Unlike Benghazi! and the rest of the nonsense Darrell Issa's Witch-Hunt Committee "investigates," Boehner is eager to try to get some serious attention focused on the flaws in the roll out of the Affordable Care Act. (Like Medicare the rollout has been messy and, like Medicare, the Republicans want to demagogue it instead of helping to make it better.) So he assigned the investigation not to the clownish Oversight Committee chaired by Issa but to Fred Upton's Energy and Commerce Committee. Here's the press release the Republicans put out last Thursday:
The House Energy and Commerce Committee today announced a full committee hearing-- PPACA Implementation Failures: Didn’t Know or Didn’t Disclose?-- to examine the health care law’s troubled rollout on Thursday, October 24 in room 2123 of the Rayburn House Office Building. Thus far, the administration has rejected the committee’s invitation to participate and publicly answer questions. Committee leaders sent a letter to Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius requesting the administration reconsider its participation. The letter was signed by Full Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI), Chairman Emeritus Joe Barton (R-TX), Full Committee Vice Chairman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Health Subcommittee Chairman Joe Pitts (R-PA), Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Tim Murphy (R-PA), and Health and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Vice Chairman Michael C. Burgess, M.D. (R-TX).The administration and the companies involved with implementation repeatedly assured the committee that everything was “on track” for October 1; however, the first two and a half weeks of open enrollment have been defined by significant “glitches” that have prevented Americans from being able to even use the system."It's well past time for the administration to be straight and transparent with the American people. Top administration officials repeatedly testified everything was on track, but the broad technological failures reveal that was not the case,” said Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI). "Either the administration was not ready for launch, or it was not up to the job. The president and top officials were quick to boast the number of visitors to HealthCare.gov, but they have since gone silent, refusing to disclose even basic enrollment figures. The rollout has been a complete mess, beyond the worst case scenario, and yet those administration officials responsible have indicated they will not be available to testify next week. This is wholly unacceptable. Secretary Sebelius had time for Jon Stewart, and we expect her to have time for Congress."Energy and Commerce Committee leaders have sent letters to the administration as well as lead IT contractors regarding the “glitches” and failures that have plagued the roll out. The committee is also requesting enrollment figures from the administration, which have been withheld from the public and policymakers to date.
So, let's get this straight. Republicans in Congress, Republicans in state legislatures, Republican governors, the Republican Think Tank Industry and the Republican Media Echo Chamber have all worked ceaselessly to sabotage the Affordable Care Act and now they want to whine about glitches in the roll out? As Digby pointed out over the weekend, "One of the most effective acts of Obamacare sabotage was for so many states to "opt out" of creating their own exchanges, thus forcing the Feds to pick up the slack. Since the federal government offered up large sums to help them set up their own, it was assumed they's be happy to create some state government jobs and allow their own people to benefit. But no, they sent the money back. And the result is an overwhelmed and poorly designed system that was never intended to serve so many. Three points to the saboteurs… [T]he blame for this failure lies equally with the disgusting GOP politicians who would rather see their own constituents die in the street than help make health insurance affordable and available to them. After all, according to their own philosophy the smaller scale of 50 individual states attempting a new program is automatically superior. (Indeed, the Democrats who designed the system bought that line of logic and assumed this would be a big selling point.) So they did it with the intention of making the federal system fail. That's sabotage."Let me take a break for a moment to point out that Fred Upton, heir to the Whirlpool fortune (one of the worst-- if not the worst-- outsourcers of American manufacturing jobs to low-wage/slave labor Third World countries), has been given a free pass to reelection by Steve Israel once again. Even though there is a dedicated progressive opponent, Paul Clements, running against Upton and even though polling shows that if the election were held right now, Upton would lose 51-38%-- and would lose 56-36% if the voters were aware Upton supported the government shutdown-- the DCCC treats the R+1 district as though it were some kind of Texas or Georgia rural red hellhole that can't be won over. Obama beat McCain here 184,186 (53%) to 156,836 (45%) in 2008 and, despite it being home turf for Mitt Romney last year, Obama held him to a bare 50-49% win. And even with Israel actively sabotaging 2012 candidate Mike O'Brien's race against Upton, O'Brien still managed to hold Upton to a 55% win. Upton spent $4,724,798 for the win against O'Brien, who, unable to get the DCCC to stop telling donors to not give him any support, managed to spend only $292,383 (about one-twentieth of what Upton spent). Thanks for nothing, DCCC.Upton, of course, voted against the Affordable Care Act, would like to get rid of Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security and voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act 41 times. That's what passes as a "mainstream conservative" in today's radicalized Republican Party. Voters in Western Michigan don't agree and they're ready for a change. Steve Israel isn't and won't help Paul Clements, but you can, right here.Paraphrasing a report from the Center for American Progress, Fred Upton fears the consequences of Obamacare working the way it is meant to. A successful law that provides millions of Americans with access to health care, better benefits, and lower costs undermines Upton’s extreme conservative ideology. The effort to undermine the law is a sabotage campaign, plain and simple. This is what Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution had to say about sabotage by Republicans like Upton: "There has been a full-court press from Day One from the opposition to characterize and demonize the [Affordable Care Act.] The campaign against the law after it was enacted, the range of steps taken, the effort to delegitimize it-- it is unprecedented. We’d probably have to go back to the nullification efforts of the Southern states in the pre-Civil War period to find anything of this intensity."
It is unfortunate that many conservatives are resorting to a sabotage campaign to refight old political battles, but this is not the only possible approach. A better approach would be for Congress and state lawmakers-- regardless of where they stood when it was passed-- to work together to make the Affordable Care Act work as well as possible. Even among those who oppose the law, a majority wants to see elected officials work together to make it work. The Affordable Care Act is the law of the land. There will undoubtedly be bumps in the road and problems that arise, but we can identify and fix them. On this approach, the evidence is clear: In those states where lawmakers are working together to implement the law, the law is working. Implementing the Affordable Care Act will be a serious undertaking and will require all of us to do our part, but the country-- and millions of Americans-- will be better off for it.To date, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives has voted 41 times against the Affordable Care Act. These votes range from full repeal of the law to banning federal money that would be used to implement the law to targeting certain provisions to undo or postpone implementation of the law.Not content with what they say are symbolic measures, however, some Republican members of Congress have employed a more confrontational strategy that carries serious economic consequences. A growing number of Republican House [Upton included] and Senate members insist that the continuing resolution that keeps the government open include an amendment to defund the Affordable Care Act-- or they will vote against it. In other words, unless the Affordable Care Act is stopped, they will shut down the government. A government shutdown would severely hurt our economy, immediately throwing hundreds of thousands of people out of work and potentially leading to disruptions in things such as Social Security checks and paychecks to our troops on the frontlines.Another sabotage strategy is to insist on defunding the Affordable Care Act when Congress considers raising the debt ceiling this fall. An aide to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) said last month that the debt limit debate is a “good leverage point” to force action on the Affordable Care Act. Two years ago, the mere threat of the government defaulting on its obligations led to the first-ever downgrade of the nation’s credit rating. Actually defaulting would cause a worse global financial crisis than what we experienced in 2008.Not surprisingly, the defund strategy is unpopular with the vast majority of Americans. In a recent Kaiser Health survey, 57 percent of respondents disapproved of the strategy to defund the law. Another poll found that just 6 percent of registered voters surveyed-- and only 7 percent of Republicans-- agreed with the defund strategy.Increasing opposition among Republicans to the defund strategy has led to an emerging proposal that would ask for a one-year delay in the implementation of the Affordable Care Act in exchange for Congress raising the debt ceiling. Make no mistake: Their goal here is the same as that of all of the other strategies they have employed. While it would be nice to believe that these lawmakers are pursuing delaying implementation in an effort to work with the Obama administration to improve the law and ensure it is implemented smoothly, it would also be naïve. A vote to delay is a vote to repeal. Not only that, but delaying the law would leave more Americans without insurance and could raise premiums as much as 27 percent.Another anti-Obamacare sabotage-campaign tactic is intimidation. The goal of this strategy is to scare people and organizations away from helping the Obama administration enroll or educate Americans about the new marketplaces.