I feel like a giant asteroid is going to hit our country tomorrow and it’s making it a little hard to write about anything else. Anyone feeling similarly? I actually have a piece I need to do, but I keep putting it off. It’s not writer’s block exactly. It’s more like a giant shadow of doom.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
The Supreme Court showed their colors with Bush v. Gore. This is going to be about putting the smack down on the idea of liberal government. I have pretty much expected the worst for a while now.
Maybe if I really expected the worst I would be handling this better. But I haven’t emotionally prepared at all.
Clearly, you’ve seen one too many Bruce Willis movies.
Rather than a giant asteroid that kills all life on earth, I see the country I love dying , no, being killed, tomorrow. And a lot of our population will dance in the streets.
Depressed as hell about all this.
On the good side, Sherrod Brown is pulling away in Ohio despite the flood of Citizens United cash for Mandel.
That is what I find so disconcerting, too. I have people in my family who are cheering for a complete obliteration of “Obamacare”, all the while seemingly oblivious to the fact that they have young adult grandchildren being carried on their parent’s insurance who will be completely without health care if this goes down. You can’t even call that dissonance. It is simply abominable ignorance or complete heartlessness.
I feel it too–dread, doom, disgust.
I went to my knitting group to have a little escape but everyone there was feeling the same way.
I am much more concerned about the reaction of the People.
If there is a collective meh to overturning the law I will be hugely depressed.
If it causes enough people to say, “fuck it, we needed a single payer anyway” that will be fine with me.
If they uphold the law and keep the gift to insurers, pharma etc. in place I will reluctantly accept that just I did when it passed
For me, it’s that familiar feeling of suffocating helplessness. It seems like for every step forward we take, we’re slapped back two more. I’m prepared for a bad outcome, but that doesn’t mean it won’t sicken me.
If they fuck with the ACA, it’s going to blow up in their faces. It will be the proverbial Pyrrhic victory. I think Mr. & Mrs. America have had about enough of this crap. And guess what? There’s an election coming up.
The beginning is near.
Stop the Machine is calling for a DC rally for Medicare for All. Saturday, National Nurses United and Michael Moore are reuniting the cast of Sicko in an event in Philadelphia, which is beginning to receive folks for the Occupy National Gathering.
The Republican National Convention is in August and the Democratic National Convention is in September. If there is noise to be made those are the months.
Remember Kerry’s August vacation turned around the 2004 campaign and allowed the Swiftboating to occur. And August 2009 was when the Tea Party appeared out of nowhere and GOP politicians started talking about “death panels”. Progressives should not let August go to waste just because some folks (hopefully not the Obama campaign) think it’s vacation.
Like I said, the beginning is near.
Well, if there’s anybody with an ironclad track record of success, it’s Michael Moore and the Occupy movement…
Score.
Yes, let’s go with the consultant class that dominates the Democratic Party establishment instead. They may be corporate hacks, but at least they have clear principles and a strong track record of success.
Or not.
I don’t really get how one can go from considering the potential cancellation of the health care law an unspeakable national atrocity with one breath, and then call the law’s authors “corporate hacks” and principle-free failures with the next.
But then again, I never have understood the firebagging impulse. I don’t see any Democratic nominated justices looking to strike anything down, but I’m sure somehow this is all their fault.
Funny, I don’t recall pre-2010 being an asteroid-obliterated dystopian hellscape.
Three fifths of the people have been led to believe that the health care bill is no good. Three quarters believe that the mandate is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court has the sway to pull it off and get away with it. Will they? I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure we’ll be able to recover.
Scalia and co. wouldn’t be so fucking pissed about not being able to round up Messicans and imprison middle schoolers if they thought they were running wild unopposed. They clearly aren’t getting everything they want. Even if we lose the stupid mandate (which can probably be sidestepped by making the federal subsidies exorbitantly attractive and legislative the cost of basic catastrophic coverage down to near nothing), the rest of the bill is almost certain to be fine. It’ll be alright.
Jesus, BJ.
Way to miss the fucking point.
Okay, if you want this president’s signature achievement erased, fine, no big deal. We were fine before ACA passed. No biggie.
But if they crimp the commerce clause to do it, this will just be the beginning of their roll back.
There’s a reason almost all constitutional scholars think the mandate is constitutional. It’s because it was until suddenly it wasn’t. See how that works?
And of course our 19 year old son will w/o health insurance. And everyone has their own story, or will have it.
Yeah, this is not a “whatever” moment.
Not hugely concerned about his legacy at the moment.
