Interesting read: How Billionaires Destroy Democracy. LINK.

Those new hipster glasses? Naw, man, those are Buddy Holly glasses.

Prediction: if the Affordable Care Act gets struck down, this won’t happen.

From that link:

“The point of winning elections is to do things like pass health-care reform.”

Unfortunately, what Obama did was ignore actual health care reform and instead he pandered to the insurance industry.

And all the kabuki about “striking down Obamacare” is just that: Election year kabuki.

After the dance is done the pro-corporate court will approve the pro-corporate mandate and that will be that.

As for the lesser-evilish “15-20 years” scare?

Got some news for you, Sunshine, the <1% never intend to let that happen regardless. Their long-term goal is to dismantle universal health care in other countries…

… and the U.S. will serve as an excellent reservoir of their poison.

I don’t see anything wrong with wearing glasses to try to make yourself look innocent. Wealthy defendants have jury consultants to show them how to dress and how to act.

I agree with you, but I still hope that the court strikes down the law somehow. I do think we’d get to single payer faster without Obamacare. As for Ezra, Commerce Clause arguments can be used to justify anything. But using it to force people to buy the private insurance product would be a major new incursion into individual liberty.

I don’t think there’s any question that housing inventory has dropped, mostly due to speculators buying up foreclosed homes for rent. However, months of supply doesn’t take into account the mass of shadow inventory not on the market. It gets conveniently left out of housing forecasts.

Rents and housing prices here in Cleveland continue to fall. Long slow slide.

I’ve_had_my_Buddy_Hollies_since_the_’90s
_
It_pains_me_to_see_them_being_worn_by_the_Glitterati
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but_I_should_count_my_blessings_that_I_have_such_problems

“The lack of revenue,” says Peters, “is really forcing people to consider these options more seriously.”

The solution, may I humbly suggest, might be found in addressing the first four words of the sentence……

“Prediction: if the Affordable Care Act gets struck down, this won’t happen. In fact, pretty much nothing will change. And nobody at the federal level will want to touch health care for another 15-20 years.”

Well, that’s an unassailable prediction, in the sense that no one at the federal level, except the Teahadist wreckers and destroyers, ever want to touch any actual public policy issue. Too many opportunites to alienate some voter somewhere, or worse and more likely, some campaign donor somewhere. But, if nothing is done, healthcare financing in this country will fall off a cliff in a much shorter time frame than 15-20 years. Either reasonable people at the federal level will learn a willingness to touch this issue pronto, or they will be replaced in short order by those who are so willing.

Look, we didn’t have this last go at healthcare financing reform out of any sort of concern for the uninsured or underinsured. There was absolutely nothing at all new about the fact of millions of Americans being uninsured or underinsured. We did the ACA because something had to be done to keep our current non-system from falling off a cliff. If that somehting is undone by the court, and maybe even if they leave it be, the wagon continues unimpeded to and then over the cliff.

The cliff here is the simple fact that health insurance, driven by unregulatd market forces, has priced itself out of the market. The individual market has reached the point where buying insurance is not a good bet for anyone without pre-existing conditions — these people would be far better off going naked/self-insuring and risking making it to Medicare age before they need medical services. Even the rates employers are able to get are killing competitiveness. But the insurers can’t go back, they can’t halt the impetus to the cliff, because each individually profits by ever more ruthlessly limiting its beneficiaries to those unlikely to need medical services before age 65. They have to make up the loss of numbers of beneficiaries — and the best performers in this market are those shedding beneficiaries — by raising premiums, premiums which already so high as to make no sense for the non-sick to take on.

Too many people on the progressive side oversimplify the big corporations as both malignant and all-powerful. They aren’t really malignant — just following thier fiduciary duty to maxiomize profits — however malignant the results of that are in an unregulated market. But we make a much bigger error in imagining them to be all-knowing and all-powerful, just because they have gone from public policy victory to victory. Sometimes, nothing fails like success, and that last thin wafer makes the glutton explode. The industry got the regulators off its back, but that has led to competition with a lack of the restraint that would have kept them from going over the cliff. They really can’t think two moves ahead, because their is no “they” to do any thinking. The direction has all been left to Capital, and Capital is a vengeful god who wants us all over the cliff and dead.

