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The radical Republicans have been waiting years for this day. They’ve managed to get the very idea of government argued before the Supreme Court. It’s part of their effort to tear down President Obama and the new health care law and take away benefits and consumer protections that are already changing the lives of millions of Americans.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court began three days of oral arguments about Obamacare leading up to what may be among the most consequential high court decisions in 100 years. Among the legal issues are the limits on Congress’s authority to regulate economic matters, including the health insurance market (which represents 17% of the economy), and whether Congress can put conditions on the money it gives to states, like the health law’s provision expanding Medicaid eligibility so more low-income families can get health care.

The court’s decision could limit the ability of Congress to act in any meaningful way to address the full range of national problems with national solutions. These broader issues are embedded within the question of whether we want to give our health care back to the insurance companies. The Republicans, who released a proposed budget last week that would decimate Medicaid and end Medicare as we know it to give millionaires and billionaires an average tax break of $150,000, say yes. They want to put the insurance companies back in the driver’s seat.

The GOP and their corporate sponsors have been opposed to this law from day one. Despite the “repeal and replace” mantra, the Republicans in Congress have yet to offer an alternative. The only thing they’re “for” is being against Obamacare and the good things it does and the people it’s already helping.

One of those people is Spike Dolomite Ward, who learned about Obamacare when she was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer. She was uninsured and had no way to pay for life-saving treatments. She was out of options until she learned about the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan established by Obamacare. It’s not a government handout. She pays a monthly premium like any other health insurance customer. But now she’s getting medical care that she would not be able to afford – and that insurance companies would refuse to sell her – without the new law. (more…)

By now most people have heard some of the worst things about the Republican budget proposal – commonly called the “Ryan plan” and unironically described by the GOP as “the Path to Prosperity”: That it decimates programs for middle class and lower-income Americans while giving even greater tax breaks to the rich – $3 trillion worth, in fact. That it guts education, research, and transportation while preserving tax breaks for Big Oil. That it undercuts Medicare with a voucher system that will be worth less and less with each passing year.

And that, despite all that, it would actually increase the deficit.

You’d think that pretty much covers it – but it doesn’t. When it comes to Medicare, there are three more ugly facts about this plan that have yet to attract widespread attention – mostly because the Republicans have done their best to keep them secret:

1. They’re secretly planning to raise the Medicare age.

It’s not in House Budget Chair Paul Ryan’s Wall Street Journal editorial, the one where he sneered at “some who would distort for political gain our efforts to preserve programs like Medicare” and said “our plan provides guaranteed coverage options financed by a premium-support payment.” It’s not in the summary description of the GOP budget, which it claims “strengthens health and retirement security by taking power away from government bureaucrats and empowering patients instead with control over their own care.” It’s not even in the full budget document itself, which is 99 pages long and contains a section entitled “Strengthening Health and Retirement Security.”

So how do we know that the GOP wants to raise the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67? Because that’s what Ryan and his staff told the Congressional Budget Office when they asked the CBO to calculate the impact of their plan. It’s right there in the CBO report on the budget.

Here’s the key sentence: “In addition, the eligibility age for Medicare would increase by two months per year beginning in 2023 until reaching age 67 in 2034.”

That’s right: When Ryan and his staff instructed the CBO to calculate the impact of the Republican budget, they told its analysts that the GOP plan included an increase in the eligibility age for Medicare. Apparently they didn’t have room to mention that fact anywhere in their 99-page document, and didn’t see fit to bring it up while they were spouting all that rhetoric about “preserving entitlement programs for the future.” (more…)

On March 26, the U.S. Supreme court will begin to decide whether it’s constitutional to require everyone to have medical insurance or pay a fine.

With 50 million people in our country not having any medical insurance, it will be a real shame if the court would rule the Affordable Care Act (AFA) unconstitutional because without the mandate requiring everyone to help fund the AFA, I’m afraid the whole thing will fall apart.

The Republicans who called it unconstitutional during the time that President Obama was trying to get the law passed are the same people who at one time wanted the mandate. Go figure.

The court will probably hand down their ruling in June and the mandate would go into effect in March of 2014.

On top of this, the U.S. House of Representatives has just offered their budget in the form of the Ryan plan that would, if enacted, harm our retirees on Medicare by giving them a voucher and make them purchase medical insurance on their own. Can you imagine how many seniors would be taken advantage of by unscrupulous insurance companies?

Fortunately, the Democrats in the Senate will not allow this to happen.

I heard it said once that Republicans will vote for anything that causes human pain, misery, suffering or death. I believe it.

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There is an old story about two men in a retirement home. The first declares, “the food in this place is poison.” His friend agrees and adds, “and the portions are so small.” This exchange perfectly captures the Republican approach to Medicare.

The Republicans, led by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, have argued that Medicare threatens to bankrupt the country. They have pointed to cost projections showing the program more than doubling relative to the size of the economy over the next three decades. The Republicans say that the country cannot afford this expense and scream about huge debt burdens for our children.

The Republicans’ concern might lead people to believe that they would support measures to contain Medicare costs. But if you thought that was the case, you would be wrong.

