Conservative introspection?

[Greenbeard]

Perusing this new Chait article on "Why Republicans Won’t Say Anything About Obamacare" and I'm struck by his concluding points:

The whole project was based on a delusion that Obamacare was a “train wreck” and some conservative alternative could supply a better-designed system that didn’t have horrific costs. The paradox of propaganda is that when you set out to brainwash others, you end up brainwashing yourself.

Conservatives spent years attacking Obamacare for a series of mostly imagined design flaws. They claimed it would create death panels, or drive up health-care costs, or fail to reduce the number of uninsured people. None of these predictions came true. Indeed, the cost of health care has come in significantly lower than the law’s designers forecast.

This has been a recurring pattern in conservative thinking about social policy. Every new advance of the welfare state is met with hysterical doomsday predictions. When those predictions fail to come true, conservatives skip any self-examination and move on to their next doomsday predictions. Ronald Reagan warned that passing Medicare would create a socialist dystopia in which the government could order doctors where to live and America would resemble the Soviet Union. When Obamacare was introduced half a century later, conservatives brought up these warnings not as a cautionary tale about conservative hysteria, but as a prescient warning about what the next health-care expansion would surely bring.

A healthy conservative movement would admit its analysis of Obamacare had been utterly mistaken and revise its thinking. Or, at least, conservatives could recommit themselves to the right-wing goal of throwing the poor and sick off their insurance and bear the cost of doing it. Health care accounts for more than one-sixth of the American economy. A serious party ought to have something to say about it. Instead, their plan, once again, is to ignore the issue and figure it out after they gain power.

We can all laugh about Reagan's looney tunes Medicare predictions, but they're arguably a lot less deranged than the standard GOP fare about the Affordable Care Act was. And that wasn't just some issue, it was the animating force in the GOP--well, other than giving rich people tax cuts--for a decade. It was the thing that brought cohesion to the party before it decided to just become a Cult of Trump--and even he's just continued to push the old party line about repeal (even into the current campaign, where it feels positively anachronistic and bizarre). Anti-ACA fervor was core to the entire identity of the contemporary right.

Is there a point where someone (anyone?) in the conservative movement does some basic introspection on that hysterical decade? Considers some of the basic questions ("Hey, was I wrong about that stuff? Did I overreact a little bit on that?")? Is Year 14 a little early for that sort of reflection, maybe next year?

 

[SNOWFLAKE]

Can we just agree on this one basic concept:
Whether bitching about Obamacare or bitching about whatever else ruffles their features................. Righties are just monumentally stupid.

 

[Excast]

When is the last time conservatives engages in any meaningful introspection? It's not what they do.

 

[eman623]

Conservatives already won on Obamacare.

Their main concerns of the PPACA were forcing insurers to offer birth control, forcing states to run insurance exchanges and the mandate.

Burwell v Hobby Lobby killed the birth control requirement, Sebelius allowed states to opt of of the exchanges, and the mandate was effectively overturned when the penaltax was zeroed out legislatively under Trump.

Win, win, win. One almost gets tired of winning so much. Almost.

 

[highroller]

Conservatives already won on Obamacare.

Their main concerns of the PPACA were forcing insurers to offer birth control, forcing states to run insurance exchanges and the mandate.

Burwell v Hobby Lobby killed the birth control requirement, Sebelius allowed states to opt of of the exchanges, and the mandate was effectively overturned when the penaltax was zeroed out legislatively under Trump.

Win, win, win. One almost gets tired of winning so much. Almost.

Keep telling yourself that.

No introspection

 

[Greenbeard]

Conservatives already won on Obamacare.

Their main concerns of the PPACA were forcing insurers to offer birth control, forcing states to run insurance exchanges and the mandate.

Burwell v Hobby Lobby killed the birth control requirement, Sebelius allowed states to opt of of the exchanges, and the mandate was effectively overturned when the penaltax was zeroed out legislatively under Trump.

Win, win, win. One almost gets tired of winning so much. Almost.

