The Fix is In

Essential to making the Affordable Care Act affordable is that a significant percentage of those in need of coverage subscribe to the plans offered through the Act's insurance exchanges. By including in large numbers healthy people who will rarely if ever seek medical care beyond a routine check up with people, either because of pre-existing conditions or simply because they become ill and therefore in need of more frequent and costly care the cost will average out in such a way as to allow the exchanges to provide coverage at rates significantly below private coverage. The costs attendant to providing care should also be driven down through a variety of strategies (electronic medical record keeping and ACOs, for example) but at its core it is through this basic strategy that the true affordability of medical insurance coverage becomes possible. 

It is, however, that very simple concept that makes the strategy most vulnerable to failure and it is to that basic concept that Republicans, and in particular, the extremists in the party and their benefactors have directed their strategy. Through a multi-pronged campaign that intentionally lies about the Act...that it will kill jobs, drive up taxes, take life and death decisions away from the individual and hand it to the State, strip hard working Americans of their preferred insurance coverage...the goal has been to so frighten potential enrollees so that they won't enroll. If they are successful, the enrollment numbers will be too low for the Act to realize its potential benefits giving the Tea Party evidence that their predictions were correct and the Act an abject failure that needs to be repealed. That the Act failed  because it was intentionally sabotaged by the very people who will so gleefully take credit for their having been so correct in their predictions will, of course, be lost in the discourse that will ensue. 

To this point the strategy would seem to be working to perfection. With the exception of Kentucky no southern state has created exchanges leaving it to the Federal government to take responsibility for creating and operating the exchanges. Faced with such a well-funded campaign of lies and deceit, the government's chances of success, at least at this point, would seem remote. Compounding the problem for vast populations of people with a genuine need for help is that these same states have refused to expand Medicaid to provide assistance to those who are trapped in a government subsidy nether world because they are at the upper income levels of what constitutes poverty and, by those states' statutes therefore not entitled to Medicaid (again because the States refused to expand Mediciaid to accommodate these people). 

It is a political game to be sure in which literally millions of people, many though not all, poor and minority, are being used as pawns by the extremist wing of the Republican Party to supposedly make a philosophical point. What that point is remains as elusive as does the way out of this mess. In the meantime people in desperate need of help go without. 

The Legal and Moral Authority to Act

By now it should be apparent that a critical part of the thinking of House Republicans standing in the way of re-opening the government and raising the debt ceiling is the expectation that they will provoke the President into taking action under the Fourteenth Amendment that will provide a pretext for bringing impeachment proceedings and rid themselves of the Obama presidency. After all,  from the moment Joe Wilson of South Carolina yelled, "You lie" at the President during one of his early appearances before Congress, the more extreme factions of the party have made clear that they view Obama as a threat and want nothing more than to be rid of him.

Now comes the latest self-made crisis which they believe may finally push Obama to either act or not act and in doing so or failing to do so, again provide the pretext they have thirsted for to charge him with a "high crime" or misdemeanor. I preface what follows by acknowledging that this strategy is driven by some of the stupidest, most-ill-informed creatures ever to troll the halls of Congress. Add to it an extraordinary level of malevolence and a touch of violent rhetoric and you have just the right mix to further bring the country to a standstill while they pursue charges that, in virtually every courthouse and in the court of public opinion should not and would not see the light of day. 

So let's talk about the action they are praying for. The Fourteenth Amendment, section 4 reads in part: "The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned". The intent of the language is eloquently explained in Sean Wilentz' op ed piece which appeared in the New York Times on October 8th and is a must read for anyone interested in the history of the provision. What is clear is that the question of whether the language permits the President to act unilaterally to protect the constitution in circumstances which place the nation's sovereignty at risk remains open to debate. However, what Wilentz (and Bill Clinton, by the way)  argues and what I and many others agree with is that it is essential and fundamental to our very existence that the Constitution be protected at all political cost. The nation and now the world must be confident that we can and will stand behind our debt lest the government, as with any common borrower, lose its credit and with it it's ability to function.  In my view a failure to act, whether by the Congress or the executive, would place the Constitution and the government at risk and by that standard alone requires that someone...anyone...with the constitutional authority to act to act. If, as it appears, House Republicans are unwilling to act the President must and should.  If there be a firestorm of Protestant movement toward impeachment bring it on. 