Fine? No. Fearing for the security and the viability of the republic?
Also no. It took a really long time to pass anything in the first place. Maybe it’s not quite over yet. Alright. Press on.
Activist judging can only last as long as the activist judges. Unless Scalia and Kennedy have discovered the secret to immortality and haven’t told anyone. Or if that Permanent Republican Majority is right around the corner to forestall legislative action on anything ever again.
More likely, it will be like everything that has ever happened otherwise in this country’s history and decisions will be handed down and bills will be passed in response and new decisions will be issued in response to that response and workarounds will be forged and new paths will be struck out and people will die or fail to be reelected and new legislators and new judges will take their place and things will ultimately work themselves out.
Yeah, that’s the way every philosophical challenge to the status quo has ever happened. Maybe you’re shocked that radical adherents could find their way to the Supreme Court, but they’ve always had the power to pick up or drop whatever paradigm they want at whim. Our laws were not Endowed by Our Creator. They were made up by some guys some time. They can be unmade.
The practical ramifications of repeal are actually the best hope you can have that the decision will be narrowly applied or restricted. Nobody’s really interested in taking anybody’s health insurance away. They’re not thinking on those terms. A right-wing court is striking back at an activist, socialist government using white racism as popular cover. It’s all big picture stuff. That’s the real problem, no consideration to the lives of the “little people,” but it’s also why I’m not terribly concerned about the longterm, irrevocable death of universal health care in this country. The idea still has plenty of juice.
If the Supreme Court upholds, we’re right where we were yesterday. If the best case scenario is the status quo, and the worst case scenario is still putting us ahead of where we were three years ago, then isn’t some perspective necessary? There are other supreme courts around the world that just randomly replace elected officials and executives whenever they feel like it.
The Supremes may not live forever but certainly their decisions are something our grandchildren will have to abide by.
Boehner and Romney had conflicting answers today. Boehner wants to leave everything unattended to…no ‘replace’ was in his talking points, yet Romney still used the sales pitch of ‘replace’.
A great many people will lose their personal battle if this is overturned, plain and simple.
No, see, why would you assume that?
Black people used to be considered apes and slaves. It was a longstanding idea. It was not an immortal one. Things can change slowly, or sometimes they can change on the fly. Dislocations get hammered out. The arc of the universe bends and all that.
You guys are attributing an inordinate amount of strength to a political movement whose most powerful members are all seventy-plus years old.
Whatever. We’ll see soon.
Yeah, it’ll all work out.
One Civil War and 108 years later, blacks got their civil rights back.
But BooMan, the Moral Arc eventually bended – there was no reason for anybody to stress out about it. These things just have a way of working themselves out, you know? Just wait for the old guys to keel over, and society will just enlighten itself.
Because that’s how the majority of the (white) people wanted it.
Universal health care in the abstract is still popular. We know it passed once already. It’s in the water. If a different combination of actors and bill details are necessary to re-pass it, then so be it.
It would not take 108 years. And that’s still assuming that everything goes poorly today.
No offense, but what fucking planet are you on? You know who’s interested in taking away my health insurance, and the health insurance of every single one of the millions of other chronically ill and otherwise uninsurable people in this country? The health insurance companies. And they’ll wait at least two nanoseconds, perhaps three, if the ACA is tossed, before acting on that desire. And there’s no money left for any states that might be inclined to try to pick up the pieces.
Sure, eventually someone somewhere will offer a fix – President Romney, for example, will make sure that if I want to spend $170,000 or so a year on health insurance on the open market, I have the “freedom” to do so. Maybe. Or maybe unicorns will wave their wands, the Republican Party will suddenly decide not to be obstructive assholes divorced from reality, and something viable will eventually happen.
But by the time of your “eventually” a lot of people will have already died. That’s what’s at stake in this decision. Plus the precedent it sets for every other government program that relies on the Commerce clause.
It’s good to know you don’t give a fuck about all the people (and I’m potentially one of them) whose lives are riding on the outcome of this process. Your cavalier, complacent faith that eventually, somehow, our corporate overlords will find a way to reconcile their desire to maximize their obscene profits with my desire to keep living – because, hey, it’s worked out so well for American underclasses before – would be touchingly naive, if it weren’t so despicable.
Anyone feeling similarly?
Yes. But then I live near Colorado Springs. We’re having a bit of a tough time right now, as you may have heard.
But taking the longer view, I don’t see the end coming tomorrow but I do see the end. I’ve been studying climate science and … well … if everyone on Earth was working towards mitigation we might have a chance. But they aren’t, and we don’t.