Presumably, at some point the humans take charge again, and we get some sort of Newer Deal. Or not. In either case, the crisis comes long before 15-20 years have gone by.

Now that, fatster, is one hell of a story.

From the low rate of “capital gains” taxation to the Koch brothers … and their mad-hatted tea party believers …

I thank you for the link and hope that others may avail themselves of learning a sad and pathetic tale.

It makes, by-the-by, a certain law professor’s bottom line, “You voted for them …” defense of the “Constitutional” mandate, appear both sublimely foolish and the absolute height of “specialist” or “expert” ivory tower haughtiness …

Best I not say anything further, no doubt?

;~DW

heard this one-liner on npr @ 6p. last night:

“Israeli war planes (will be, may be given?) access to Aberjaizan airfields . . .”

guess that’s the only hint we’ll get — reminds me of the total destruction of Lebanon over Christmas-New Year that came out of no where.

The interesting part will be attacking a country that may be able to shoot back; usually “they’re ‘fish in a barrel.’”

I don’t care who wears the glasses nor why either, bmull. I was just pointing out that Buddy Holly originated them. Nice that they haven’t faded away.

Sorry, insurance is not health care. There was no need for Obama to arrange for the industry to be propped up on the backs of the same people it is busily screwing over. Obama volunteered us for that.

And you seem to display a rather pollyannish view of the accountability of politicians when you write things like this:

“… or they will be replaced in short order by those who are so willing.”

No… from the evidence to date they will be replaced in short order by those who are willing to dance up a kabuki storm for the benefit of the masses while unfailingly serving the interests of the <1%. That's how we got Obama in the first place, remember?

And re: corporations:

“But we make a much bigger error in imagining them to be all-knowing and all-powerful, just because they have gone from public policy victory to victory.”

Oops… you’ve segued into a strawman.

Who said anything about the corporations having the final say? I myself refer to them as mindless and amoral.

But they can and will act with purpose and forethought and they can aim at goals beyond immediate profit. They can do this because what they are, are multipurpose tools, footstools and enforcement mechanisms for the <1%.

And if you believe that those elites don't support arrays of people tasked with promoting, pursuing and implementing the public policies that the <1% believe are in their best interests then you have not been paying attention.

These particular victories for the elites did not "just happen."

I think you mean Azerbaijan, karenjj2, and a quick google turns up these links, among others:

http://www.eurasianet.org/node/65195

http://www.iranmilitaryforum.net/military-discussions-and-news/israel-to-use-azerbaijan-airfields/

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/03/28/israel_s_secret_staging_ground?page=full

DW

And, “that’ll be day” all right when you give them up. Good on you! Actually, there are two pictures in that link of Buddy without the glasses. Barely recognizable.

Another bomb used in the War on Women:

Bomb Goes Off At Planned Parenthood In [Grand Chute] Wisconsin LINK.

I have to disagree that DD’s prediction is unassailable. For nothing to happen for 15-20 years is counterintuitive — it should be especially so for ACA’s boosters. ACA’s premise is based on a need, which is valid, while the controversy has to do with the methods.

It is unfortunate that the Dems flinched at a public option seemingly at the last minute (well, a few months prior) when they enjoyed a trifecta to force it in. That was the crucial sales job left undone.

I think public option will come back in some form and ultimately prove a stepping stone to a broad single payer system. In the meantime there may be a waiting period for preexisting conditions, which isn’t desirable, and which would have to be tamped down over time as the public option grows and eventually supplants the insurance industry. It sounds like a pipe dream, but I’m confident it can happen. It will take longer than we’d like.

The GOP will be playing tricks at the same time. I think they’ll rely on cross border policy purchases for “competition,” and disallow states from requiring residents to purchase certain coverages for non life threatening situations. I think GOP’s coverage template might look like an off the shelf version of the minimum Blue Cross for Fed employees, or even TRICARE or USFHP. A lot of coverage advocates won’t like it at all, and they’ll gum up the works when the exclusions are publicized.

But no healthcare change for 15-20 years if SCOTUS overturns ACA? I can’t imagine such. Instead, there will be plenty of healthcare fights and elections to come.

thanks, dw. 3rd link seems to illustrate the question of “not if … but when” an attack will happen. words fail …