It would, of course, be for the House to commence impeachment proceedings and it will certainly be frustrating and heartbreaking to be subjected to the incredibly stupid and ill-informed hyperbolic rambling a of the Tea Part acolytes conjuring up the "high crimes and misdemeanors" with which to charge the President. Saving the country from default? Now that is certainly a criminal act. Putting his name to legislation that was passed by both house of Congress and upheld by the Supreme Court that provides insurance for millions of Americans? Unquestionably a misdemeanor if not an outright felony according to those who have spent their political lives seeking ways to deprive the poor of even the basic necessities of life because those necessities had to be provided or subsidized by the government. 

And let's assume that the Bachmanns, Gohmerts and Kings of that world succeed in convincing their "friends" to go along with such a fiasco (and their track record, predicated on threats of reprisals is actually likely to succeed to gathering enough votes for the passage of an article or two of impeachment). What then? The trial is then conducted before the Senate, not the House, where a Democratic majority would end the charade before it began. 

The time to act is now. I am sick at heart of where we have come and frankly frightened of where we are headed. The legal and certainly the moral authority to act has never been more apparent and required. Our future as a nation may very weld depend upon it. 

What Do They Really Want?

“One faction of one party, in one house of Congress, in one branch of government doesn’t get to shut down the entire government just to refight the results of an election”.

A brilliantly concise summary of the problem confronting the country. What it seems to so eloquently suggest is that the forces driving this "one faction" are limited to an extreme fringe wing of the Republican party that can, with patience, be broken. The growing body of evidence suggests otherwise. As reported on the front page of the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/us/a-federal-budget-crisis-months-in-the-planning.html?hp the strategy that led to the shutdown was born not by the lunatics who now stand in the well of Congress spewing into the Congressional Record nonsense about the dangers of the ACA but by their benefactors who have been planning the execution of this strategy for months. Most, though not all of the financing for the strategy has been provided by Koch Brothers whose resources are as limitless as their hatred for the President and the policies enacted on his watch. Precisely how far they and their cohorts are willing to go remains to be seen. The true test will come on October 17th when the debt ceiling requires adjustment. The ramifications of our failing to act, we are told, will be catastrophic to both the domestic and global economy and would, one would expect, cause the Koch brothers irreparable harm. I emphasize, "one would expect" because, to this point, the strategy appears nonplussed by the prospect of an economic calamity and the resulting impact on those like David and Charles Koch who, one would think, would be so damaged by the anticipated effect on the economy. Have the Koch boys "shorted" their interests so that they would actually benefit from a collapse of global markets? We  certainly seem to bystanders to a game of chicken playing out on a global stage that now has the feel of a runaway train running uncontrolled downhill with little chance to avoid the inevitable crash to come. One wonders if it is that crash which is precisely what the strategy contemplates.

The End of the American Experiment is Nigh

It is fundamental to every democracy that its participants express their views of how we should be governed by casting a single vote, counting those votes and deciding upon the form of government based upon how the majority of voters have cast their votes. If any democracy is to survive it is paramount that that very basic principle be applied and honored. If it is not so honored and so applied, notions of a democractic government can no longer apply. In its place is anarchy and those in control anarchists. Such has become the government of the United States. While I expect that we will eventually find our way through this current debacle, the paradigm has so shifted as a result of the conduct of the Republican party that I fear we will never return to the pure form of governance that was so essential to the American experience. It is no longer beyond the realm of possibility that the outcome of elections will no longer be honored by the loser and if that becomes the norm surely all is lost. To be clear, whether it is the ACA or the President that the Republican party refuses to accept, both were the product of a democractic process by which the majority of the voting populace expressed their opinions about how they wished to be governed. The ACA, in its current form, in fact, reflects the will of the people as expressed through the actions of all three branches of government: executive, legislative and judicial, the last coming by way of the a Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of the law. To be clear, again, it is the law of the land. The time to debate ended years ago. A Presidential election, in large part, was fought over the question of whether or not the people wanted the ACA to be the law of the land and, by an overwhelming majority made clear their preference that those among us who are without health insurance should have the opportunity for a healthier and safer life. It is no longer open to debate and it is the fact that the Republican party refuses to accept that outcome that poses the greatest threat to our democracy for if they are incapable of accepting the will of the people, as expressed through the vote of elected officials and through the vote of the supreme court of the land, then there is no reason to expect that the party of Lincoln will ever be counted upon again to accept the results of any vote with which they do not agree. If that be the case then we have truly stepped through the looking glass with no way home and to an uncertain future that may very well alter for the worse the very principles upon which we so long ago chose to govern.