This comes from Texas Freedom Network‘s daily “News Clips” email:
BOOM.
Here’s a bit more context, via National Journal: Continue reading
Truth Bomb in SCOTUS
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Tag Archives: Obamacare
What I’m Reading, January 13, 2015
Dating advice from Fox News gets even more obnoxious, Amanda Marcotte, Pandagon, January 2, 2015
Fox News continues its march right past being conservative on gender issues and towards being overtly and grotesquely misogynist. As David Edwards at Raw Story reported, the show Fox & Friends did a New Year’s Day bit praising one of those sexist dating guides that promises women they’ll be able to “catch” a man while simultaneously and unintentionally arguing that men are wretched creatures that no woman should ever mess with. (To be clear, I disagree. There are plenty of men who don’t need a woman to debase herself by acting like an unpaid servant in order to “earn” love, but these kinds of dating guides always assume men are such weak monsters that this is the only way to get one to like you.) The book is called Single Man, Married Man and it purports to be a guide to how to mold yourself to be what men really want. And apparently what men really want is a doorma, though one who pretends that waiting on you hand and foot and never standing up for yourself is a form of “strength”.
Can We Please Stop Pretending Republicans Have Ever Had A Health Care Plan? Scott Lemieux, Lawyers, Guns, & Money, January 9, 2015 Continue reading
A Victory for Conservatives over the ACA May Have Ruined Originalism
Over at Concurring Opinions, Gerard Magliocca observes a possibly unintended consequence of the Halbig decision, as it pertains to the doctrine of originalism. “Originalism,” of course, being the legal theory popular among certain conservative jurists (e.g. Scalia) that holds that the “original intent” of the drafters of the Constitution should be the primary (or only) consideration when interpreting or applying said document.
Part of the criticism of originalism involves the difficulty/impossibility of applying the views of men who lived in an 18th-century agrarian society to the issues of the 21st century. Defenders of originalism say we can resolve these issues by looking at context, other writings of the Founding Fathers, and so on. Magliocca writes: Continue reading
What I’m Reading, August 13, 2014
The Rise of the Ironic Man-Hater, Amanda Hess, Slate, August 8, 2014
“Misandry”—literally, the hatred of men—is an accusation that’s been flung at feminists since the dawn of the women’s movement: By empowering women, critics argue, feminists are really oppressing men. Now, feminists are ironically embracing the man-hating label: The ironic misandrist sips from a mug marked “MALE TEARS,” frosts her cakes with the phrase “KILL ALL MEN,” and affixes “MISANDRY” heart pins to her lapel. Ironic misandry is “a reductio ad absurdum,” explains Jess Zimmerman, an editor at Medium and the proud owner of a “MALE TEARS” mug. (“I drink them to increase my strength,” she notes.) “It’s inhabiting the most exaggerated, implausible distortion of your position, in order to show that it’s ridiculous.”
On its most basic level, ironic misandry functions like a stuck-out tongue pointed at a playground bully: When men’s rights activists hurled insults at feminist writer Jessica Valenti on Twitter last month, she posted a picture of herself grinning in an “I BATHE IN MALE TEARS” T-shirt, and dedicated the message to the “misogynist whiners.” But ironic misandry is more than just a sarcastic retort to the haters; it’s an in-joke that like-minded feminists tell even when their critics aren’t looking, as a way to build solidarity within the group. “A lot of young feminists who I follow on Instagram and love this shit are teenagers,” Valenti says. (Search the tag #maletears and you’ll find dozens of young women—and a few young men—posed with a novelty mug.) “The feminism they grew up with was the feminism of snarky blog posts, and this is a natural extension of that.”
Logic and feeling, Ophelia Benson, Butterflies & Wheels, August 10, 2014 Continue reading
The Right-Wing Media Might Just Have Terrible Reading Comprehension
![By Kurykh (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](http://crypticphilosopher.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/800px-ACA_health_insurance_exchanges_by_state.svg_-300x185.png "By Kurykh (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons")
A putative class action lawsuit in Nevada alleges negligence and other claims against the private contractor hired to create the state’s health insurance exchange. At least two plaintiffs found themselves without insurance coverage, despite paying premiums since last fall. Their attorney says around forty more people have contacted him with similar complaints, and as many as 10,500 could have been affected.
As the people involved in the suit have repeatedly made clear, the lawsuit is about the alleged negligence, etc., of a private contractor, not about the Affordable Care Act (“ACA,” also known as Obamacare). Has that stopped the right-wing media from calling this a lawsuit over Obamacare? Do you even need to ask that question? More on that later.
The state of Nevada hired Xerox to create the state’s health insurance exchange, Nevada Health Link, in accordance with the ACA. A glitch caused some people who signed up through the state exchange to not actually have insurance. The lead plaintiff signed up in November and made his first premium payment on November 21. When he needed triple-bypass surgery in January, however, the insurer Health Plan of Nevada (HPN) had no record of him. The exchange and Xerox had allegedly been sending his payments to Nevada Health CO-OP, a different insurer. Neither insurer had a record of coverage, so the man ended up incurring over $400,000 in medical bills for himself. (On the plus side, he wasn’t left to die.) Continue reading
Here’s a Clever Conspiracy Theory
It seems like we have enough issues to worry about in America, that we don’t need to contrive concerns that the supposed adoption of medical codes originally created by the World Health Organization is somehow a threat to American sovereignty. (WARNING: Don’t click that link if you don’t want a huge heaping helping of paranoia and dumb.)
That’s My State Senator!