Given that insurers are still required to cover birth control and states were always allowed by the ACA to opt out of administering exchanges, seems like those weren't particularly deeply held concerns. Nor do they at all correspond to most of the hysterical claims right wingers were making about the ACA. But replacing the mandate penalty with more generous premium subsidies has been a huge policy success, leading to big increases in marketplace enrollment under Biden--the GOP's never ending quest to try and break the ACA has often (accidentally) resulted in it getting better, in this case by spurring Biden and the Dems to finally expand the subsidies via the American Rescue Plan and the Inflation Reduction Act. Good win!

Anyway, fair to say there's no signs of introspection yet.

 

[Simpletruther]

Perusing this new Chait article on "Why Republicans Won’t Say Anything About Obamacare" and I'm struck by his concluding points:



We can all laugh about Reagan's looney tunes Medicare predictions, but they're arguably a lot less deranged than the standard GOP fare about the Affordable Care Act was. And that wasn't just some issue, it was the animating force in the GOP--well, other than giving rich people tax cuts--for a decade. It was the thing that brought cohesion to the party before it decided to just become a Cult of Trump--and even he's just continued to push the old party line about repeal (even into the current campaign, where it feels positively anachronistic and bizarre). Anti-ACA fervor was core to the entire identity of the contemporary right.

Is there a point where someone (anyone?) in the conservative movement does some basic introspection on that hysterical decade? Considers some of the basic questions ("Hey, was I wrong about that stuff? Did I overreact a little bit on that?")? Is Year 14 a little early for that sort of reflection, maybe next year?

They may have overblown as politicians do. But it was a bad idea and still is.

 

[eman623]

Given that insurers are still required to cover birth control

Given that you are just plain wrong. PPACA violated the 1A guarantee of religious freedom. The HRSA wanted to fine companies that refused to cover 20 contraceptives.

Of those Americans who have health insurance, most are covered by employer-sponsored health insurance. In 2010, Congress passed the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which relies on the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), to specify what kinds of preventive care for women should be covered in certain employer-based health plans. HHS exempted religious employers (churches and their integrated auxiliaries, associations of churches, and any religious order), non-profit organizations that object to any required contraception,[9] employers providing grandfathered plans (that have not had specific changes before March 23, 2010), and employers with fewer than 50 employees. The HRSA decided that all twenty contraceptives approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) should be covered.[10] Companies that refuse are fined $100 per individual per day,[11] or they can replace their health coverage with higher wages and a calibrated tax.

Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

SCOTUS recognized Hobby Lobby right to a religious exception.

and states were always allowed by the ACA to opt out of administering exchanges,

Yes, and if they did they would lose Medicaid funding. That was a violation of state sovereignty

King v. Burwell, 576 U.S. 473 (2015), was a 6–3 decision by the Supreme Court of the United States interpreting provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). The Court's decision upheld, as consistent with the statute, the outlay of premium tax credits to qualifying persons in all states, both those with exchanges established directly by a state, and those otherwise established by the Department of Health and Human Services.

King v. Burwell - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

seems like those weren't particularly deeply held concerns.

Thank you so much for telling conservatives what they care about. What would we do without that?

Anyway, fair to say there's no signs of introspection yet.

My thoughts exactly.

 

[Greenbeard]

Given that you are just plain wrong. PPACA violated the 1A guarantee of religious freedom. The HRSA wanted to fine companies that refused to cover 20 contraceptives.

SCOTUS allowed for certain types of employers to seek an exemption from the ACA's rules (which as far as I know, relatively few have pursued). The rules still exist, health insurers have to provide contraceptive coverage without cost-sharing, and those relatively few people getting coverage through an employer granted an exemption are accommodated (i.e., can get free contraception) in other ways under the ACA.

HHS, DOL, and Treasury Issue Guidance Regarding Birth Control Coverage

Departments make clear that contraceptive coverage is guaranteed at no additional cost under the Affordable Care Act no matter where someone lives or works

www.hhs.gov

The idea that insurers are no longer required to cover contraceptives is. . . not right.

Yes, and if they did they would lose Medicaid funding. That was a violation of state sovereignty

King v. Burwell, 576 U.S. 473 (2015), was a 6–3 decision by the Supreme Court of the United States interpreting provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). The Court's decision upheld, as consistent with the statute, the outlay of premium tax credits to qualifying persons in all states, both those with exchanges established directly by a state, and those otherwise established by the Department of Health and Human Services.

