a message that said "press one for Obamacare."  It was enough to convince her, but like most of the crap fed to us by the right wing and suffers of Obama Derangement Syndrome (ODS,)  it just isn't true.

Buzz looked up from his WNBA fantasy cheat sheet and said.  "Excuse me, what did they use the phrase Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act?'

"Obamacare," was her reply.

Buzz went on to explain that the federal government does not refer to the Affordable Care Act as Obamacare.  It refers to the Act by its real name --- The Affordable Care Act.  Obamacare is the shorthand name given to it by the media, the right wing, or who really knows who first termed the phrase. 

One of the customers thought for a minute, and said, "that handsome gentleman in the tweed jacket and turtle neck is right."  Since I was wearing a Nehru jacket, I realized she was referring to Buzz and his Obamacare comment and not my overall choice for first pick in the WNBA draft.

When we got back to the VW Microbus, Buzz powered up the Univac 3000 to do a little research.

He found a snopes.com article. Those who may be unfamiliar with snopes.com should know that snopes.com is a website dedicated to debunking or proving urban legends, myths, rumors, misinformation, and folklore

Here's what they found:

Although 800-318-2596 is the correct phone number for the Health Insurance Marketplace customer service line, and turning its digits into letters as they are found on telephone keypads does produce the phrase 800-FUCKYO (among many other possibilities.)  Of course, it only works by ignoring the "1," because standard keypads have no letters on the "1."

Technically, the 800-318-2596 phone number cannot correctly be rendered as 800-FUCKYO because that designation omits the essential '1' digit between the '3' and '8' and therefore does not represent an accurate phone number for the Health Insurance Marketplace hotline (or a valid phone number at all). A correct rendering of the phone number would be the somewhat less salacious 1-800-F1UCKYO.

Additionally, the 800-318-2596 phone number wasn't selected by the current administration, as it has been used as a toll-free government number for providing information about Medicare plans since at least as far back as 1999.

The current assignee of the 1-800-FUCKYOU number (a phone sex line) has now updated their initial recording greeting with a message asking callers to indicate whether or not they are calling about Obamacare.

Sorry we had to debunk this myth for our friends who suffer from ODS and all those innocent people who were duped by another ODS pipedream.

But, alas, there is still hope for ODS suffers, according to Buzz's research on the Univac 3000, the Obamacare death panels have decreed that ODS is a covered affliction under Obamacare, even if it is a pre-existing condition before you sign up for insurance.  There is one catch, however, treatment is long term "in-patient" at the FEMA internment camps.
 

Give it a rest GOP!!!!!!!

Guess what Republican Party?  We know you hate Obamacare, but now it's time to use your health insurance to seek a mental health professional.

It has often been said that the definition of insanity is "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result."  It's true, Buzz looked it up over a thousand times and came up with the same result.  The jury is still out on whether that proves Buzz is sane or insane.

Well, the House Republicans have attempted to repeal all or part of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) about 43 times.  Each time, the bill they passed never made it to the floor of the United States Senate, where even if it did, it was doomed to defeat.  None of this stopped the House GOP.

Now, the GOP controlled House has added a twist --- they will shut down the government in their never ending attempt to derail Obamacare.  Their obsession hasn't just been limited to the House of Representatives.  It has found its way to the United States Senate.

Last week, Texas Senator Ted Cruz rambled on for 21 plus hours, quoting from Dr. Seuss, among other bizarre things, in a pseudo-filibuster.  The Ted Cruz show captured the attention of all the suffers of Obama derangement syndrome (an affliction which causes Republicans to blame Barack Obama for everything that goes bad, regardless of whether Obama was responsible for it or even if the "thing" isn't really bad.)

The facts are simple:  The House and Senate passed Obamacare by majority votes, and it was signed into law by President Barack Obama.  Then after a couple of years of Republicans crying foul and claiming that Obamacare was clearly unconstitutional, the United States Supreme Court ruled, in an opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts, that Obamacare did indeed pass constitutional muster.

In addition to having been approved by all three branches of government, the American people weighed in in 2012, when they handed Obama a clear victory over the anti-Obamacare candidate Mitt Romney.

Give it a rest!  If the law is so terrible, just let it go into full effect and then hammer Obama and the Democrats for its utter failure.  Now that's a great election issue.  The problem is that the failure of Obamacare will only exist in the world of Obama Derangement Syndrome sufferers.  Obamacare, like Medicare and Social Security is here to stay, yeah it may be modified and improved, but it is here to stay.

 

The GOP's real fear brings them back to reality.  They fear, more than anything, that Obamacare will be an unqualified success.  All the fear mongering will prove to be unwarranted. 

The world will not end with the full implementation of Obamacare.  People who have private insurance or Medicare or Medicaid will keep doing what they're doing, but thirty plus million Americans will have health insurance for the first time in their lives. 

Just as it did in the Social Security debate of the 1930s and the Medicare debate of the 1960s, the GOP is on the wrong side of history. 

Message to the GOP, GIVE IT A REST.  Stop trying to get rid of Obamacare, and start proposing laws that will improve the faults of the law. 

Perhaps Cruz should listen to Sam-I-Am

Would you like Obamacare in a box?
Would you like Obamacare with a fox?

Not in a box.
Not with a fox.
Not in a house.
Not with a mouse.
I would not like it here or there.
I would not like anywhere.
I would not like Obamacare.
I do not like it, Sam-I-amacare.