The latest Republican crusade on Medicare is to eliminate the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), which was put in place as part of the health care reform bill passed two years ago. IPAB is empowered to impose a cap on Medicare spending if it grows too fast relative to the size of economy. The way it would reduce cost growth is by reducing or eliminating payments for medicines and procedures that have not been shown to be effective.

The idea that Medicare would not pay for some medicines or procedures has Republicans in Congress screaming about “death panels” and “rationing.” It is fascinating how Republicans use these terms. These politicians, who like to portray themselves as lovers of free markets, are now claiming that it is rationing if the government will not pay for something.

We have to keep our eye on the ball. No one is telling people that they can’t spend their own money on any medical care they like. The issue is simply what care Medicare will pay for. Under current law the IPAB may impose constraints that stop the government from paying for care that has not been shown to be effective. Only in some bizzaro world can this be called rationing.

What’s striking is the Republican alternative. While they scream bloody murder over any effort to constrain costs in Medicare, their own plan is to simply end Medicare as we know it. The plan approved by the Republican House last year would end Medicare as a publicly run system. It would instead give beneficiaries a voucher that they could use to buy insurance in the private market. (more…)

Andrew Pantelis, a lieutenant with the Prince George’s County Fire and EMS Department in Landover, Md., says that taxing employer-provided health care benefits—a proposal before the so-called budget deficit “Super Committee”—would “hurt millions of working class Americans.”

Pantelis, president of Fire Fighters (IAFF) Local 1619, spoke at a Capitol Hill conference today where Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.) and Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) released a letter to the Super Committee opposing elimination of the current tax exemption of the health care coverage employees receive at work. The letter was signed by 160 representatives of both parties.

Some 60 million Americans would face a bigger tax bill under the proposal. Says Pantelis:

(more…)

FDR’s premonitions about the ways Republicans would treat Social Security, saving homes, and work for the unemployed are stunning and scary. Take a look:

From The Ed Show … Recent polls show GOP candidates could suffer from unpopular policy decisions and proposals by Republicans in Congress and elsewhere.

When revenue problems forced the Central Community Schools in DeWitt, Iowa, to cut back on expenses, Amanda Greubel and her husband, Josh, who both work at the schools, kept their jobs but lost $10,000 a year in income. With a five-year-old and another child due in December, a mortgage and student loans to pay, their life has changed dramatically.

Greubel, director of the Family Resource Center for Central Community Schools, told a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing today what life is like in the day-to-day world of middle-class Americans struggling in this economy. The hearing was aptly titled, Stories from the Kitchen Table: How Middle Class Families Are Struggling to Make Ends Meet. Said Greubel:

Sometimes the grocery money runs out before payday, and then we have to be creative with what we have in the cupboards until we get paid again. My son ends up eating more cold cereal at dinnertime than I care to admit.

It means that most of our clothing now comes from Goodwill, garage sales, or clearance racks. This past spring our son was hospitalized for three days, resulting in $1,000 in out-of-pocket medical expenses. This month a problem with our roof required $1,500 in repairs. Even though we’d been setting aside a little money each month for medical expenses and home repairs, we weren’t prepared enough and have spent the last few months catching up.

(more…)

Budget-cutting can be a bloody business, depending upon where and how deeply one cuts. It can be a deadly business too. Not for the budget-cutters, though. That’s especially true for Medicaid. To understand that, you need look no further than Arizona. It was just earlier this year that Arizona was grabbed the spotlight as an example of just how deep GOP lawmakers were willing to cut. Rania Khalek recounts Arizona’s recent history in an Alternet post that reads like a budget cutting body count.

Meanwhile, Arizona was busy denying life-saving treatment to tens of thousands of low-income residents. After being the only state in the entire country to eliminate the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), effectively denying health care to 47,000 low-income children, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed a bill to end financing for certain organ transplants covered under Medicaid. The decision amounted to a death sentence for some low-income patients, who had little chance of survival without transplants and lacked the hundreds of thousands of dollars needed to pay for them. Two patients taken off the organ transplant waiting list died as a result of the shameful measure, leading many to accuse Governor Brewer of implementing death panels through budget cuts.

Governor Jan Brewer — famous for declaring government a “necessary evil” and Arizona “headless body farm” due to illegal immigration — defended the cuts, claiming “We have no choice,” all while signing into law tax breaks that would cost the state $538 million in the next seven years, and ignoring other possible solutions. (more…)

By Roger Hickey
Co-Director, Campaign for America’s Future

Last week’s special election in New York’s 26th Congressional district was a political earthquake, demonstrating that the American majority, even in the most Republican of districts, will reject a candidate who embraces cuts to Medicare benefits or major changes to that most popular program. And, since almost every Republican in the House — and now the Senate — has voted for such drastic changes, Democrats across the country are happily learning how they can campaign to win back the House and keep the Senate.

But we can’t let Democrats undercut themselves again. Even as most of them practice their talking points about the Republican plan to dismantle Medicare, prominent beltway Democrats and Washington pundits are advising candidates that pressing their advantage on Medicare would not be the right thing to do. And others are urging Democrats to embrace policies — like cutting Social Security benefits — which would just as unpopular as dismantling Medicare and would confuse voters and undermine a winning message. (more…)