From a letter sent by Texas State Senator Kirk Watson to U.S. Representatives Darrell Issa and Elijah Cummings on December 16, 2013 regarding a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing about healthcare navigators in Richardson, Texas:
We’re tired of the politics, Chairman Issa. We’re tired of folks who show up peddling cynicism to run up political points at the expense of our neighbors who need health insurance. We’re tired of people who invent a conflict between keeping Texans healthy AND protecting Texas consumers. I passed a bill during the legislative session that sought to do both of these things; more people should follow that example.
Stubbornly refusing to help folks who need health insurance is wrong. So is targeting honest folks who are helping Texans find health insurance. There’s plenty of common ground on this issue. As long as you’re here, I hope you’ll help us find it.
If you’re not going to do that, you should just go home.
Corporations Don’t Go to Church
Rick Santorum was defending the right of self-proclaimed Christian corporations to deny reproductive healthcare coverage because First Amendment:
“I mean, the idea that the First Amendment stops after you walk out of church, that it doesn’t have anything to do with how you live the rest of your life, I don’t know very many people of faith that believes that their religion ends with just worship.”
Someone needs to remind the ex-senator that this whole kerfuffle is about the supposed religious rights of corporations, not individuals. Unless people are attending church services specifically in the capacity of a representative of Hobby Lobby, corporations do not “walk out of church.” I’d say that Santorum doesn’t understand the distinction, but I suspect that he actually just doesn’t care.
He also had some odd words about the imposition of religious values:
“And President Obama is saying, ‘No, once you step outside that church, I get to impose my values on you, your religious values don’t matter anymore, it’s my values that I can impose on you,'” the Pennsylvania Republican continued. “I don’t think that’s what the First Amendment stands for. And I don’t think that’s what the court will say.”
See? It’s freedom of an employer’s religious beliefs, not freedom from an employer’s religious beliefs! I mean, that’s in The Federalist Papers, I think in the footnotes somewhere.
Generation Opportunity Prepares College Kids for Future Emergency Room Visits
!["Backyard tailgate party" by tobo [CC BY-SA 2.0], on Flickr](http://crypticphilosopher.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/121034064_3fc5915052-300x225.jpg "\"Backyard tailgate party\" by tobo [CC BY-SA 2.0], on Flickr")
Not pictured: The actual Generation Opportunity tailgate party
The Koch brothers-funded Generation Opportunity — famous for its series of over-the-top advertisements trying to scare young Americans into not buying health coverage through Obamacare’s insurance marketplaces — took its opposition to health care reform to a whole new level on Saturday. The group threw a tailgate party during the University of Miami-Virginia Tech football that featured flashy cars, drinking games, models, a DJ, and plenty of “educational” material about why young people shouldn’t take advantage of Obamacare.
“We rolled in with a fleet of Hummers, F-150’s and Suburbans, each vehicle equipped with an 8’ high balloon bouquet floating overhead. We hired a popular student DJ from UMiami (DJ Joey), set up OptOut cornhole sets, *beer pong tables, bought 75 pizzas, and hired 8 ‘brand ambassadors’ aka models with bullhorns to help out,” wrote David Pasch, Generation Opportunity’s communication director, in en email to the Tampa Bay Times. “*Student activists independently brought (lots of) beer and liquor for consumption by those 21 and over. Oh yeah, and we educated students about their healthcare options outside the expensive and creepy Obamacare exchanges.”
The line of reasoning, as I understand it, is that college-age people tend to have fewer healthcare needs than older people, and therefore do not need the same level of coverage—therefore, they should not have to have health insurance coverage because Freedom. I suppose one could say my bias is showing, but if even one insurance-eschewing kid at that tailgate had drank too much and, say, gotten alcohol poisoning, fallen and sustained an injury, or crashed a car, our great Socialist state requires emergency rooms to provide them with treatment. Guess who pays for it if the student (or more likely the student’s parent[s]) doesn’t have the cash to cover the tab? I guess it’s our patriotic duty to subsidize liberty-loving college kids’ love of liberty. Or not.
Hell, even insurance-eschewing kids who avoid drinking and all other risky activities could still get hit by a car driven by a less-responsible individual, or even by an entirely-responsible individual who has a car accident for a near-infinite number of reasons. Of course, college-age kids never unexpectedly get sick, or for any other reason find themselves in sudden need of healthcare. Or not.
America: We have raised irresponsibility to an art form.
Photo credit: “Backyard tailgate party” by tobo [CC BY-SA 2.0], on Flickr.
If You Push Hard Enough, Maybe They’ll Finally Send the Black Helicopters
![By Dmitry Pichugin [GFDL 1.2 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/fdl-1.2.html) or GFDL 1.2 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/fdl-1.2.html)], via Wikimedia Commons](http://crypticphilosopher.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/320px-Ka-50_helicopters_over_Moscow-300x200.jpg "By Dmitry Pichugin [GFDL 1.2 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/fdl-1.2.html) or GFDL 1.2 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/fdl-1.2.html)], via Wikimedia Commons")
What is this, Russia? In this picture, yes.
There’s a misimpression out there that… federal agents arrive in black helicopters dressed in fully equipped armed ninja costumes, kick down your bedroom door and drag you off at the point of bayonets to an insurance agency.
In fact, what — all that happens is that for those who are not otherwise exempted and — when they’re filling out their federal income tax return, if you’re not maintaining minimum coverage, you have to pay an additional 2.5 percent, much less than Social Security. That’s all that happened.
So in that sense, this great intrusion on liberty doesn’t approach any slippery slopes or exceed any understood limits in our legal culture.
The concern seems to be that the government will exercise its police power against people who refuse to cooperate with the insurance mandate, pay the fine, or respond in any way to what the law says. Believe me, I am very sympathetic to the argument that we must be vigilant against expansions of the government’s police power, but this is not one of those instances of government going too far. Besides that, I’ll be more sympathetic to concerns from the right over police overreach when they get more consistent about it. Continue reading