Lunatic Fringe
The repugicans
have spent every day of their vacation following their plan to the
letter seeking horror stories about the not-yet-implemented ACA, but
they have not had the success…
In 1785 Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote “
the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry,”
and it is as true today as it was 228 years ago as Heritage Action, the
activist wing of the wingnut Heritage Foundation, found out this
week. Prior to going on a five week hiatus because House repugicans
have toiled a grueling 87 days since the 113
th session of
Congress began in January, the House repugican Caucus laid out plans to
go to their home districts and garner support to continue fighting
against the American people; particularly to defund the Affordable Care
Act. The repugicans, with valuable assistance from their wingnut
belief tanks, have spent every day of their vacation following their
plan to the letter seeking horror stories about the not-yet-implemented
ACA, but they have not had the success they planned.
In their “
August 2013 District Work Period Planning Kit” entitled
Fighting Against Washington, repugicans intended summoning teabaggers and cruel conservatives to
condemn and criticize giving tens-of-millions of Americans access to
affordable healthcare insurance, and crucial to their success was media
coverage of so-called opposition to the ACA with town halls, protests,
and polls showing the inhumane repugicans happy to deny Americans good
health. As repugicans did their part in demeaning the health law,
Heritage Action, the agitator wing of the wingnut Heritage
Foundation, conducted a “push poll” to demonstrate just how angry
Americans were that the insurance industry could no longer cite
pre-existing conditions, lifetime limits, and gender as a reason for
denying coverage to policy holders, but the results were not what
Heritage or repugicans intended.
A push poll is marketing
technique employed during political campaigns in which an organization
influences or alters the views of respondents under the guise of
conducting an honest poll. Heritage Action dramatically oversampled repugicans to tilt the results in favor of defunding the Affordable
Care Act, however, what they discovered was that respondents were more
likely to say that the Affordable Care Act should be kept than scrapped,
and that a plurality would blame repugicans if the government were to
shut down as a condition of not eliminating the ACA. According to
Heritage Action’s own results (question 5), 44.5% of repugicans “
oppose the health care law and think it should be repealed,”
but 52% of primarily repugican respondents either support the law as
is or have some concerns, but they do think the ACA’s implementation
should move forward.
The poll/survey
had another purpose; to determine who Americans would blame if repugicans shutdown the government if the President did not pay the
ransom of letting them defund the ACA in exchange for funding the
government, and the top response (28%) was repugicans in Congress and
second was President Obama at 21%. The results were not what Heritage
expected, or wanted, and are remarkable because the “push poll”
primarily surveyed repugicans. The sample in Heritage’s poll were
designated as “
10 competitive congressional districts” they claimed represent “
the American people”
as a whole, but according to the Center for American Progress Action
Fund, the 10 districts all leaned heavily repugican. Still, 52% of the
respondents believed the health law should move forward regardless they
had “concerns” that more likely than not means
better coverage according to
reports from repugican town halls.
It
is interesting that repugicans claim “most Americans” hate the health
law and want it eliminated when it has not been fully implemented, but
the provisions that have went into effect have proven very popular. Thus
far insurance companies can no longer deny coverage for pre-existing
conditions, cannot impose lifetime limits on coverage, and parents can
keep their children on their policies until age twenty-six. Add to that
the insurance industry has to
refund $1.1 billion
in premiums by August to about 12.8 million customers according to the
Affordable Care Act’s 80/20 rule. In states embracing the health law,
premiums are set to drop substantially such as in New York where
premiums are set to fall by about 50%, and in California the figure is
roughly 40% as attested by this author. It is difficult to imagine any
policy holder complaining the health law reduced their costs or required
insurance companies to give rebates for unused premiums, but there are
racist repugicans who would complain about the ACA because, although it
was a Heritage Foundation idea, it was signed into law by President
Obama.
There has been no dearth of explanations about why repugicans want to kill the Affordable Care Act before it is fully
implemented and chief among them is that it is and will to be
successful, popular, and provide millions of Americans with access to
affordable healthcare. Part and parcel of the repugican cabal’s raison d’être is
convincing Americans government programs are failures, and it is why
they work tirelessly to make Medicare, Social Security, the Postal
Service, and now the Affordable Care Act fail to prove corporations and
Wall Street can best serve the people. The greatest fear among
libertarians, repugicans, and their delusion tanks such as the Heritage
Foundation is that the ACA is as popular and successful as Medicare and
Social Security in serving the people and they will go to any lengths to
prevent implementation of the health law; even using a marketing
technique to influence or alter the views of respondents under the guise
of conducting an honest poll.
It appears that Heritage is
pushing repugicans to shut down the government and hope the people
blame the President for not letting repugicans destroy the ACA, but
their phony poll revealed their plan will go awry. There are repugicans
in the House and Senate who want to shut down the government regardless
the cost to the people or if the ACA is defunded, and although they
claim only non-essential services will be affected, Americans understand
what repugicans consider non-essential. House repugicans stripped
food stamp funding from the farm bill because they considered SNAP
“extraneous,” and they have not acted to repeal the sequester because
cuts to WIC, Meals on Wheels, housing and heating assistance, and Head
Start are non-essential programs that do not warrant funding. In fact, repugicans do not believe any government program merits funding and the
ACA is no exception.
The Heritage Action push poll revealed that repugicans have painted themselves into a corner with no means of
escape. If they were to be successful defunding the ACA, Americans
already seeing lower rates, insurance company rebates, no pre-existing
conditions or lifetime limits will be livid. If they follow teabagger
demands and shut down “non-essential” government services, Americans
will blame repugicans. However, they are hell-bent on following their
plan during their vacation and while they are promoting their fight
against Washington, Americans understand they are fighting against the
people and Heritage’s phony poll will not convince the people otherwise.
We
are most likely to notice the honeybee and the bumblebee, but North
America is home to more than 4,000 species of bee. Take a look at some
of the other species, which sport some surprising colors! Wired talked
to Sam Droege of the U.S. Geological Survey's Bee Inventory and
Monitoring program about the amazing variety of bees, with plenty of
pictures. More
Detroit
is not the only industrial city seeing hard times and vacant homes.
Gary, Indiana, has 10,000 abandoned and unoccupied houses, which attract
vandals and bring property values down. But a pilot program hopes to
lure new families into the old neighborhoods. Initially, twelve homes in
one neighborhood are being offered for the price of one dollar. There
are some requirements. Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson explained:
