Don't Fall for GOP Claims on Protections for Preexisting Conditions

At times I am amazed at how stupid Republicans think the public is when it comes to believing their lies.  True. with Trump supporters, especially evangelical Christians who tend to be the least educated segment of society, there is a high level of stupidity, some fueled by intellectual laziness and some spurred by racism to which the GOP has played ever since the rise of Richard Nixon's "southern strategy."  But when it comes to health care - especially maintaining protections for preexisting conditions - anyone paying any attention can see that the rhetoric that one is hearing from Republican congressional candidates is 180 degrees the opposite of the votes and actions over the last two years.  For example, how can one be a champion of protecting preexisting conditions (as claimed by Republican Senate candidate Josh Hawley who hopes to unseat Democrat Claire McCaskill) while in charge of a state filed lawsuit seeking to end those very protections.  Locally, the same holds true for Rep. Scott Taylor who is singing one line now, but voted very differently.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at GOP lies which are in high gear as election day approaches.  Here are excerpts:

What began over the summer as a halfhearted attempt by Republicans to push back against Democratic attacks on the issue of health care has exploded into a full-throated reversal of their positions, particularly on protections for sick Americans.

In Missouri, Republican Senate candidate Josh Hawley has been hammered by the woman he hopes to unseat, Democrat Claire McCaskill, for being among the attorneys general who have asked a federal court to render unconstitutional the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, which compelled insurance companies to cover those with preexisting conditions.

“You don’t go to court and get rid of important protections when there is no backup, when people will be in a free fall,” McCaskill said in a debate Thursday night.

In Texas, where he is trying to beat back a well-financed challenge by Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke, Sen. Ted Cruz said in a debate Tuesday that he would “protect preexisting conditions.” Cruz forced a government shutdown in 2013 over his effort to repeal Obamacare. In a House race in California, Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher is, like Hawley, using his child’s illness to attest to his embrace of protections for preexisting conditions, even though he repeatedly voted to quash the Obamacare bill that first secured them.

Democrats and health-care specialists say that the proposals being put forward by Republicans contain exemptions that mean the sick would not be fully protected or would be charged exorbitant rates for coverage, as they were before the ACA became law.

Still, the sudden scramble by Republicans underscores the speed with which voters have also reversed themselves on the most popular provisions of the act, even as Republicans worked relentlessly to repeal them. It also raises a political irony: The same issue that gave birth to the tea party and propelled Republicans to power in the 2010 midterm elections could cost them dearly eight years later.

Republicans appeared to have been caught flat-footed about the change in voter opinion about insurance coverage, which has been cited by voters in multiple polls this year as the issue they care most about.

[A]s the GOP shifted its focus to tax cuts — which have not gained traction among voters — Democrats built an entire midterm campaign strategy around preserving the law’s most popular provision.

The actions of Republicans, including the president, before this election year have not matched their rhetoric over the past few weeks.  For more than eight years, their greatest and most unifying party rallying cry has been repealing Obamacare.

Trump also has bragged repeatedly about his administration’s many steps to undermine the law and water down protections, even as his administration has refused to defend any part of the law against the lawsuit filed by Republican attorneys general. “I think the big issue is the brazenness [with] which this mantle is being put on to say this is something they’ve always supported,” said Sabrina Corlette, professor of health policy at Georgetown University.  Most health-policy experts say the Republican position is contradictory because without a replacement plan in place, people with past or existing illnesses would lose the protections they have now.

“The irony is that what allowed the House to pass [the repeal bill] was a proposal to weaken protections for preexisting conditions. This was not an obscure part of the debate,” said Larry Levitt, senior vice president for health reform at the Kaiser Family Foundation.

If you care about health care coverage - and Social Security and Medicare - the only option is to vote Democrat on November 6, 2018.  Do not fall for the GOP lies.  

Republicans Continue to Undermine Pre-Existing Condition Coverage

Missouri Republican Senate candidate Josh Hawley apparently has taken the Hypocrite's oath.

