Of course, our “leaders” will ignore anything that doesn’t validate what they’ve already decided to do!
A new poll reveals that Democratic and Republican voters similarly believe Congress should prioritize jobs creation and growing the economy instead of focusing on guns and immigration. The voters surveyed placed reducing gun violence and immigration at the bottom of a list of 12 priorities for Congress and the president to address.
The Gallup poll, released Wednesday, shows 86% of voters believe Congress should make its top focus jobs creation, with 86% saying Congress should prioritize work on improving the economy.
Only 55% of the voters surveyed believed reducing gun violence should be a top priority, with 50% saying Congress should focus on immigration reform.
Democrats and Republicans assigned similar priority ratings to various issues, including jobs creation, economy growth, addressing problems with Social Security and Medicare, and reforming the tax code, according to Gallup. Ninety percent of Democratic voters and 84% of Republican voters said creating more jobs should be Congress’ top priority.
Jack Reed, Sheldon Whitehouse along with Representatives Keith Ellison, Raul Grijalva, Peter DeFazio and David Cicilline for a summit to protect Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and Veterans’ benefits. Live at 12:30 EST.
One of the things you may have noticed is that, as a result of Republican policies in the past 30 years, our urban centers have been deprived of state and federal revenue-sharing to the point where their best institutions are now barely functional.
Remember that, the next time a politician starts talking about tax cuts, which invariably favor the wealthier among us. They’re really talking about starving the things that once made cities great.
This “permission structure” business illuminates the centrist Democrats approach to revoking the New Deal. Bi-partisan commissions, historic presidencies, hostage-taking, tribalism are all tools for obtaining permission to violate core values that poll really, really well.
I told you before that I know for a fact that the White House was working with the Petersen people to push Social Security cuts. But they’re not as clever as they think they are, because they’re having a lot of trouble convincing the tattered remnants of our economy to complete the job and slit their own throats.
Think how much fun it must be to work for Rupert Murdoch! Via Media Matters:
A Wall Street Journal article debunked the myth that federal disability benefits are to blame for the shrinking labor force, “exaggerated” claims that have previously been pushed by the paper itself.
And NPR’s Planet Money, of course, which still insists their story was right. There’s a reason we call NPR “Nice Polite Republicans.”
An April 29 Journal article headlined “Real Culprit Behind Smaller Workforce: Age” explained that the recent decrease in the labor force — the number of employed and unemployed Americans who are currently seeking work — “has more to do with retiring baby boomers than frustrated job seekers abandoning their searches.” The article noted that claims that Americans are voluntarily leaving the workforce to receive Disability Insurance instead of working, for example, “may be exaggerated,” and explained that retirees and students made up a far more significant portion of those leaving the labor force.
[…] However, the Journal has previously pushed the myth that Disability Insurance accounted for much of the dropping labor force participation rate. An April 10 article headlined “Workers Stuck in Disability Stunt Economic Recovery” claimed that workers receiving disability benefits were costing the economy billions by not instead participating in the labor force, and quoted economist Michael Feroli’s claim that “worker flight to the Social Security Disability Insurance program accounts for as much as a quarter of the puzzling drop in participation rates, a labor exodus with far-reaching economic consequences.” These claims are in direct contradiction to the Journal’s most recent reporting.
Donna Smith, who you may remember from Michael Moore’s “Sicko”:
If Congressional members and their staffs are having difficulties comprehending and navigating the details of the ACA, imagine the millions and millions of “average” Americans who will face incredible confusion, expense, and delays of access to needed health care as we slog through the details of the ACA. Most of us will not have anyone to negotiate or advocate for us when we try to make decisions about health coverage. We will have “navigators” who will explain various plans available on the exchanges but that’s vastly different from having true advocates to make sure we aren’t overburdened with costs or enrolling in coverage that really isn’t coverage at all but simply compliance with the mandate to carry the financial product that is insurance. I am already worried, just as millions of others are.
Why would single-payer, Medicare for all for life be so much better? Simplicity – everybody is in, nobody is out. Vastly reduced administrative costs – strip out the profit made on misery and deception and advertising and claims denials and delays. Incredibly improved access to providers of our choice. No need to navigate me to one plan or another. No need to bankrupt me with co-pays, deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses. No need for anyone in charge of profit-making to lemon drop (get rid of those with costly medical conditions or who are aging) or cherry pick (keep the healthy, less costly folks enrolled). We all have one single standard of high quality care under a social insurance model, not a model aimed at maximizing profits.
Some of us will face harsh realities more quickly than Congressional members of staffers on the Hill. In just four days, I must decide once and for all whether or not to spend more than $800 a month on my coverage for the next several months or just go bare until the exchange (more stealthily named the “marketplace”) is up and running here in Colorado in January 2014. No matter what I, as a two time cancer survivor and 58 year old, think is possible financially for me or even wisest from a health standpoint over the next eight months, once I get to October of this year, I will be able to begin exploring what I may be able to find under the ACA for my coverage. I am so grateful that my husband is covered under Medicare and a supplemental (as are many member of Congress, I suspect).
When my time comes to decide about my health and my life, there will be no committee convened that worries about my costs or my coverage as is the case with the current effort on behalf of the Congressional members and staffs my tax dollars cover. I will decide alone, likely in front of my computer screen, making calculations about paying my bills and other living expenses. And I guarantee that my coverage will be bare bones as no one will want to cover me and though under the ACA they will not be able to deny me coverage, insurance companies will be able to age-rate my premiums and make sure they factor in my health history. My premiums will likely be so high that I will either have to opt to pay a penalty for not having coverage or I will be grossly under-insured.
None of this is necessary. None of it. Under a Medicare for all for life, single-payer model, we are all in one risk pool, we all pay a fair and progressive tax or premium for our coverage, and our medical and health decisions will no longer be business calculations. We will be free of this mess. We must thunder forward through the confusion of this difficult transition to the unnecessary complexity of the ACA to the day when we all are covered simply as a matter of human right and public good.
