[Yes, we're blogging hard on the brilliantly Constitutional Affordable Care Act, because, as Uncle Joe said, it's a big f-ing deal!]
Congresswoman Kristi Noem stretched for consolation for her Roberts-shattered Tea party base:
"The President's health care law has increased unease and uncertainty in America. In fact many people don't know what's in it," said Noem [Ashley Kringen, "SD Delegation Reacts to Health Care Ruling," KDLT.com, 2012.06.28].
Ah yes, uncertainty.
It's 9:45 am on Thursday at the headquarters of Health Plan One, a health insurance agency that sells private policies. It's the morning of what is the biggest court decision ever regarding health insurance. Will the court uphold the health-care bill? Will it strike it down?
"Either way is fine with me," says Bill Stapleton, the company's CEO.
Stapleton is a man who is worn out. He spent years watching Congress debate the health care overhaul, gaming out how his company could survive under this version or that version. And then the law was passed and then the constitutionality challenged.
"It's very difficult to plan because there's so much uncertainty out there," Stapleton says. "That doesn't sound like a big deal. It's a big deal. How do you make an investment today? You're investment doesn't pay off today. It pays off in three or four years" [Chana Joffe-Walt, "After Years of Uncertainty, a Health-Care Business Gets an Answer," NPR: Planet Money, 2012.06.29].
The Supreme Court just erased a lot of uncertainty. The Affordable Care Act is law. Businesses can plan accordingly. And three hundred million Americans can enjoy the certainty that they won't lose their health insurance and go broke just because they get sick or injured.
If Kristi Noem really thought uncertainty was bad, she'd tell Boehner, McConnell, and Romney to knock off the empty rhetoric about repealing ObamaCare and send America hurtling back into the uncertainty of the pre-ObamaCare cutthroat private system or the even greater uncertainty of a GOP plan that no Republican, especially not Noem, can lay out for us.
Noem should just issue a press statement saying "it's I.H.S. for the rest."
The uncertainty is not gone: our governor is not moving forward until after the November election because he believes that a Republican Congress and a Republican President will repeal ObamaCare.
Somebody remind me what the Republican alternative to PPACA is.
Is their plan to maintain the status quo where insurance rates go up 15% or more every year forcing an increasing number of Americans to be priced out of the insurance market every year?
How many symbolic votes are required from Noem? In her post-decision public statement she says she has voted for repeal 30 times, and now Republican leadership has scheduled vote 31 for next week. Even civil war battle reenactors don't expect to change the outcome at the end of the day. And at what point do symbolic votes foster "uncertainty"? Maybe Noem could hold a public meeting and invite actual HHS or HRSA officials to explain what is in the PPACA instead of talking about how long and complex it is and how confused she gets when she tried to figure it out. Opportunities abound for the well intentioned Member of Congress.
Rorschach, Allan Grayson said it best. The GOP plan don't get sick. If you get sick, die fast.
CH,
I know you feel good about yourself that you can say "We have health care for all, food stamps for the poor and unemployment checks for those without jobs." But, what will you say to them when they say to you
"I'd rather have a job, be able to buy my own food, and have an employer who helps with my health insurance."
As good as I want to believe your intentions are, the impact of your ideas on the poor and unemployed only makes them dependent and guarantees them a poor standard of living. The "planning" for implementation of this Obomination will only hurt the poor and quality of health care for all.
People would know much more about the PPACA if it weren't for Repubs like Noem distorting and lying about what is in it. People would not feel so uncertain if it weren't for Repubs like Noem making empty vows to overturn it. But that's a Repub strategy. Lie, and lie so blatantly that people wonder what is a Fact fact, as Lewis Black would say.
So Troy, what are you going to say to the parent with a job, who can't afford the high cost of insurance because his son was born with a heart condition? What are you going to do to insure that there is health care that is really affordable and jobs that pay a living wage?
If the things you included in your statement were true, we wouldn't need ACA. I wish they were true.
I know you feel good about yourself that you can say “We have health care for all, food stamps for the poor and unemployment checks for those without jobs.†But, what will you say to them when they say to you
“I’d rather have a job, be able to buy my own food, and have an employer who helps with my health insurance.â€
Not to answer for Cory, but I would tell them that I look forward to seeing you in that new job, because I know that a strong middle class is the best way to a stronger economic future for this country and that programs like food stamps and unemployment actually put more money into the system then they cost.
Troy, please tell me what you would say to the child that looks at you with hunger in her eyes because she has not had a meal today or the man that can't afford his medication for his heart condition or parents that don't know how they will be able to get their children some decent shoes to wear or college is no longer an option because mom and dad have lost their job. Do you tell them, that is okay, because we need another tax cut for the job 1% of the nation or to find a way to reduce prices to increase shareholder returns? I don't think I could.
Uncertainty in South Dakota is self-imposed.
Maryland asked the feds to allow Maryland to be one of the, if not the early implementers of the new health care act in order to make their businesses more competitive. This should give their businesses a big leg-up on out-of-state competitors. The Maryland legislature approved laws to rapidly facilitate the transition, put software, hardware, and policies in place to make the changes.
South Dakota, on the other hand, wants to sit on its thumbs and pout. Perhaps Sanford, Avera, along with other types of businesses that have healthcare costs, may eventually respond by moving their corporate operations to where they and improving change is welcome. Adapt, migrate, or die.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/jan-june12/health_06-29.html