Brooks and Capehart from June 18, 2021

 

Progressive Reaction to the United States Supreme Court Decision on the Affordable Care Act

Reaction among progressive circles to the seven to two United States Supreme Court decision upholding the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act has been universally jubilant in Arizona and across the country.

President Joe Biden issued a statement that read:

"The Affordable Care Act remains the law of the land.

Today’s U.S. Supreme Court decision is a major victory for all Americans benefitting from this groundbreaking and life-changing law. It is a victory for more than 130 million Americans with pre-existing conditions and millions more who were in immediate danger of losing their health care in the midst of a once-in-a-century pandemic.

It is a victory for every American who, prior to the Affordable Care Act, stayed up at night staring at the ceiling, wondering whether they would lose everything if they or a loved one got sick. Because of this law, they don’t have to worry about being denied coverage due to a pre-existing condition like diabetes or watching their coverage being capped during a cancer treatment. Because of the law, they are able to get free preventive screenings that can save their lives and improve their health. Today’s victory is also for all the young people who can stay on their parents’ insurance plan until they turn 26 years old, and for the millions of low-income families and people with disabilities receiving health care because their states expanded Medicaid under this law.

After more than a decade of attacks on the Affordable Care Act through the Congress and the courts, today’s decision – the third major challenge to the law that the U.S. Supreme Court has rejected – it is time move forward and keep building on this landmark law.

That is what we are doing thanks to the American Rescue Plan, which has lowered health care costs and expanded coverage for millions of Americans through the Affordable Care Act. More than 1.2 million Americans signed up for coverage under the law through a special enrollment period I established during this pandemic, which people can still sign up for through August 15th. And I look forward to working with the Congress to build on this law so that the American people will continue to have access to quality and affordable health care.

Today’s decision affirms that the Affordable Care Act is stronger than ever, delivers for the American people, and gets us closer to fulfilling our moral obligation to ensure that, here in America, health care is a right and not a privilege."

The President also tweeted:

"With millions of people relying on the Affordable Care Act for coverage, it remains, as ever, a BFD. And it's here to stay."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in remarks to reporters that:

"We are of course happy with the Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Care Act...Once again the Supreme Court upheld the Constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act and the transformational protections that it provides every American no matter where they get their coverage...Thanks to them (grassroots activists) and the Democrats in Congress, the Affordable Care Act endures as a pillar of American health and economic security alongside Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security...We will never forget how Republican leaders embraced this monstrous way to rip away America's health care in the middle of a deadly pandemic... Democrats will continue our work to build on this transformational to make what is in this package (The American Rescue Plan) permanent in terms of affordability access and quality health care for all Americans..."

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was jubilant on the Senate floor, blasting perennial Republican opposition to the Affordable Care Act and said:

"Once again today, the United States Supreme Court in a seven to two ruling upheld the Affordable Care Act in the face of another legal challenge. So let me say definitively, the Affordable Care Act has won. The Supreme Court has just ruled. The ACA is here to stay."

 

Democratic National Committee Chairperson Jamie Harrison stated:

“The Affordable Care Act is here to stay. Despite the best efforts of Republicans for the better part of the last decade to roll back, weaken and eliminate this historic law, the Supreme Court once again cemented affordable health care coverage for tens of millions of Americans and the over 133 million Americans living with preexisting conditions. “While today is a significant victory for the American people, we know that the fight is not over. The ACA is only the start. Thanks to President Biden and the American Rescue Plan, we’ve already seen historic progress this year with more Americans now covered under the ACA than ever before. Democrats believe that access to affordable health care is a right, not a privilege, and we will not stop fighting to expand access and lower costs for even more American families.”

Arizona Congressional House District Three Representative Raul Grijalva issued a press release that read:

“After over a decade of partisan attacks and Republican efforts to rip healthcare away from millions of vulnerable Americans, the Supreme Court has once again reaffirmed that the Affordable Care Act remains law. It’s unconscionable that this lawsuit even proceeded to the Supreme Court while Americans all over the country battled a deadly pandemic and needed access to quality, affordable healthcare now more than ever. It’s time for Republicans to stop their attacks on those with preexisting conditions and finally recognize the legality of the ACA. I’ll keep working in Congress to strengthen the law and move towards universal coverage so that every person in our country has access to the healthcare they deserve.”

Arizona Congressional House District One Representative Tom O'Halleran also released a statement, offering:

“Hundreds of thousands of Arizonans rely on the Affordable Care Act for their health care, including countless First District families with pre-existing conditions. And, for so many, the ACA was the first time these pre-existing conditions did not prevent them from accessing quality health insurance that didn’t break the bank. I am so pleased to see today’s ruling that upholds these protections.

