Affordable Care
Thieves are dumb – lets just establish that as a ground-rule for this post. When an asshole spends what appears to be a significant amount of time and energy ripping a really crappy TV out of the wall, after you’ve painstakingly routed cables, tearing a massive hole in the sheetrock – all because he didn’t stop to unscrew the VGA cable? Well lets just say you start to loose some faith in this country if our criminals are throwing down this level of shoddy work. (tl;dr – We were burgled this week after just three weeks in the new house).
Solace and a glimmer of hope, that we as a people – nay as race – may yet survive and thrive past the coming dumbpocolypse came on Thursday from an unlikely source: Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. For whatever reason (and i’ve heard a few, ranging from this is a grandstand move to establish his legacy, to he was high as a kite) the court despite itself and a slew of lawsuits based on (lets be honest) sexist and regressive policy, pushed the tide of stupid back just a bit. From Anne Dunkelberg, Center for Public Policy Priorities writing for The Texas Tribune….
For the very first time, the U.S. will create a system to guarantee a decent standard of health care will be affordable for every lawfully present American. The sliding-scale system is not perfect, but it is a huge step to be finally starting down that road.
The second fundamental shift will change the ground rules for the health insurance marketplace, so that insurers can no longer profit by avoiding people with health care needs; instead, they will have to win business through good care management, good pricing, and good customer service. In 2014, no one can be turned down and no one can be charged more because of their health status. This profound change will also liberate Texans trapped in a job today just to keep their coverage.
What Dunkleburg captures is the core fallacy of the conservative argument: That we should let the market sort it out. Unless I’m missing something here, this bill is about as market friendly as you can get, unless you think that a Libertarian style system would work for Health Care. So setting aside that argument what Affordable Care Act opponents really oppose is expanded overage for the poor (something that has been proven to lower the overall cost of the system), expanded coverage for preventative care (something that has been proven to lower the overall cost of the system), coverage for pre-existing conditions (don’t be a dick) and equal coverage for women (seriously, dont be a dick).
I wasn’t around for it, but its seem like what we witnessed this week will be held in similar regard to the landmark legislation of the last century, like the Voting Rights Act. And to me it seems reasonable to group the ACA opponents in with the guy who ripped the TV out of my wall – expending a lot of time and energy, making a huge mess over something we know how to fix (just unscrew the VGA plug, dude), while putting everyones well being at risk, themselves included.