Scott Walker—Another Day, Another Lie

Scott Walker in free fall, latest Aug-Sept 2015
Quinnipiac University Poll

It did not take long for Scott Walker to get up and lying today.

Appearing from Detroit on the Morning Joe program, Walker offered his own version of the legislative history of ObamaCare.

After first explaining his campaign meltdown as mere "shaking things up," Walker paid homage to dear leader Ronald Reagan and other Republican nostrums, before answering other questions.

"Democrats used 51 votes to pass ObamaCare," said Walker dodging a question asking if
Walker's supporting congressional Republicans' threats to close down the government if Congress does not defund Planned Parenthood.

Walker's point was not responsive, and is factually incorrect, another Walker lie.

Reality Land 

In reality land where the bold Wisconsin governor rarely visits, on December 24, 2009 the U.S. Senate passed ObamaCare (the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA)) 60-39 with one senator, (Jim Bunning (R-Kentucky)), not voting (New York Times). See also Library of Congress legislative history.

The ACA is also one of the most marked-up and deliberated pieces of legislation to ever pass Congress.

The 60 votes were necessary to stave off a Republican filibuster, in which only 41 votes dictated the fate of legislation.

The Democratic-led bill also included many Republican amendments and requested changes.

"The Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee passe[d] The Affordable Health Choices Act [on July 15, 2009). The bipartisan bill includes more than 160 Republican amendments accepted during the month-long mark-up, one of the longest in congressional history," notes Emily Smith at CNN.

ObamaCare would have included the public option, defeated in the Senate Finance Committee in September 2009 after two Democratic senators who took massive donations from the health insurance industry defected and voted against the public option. (Pear and Calmes, NYT)

Sen. Joe Lieberman like Scott Walker, heavily supported by money from the health insurance industry, promised to filibuster any legislation with a public option that made it to the senate floor. (ThinkProgess)

After Senate Republicans refused an up-or-down vote on this historic legislation, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) acted.

In 2009, Senate Republicans plotted to obstruct not just health care reform, but any piece of legislation that would have helped the American people, the Republican rationale being if anything helped people, it could also politically benefit Obama. (MacAskill, The Guardian) (Grunwald, Time Magazine)

No one could reason with Republicans sabotaging America for political gain.

"In a letter to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Majority Leader Harry Reid says Democrats will use 'reconciliation,' needing only 51 votes, to pass the health care bill," notes Smith at CNN.

Again, to emphasize, the 60 votes were necessary to stave off a Republican filibuster, in which only 41 votes dictated the fate of the legislation.

The preeminent social historian of American medical care, Paul Starr, calls the ACA a "stunning historical achievement and the most important liberal reform since the 1960s." (Mal Contends)

ObameCare was signed into law by President Obama on March 23, 2010.

Does Scott Walker read?

Scott Walker: I care about you too much for you to have Heathcare

Update: Jack Craver of the Capital Times writes: Will Obamacare problems deliver another term for Scott Walker?

Craver notes: "Walker refused to set up a state-specific insurance exchange and rejected hundreds of millions of dollars in Medicaid funds, meaning that many state residents would be pushed off the Medicaid rolls and on to what has turned out to be a dysfunctional federal exchange," and downward pressure on health insurance costs are not applied in Wisconsin.

How stopping Wisconsin people from getting healthcare helps Scott Walker is not explained by Craver.
---
"I care too much about the people of this state not to empower them to control their own destiny," Walker told the Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce earlier this year after rejecting federal money for Medicaid that may end up dwarfing the $800,000 Walker shooed away in highs-speed rail infrastructure.

Earlier this year Scot Walker made it clear that healthcare is not a right, and that society ought not be organized for people's welfare.

Sure, it;'s good Walker for who has had his own healthcare subsidized since 1993, by the public. But Walker has an in with God and David Koch. Normal rules don't apply.

"I want to have fewer people in the state who are uninsured," Scott Walker said in February 13. 2013, in the Wisconsin State Journal. "And I want to have fewer people in this state who are dependent on government."

