GOP misinformation: slow down, I can't keep up!

Republicans, I just can't even keep up with your flagrant disregard of facts and how generously you feed misinformation to your loyal supporters. If you don't like a particular policy of President Obama's, that is perfectly OK. But what's with the hatred of truthiness? Romney's recent attack ads burn me up in so many ways, and on the surface they look like your usual biased nonsense. But the "welfare gutting" ads in particular have been refuted specifically over and over again. I'm mildly frustrated the Romney keeps hammering this idea onto the airwaves, but what's most disturbing is the collective Republican mindset of believing anything, especially if it sounds like a poor person of another race is going to get a free meal on their dime. (Tangent alert: Obama will never come out and say it, so supporters such as myself will have to say it: conservatives, you are flat-out racist on so many issues, and the only people from whom you are sometimes able to conceal it are yourselves.)

Read the full article on NPR, but here's the really disturbing snippet:

"We think that the fact that the work requirement has been taken out of welfare is the wrong thing to do," said Peggy Testa, attending a Tuesday rally near Pittsburgh for Romney running mate Rep. Paul Ryan.

When told that's not actually what had happened, Testa replied: "At this point, [I] don't know exactly what is true and what isn't, OK? But what I do know is I trust the Romney-Ryan ticket, and I do not trust Obama."


Even when Obama gets re-elected, we're still kind of doomed...because the Peggy Testas of the world will still be here.

(Sorry, Peggy Testa, I'm sure you're a very nice lady. Go Steelers.)

"Stupid" single women

Oh Republicans, you've done it again. I had a whole long list of important and not-so-important topics that I was going to tackle this week, but now a congressman and U.S. Senate candidate in Missouri has shot his mouth off and once again it is necessary to talk about the ever-current subject of respect for women.

"Missouri Congressman Todd Akin, the Republican who's challenging Democrat Claire McCaskill for the U.S. Senate seat, said in a television interview Sunday that it's 'rare' for women to become pregnant when they are raped. 'If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down,' he said in an interview with KTVI, a St. Louis television station."

Seriously. One could try to explain this as a rogue Republican's singular remark, and that the GOP is not a party full of misogynists, but let's look at just a handful of recent evidence to the contrary:

• The much publicized three-day attack Rush Limbaugh launched against Sandra Fluke earlier this year, calling her a "slut" for testifying to Congress about the benefits of access to birth control.
• Ann Coulter saying that Obama had recruited Sandra Fluke to campaign on his behalf to get the "stupid single women" vote.
• Romney "distancing" himself from Rep. Akin's remarks: "Romney campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul said Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan disagree with Akins's statement. Saul told NPR, 'A Romney-Ryan administration would not oppose abortion in instances of rape.'" That's fantastic, how about commenting on the fact that Rep. Akin falsely claimed that a woman's body will prevent pregnancy in the event of a rape?

So, Ann Coulter and company, if I were not a "stupid single woman," I would naturally vote for the party who publicly says that it's somehow a failure of my body if I get pregnant as a rape victim? Smart women, by your standards, believe this?

Affordable Care Act: Still a BFD

So the Supreme Court says the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as "Obamacare," is constitutional. As soon as the news broke, you probably noticed quite a bit of activity in your Facebook or Twitter newsfeed. I was as guilty as anyone, but I felt like my quick Facebook status update was somewhat appropriate seeing as how I only posted what NPR described as the "money quote" from the court's decision: "Our precedent demonstrates that Congress had the power to impose the exaction in Section 5000A under the taxing power, and that Section 5000A need not be read to do more than impose a tax. This is sufficient to sustain it." Aside from a sassy "mmm-hmmm" I didn't post any of my own thoughts or interpretations...in fact I started this blog so I could vent without flooding my friends' and frenemies' social media feeds, and at the same time force myself to stretch my thoughts beyond a 140-character rant.

My status update prompted a few questions and issues, from the right and the left, that I hadn't thought about in quite some time. Let's discuss!

The first topic that came up was the idea that the government "owns" you with the implementation of the ACA. I would be more on board with this logic if we were implementing universal health care. What we're really doing with the individual mandate, which I believe is the source of many people's Obamacare concerns, is balancing out the economics that allow insurance to function. See my previous post on health care from December 28. Currently, pretty much everyone receives some level of health care, but only some of us pay into the system. The individual mandate says that everyone will receive health care and everyone will pay into the system. So, while we as a population are probably going to be providing more health care services, we're also going to be taking in more money. 

People don't like this because they think their money is going to pay for treatment for some lowlife who doesn't deserve health care. There are two things I hate about this reasoning: one, all human beings deserve basic care especially in a resource-rich country like the Unite States, and two, that "lowlife" could be any one of us if our luck changes. When more people pay into the health care system, there are fewer unpaid medical bills (in general) and therefore costs go down for everyone. People have a hard time with this, and rightfully so, because providing and paying for health care is very complicated and you won't see a benefit to the individual mandate immediately or clearly. The benefit could be that health care costs only rise two percent per year, as opposed to seven percent. That's not very sexy politics, but it is a likely valuable outcome of the individual mandate and the complete ACA.

Please keep in mind: the government is not taking over the delivery of health care services. They are becoming more involved in the payment of such services. In this regard, the federal government is not doing anything more than your for-profit health insurance provider already does for you.

Another thing that came up was being tied to your employer under current conditions so you can have health care insurance. I made this point because I am no more "scared" of the government making health care payment choices than I am of the insurance companies. The insurance companies need to be reigned in; I love the idea of capitalism but I do not love companies who put profits ahead of people's health and lives. (Why are people afraid of the government but not an insurance company whose primary responsibility is to shareholders?) First, I think it's good for capitalism and entrepreneurship if you are free of the health insurance issue to switch to a new job or start your own company. Second, I have a little personal story about health insurance and switching jobs...

To my knowledge, I have only been without health insurance for a few months of my entire life, most memorably in July 2010. In June of that year, I left a wonderful job in Chicago to move to Denver and take an even better job with a different company. I am so fortunate to have survived the recession and the earliest stages of my career without any involuntary unemployment. My last day on the job in Chicago was a Thursday, and my new job in Denver started the following Monday, June 21. I would be unemployed for only one business day. However, my health insurance at the new company would not start until August 1. A typical delay when starting with a new employer. So, I applied for COBRA insurance to cover the gap. COBRA is slightly expensive, but it's better than paying for health insurance completely on your own. I didn't think twice about this arrangement until two weeks into my Denver residency, when I received a letter from the health insurance company. They regretted to inform me that they would be unable to insure me. It turns out that I had failed to complete a minor procedure a doctor had recommended prior to my insurance application. (I canceled the appointment for that procedure because the movers showed up a day early, the day of the appointment.)

Instead of charging me a higher amount for my "pre-existing condition," they just flat-out denied me coverage. My pre-existing condition was something that a majority of women experience in their lifetimes and usually requires a simple fix. I did not have cancer, a congenital heart defect, AIDS...I had a common condition, but I was un-insurable. I was out of luck, through no fault of my own, except perhaps making the mistake of telling the truth on my insurance application. And, OK, I suppose you can fault me for canceling the original doctor's appointment, but the movers were showing up to take my stuff to a new city where I was pro-actively moving to get a bigger and better job. Call me a lowlife, it was my fault I was un-insurable! I survived this short period of being without health insurance, but what would have happened if I had been in a hit-and-run accident, or I had been brutally mugged, or caught in a fire? I would either be dead or bankrupt.

As usual, I urge you to please leave comments if you find holes in my arguments or think that I am just plain making things up. Given my Ivy League degree, the legal studies classes I've taken and the countless nights spent arguing with some of the smartest people on the planet during my college years, I should be good at making my case...but I still have a long way to go before I reach Maddow-level logic and well-researched arguments.

Doing real life stuff and easing into feminism

Hi friends! Just a quick post tonight, as I don't really have a specific point to make tonight (or ever).

I've been slacking on the posts because I've been doing far too much real life activism.

• The Colorado Democratic Party put on a fantastic Jefferson-Jackson dinner earlier this much, which I helped with a bit. (We were even protested by Occupy Denver! I think they are a little silly sometimes, but I support their right to be silly.) See the video of Cory Booker's keynote speech here:

• I'm now on the volunteer committee of the Democratic Party of Denver, and we're busy getting ready for Caucus on March 6th and County Assembly on March 31. Holla at a girl if you are interested in volunteering, especially House Districts 4 and 6, as I am your designated committee person, like it or not.
• I'm currently in the running for both Assistant Treasurer of the DPoD and Treasurer of the Denver Young Democrats. For DPoD I need to be appointed, and for DYD I need to be elected, but both of these, um, "races" are uncontested. If you're registered as a Democrat in the County of Denver and you are between the ages of 18-35, please join the Denver Young Democrats and come out and vote for me and my compadres tomorrow night at Tavern Uptown! Membership is only $10 per year. And tomorrow night, membership comes with a FREE DRINK! DAMN I love being a Democrat!
• And, most importantly, today I got a friend to register as a Democrat. Winning!

The main theme for my political thoughts over the past few weeks has been "there is no way the GOP is for real." They've turned me into a feminist! I'm the kind of girl who gets bi-weekly manicures, wears dresses every day that ends in "Y,"  and uses different hair conditioners and facial moisturizers depending on the humidity of a given day. And right now I'm wearing a FLANNEL SHIRT. The same flannel shirt I WORE YESTERDAY. Why? Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Ca.) held a hearing regarding the mandate to offer birth control to women, and this is what it looked like:

Thanks for inviting us, asshat. I'm so embarrassed that the head of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod even showed up to this thing. A few thoughts on the birth control access mandate:

• NO ONE is forcing anyone to take birth control. The mandate does require that you provide access to a birth control pill, which is a proven and safe drug for the prevention of pregnancy. If you are against birth control, you are free to continue practicing your beliefs by, wait for it, wait for it...not taking birth control.
• The birth control pill prevents abortions. If you are against abortions, then why the hell are you also trying to prevent expanded access to birth control? Oh, okay, I see, that leads me to...
• Some of these people define the beginning of a human life pretty damn early. We can all agree that a living baby existing outside of its mother is a real human life. I would even go so far as to say a fetus in its third trimester is pretty damn close to a real human life, as it has a good chance of surviving if suddenly taken from the womb. But what about fetuses in earlier stages of development? What about the egg and sperm immediately after fertilization? What about the egg right before that son-of-a-bitch sperm gets to it? We can see the baby being born: that's clearly "life." We cannot see the egg and sperm and little zygotes and know exactly when they start taking off on the path to being a real human. So, go ahead and encourage people to carry pregnancies to term, but let's legally allow people to make choices in that gray area we can't agree on.
• STOP referring to me and other like-minded individuals as "pro-abortion," or the supercute shortened collective term, "pro-aborts." It would be lovely if all pregnancies, intended or unintended, could be carried lovingly to term and live happy lives in emotionally and financially stable families. But that's not what we're talking about. I don't know of a single person who is pro-abortion. We are pro-choice.
• To the States that require a woman to view a sonogram or undergo an ultrasound before an abortion: why the hell doesn't the man have to participate? Do you think that woman got pregnant on her own?
• Stay the hell away from my reproductive organs, God-damn it! Why do so many people think the liberals are too involved in our daily lives?

I can't wait to walk into the pharmacy when the mandate takes effect, pick up my birth control pills without paying a co-pay, and turn to the other customers in line and yell "Thanks, Obama!"

Oh, health care economics...you CRAZY!

My little brush with Michele Bachmann on CBS' Early Show the other day has solidified my morning routine of listening to NPR's Morning Edition: the sweet, sweet sound of logic and facts told through soothing voices.

This morning, NPR did not disappoint: I nearly died when I realized Dr. Patricia Danzon, one of my favorite professors at Wharton, was on Morning Edition! She knows more about health care economics than pretty much everyone in the entire world. The NPR story was about Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney's vacillations on their health care platforms. Given the topic, I knew what Dr. Danzon would say. I had been waiting* for this since the Affordable Care Act sparked the debate over our nation's health care act into a full-on bonfire. The frenzied arguments have died down a bit in recent months, but they're back, baby!

I digress. As I listened to Dr. Danzon's speak, with her smooth British-with-a-hint-of-South-African accent, I thought, "please say it, please say it..."

And she did. Allow me to paraphrase: Health care is already socialized, in the least efficient way possible. And everyone pays for it.

The NPR piece highlights the fact that the individual mandate, vilified as a socialist idea, was actually a Republican concept when first introduced. Romney instated such a mandate in Massachusetts, leading to a population that was 98 percent insured, and Gingrich praised this plan in the past. Now that both candidates are catering to the extreme right, they are falling over themselves to lead the charge against the "socialization" of our health care system.

But our health care system is already socialized, in an extremely inefficient manner. Assume that everyone who walks into an emergency room will be given at least the basic level of care appropriate for their injury or illness. It's perfectly alright to assume this, since this is actually the case all over America. Now, for people who do not have health insurance, when they require medical care they must either pay out of pocket to see a primary care physician (PCP), where costs are more contained, or go to the more expensive emergency room if they are not able or willing to pay. Any of us could do this, but those of us with health insurance go to the PCP unless our condition is truly an emergency. On our health insurance plans, it's much less expensive to go to the PCP. That is, our health insurance plan incentivizes us to go to the PCP. Why? Because the emergency room is an extreme waste of money for any non-emergency health problem.

So who pays for the treatment of those uninsured people who go to the emergency room and then skip out on the bill? We all do. The way this happens can fill a textbook, but essentially we pay for their care through higher health insurance premiums, higher charges at the hospital, and so on. But we're not just paying for a doctor's visit and some antibiotics. We're paying all the costs of emergency care. Logically, we'd be better off if we paid for uninsured people to visit a primary care physician.

Sounds like socialism, but as a country we would pay less for health care and have better results. So, since health care is already socialized, as noted by Dr. Danzon, then what's the problem with a somewhat socialist solution (the Affordable Care Act) to making it more efficient? Is there a better solution via capitalism? I'm not sure if one really exists. This is health care. People's lives. We're not talking about manufacturing or bond-trading here. Different economic principles apply to each industry, and health care is by far the most confusing and rule-defying category.