America continues to have the most costly and inefficient health care systems in the world.  It literally costs multiples of what other nations with national systems are paying and it costs lives because many who need health care cannot afford it.  If Republicans have their way, health care insurance will become even more expensive and those with pre-existing conditions may find themselves un-insurable.  This from the party that claims to uphold "Christian values" even as it seeks to slash social programs to cut a deficit cause by a massive tax cut give away for the extremely wealthy and large corporations which have not reinvested their huge windfall in increased employee wages or massive capital investments.  It's little wonder Millennials are walking away from the GOP - and religion. A column in the New York Times exposes the Republican hypocrisy.  If you care about health care, vote Democrat in every race on November 6, 2018.  Here are column excerpts:

On graduation, most medical students swear some version of the ancient Hippocratic oath — a promise to act morally in their role as physicians.

When it comes to how political figures deal with health care, however, we’ve come to expect the opposite, at least on one side of the aisle.  It often seems as if Republican politicians have secretly sworn a Hypocrite’s oath — a promise to mislead voters to the best of their ability, to claim to support the very protections for the sick they’re actively working to undermine.

To see what I mean, consider the case of Josh Hawley of Missouri, who is running for the Senate against Claire McCaskill.

Hawley is one of 20 state attorneys general who have brought a lawsuit attempting to repeal a key provision of the Affordable Care Act — the provision that protects people with pre-existing medical conditions, by requiring that insurance companies cover everyone of similar age at the same rate regardless of medical history. Kill that provision, and millions of vulnerable Americans will lose their insurance.

But here’s the thing: Protecting coverage for pre-existing conditions is overwhelmingly popular, commanding majority support even among Republicans. And McCaskill has been hammering Hawley over his role in that lawsuit.

So Hawley has responded with ads claiming that he, too, wants to protect those with pre-existing conditions, as supposedly shown by his support for a bill that purports to provide such protection.

I have to say, you almost have to admire the sheer brazenness of the dishonesty here. For the bill Hawley touts is a fraud: It’s full of loopholes allowing insurers to discriminate in ways that would end up making essential health care unaffordable for those who need it most. For example, while it would require that they offer insurance to, say, cancer patients, it would allow them to sell policies that don’t cover cancer treatment — which would mean that policies that did cover such treatment would become prohibitively expensive.

And the fraudulence of this bill aside, even serious, nonfraudulent regulation of insurance companies isn’t enough in itself to provide affordable coverage for pre-existing conditions.

That was New York’s experience: Before the A.C.A., it had strong regulations on insurers, but high premiums meant that only people with health problems bought insurance on the individual market (as opposed to getting it from their employers), and this in turn kept premiums high.

To make regulation work, you have to back it up with incentives for healthy people to sign up, including subsidies that help lower-income families afford insurance. In other words, if you really want to make essential care available for pre-existing conditions while continuing to rely on private insurance companies, you need a system that looks a lot like … Obamacare. Indeed, New York premiums dropped in half when the A.C.A. went into effect.

Hence the Hypocrite’s oath. Republicans hate the idea of guaranteeing that all Americans receive essential health care, and they really, really hate the taxes on high incomes that help pay for Obamacare subsidies. And you can imagine an alternative political universe in which the G.O.P. openly admitted its true goals, justifying them on the basis of economic freedom, or something.

But in this universe, Republicans have decided that they must conceal their intention of taking health care away from those who need it most. So they’re doing what Hawley is doing: resorting to a combination of sabotage and smoke screen. On one side, they’re hacking away at the edges of the Affordable Care Act in the hope that it will implode. On the other, they’re pretending to want the very things — like guaranteed coverage of pre-existing conditions — they’re trying to destroy.

[T]his is why many Democrats are talking about Medicare for all. Obamacare was a market-friendly health insurance reform designed in part to mollify conservatives; their response was scorched-earth opposition, followed by a series of attempts to exploit public confusion about how the Affordable Care Act works and what it will take to sustain it. So there’s something to be said for a simpler system that would be harder to game politically.

[P]olls show that Democrats hold a large edge over Republicans on the question of which party people trust more on health care. But that gap would surely be even bigger if more voters realized what the G.O.P. is actually trying to do.

So let’s be clear about this: If you or anyone you care about suffers from a pre-existing medical condition, Republicans are trying to take away your insurance. If they claim otherwise, they’re lying.

I truly believe the rise of deliberate and blatant dishonesty of the GOP directly tracks with the rise of Christofascists in the party base and party bureaucracy.  No one is more dishonest.