King v. Burwell - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

This is all mangled. The ACA required states to adopt the Medicaid expansion or risk losing funding for their existing Medicaid population. That was struck in NFIB when SCOTUS determined that states have to opt into the Medicaid expansion, which almost all have done at this point.

Exchanges, which are the marketplaces through which private insurance is sold, were always something the states could opt out of administering. That's been written into the ACA since Day 1. The feds administer the state's exchange if the state doesn't want to.

42 U.S. Code § 18041 - State flexibility in operation and enforcement of Exchanges and related requirements

www.law.cornell.edu

The lawsuit you're describing was a rightwing attempt to deny tax credits to people in federally-run exchanges. It wasn't some triumphant effort to get states out of administering exchanges, it was an attempt to destroy the alternative to state-operated exchanges. And it failed, the right wingers lost that case and the federally-facilitated exchanges are doing just fine.

Thank you so much for telling conservatives what they care about. What would we do without that?

You're literally holding up cases conservatives lost (e.g., King v Burwell) as examples of conservative wins on the ACA and seem genuinely lost on what's going on with any of the topics you're raising.

But sure, seems like a lot of deeply held concerns here.

 

[Greenbeard]

They may have overblown as politicians do. But it was a bad idea and still is.

This is the stuff GOP leaders were saying at the time.

Boehner: It's "Armageddon," Health Care Bill Will "Ruin our Country"

The next 24 hours are "armageddon" because the health care bill proposed by Democrats will "ruin our country," House Minority Leader John Boehner said Saturday, a day before a crucial vote on the bill in the House.

www.foxnews.com

Rep. Foxx Says Health Care Reform Will Cause Seniors To Be "Put To Death By Their Government"

Rep. Foxx Says Health Care Reform Will Cause Seniors To Be "Put To Death By Their Government"

www.huffpost.com

Palin calls Obama health care plan 'downright evil'

Sarah Palin called President Obama's health plan "downright evil" Friday in her first online comments since leaving office.

www.ctvnews.ca

Grassley Warns Of Government Pulling Plug "On Grandma"

Senator Pushes Inaccurate Reading of End of Life Counseling Provision Following Palin Warning of "Death Panels"

www.cbsnews.com

Official conservative messaging was as unhinged (maybe more so in some cases) as the stuff Glenn Beck was pumping into Fox viewers' eyeballs. Did they believe this insanity? Do they still? Were they lying? Do they regret that? Have they spent two minutes reflecting on any such questions in the past fourteen years?

 

[eman623]

SCOTUS allowed for certain types of employers to seek an exemption from the ACA's rules (which as far as I know, relatively few have pursued). The rules still exist, health insurers have to provide contraceptive coverage without cost-sharing, and those relatively few people getting coverage through an employer granted an exemption are accommodated (i.e., can get free contraception) in other ways under the ACA.

HHS, DOL, and Treasury Issue Guidance Regarding Birth Control Coverage

Departments make clear that contraceptive coverage is guaranteed at no additional cost under the Affordable Care Act no matter where someone lives or works

www.hhs.gov

The idea that insurers are no longer required to cover contraceptives is. . . not right.

It is right. You don't even understand the reason why Hobby Lobby sought and got an exemption or why conservatives would care.

This is all mangled. The ACA required states to adopt the Medicaid expansion or risk losing funding for their existing Medicaid population. That was struck in NFIB when SCOTUS determined that states have to opt into the Medicaid expansion, which almost all have done at this point.

Right. And before that there was a penalty if a state did not opt in.

Again, I'm not sure you understand why that was a win for states-rights conservatives.

Exchanges, which are the marketplaces through which private insurance is sold, were always something the states could opt out of administering. That's been written into the ACA since Day 1. The feds administer the state's exchange if the state doesn't want to.

Fair enough.

But sure, seems like a lot of deeply held concerns here.

And don't forget the most egregious overreach of all. The mandate and penaltax which Trump got rid of. That was the biggest win.

Now the ACA is just another unfunded entitlement. Throw it on the pile with the others.

We borrow and spend about $100-200 billion a year that we don't have to insure people who were thrown off their insurance - turns out they couldn't keep their doctors after all.

Lie of the Year: 'If you like your health care plan, you can keep it'

It was a catchy political pitch and a chance to calm nerves about his dramatic and complicated plan to bring historic ch

www.politifact.com

Introspect on that my friend.