“This spring, I voted to pass the American Rescue Plan, which reduces the cost of health care coverage for 9 million consumers. Our legislation now ensures that families eligible for premium tax credits have at least a couple plans to choose from that won’t cost more than 8.5% of their household income. This new change will benefit many living in rural areas hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Moving forward, we cannot play politics with the health care of millions of Americans; I’ve worked to protect the ACA since I came to Congress in 2017, and I will always fight to preserve it. I am committed to working to strengthen our health care systems, lower the costs of prescription drugs, and ensure that families can access the quality, affordable care they need.”

Arizona Democratic Party Chairperson Raquel Teran wrote:

“This decisive Supreme Court ruling is a tremendous victory for the hundreds of thousands of Arizonans whose right to quality, affordable health care was on the line due to the Republican’s reckless and dangerous agenda. For over a decade, while Republicans have worked to dismantle this legislation, Democrats have fought to lower costs and improve coverage and that’s what our elected Democrats will continue to do after this ruling.

"But while Democrats will continue to fight for Arizonans’ health care, Republicans, especially those in the U.S. Senate race, must tell Arizonans why they are continuing to support their party’s decade-long effort to rip health care away from Arizonans.”

The Children's Action Alliance released a statement that read:

"This morning the Supreme Court of the United States determined that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is here to stay. The 7-2 ruling by the court is a huge victory for all Americans, including the 31 million people who currently have health insurance through either the ACA Marketplace or Medicaid Expansion. If the Court ruled the other way, these individuals would have been in immediate danger of losing their health care during a deadly pandemic.

Legal challengers to the landmark health care law – including Arizona’s Attorney General Mark Brnovich – argued that because the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 set the tax penalty for not having health insurance at $0, the entirety of the ACA was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court largely saw through this argument, with only Justices Alito and Gorsuch dissenting.

It’s unfortunate that this meritless case made it to the highest court in the U.S., and we hope that this ruling will be enough to end the frivolous attacks on this pivotal law."

Delina DiSanto, a Democratic House Congressional Candidate for Arizona District Four, wrote:

"The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has been law since 2010. It was the most prominent piece of legislation that passed to protect American's health since Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. ACA is so entwined into our healthcare system that healthcare providers, hospital systems, commercial health insurance companies, and those tied to the healthcare networks would throw them into unpredictability and disorganization if it was found to be unconstitutional. I am glad that the Supreme Court dismissed the challenge to the ACA (7-2) and will leave the law in its entirety and have it continue to cover millions of Americans."

"I now hope we can work on a Medicare plan for those who want it and need it. To be more affordable, accessible, accepted by most healthcare providers, and to be administered by Medicare, not commercial healthcare insurance companies who have insane CEO salaries, shareholders wanting their monthly dividends, and who drop you when you have a life-threatening event. I know this will take time, guidance, education, but our nation is ready for a healthcare-for-all affordable system, and that is Medicare. I will lead on this issue when I'm elected to Congress."

Judy Stahl, the other Arizona Democratic House Candidate for District Four offered:

"The Supreme court upheld the ACA for the third time. Hopefully, the third time's a charm. This is a decision to celebrate and is a boon for those who rely on the Affordable Care Act to keep themselves and their families healthy and safe. Now we need to take decisive action to expand coverage to everyone and work to make healthcare in our country truly affordable."

Matt Grodsky, the Vice President and Director of Public Affairs for Media State Matters stated:

"We can all breathe a sigh of relief with this ruling but we know that the GOP will continue to attack affordable, accessible healthcare. This will remain a key issue in the 2022 midterms, which is all the more reason Democrats need to advance their legislative agenda so they can show their voters that they kept their promises on healthcare."

Former President Barack Obama relayed:

"This ruling reaffirms what we have long known to be true: the Affordable Care Act is here to stay. The principle of universal coverage has been established, and 31 million people now have access to care through the law we passed — with millions more who can no longer be denied coverage or charged more because of a preexisting condition.

"Now we need to build on the Affordable Care Act and continue to strengthen and expand it. That's what President Biden has done through the American Rescue Plan, giving more families the peace of mind they deserve. And because he extended the special enrollment period until August 15th, anyone who needs coverage can go to healthcare.gov and sign up."

It appears that the Affordable Care Act/ Obamacare is as Chuck Schumer said "here to stay."

Now comes the task of improving it and building on its foundations to provide better and affordable health care options for the American People.