"U.S. Rep. Ron Kind, a La Crosse Democrat who sits on the House Ways and Means Committee, said that the federal money was in place and Walker was 'putting politics before people in Wisconsin.'
'I do not foresee a better deal being offered to Wisconsin or any other state in our lifetime,' Kind said. (Stein. Milwaukee Journal -Sentinel, February 13. 2013)

"Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills), co-chair of the Joint Finance Committee, said Walker was taking the right approach. She said she worries federal money now available for a Medicaid expansion could be withdrawn in future years. Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills), co-chair of the Joint Finance Committee, said Walker was taking the right approach. She said she worries federal money now available for a Medicaid expansion could be withdrawn in future years." (Stein. Milwaukee Journal -Sentinel, February 13. 2013)

By that logic, "Then don't take highway money. Don't take education money," Robert Laszewski, a consultant with Health Policy and Strategy Associates LLC siad. "Don't take any federal money. Of course they (federal government) can renege." (Stein. Milwaukee Journal -Sentinel, February 13. 2013)

Matt Rothschild says Republicans have no answers on healthcare as President Obama scrabbles to find a way to bring healthcare to American families. Rothschild is right that Republicans have answers; they don't believe healthcare is a right any more than they believe public education is a right.

The Medicaid expansion alone would cover some 20 million people within the next decade, according to a report from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Only some one half of the states have decided to take the Medicaid expansion, paid for in full by the federal government for the first three years.

Those state rejecting Medicaid are  disproportionately hurting those living in urban ares.

“The economic argument is completely overwhelming for the big cities,” says Anne Dunkelberg with the Center for Public Policy Priorities in Texas, which has advocated (unsuccessfully) for Medicaid expansion there. “They’re paying 100 percent local tax dollars instead of getting 100 percent federal funding.”

Take Wisconsin.

"Governor Walker of Wisconsin has made history in this regard by not only refusing to expand Medicaid but by kicking more people from the program than any other state in the country. If they accepted federal funds to assist low-income Americans through Medicaid, governors could help approximately 5.4 million more people receive health insurance coverage by 2016. Despite Republican resistance and the challenging rollout, the overwhelming need for quality and affordable health insurance cannot be ignored", notes Rep Gwen Mppre (D-Milwaukee). Congress, we are divided on many issues, but whether Americans across this nation deserve quality and affordable health care should never be one of them. Despite the wishes of some, the Affordable Care Act will survive its constant threats, and in doing so American lives will be saved as well."

On one side we have Democrats working through the barriers of the health insurance industry and the Republicans to get people healthcare. On the other side, we have Republicans pulling out all the stops to prevent health care for American families.

Moore's right, the AFC will survive and people's lives and health will be saved.

Paul Starr: Endorses Health Care Reform in 2010 as stunning historical achievement

A look back at January 2010.

Paul Starr came out vigorously for passing health care reform into law, narrowly held as constitutional by the Roberts court.

Starr's advocacy in the pages of The American Prospect marked an endorsement by perhaps the preeminent social historian of American medical care.

Starr is the author of The Social Transformation of American Medicine (Basic Books, 1982) that likely does not occupy a place on the book shelves of the Tea Party and assorted imbeciles like Senators Jim Demint and John McCain screaming about a "government take-over" of the American health care system. Today, we can add Scott Walker and other members of the Tea Party set.

Writes Starr in 2010:

[Health care reform] is a stunning historical achievement and the most important liberal reform since the 1960s. It may also be the most underappreciated social legislation in recent history. Never in my experience has such a big reform been treated as so small. Never have Democratic members of Congress who are putting their careers on the line for something they believe in been so vilified as sellouts by influential progressives. And never have those progressives been so grudging in their endorsement of landmark legislation or so willing to see it defeated.

How this happened is clear. Facing united Republican opposition, Democratic leaders made a series of concessions to win over centrists in their own caucus and to neutralize key interest groups. One point of contention -- the public option -- came to symbolize hopes on the left, and when that provision was unable to pass the 60-vote hurdle in the Senate, some progressives such as Howard Dean concluded that the entire bill had been gutted.

But that conclusion is wrong. The legislation [is a] major advance in two important respects. After a long period of rising inequality, it would boost the living standards of low-wage workers and their families and improve economic security for the middle class as well. And it would be the most ambitious effort in recent history to reorganize a major institution on a basis that agrees more closely with principles of justice and efficiency.