 

[Simpletruther]

This is the stuff GOP leaders were saying at the time.

Boehner: It's "Armageddon," Health Care Bill Will "Ruin our Country"

The next 24 hours are "armageddon" because the health care bill proposed by Democrats will "ruin our country," House Minority Leader John Boehner said Saturday, a day before a crucial vote on the bill in the House.

www.foxnews.com

Rep. Foxx Says Health Care Reform Will Cause Seniors To Be "Put To Death By Their Government"

Rep. Foxx Says Health Care Reform Will Cause Seniors To Be "Put To Death By Their Government"

www.huffpost.com

Palin calls Obama health care plan 'downright evil'

Sarah Palin called President Obama's health plan "downright evil" Friday in her first online comments since leaving office.

www.ctvnews.ca

Grassley Warns Of Government Pulling Plug "On Grandma"

Senator Pushes Inaccurate Reading of End of Life Counseling Provision Following Palin Warning of "Death Panels"

www.cbsnews.com

Official conservative messaging was as unhinged (maybe more so in some cases) as the stuff Glenn Beck was pumping into Fox viewers' eyeballs. Did they believe this insanity? Do they still? Were they lying? Do they regret that? Have they spent two minutes reflecting on any such questions in the past fourteen years?

Yes politicians stoke fear and lie. Film at 11

But left politicians will never do that lol

 

[highroller]

Yes politicians stoke fear and lie. Film at 11

But left politicians will never do that lol

Like saying the GOP would repeal RoevWade if they ever got a majority on the court while the GOP denied that as fear mongering.

Both sides….

 

[Simpletruther]

Like saying the GOP would repeal RoevWade if they ever got a majority on the court while the GOP denied that as fear mongering.

Both sides….

No like the countless fear mongering but actually happens on the left, like they are bringing on handmaids tale, blacks will be back in chains lol

 

[Torus34]

This poor old country mouse finds it worth while to recognize a distinction between conservatives [those who take a classical position] and "conservatives" [the MAGA group and the cultists who follow Mr. Donald Trump.].

Regards, stay safe 'n well-informed.

 

[highroller]

This poor old country mouse finds it worth while to recognize a distinction between conservatives [those who take a classical position] and "conservatives" [the MAGA group and the cultists who follow Mr. Donald Trump.].

Regards, stay safe 'n well-informed.

You may not like Donald Trump, but he embodies conservatism. Not the country club conservatism of RINOs, but the real conservatism.

 

[NuffSaid]

Conservatives already won on Obamacare.

Their main concerns of the PPACA were forcing insurers to offer birth control, forcing states to run insurance exchanges and the mandate.

Burwell v Hobby Lobby killed the birth control requirement, Sebelius allowed states to opt of of the exchanges, and the mandate was effectively overturned when the penaltax was zeroed out legislatively under Trump.

Win, win, win. One almost gets tired of winning so much. Almost.

"Conservatives" wanted to get rid of ObamaCare. In its entirety.
When it proved to be popular, they pivoted.
When dopey Trump wanted to repeal and replace Obamacare, "conservatives" knew this was a death knell.
"Conservatives" haven't won jack shit, except that they want to tell Americans who cannot afford health care to go **** off. I mean, "conservatives" get free government healthcare, why should they care about anyone else?

 

[Blue Dog]

There are conservatives and there are reactionaries. The issue is that the latter believe they are the former.

Traditional conservatives should support the idea of implementing new proposals incrementally and/or improving on prior ones. I would use a car analogy of applying brakes for purposes of slowing down.

Reactionaries seek to go back to some “idealistic” time and maintain the status quo with little to no advancement. I would use a car analogy of shifting into reverse.

For purposes of this topic, conservatives should be embracing PPACA even though there were reasons to be apprehensive when it was first set up. Reactionaries only seek to repeal PPACA and go back to…..

 

[Torus34]

You may not like Donald Trump, but he embodies conservatism. Not the country club conservatism of RINOs, but the real conservatism.

Hi, highroller.

How do you define, precisely, your understanding of conservatism? The more detailed, the better.

Regards, stay safe 'n well.

 

[Buckeyes85]

They may have overblown as politicians do. But it was a bad idea and still is.