…In June of this year, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said that she was in talks with the National Football League, or NFL, about partnering with it to help educate Americans about the benefits of the Affordable Care Act. Days later, however, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX) sent a letter to not just the NFL but also to Major League Baseball, or MLB; the National Hockey League, or NHL; the National Basketball Association, or NBA; NASCAR; and the Professional Golfers’ Association, or PGA, warning them not to do so. “Given the divisiveness and persistent unpopularity of this bill, it is difficult to understand why an organization like yours would risk damaging its inclusive and apolitical brand by lending its name to its promotion,” the senators wrote. Moreover, House Republican Study Committee Chair Steve Scalise (R-LA) sent his own letter to the commissioners of the NFL and NBA, requesting information on what the Department of Health and Human Services asked for regarding help raising awareness for the Affordable Care Act.Having sports teams promote health care marketplaces is not new. After all, the Boston Red Sox began partnering with the Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority in 2007 to educate residents of Massachusetts about the landmark health legislation signed by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) in 2006. Still, the sabotage tactic had some effect. A spokesman for the NFL responded, saying that the league had “no plans” to engage with the Affordable Care Act. But this tactic has its limits. One promising development was the Baltimore Ravens’ announcement that the team would help Marylanders learn about the new marketplaces that begin enrolling people October 1.Obamacare opponents have also spread their tactics of intimidation to the very organizations that are helping enroll Americans in the new health care marketplaces. In late August, Republicans on [Upton's] House Committee on Energy and Commerce sent letters to more than 100 organizations that received federal grants to serve as navigators of the Affordable Care Act. Many of these civic and charitable organizations, such as the Ohio Association of Foodbanks and the Epilepsy Foundation of Florida, are not accustomed to the daily Washington political fight. The timing is questionable as well, given that they received the letter requesting voluminous amounts of information as they are preparing for open enrollment in the new marketplaces to begin on October 1. And Commerce Committee Republicans did not target every navigator grant recipient; organizations were targeted in a handful of states-- Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Missouri, North Carolina, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas-- which are also among the states with the highest rates of uninsured populations.…Washington and Lee University School of Law Professor Timothy Jost added that the letter was "an obvious attempt at intimidation of navigator programs, most of which are nonprofits that don’t have the resources to hire lawyers to fight this, nor the time to respond at this very busy time. ... This attempt to bully these programs is shameful." The executive director of the Ohio Association of Foodbanks, Lisa Hamler-Fugitt, called the letter "quite offensive" and said it was "absolutely shocking."
It's with great interest that we'll be following Upton's anti-healthcare hearings in his committee starting Thursday. Although there are one or two anti-healthcare fake Dems on the committee-- Utah and Georgia right-wingers Jim Matheson and John Barrow-- who can be expected to make common cause with Upton and the Republicans, there is every reason to believe Ranking Member Henry Waxman, along with fellow progressives Jan Schakowsky, Peter Welch, Ben Ray Lujan, John Yarmouth, Frank Pallone, and Diana DeGette, will mount an effective pushback against Upton's obstructionism and sabotage on the committee.One of Upton's allies, domestic terror suspect Steve Stockman sat around in the peanut gallery while the President talked about the legitimate problems with the ACA website. Stockman, a former meth freak and widely considered one of the stupidest and most extreme Members of Congress, is an icon for GOP opposition to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act and, after consistently voting for shutting down the government-- as well as for default, of course-- he shrieked like a stuck pig when angry constituents reminded him that his ideological jihad against government had closed down NASA, the biggest employer in his poverty-stricken, backward east Texas district. Boehner put him on the House Science Committee so he and his cronies could have a good laugh-- at the expense of the American people. This twitter feed isn't a tenth of his childish and disrespectful whining from yesterday. And, yes, he's an accurate reflection of the kind of people who vote in his district. They should all be ashamed that they have the most anti-American Member of Congress as their Representative in Washington.