For a well educated guy like United States Senator Ted Cruz, you would think he woulda realized that "Green Eggs and Ham" has a happy resolution for the obstinate character who protests a bit too much.

The Texas junior Senator spent 20 plus hours on the Senate floor this week telling the American people about the evils of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and ironically talked about the Dr. Seuss classic "Green Eggs and Ham."  Perhaps Cruz didn't see the irony, because like the character who goes on and on about his dislike for Green Eggs and Ham without trying it, Cruz did the same about a program that hasn't even gone into effect. 

Buzz and I strongly believe that the majority of Americans who have been fed constant attacks on Obamacare over the past 4 years will, like Green Eggs and Ham, come to love the program once it is fully implemented.

The Republican and Tea Party war on Obamacare has often crossed the line between reasoned debate and delusiondom many times.  The United States House of Representatives has voted 41, maybe 42 times to repeal all are part of Obamacare over the last two and a half years.  They continue to do this despite the fact that The United States Senate has no even entertained a vote on one of their 41 or 42 pieces of legislation, and even if the Seante acts, President Barack Obama would never sign a bill that guts his siganture achievement.

We heard about "death panels," sky rocketing premiums, job losses, loss of quality of care, doctors who will retire or high tail it out of the country, socialism, socialized medicine, loss of every freedom guaranteed under the constitution, comparisons to Hitler and Nazi Germany, comparisons to Marx, Lenin, Castro, Mao, and a whole bunch of right or left wing dictators, and of course our favorite "I don't want the government getting in between me and my doctor."

We agree with Steven Colbert who said "We don't want government getting in between us and our doctors, that's the insurance company's job."

We heard the same worn out arguments 48 years ago when Ronald Reagan preached against the evils of "socialized medicine" which would ensue when Congress passsed Medicare.  Medicare has become one of the most popular and efficiently run government programs ever.  And, guess what, it was the right thing to do. 

The system we have now downright sucks, and Ted Cruz and all of the Republicans have not come forward with any solutions to get healthcare for the 40 plus million who don't have it or to control the skyrocketing costs of healthcare. 

Yes we have some of the best healthcare in the world, but that is only if you can afford it.  For those millions of Americans who don't have healthcare insurance, their "primary care doctor" is the emergency room, and many times they delay going to the emergency room until a simple condition which could have easily been resolved by a primary care doctor, becomes necessitous of expensive medical care.

Obamacare is certainly not perfect, but to the Tea Partiers and Ted Cruz, how can you rant up and down about a program you haven't even "tried."  Next time, Senator Cruz, read the rest of the book before you go on quoting it.  Sometimes the endings will surprise you.

Can the GOP be a relevant national party again

Having lost the popular vote in five out of the last six elections, things aren't exactly rosy for the GOP.  The Grand Old Party just aint what it used to be, and things aren't looking any brighter in the near future.

Yesterday, the Republicans did their Don Quixote impression for the 40th time when the House voted, yet again, to repeal all or part of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare.)  Their action is only symbolic, because their measure won't even make it on the Senate calendar, and even if it did President Barack Obama would be sure to veto any bill that attempts to destroy his signature accomplishment.

The votes to repeal Obamacare are emblematic of the GOP's problem, they are all symbolic and with no substance.  We get it, GOP, you hate Obamacare, but just saying "no" is not a governing philosophy.

The only reason the GOP still even controls the House is, because they used their control of various state legislatures to gerrymander districts to disproportionately represent their true support across those states.  Pennsylvania is the perfect example.

Despite more than 100,000 Pennsylvanians voting for Democratic Congressional candidates in 2012, The GOP outnumber Democrats in the Pennsylvania delegation 13 to 5.  Pennsylvania is not alone.  Nationwide, the Democrats outpolled the GOP by just under a million votes, yet the Republicans won 34 more seats.

While the GOP can stack the deck in their favor in the House, the same is not true in the Senate, unless the GOP is successful in repealing the 17th Amendment which provides for the direct election of United States Senators.  There has been some clamor among the more virulent GOPers to return to the day when the State Legislatures selected Senators.  Then the GOP would control the Senate.

One of the major problems the GOP faces is hero worship by its base of the rhetoric of Ronald Reagan.  Reagan ranted against big government and high taxes.  He also paid lip service to many of the social conservative issues.  Unfortunately for the GOP, rhetoric of the 1980s doesn't play well in the second decade of the 21st Century.

The American people have become comfortable with the entrenched social welfare programs which the GOP have been fighting since the Presidency of Franklin Roosevelt. They also want their roads paved and their bridges repaired, and they realize that all government regulation is not bad.  It turns out that clean air and water and food you can eat that doesn't kill you are popular things.

The demographics are also killing the GOP.  The GOP has become a party of old, white men, and that demographic has been becoming a smaller and smaller part of the electorate. Women, the young, and most minorities are voting more and more Democratic and conservative Ronald Reagan rhetoric isn't going to win many votes in these fast growing demographic areas.

The average age of FOX news (the propaganda arm of the GOP) viewers is 66 years old, and their viewership among the 25 to 55 viewing demographic has dropped dramatically. As PoliticUSA put it, "In the long term Fox execs have to figure out some way to get non-senior citizens to watch or the network’s viewership will literally die off. Fox News either has to attract younger viewers, or hope that advancements in medical science push the average life expectancy to 90."

Throughout the history of the United States, political parties have reinvented themselves and risen from the ashes, but other parties have faded into the dustbin of history.  At their current pace, the GOP looks like reinvention is not the preferred option.