Obamacare will be political fodder no matter how the Court rules

My column in the Sky Hi Daily News today
The Supreme Court heard the arguments against Obamacare last week and it will be late June before they rule. The part of the law that received their most scrutiny was the mandate, the requirement that all must carry health insurance. The Court will decide whether they uphold the law, deny the one mandate clause and leave the rest standing, or whether they throw the health care law baby out with the bathwater.

Regardless of the Court ruling, health care reform will continue to be political fodder for the 2012 presidential campaign. If the court upholds the constitutionality of the law, the debate will continue about whether it is good policy. If the popular provisions, making health insurance affordable to all, removing life time limits, or covering pre-existing conditions, are thrown out with a ruling the entire law is constitutional, Democrats will point the blame finger at the GOP and a Supreme Court divided by party affiliation that gave us the legalized corruption of the election process by super PACs and sided with the election of a Republican president over Al Gore, as well.

If the court rules only the mandate is unconstitutional, it could be the Administration as plan B implements the remainder. If the court upholds the entire law or all but the mandate, GOP legislators sworn to kill Obamacare will not be able to repeal it. Because of the uncompromising turn to the right by the GOP, some moderate senators have quit, making the goal of GOP's getting sixty votes in the Senate to agree with the Tea Party dominated House of Representatives and vote for repeal is an impossible dream.

Assuming the GOP candidate is Mitt Romney, he will be no help to the GOP on the issue . He was the advocate and signer of a very similar law when he was governor of Massachusetts. He says with ringing rhetoric he says he will “kill Obamacare” and he calls the law “horrendous.” It is sound and fury that rings hollow, a clanging bell enclosing a puny clapper and a lot of air, crafted to bring applause from conservative audiences.

By calling the law horrendous, does he mean it is horrendous to make it possible for all to afford health insurance? Is it horrendous to forbid health insurers to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions? Is it horrendous to make it illegal for an insurer to drop coverage when you get sick? Is it horrendous to mandate all to carry health insurance? All of these provisions were in his own Massachusetts law.

What is left for Romney to oppose is the requirement that all states do it as part of a nationwide law. His position, that states rights in these matters are simply superior to a federal program, appeals to those who want a limited federal government, but has a worthless ring that provides neither a workable plan B or a plan C-Z.

Unless federal money from federal taxpayer's pockets is irresponsibly gifted to states without requiring standards and accountability, what state would be compelled or could afford to provide a similar alternative with the same benefits, including covering the uninsured and pre-existing conditions and removing life time limits? Not ours. Shoving Obama/Romneycare to the states would be dumping it in file 13 and Romney needs to come clean on that clunker.

Fact checking and Obamacare

My column in the Sky Hi Daily News March 21, 2012

In the next eight months we are going to see a barrage of advertising contaminate our TV-watching, and claims and counterclaims will be flying.

While many will concentrate on the soft issues — personalities, trustworthiness, leadership, character, ideology and economic theories — others will be about the hard facts of issues.

It is very difficult to be objective about facts, and it is particularly difficult when the issue is complex, such as health care reform. Distortions, misinterpretations, and out-right lies are even more likely.

There are non-partisan, independent sources that look behind the slogans, delve into the wonky details, and arrive at conclusions that separate the facts from fiction. I recommend three fact-checking websites. www.Factcheck.org is a nonprofit project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, which is housed at the University of Pennsylvania. Another is Politifact.com which is connected with the Tampa Bay Times and is a Pulitzer prize winner. They rate political claims with a truth-o-meter. The Washington Post sponsors one and awards Pinocchio noses based on the degree of truth distortion (www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker).

Not all of these analyze the same claims and not all political talking points are scrutinized, but all of them give detailed reasons for arriving at their awards of the degrees of truthfulness. Both parties take their lumps from the fact checkers.

Here are some of the fact-checking conclusions about Obamacare. This is just a brief summary of the conclusions. To see any caveats and how the conclusions were reached, visit the websites.

One frequently heard claim by Rick Santorum is that Obamacare will cost trillions over the next 10 years. Per the Washington Post fact checker: “Santorum is only counting one side of the ledger — and overcounting it at that. Because the health care law raises some taxes and cuts Medicare spending, the Congressional Budget Office calculated that it slightly reduced the deficit in the first 10 years…..”

Another oft heard claim, especially made by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, is that the health care reform law will be a job killer. Factcheck.org called that a” Republican Whopper.” The best economic analysis of the new health care law points to the loss of a ‘small' number of low-paid jobs — starting in 2014. That's when firms with 50 or more workers will be required either to provide health insurance coverage to their employees or pay a penalty….”

Politifact:.com: A close look at the studies cited by the Chamber of Commerce … as well as other independent analyses of the health care law, provide little, if any, evidence that the health care law will result in a significant net number of job losses. We rate the statement False.

Another claim mouthed by many Republican leaders and candidates is that Obamacare will cut $500 billion from Medicare, a claim geared to scare the old folks that benefits will be cut.

The Washington Post fact checker found that benefits were not “cut.” “The health bill will reduce projected Medicare spending by $575 billion over ten years, primarily by reducing projected fees to hospitals and other providers and by reducing payments to private Medicare Advantage insurance plans... "

So true is a comment added by Factcheck.org: “It may be that the constant repetition of this false claim will make a lot of voters believe it. But repeating a whopper doesn't make it true, it just makes it a bigger whopper.”

For more commentary, go to www.Mufticforum.com