Can you offer some bullet points as to why a bad idea? Perhaps in contrast to doing nothing at all?

 

[Simpletruther]

Can you offer some bullet points as to why a bad idea? Perhaps in contrast to doing nothing at all?

I just think it's inefficient and the free market does a better job. we never really had a free market so I can't prove that. I think costs would be much lower and we could have some safety net for the bottom

 

[highroller]

Hi, highroller.

How do you define, precisely, your understanding of conservatism? The more detailed, the better.

Regards, stay safe 'n well.

I define old conservatism as conserving your society. You have to allow for change, but you want to be the steady hand that moves the needle.

Conservatism today is my dad's conservatism. An extreme hatred of anything that helps society over the individual (with exceptions).

Common sense regulations have no place in modern conservatism.

And the reason it’s “real conservatism” is because it’s rooted in the societal cancer known as libertarianism.

 

[roguenuke]

Given that you are just plain wrong. PPACA violated the 1A guarantee of religious freedom. The HRSA wanted to fine companies that refused to cover 20 contraceptives.

Of those Americans who have health insurance, most are covered by employer-sponsored health insurance. In 2010, Congress passed the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which relies on the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), to specify what kinds of preventive care for women should be covered in certain employer-based health plans. HHS exempted religious employers (churches and their integrated auxiliaries, associations of churches, and any religious order), non-profit organizations that object to any required contraception,[9] employers providing grandfathered plans (that have not had specific changes before March 23, 2010), and employers with fewer than 50 employees. The HRSA decided that all twenty contraceptives approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) should be covered.[10] Companies that refuse are fined $100 per individual per day,[11] or they can replace their health coverage with higher wages and a calibrated tax.

Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

SCOTUS recognized Hobby Lobby right to a religious exception.


Yes, and if they did they would lose Medicaid funding. That was a violation of state sovereignty

King v. Burwell, 576 U.S. 473 (2015), was a 6–3 decision by the Supreme Court of the United States interpreting provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). The Court's decision upheld, as consistent with the statute, the outlay of premium tax credits to qualifying persons in all states, both those with exchanges established directly by a state, and those otherwise established by the Department of Health and Human Services.

King v. Burwell - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Thank you so much for telling conservatives what they care about. What would we do without that?


My thoughts exactly.

Companies should have to provide health insurance to their employees, and they shouldn't get to determine based on their personal beliefs what sort of healthcare their employees can have. Just as individuals cannot opt out of taxes because those taxes might go to contraceptives or nor can employers demand the money they pay their employees not be used for birth control. That was always a shit ruling based on trying to put religious views of one person/group over the rights of others to use their benefits as they see fit.

And the mandate was originally proposed and highly supported by conservatives, the right. They only stopped supporting it when it was politically convenient because that and more was being passed by a Democratic President and had support from many Dems because of the other parts of the law that meant healthcare insurance would be provided to many more people based on government mandates.

How the ACA’s ‘individual mandate’ came to be—and where it stands now

John McDonough explores the history of the “individual mandate”—the requirement under the ACA that most Americans obtain health insurance.

www.hsph.harvard.edu

 

[Torus34]

I define old conservatism as conserving your society. You have to allow for change, but you want to be the steady hand that moves the needle.

Conservatism today is my dad's conservatism. An extreme hatred of anything that helps society over the individual (with exceptions).

Common sense regulations have no place in modern conservatism.

And the reason it’s “real conservatism” is because it’s rooted in the societal cancer known as libertarianism.

Hi again, highroller.

Thank you for your response.

I suspect that framing our present red/blue, lib/con, Rep/Dem hooting and hollering as a conflict between the 'rights' of the individual and the 'rights' of the society [Ed.: or perhaps as what the individual owes to society vs. what the individual owes to him/herself,] has value here.

Regards, stay safe 'n well.

 

[eman623]

"Conservatives" wanted to get rid of ObamaCare. In its entirety.
When it proved to be popular, they pivoted.
When dopey Trump wanted to repeal and replace Obamacare, "conservatives" knew this was a death knell.
"Conservatives" haven't won jack shit, except that they want to tell Americans who cannot afford health care to go **** off. I mean, "conservatives" get free government healthcare, why should they care about anyone else?

Conservatives know there's no such thing as "free" healthcare.