Russian Hackers Target Vulnerable Democrat Senator in 2018 Midterms

Senator Claire McCaskill - targeted by Russian hackers in lead up to 2018 midterms.

Some wonder whether we will ever lean what was discussed during Donald Trump's tete a tete  with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki.  Based on new stories about Russian efforts to undermine Democrats in the 2018 midterm elections, it seems a safe bet that Trump wasn't laying down the law to Putin about ceasing Russian interference in American elections. Trump's detractors might even conjecture that the two discussed what Russia might do to keep Congress under Republican control and thereby allow Trump to avoid Democrat chaired hearings and hard hitting Congressional subpoenas.  Perhaps even articles of impeachment,  As the Washington Post reports, Russian hackers have targeted Missouri Democrat, Senator Claire McCaskill in an apparent attempt to throw that seat in the U.S. Senate to McCaskill's Republican challenger.  The good news, is that the attempt failed.  The bad news is that the effort will likely persist and one can just imagine the Russia bot generated fake news that McCaskill will face.  That Trump and Congressional Republicans are doing nothing to stop these efforts - Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell at best have their thumbs up their butts, although I suspect McConnell is applauding if not abetting the Russian effort - borders on treasonous.  Here are highlights from the Post piece:

U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, one of the most vulnerable Democrats running for reelection this year, was targeted by Russian government hackers who sought but failed to compromise her Senate computer network.

“Russia continues to engage in cyber warfare against our democracy,” McCaskill said in a press release Thursday evening. “While this attack was not successful, it is outrageous that they think they can get away with this. I will not be intimidated. I’ve said it before and I will say it again, Putin is a thug and a bully.”

The hackers, who belong to Russia’s military spy agency GRU, targeted two other candidates running in the midterms, according to a Microsoft executive, Tom Burt, who spoke at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado last week. He did not identify the candidates. None were compromised, he said.

McCaskill, who is the ranking Democrat on the homeland security committee and also sits on the armed services panel, has been critical of President Trump’s statements that appear to discount the intelligence community’s assessment that Russia used information warfare in an attempt to influence the 2016 election.

Just two weeks ago, the Justice Department announced the indictments of 12 GRU officers charged with hacking Democratic Party email networks and releasing stolen material in an effort to affect the election.

Top U.S. intelligence officials, including Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats, have warned that they expected the Russians to try again this year.

“Russia has been the most aggressive foreign actor — no question,” Coats said in recent remarks at the Hudson Institute. “And they continue their efforts to undermine our democracy.”

Microsoft discovered “a fake Microsoft domain” or website that the hackers had created to which spearphish victims were directed.  “We took down that domain, and working with the government actually were able to avoid anybody being infected by that particular attack,” he said.

McCaskill is expected to face Josh Hawley, Missouri’s attorney general and the leading GOP contender for the Senate seat, in November.

What I find most disturbing is that far too many Republican voters are willing to overlook possible treason and election interference as longs a the benefited candidates hates blacks, gays and Hispanics as much as they do.  And yes, many of these Republicans are evangelical Christians. I have long argued that they constitute a threat to constitutional government and now, they are willing to support a Russian backed de facto putsch. (For Fox News viewers, a putsch is a secretly plotted and suddenly executed attempt to overthrow a government.)

Mark Warner Endorses Gay Marriage

Virginia Senator Mark Warner has joined the ranks of Hillary Clinton, GOP Senator Rob Portman and Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill in endorsing full marriage equality for gay Americans.   Senator Warner is part of a growing tide of Congressional leaders who renounced former fence sitting and come out for full marriage equality.  Warner did so via his Facebook page which reads as follows:

I support marriage equality because it is the fair and right thing to do. Like many Virginians and Americans, my views on gay marriage have evolved, and this is the inevitable extension of my efforts to promote equality and opportunity for everyone. I was proud to be the first Virginia governor to extend anti-discrimination protections to LGBT state workers. In 2010, I supported an end to the military’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy, and earlier this month I signed an amicus brief urging the repeal of DOMA. I believe we should continue working to expand equal rights and opportunities for all Americans.

A sincere thank you to Senator Warner and other elected officials who see same sex couples as fully human and entitled to the same rights and benefits as every other American.  Religious based hate and prejudice has no place in the nation's civil laws.