Why do Romney, Gingrich, and their co-horts insist that the Affordable Care Act needs to be repealed? Why is socialism a dirty word? And is socialism really so bad if, by efficiently providing health care to those who cannot afford it, you also lower your own costs?

*Seriously, every time health care policy was mentioned in any national media outlet, I wondered when they were going to bring on Dr. Danzon. She's THE expert! I took her class on the  economics of the pharmaceutical industry, in which my mind was blown repeatedly, and I worked in her office in the Health Care Management department at Wharton for three years during college.

Bachmann, payroll tax cuts and 2+2=5

I can no longer hold back. I really, really dislike* Michele Bachmann. Today she appeared on CBS' The Early Show, and was at her most Bachmanny. Besides reminding me why I don't watch the major networks' morning "news" shows, she said a lot of dumb $#!&, and really failed to answer the anchor's questions and dodged most of them poorly.

Bachmann accused the House Democrats of leaving D.C. before voting on the extension of payroll tax cuts and unemployment insurance benefits...from her campaign tour stop of Davenport, Iowa. Look, I get that she's running a tough campaign to be the GOP presidential nominee and we are less than two weeks from the Iowa caucus, but you can't accuse the Democrats of being absent when you are also absent, Michele. (I am not going to verify whether or not the Democrats, or Republicans, actually left Washington, because this is not my point.)

Besides that little double-standard she expressed this morning, the fact is that Democrats and even some of the Republican leadership were ready to pass the bill. Late last week, the Senate passed their bill with huge bipartisan support. Speaker Boehner even seemed on board. Then on Tuesday, the House rejected the bill. I am very pleased to say that not a single Democrat rejected the bill. The most recent maddening twist to this saga is that the Republicans are claiming they will not settle for anything less than a one-year extension of the benefits, as opposed to the two-month stopgap extension in the bill passed by the Senate and presented in the House. This totally pisses me off because the original offer of a two-month extension was intended as a bill that would be easier to pass than a one-year extension. All things being equal, I'm pretty sure the Democrats would have been on board with a one-year extension.

An hour after the House vote, President Obama was so pissed off (my interpretation) that he walked into the press secretary's briefing unannounced and talked to the reporters directly. I love it. It sounds like something Jed Bartlet would do. Funny, though, that this morning on CBS Bachmann said something to the effect that Obama is nowhere to be found regarding passing this bill or starting new negotiations.

This leads me to a larger point, that we'll need to explore futher at a later date, of the Orwellian statements coming from the right wing these days. By "Orwellian" I mean statements like "two plus two equals five." Bachmann provides many examples of this. Today, she gets on national TV and says Obama is not involved in the process, while he is in DC working on this, giving his own press conference, has pretty much given up his Christmas vacation...while she campaigns in Iowa. Too many people out there believe Bachmann and the other candidates' words without thinking for themselves or finding another source of information. Too many voters believe that two plus two equals five.

*"Hate" is a strong word, so I try not to use it unless I really mean it. I only feel hatred, or something close to it, for three living people: Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and Fred Phelps.

A challenger

Not since the late '90s have I been so impressed with a hamster website: Hamster for President 2012.

And now I have that damn song stuck in my head.

For those of you who also drive POS cars...

Get a free bumper sticker today to support Barry in 2012. For those of you who actually care about the paint on your car, donate $10 or more and you can get a car magnet.

In all seriousness, supporting Obama on your car is a small but effective thing to do. How do you feel when you are out and about and see an Obama 2012 bumper sticker, window placard or t-shirt? I feel emboldened, just from that small visual reminder that there are people out there who are confident in their liberal political beliefs. And just maybe, when "independents" see 1,000 Obama 2012 bumper stickers over the next few weeks, they will start to see the need to take a closer look at the Democrats' agenda and track record. Hey, a girl can hope...dream...whatever. Can't wait to slap this sticker on the back of my made-in-the-USA 2000 Pontiac.

"Corporations are people." - Mitt Romney

The sad thing is, Romney is my favorite Republican candidate.

I am so sick of the right trying to drum up sympathy for big business, and even more disgusted that voters buy into this. Tell me, why should groups of people and assets (businesses) be protected from taxes that might hurt their profits, but individuals should be expected to stand on their own even if they are a single mother or a cancer patient without health insurance?

This New York Times article is from January, but the point is still relevant about corporate profits not translating to more jobs, and as we've witnessed this year, corporate profits do not necessarily equal greater overall prosperity for the country.

I am not anti-business, nor are the Democrats. I am pro-business; I have an undergraduate degree from Wharton and I've been working in the private sector consistently since graduation. Capitalism is one of the core values that makes America great. Coddling businesses that should (mostly) stand on their own...well, that sounds like some weird Frankenstein socialism for businesses to me.

One step closer to making sure "President Bachmann" only exists in my nightmares.