Who Hasn't Donald Trump Insulted?

The latest institution to be denigrated by the White House is the Congressional Budget Office. Sean Spicer, the President's ditzy Press Secretary, said that the CBO's financial analysis of the Republican's proposed 'American Health Care Act,' should not be trusted. This preemptive strike against the CBO is due to widespread reports that the analysis will show the AHCA to be vastly inferior to the Affordable Care Act, covering far few people at far higher premiums.

Trump has now dismissed, denigrated, or demeaned the Intelligence Community, the military officer corps -- "rubble" -- Senator John McCain, because he was captured during the Vietnam War, the U.S. Judiciary, former president, Barack Obama, the U.S. Electoral System, and the Media, Muslims, Mexicans, to say nothing of past Republican presidential nominees, and of course, "Crooked Hillary," and women generally, for whom he demonstrates appalling disrespect.

The only entity for whom the American President, Donald J. Trump, exhibits respect, and indeed admiration, is Russian President, Vladimir Putin. I wonder why that is.

The Republican Party "Rebrands"

Mike Huckabee, left, sits with RNC Chairman Reince Priebus before Huckabee spoke at the Republican National Committee winter meeting in Washington on Thursday. Huckabee seems to be working out his final comments about women seeking contraceptives through the ACA -- "Why can't they just control their libido!" Meanwhile, Priebus is wondering if the waiter is mic'd up and wearing a hidden camera.

The Republican Party is hard at it, folks. Oh, not hard at helping Americans get a leg up on unemployment, failing schools, and poverty. No, no. Hard at "rebranding," a term adopted from the advertising industry. People in this industry know that if your lousy product isn't selling, it's cheaper to just repackage the junk and call it something else. Think beer. Anheuser-Busch makes 73 beers, and if they're not selling enough "Bud," they'll call it "Budweiser Select." Ditto "Michelob" vis-a-vis "Michelob Ultra." Unfortunately, Bud/Budweiser Select and Michelob/Michelob Ultra are still mediocre beers.

The Republicans suddenly became "compassionate conservatives" in 2000 and managed to get George W. Bush elected to the Presidency for two, disastrous terms. Well, you can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool enough Americans to keep getting Republicans elected. And Republicans know this, so they're changing. Unfortunately, not systemically. They're back to rebranding.

Now Republicans are the "Big Tent" party. That's right folks, the Republican party wants blacks and Latinos and, yes, even women, to know that they are welcome under the big GOP tent. To prove their point, they rolled out first-term Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, an African-American business man, who said during his speech at the RNC meeting that, "we're going to embrace people in a new and fantastic way." Hopefully, one that doesn't call for contraceptives. 

No, Obama didn't lie

Dean Baker, ALTERNET

Terminated policies were introduced after ACA's passing -- often with insurers' knowledge they'd be scrapped.

President Obama has been getting a lot of grief in the last few weeks over his pledge that with the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in place, people would be able to keep their insurance if they like it. The media have been filled with stories about people across the country who are having their insurance policies terminated, ostensibly because they did not meet the requirements of the ACA. While this has led many to say that Obama was lying, there is much less here than meets the eye.

First, it is important to note that the ACA grand-fathered all the individual policies that were in place at the time the law was enacted. This means that the plans in effect at the time that President Obama was pushing the bill could still be offered even if they did not meet all the standards laid out in the ACA.

The plans being terminated because they don’t meet the minimal standards were all plans that insurers introduced after the passage of the ACA. Insurers introduced these plans knowing that they would not meet the standards that would come into effect in 2014. Insurers may not have informed their clients at the time they sold these plans that they would not be available after 2014 because they had designed a plan that did not comply with the ACA.

However if the insurers didn’t tell their clients that the new plans would only be available for a short period of time, the blame would seem to rest with the insurance companies, not the ACA. After all, President Obama did not promise people that he would keep insurers from developing new plans that will not comply with the provisions of the ACA.

In addition to the new plans that were created that did not comply with the terms of the ACA, there have been complaints that the grandfathering was too strict. For example, insurers can only raise their premiums or deductibles by a small amount above the rate of medical inflation. As a result, many of the plans in existence at the time of the ACA are losing their grandfathered status.

In this case also it is wrong to view the insurers as passive actors who are being forced to stop offering plans because of the ACA. The price increases charged by insurers are not events outside of the control of insurers. If an insurer offers a plan which has many committed buyers, then presumably it would be able to structure its changes in ways that are consistent with the ACA. If it decides not to do so, this is presumably because the insurer has decided that it is not interested in continuing to offer the plan.

As a practical matter, there are many plans that insurers will opt to drop for market reasons that may or may not have anything to do with the ACA. It’s hard to see how this could be viewed as a violation of President Obama’s pledge. After all, insurers change and drop plans all the time. Did people who heard Obama’s pledge understand it to mean that insurers would no longer have this option once the ACA passed?

If Obama’s pledge was understood as ensuring that every plan that was in existence in 2010 would remain in existence, then it would imply a complete federal takeover of the insurance industry. This would require the government to tell insurers that they must continue to offer plans even if they are losing money on them and even if the plans had lost most of their customers. This would at the least be a strange policy. It would be surprising if many people thought this was the meaning of President Obama’s pledge.

Finally, there will be many plans that insurers will stop offering in large part because of the changed market conditions created by the ACA. For example, last week the Washington Post highlighted a plan for the “hardest to insure” that was being cancelled by Pathmark Blue Cross of Pennsylvania.

This plan is likely being cancelled because it is unable to compete with the insurance being offered through the exchanges. The exchanges charge everyone the same rate regardless of their pre-existing health conditions. A plan that is especially designed for people who have serious health conditions would almost certainly charge a far higher rate. If these high-priced plans no longer exist because they cannot compete with the exchanges would this mean that President Obama had broken his pledge?

On closer inspection, the claim that President Obama lied in saying that people could keep their insurance looks like another Fox News special. In the only way that the pledge could be interpreted as being meaningful, the pledge is true. The ACA does not eliminate plans that were in existence at the time the bill was approved.

If we want to play Fox News, President Obama also promised people they could keep their doctor. Since 2010 tens of thousands of doctors have retired or even died. Guess the pledge that people could keep their doctor was yet another lie from the Obama administration

A Path Forward

House Republicans voted down a proposal to pass a "clean" continuing resolution (CR), i.e., one that doesn't call for delaying/defunding the Affordable Care Act, i.e., "Obamacare." The shutdown continues. Some Congressional Republicans claim the shutdown is no big deal, and have started calling it a government "slim down," a phrase being parroted by conservative news outlets and talk radio. It's far from that. It degrades important government functions, damages the economy, and hurts the government workers who have been sent home.

But rather than talk about why this shutdown is such a terrible thing, let's talk about what can be done about it.

Republicans have painted themselves into a corner. They've bragged to their TEA Party base about standing on principle, and pissed off a lot of other people by shutting down the government. Now they feel they can't just back away from the shutdown (which was, after all, a bargaining chip) without getting something for their efforts (misguided as they may have been).

"We're not going to be disrespected. We have to get something out of this. And I don't know what that even is."

Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Ind.)

Republicans have been pushing for a delay in the implementation of Obamacare, they've tried passing a CR defunding Obamacare, and they've tried piece-mealing reopening some facets/functions of government like National Parks and the VA (an obvious ploy to make Democrats look bad).

None of this has worked.

What might work?

Back room negotiations in which the Democrats agree to formation of a bipartisan panel to review implementation of Obamacare and make recommendations for changes, in exchange for a clean CR from the Republican-led House, plus an agreement to raise the debt ceiling.

Republicans could attach other requirements to future legislation that helps ensure Democrats and the President will seriously consider the panel's recommendations, and not just let them stagnate until 2016.

Right now, Republicans aren't offering anything that Democrats could agree to, and sitting at a table across from empty seats where non-negotiating Democrats aren't sitting, ain't gonna cut it.

It could happen again

Deja vu all over again? Financial reform continues to be fought tooth and nail by financial industry lobbyists and their minions in Congress. If Republicans succeed in shuting down the government over the debt ceiling debate and the Affordable Care Act, it could happen again.