Obamacare: Fear-Mongering Vs. Reality
"Health costs are growing really slowly. Americans haven’t noticed." Writes The Washington Post's Sarah Kliff: "Ask any health economist and they’ll no doubt tell you that health care cost growth is slowing, growing at a low, unprecedented rate. ... Ask any American about what direction health costs are moving, and you’ll likely get a completely different story. Preliminary results for a forthcoming Kaiser Family Foundation poll show that most Americans think that health care costs are actually growing faster than usual right now. Fewer than 10 percent say the growth is slowing down."
Irony: Small-business health plans evolving under Obamacare represent "a victory for conservative health policy." Businessweek: "Small businesses aren’t dropping health benefits en masse in response to rising costs and the looming Obamacare reforms. They’re just making workers pay more for it. ... “Beneath the radar screen, the vision of insurance that they’ve always favored, with much more skin in the game, is the one that’s coming to dominate in the marketplace,” [Drew Altman, chief executive of the Kaiser Family Foundation,] says."
Paul Krugman: "They Can’t Handle The Health Care Truth." "At the most fundamental level, you can’t guarantee adequate health care to everyone unless the people who don’t need help right now — the young, healthy, and affluent — are induced, one way or another, to contribute to the care of those who do need help. ... But conservatives balk at the notion of any kind of redistribution, even if it makes almost everyone better off. So they are unable to come up with an alternative."
Fierce Obamacare opponent Rick Perry negotiating for some of its benefits. "Texas health officials are in talks with the Obama administration about accepting an estimated $100 million available through the health law to care for the elderly and disabled, POLITICO has learned. ... The so-called Community First Choice program aims to enhance the quality of services available to the disabled and elderly in their homes or communities. ... One line of thinking: ... Treating disabled and elderly people is less politically charged than a sweeping national law forcing people to buy health insurance."
But Florida's Rick Scott is obstructing 'navigators' who help state residents sign up for health care plans. NPR: "Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced recently that the federal government is awarding some $67 million in grants to help health care groups around the country set up a network of so-called navigators. ... But Florida Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, says he believes the federal rules are inadequate. ... Earlier this year, the Florida Legislature passed a bill, signed into law by Gov. Scott, which mandates fingerprinting and background checks for all people hired as navigators, so a certain amount of the alarm expressed today seemed more about politics than policy."
Trouble in the Walmart Economy
For retailers, low wages aren’t working out, writes Harold Meyerson. "Corporate profits — which comprise a larger share of the nation’s economy than at any time since World War II — are being plowed into share buybacks or dividend payments, but decidedly not into wage increases. Worse yet, a steadily higher share of the jobs created in the current “recovery” are low-wage positions in retail and restaurants, while wages for the new generation of auto workers are half that of their predecessors. ... In the 1920s, as U.S. cities swelled, the low incomes of the new urban consumers posed a constant challenge to merchants. In contrast to today’s Walton family heirs, however, some of those merchants realized that the solution was to raise workers’ incomes."
Barbara Gerson explains "How Corporate America Used the Great Recession to Turn Good Jobs Into Bad Ones." "Here’s the truly mysterious aspect of this “recovery”: 21% of the jobs lost during the Great Recession were low wage, meaning they paid $13.83 an hour or less. But 58% of the jobs regained fall into that category. A common explanation for that startling statistic is that the bad jobs are coming back first and the good jobs will follow. But let me suggest another explanation: the good jobs are here among us right now -- it’s just their wages, their benefits, and the long-term security that have vanished."
Walmart workers’ anti-retaliation campaign Thursday. "Ten recently fired Walmart workers will be joined by community, faith and union supporters outside the low-wage retail giant’s D.C. federal lobbying offices. The noon demonstration is the kick-off of a campaign by Walmart workers to end what they say is Walmart’s retaliation against workers for exercising their rights and freedoms, including the right to join unions."
Staffing firms lay partial blame on Obamacare for part-time hiring trend. "Executives at several staffing firms told Reuters that the law, which requires employers with 50 or more full-time workers to provide healthcare coverage or incur penalties, was a frequently cited factor in requests for part-time workers. A decision to delay the mandate until 2015 has not made much of a difference in hiring decisions, they added."
The Yellin vs. Summers Fed Debate
Bill Black skewers the movement to push Summers or Geithner for the Fed. "The big banks are desperate to prevent Janet Yellen from being appointed as Bernanke’s successor to run the Fed. ... Deutsche Bank’s story is that because President Obama has (purportedly) finally figured out that the “international” aspects of “regulation and supervision” are important to the “financial world order” he should appoint Summers or Geithner to Chair the Fed. ... [Larry] Summers and [Timothy] Geithner are among the greatest enemies of effective regulation, supervision, and prosecutions of banksters in the world."
Bruce Bartlett, a former top aide to presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, supports Yellin for the Fed. "Moving quickly to install Yellen as the next Fed chair is "the best thing" the nation's leaders can do to provide businesses with certainty, he said, and in turn give the economic recovery a boost. "Janet is generally considered to be among the Fed's doves and I think there is still room for monetary stimulus," Bartlett said. "Obama has made a mess of things by not making a decision and having [Larry] Summers in the running.""
Mark Thoma rounds up the arguments. Conclusion: "Yellen is my choice, by a considerable margin."
This Is Who They Are
North Carolina Republicans Escalate Attack on Student Voting. The Nation: "Hours after passing the country’s worst voter suppression law, North Carolina Republicans escalated their attempts to prevent students from participating in the political process. ... The GOP-controlled board of elections in Pasquotank County voted to disqualify Montravias King, a senior at historically black Elizabeth City State University, from running for city council, claiming King couldn’t use his student address to establish residency, even though he’s been registered to vote there since 2009. ... The GOP chair of the Forsyth County Board of Elections is moving to shut down an early voting site at historically black Winston-Salem State University because he claims students were offered extra credit in class for voting there. ... The GOP-controlled Watauga County Board of Elections in Boone, North Carolina, voted along party lines to close an early voting and general election polling place at Appalachian State University."
Rep. Kerry Bentivolio (R-Mich.) became the latest House Republican to suggest that he'd like to impeach President Barack Obama.""You know, if I could write that bill and submit it, it would be a dream come true," he said in response to a question at a town hall meeting reported on by BuzzFeed."
Southern mayoral candidate uses the N-word, is forced out of the race. "The Republican mayoral candidate in Winston-Salem, N.C., has dropped out after local party leaders withdrew their support when he admitted using a racial slur and derogatory term in describing a black county elections worker."