 

 

 

 

The Political Center is Showing Signs of Life on Infrastructure and Voting Rights; It is All About the Math

Photo from Transport Topics

Last week on both CNN and MSNBC, political guru and first Clinton Presidential Campaign Manager James Carville said, "somebody has to get a calculator" because, with razor-thin Democratic majorities in the House and the Senate, that the votes are not there for the massive infrastructure package the Biden/Harris Administration originally proposed.

He also said that progressives (especially those in extreme blue districts) "need to do the math, live in real life," compromise, and build on smaller step by step incremental program successes to increase the Presidents and their approval ratings in order to win additional House and Senate seats in 2022.

While Progressives are right that the country has urgent needs that undoubtedly demand better than an incremental response, Carville is probably right that with the present math and configuration of the House and Senate, it is probably the best way to go.

That is not to say that Democrats should not try a reconciliation package to pass all their budget priorities like Chuck Schumer and Bernie Sanders are currently planning. They should. That is going to happen one way or the other.

But in order to secure reconciliation passage for a large budget bill or even an amended voter legislation proposal, Democratic leadership will probably have to persuade more people than just Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin.

While those two have received the lions share of the press coverage (mostly because Manchin, for political theater purposes, likes to go on television and Sinema has a habit of being "eccentric,") President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will probably need to convince (to varying degrees) Senators Jeanne Shaheen, Maggie Hassan, Catherine Cortez Masto, Angus King, John Hickenlooper, and John Tester of the necessity of using reconciliation to pass the budget and create a carve-out for legislation to protect American Democracy.

To do that, Biden, Harris, and Schumer will have to give the revitalized bipartisan Senate negotiations on infrastructure more time to yield positive results. While the details have yet to be revealed (broad strokes and themes have only been publicly released,) the number of Senate supporters has doubled from 10 to 21.

All the Democrats leadership has to get on board for a budget reconciliation package and protect American Democracy carve out of the filibuster are in that group of 21. If all but one of the Democrats came on board, that would yield 60 votes for a bipartisan infrastructure deal.

In order to, as Carville indicated, get the right math, Democrats should support the bipartisan measure if it meets all the non-numeric goals of the Biden/Harris Administration as long as they get assurances from the Democrats on the bubble that their votes will be there for a larger reconciliation package which includes most (all of them are not happening) of the other Biden/Harris priorities in the American Jobs and Families Plans.

The same approach is applicable to voting rights and protecting American Democracy. Manchin has finally publicly said what he would support in a slimmed-down For the People Act.

In his proposal, Manchin said he would support:

• A federal holiday for election day.
• 15 consecutive days of early voting.
• Automatic voter registration when you get a driver's license.
• End to partisan gerrymandering.
• A voter id requirement which could be someone providing a utility bill or student id.

Mr. Manchin has met with some of the same Democratic Senators (and some Republicans) that (remember do the math) that would be necessary to do a carve-out of the filibuster to get voting rights measures, including the John Lewis one (which Mr. Manchin already supports) passed in the Senate.

Appearing on CNN, Voting rights activist and former Georgia Gubernatorial Candidate Stacey Abrams said that she supports the changes to the For the People Act that Manchin proposed.

Please click here to see Abrams speak to CNN's John Berman.

The bipartisan political center is showing signs of life, and potential achievement in infrastructure and voting rights.

Time will tell if this bipartisan arrangement holds.

It does deserve a chance to work out.

There is nothing wrong with bipartisan legislation as long as it uplifts the people, moves the country forward, and paves the way for future positive action.

Even if bipartisanship does not work (still a distinct possibility given the past Republican track record like the recent January 6 Commission proposal) the Centrist Democrats would be in a better position with their voters to vote for reconciliation measures if they were able to tell their constituents they tried to work with the other side.

Remember, like Carville said, it is all about the math.

 

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego Tout the Clean Energy Benefits of the American Jobs Plan

 In an event sponsored by the Business Forward Foundation, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego touted the clean energy benefits of the Biden/Harris American Jobs Plan for the Nation and People.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego[/caption]

Stating that President Biden will no longer let the United States stand still while "other countries lept all over us," in clean energy development, Secretary Granholm said that "we should not be satisfied buying solar panels from China and wind turbines from Europe."

Recounting an interaction with a local mayor in China who sarcastically and wishfully encouraged the United States to "take your time" in getting on the clean energy bandwagon, the former Michigan Governor said nations like the People's Republic "see our passivity as their economic opportunity."

Ms. Granholm further said that the Biden/Harris Administration goal of achieving total clean energy utilization by 2035 is "ambitious but achievable."

Touting the American Jobs Plan, Secretary Granholm highlighted the following benefits:

• Cleaner air for the country and planet will lead to better health for the people.
• Lower Energy Bills with low cost or free expanded solar or wind sources.
• Lower transportation costs with more electric vehicles.
• An economic revolution (with private-public partnerships) that will create new clean energy technologies, lift families and revitalize communities, including minority and fossil fuel ones.
• Modernization of the transportation sector, half a million electric vehicle charging stations, and the electric grid powered by clean energy standards.

On the Biden/Harris Proposal, she said:

"President Biden's vision is a bold vision. It calls for a more prosperous and equitable and inclusive future, and that depends on this American Jobs Plan….It is the key to seizing on a transformational moment for our economy.”

Responding to questions on how to pay for the American Jobs Plan, Secretary Granholm reiterated the Administration position that wealthy corporations, either by raising the current corporate rates, adopting a minimum corporate tax rate, or going after tax cheats like the 500 large businesses that paid nothing in taxes last year, should pay their fair share.

Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, whose City Council just approved a budget that calls for the creation of Office of Heat Response and Mitigation,  said that the Biden/Harris Plan can take the country and people "to the next level" economically and stressed that it was "important for the business community to show what the American Jobs Plan offers."

NEW BUDGET FUNDS MAYOR’S PRIORITIES (1)

It is vital that Congress passes as much of the American Jobs Plan as possible, including its clean energy components.

If it means spreading those provisions in a bipartisan bill and a Democratic only one that can pass through reconciliation, so be it.

The country and the people need it.

Arizona Restaurant Owner Charleen Loves the Biden/Harris American Rescue Plan

 The Democratic-leaning group, the Bridge Project has released a series of ads in key battleground states to raise awareness (especially among women in the suburbs) of the benefits of the Biden/Harris American Rescue Plan.

These ads, along with getting started earlier in preparing for the 2022 midterms are hoped to help Democrats overcome the historical trends where the President's party generally loses seats.

One of these ads was released in Arizona.

The thirty-second piece revolves around Charleen, a restaurant owner in the Grand Canyon State.

The ad starts with Charlene reminding the audience that restaurants faced severe hardships at the height of the Coronavirus including shutdowns, closures, and widespread unemployment.

She then said she "felt hope" after President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan, adding:

"Biden was really thinking about small business. It's like somebody is thinking about me. Something that I've, that I've worked on for the last 30 plus years. That they want to see me be successful. I do feel like help is here."
 

Voters need to remember that no Republican in the House and Senate, no matter how much they praise measures like restaurant assistance, voted for the American Rescue Plan. 

During the Midterm Elections of November 2022, voters need to remember that the only candidates that supported the Plan to help restaurants feed the hungry, reduce child poverty in half, aid state and local governments, sped up the vaccination process, aided public schools, expanded unemployment insurance, and put $1400 in most people's pockets are the ones that belong to the Democratic Party.

Never forget that.

 

 

President Biden and the G7 Launch Build Back Better World

Photo from the New York Times

Again in the internationalist tradition of the Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman Administrations, President Joe Biden, in a move to counter China's global infrastructure Belt and Road Initiative, has convinced the Democratic nations of the G7 to launch the Build Back Better World Program.

Nicknamed  B3W, this plan is the international version of the Biden/Harris plan to rebuild and modernize the United States.

In a White House Fact Sheet, the Administration stated:

"President Biden and G7 partners agreed to launch the bold new global infrastructure initiative Build Back Better World (B3W), a values-driven, high-standard, and transparent infrastructure partnership led by major democracies to help narrow the $40+ trillion infrastructure need in the developing world, which has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Through B3W, the G7 and other like-minded partners with coordinate in mobilizing private-sector capital in four areas of focus—climate, health and health security, digital technology, and gender equity and equality—with catalytic investments from our respective development finance institutions.

B3W will be global in scope, from Latin America and the Caribbean to Africa to the Indo-Pacific. Different G7 partners will have different geographic orientations, but the sum of the initiative will cover low- and middle-income countries across the world."

Coupled with the Biden and other G7 initiatives to donate one billion COVID 19 vaccines to the developing world, the Democracies of the world are telling China that they will not lay down and cede the world to them.

It would be very beneficial to the American People if the Biden/Harris Administration's domestic and international infrastructure programs both move forward.

The former Third World is going to be getting a lot more progressive-liberal attention in the next few years.

As long as Americans are properly taken care of (and remember foreign assistance is about one percent of the national budget,) it is about time.

 

I thought this was hilarious