I am so sorry about what you are all going through in Colorado. I can imagine how terrifying and hopeless it feels. Wish I could do something more than just send sympathy and prayers.
We have had a string of terrible, horrible, no good news on the climate change front here on the east coast. Apparently the foundation of all marine life here in the Gulf of Maine is in serious trouble, and sea levels are rising faster and higher than they thought. Oh and the gulf stream is slowing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo4OnQpwjkc&feature=youtube_gdata_player
The media CW sure seems unanimous in thinking the SC will tear up a big chunk of ACA. But CW has a well established habit of being wrong, and I suspect this one will be no different.
So does Prof Larry Tribe who had Roberts as a student at HLS and believes Mr Roberts will vote to uphold all the act. Ditto Rbt Reich who predicts today at HuffPo that Roberts will bring Kennedy along with the four liberals for a 6-3 strong upholding.
Btw re Earth destroying asteroids, I’m in the camp, along with some concerned Russian scientists but not apparently NASA, that thinks we do have to worry and begin preparing for doing something about Asteroid Apophis, an object the size of the Rose Bowl discovered just a few years ago, which the Russians believe is likely to be at least a very close call. Arrival is for Friday, April 13, 2029. There’s time to prepare therefore. But we need to begin planning. Better safe than sorry.
Yes, I don’t trust NASA on this one.
I hope you are right on ACA and wrong on astroid hitting earth. The closer we get to the decision from SCOTUS, the more pessimism, it seems.
I’m going to bed hopeful. Makes it easier to sleep and no one really knows anyway, so why ruin a perfectly good night?
Doesn’t sound like a guy who expects to win.
Here’s to Randy being wrong, and the law is upheld. I’m good with the court tailoring it narrowly as long as the damn thing stands.
If the ACA falls due to a right-wing gang of 5 in the Supreme Court, we must be ready to pick up our Medicare for All banners and start marching. With all the millions of Americans who would be hurt by a Supreme Court decision to void the ACA, we will just have to get out there in the streets and demand change we can believe in, and that now means Medicare for All.
This.
We should have been doing that before… oh wait.
Now that I understand that the mandate literally has no teeth and thus falls technically short of being an actual mandate, I wish that had been part of the argument. Course since the mandate hasn’t taken effect I’m also curious if they’ll blow right past it and set the decision aside.
For so many Americans this will have an instantaneous impact…terror works that way. My sis is very close to the $1 million lifetime mark. I doubt I’ll be sleeping tonight.
Considering the way it was made and what democrats did afterward it’s not really a surprise.
Weak.
On all levels.
Strong?
See through the whole deal.
The entire system is rotted out.
“Health care?”
Whaddayou, kiddin’ me or what?
Ain’t no “health care.”
Just a health care bubble.
Inflated, prices for nearly worthless “health care,” most of which would not even be necessary if the same corporations that run the so-called healthcare business on all levels…Big Med, Big Insurance and Big Pharma…were not in cahoots with one another in totally destroying the ecology of the planet.
Is this some sort of alien plot to destroy the human ecosphere?
It’s as good an explanation as any other. Aliens from outer space, aliens from other dimensions or aliens from right out of our own wombs…no matter. No difference. Anti-human, anti-life actions on every level.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch…
Some people have simply stopped dealing with that system.
Check it out.
You be bettah off.
Bet on it.
Fuck those motherfuckers!!!
I’ll take care of my own goddamned body, thank you very much!!! Keep your semi-human hands offa my various appendages!
Over and out.
And…wake the fuck up!!!
AG
Hehe. Yeah, good luck with that, kiddo. I’d love to see you write that 300k check to pay for your cancer treatment some day.
Oh, wait, I forgot, libertarians are invincible! Nothing bad ever happens to you because of your inherent superiority! No need for shared risk at all!
Maybe you have a point, though. You probably object to seat belts and helmets on principle, so maybe you won’t live long enough to find out you’re wrong…
Gtreat, cruzy.
I will wager that I am one or two generations older than are you. Still burning, burning bright, in the forests of the night.
Bet on it.
You?
AG
P.S. When my time comes, I am going out as whole as I can manage.
Bet on that as well.
P.P.S. 300K? That’s less than I gave my ex-wife for the freedom to live as I wish.
Best medicine I ever took.
Entirely self-prescribed.
Bet on that a third time.
You?
car finance
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finance calculator
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finance ezi
ACA will be left as is by 6 to 3.
Sleep well.
Think of it this way. If they throw it out, I guarantee you the health care crisis doesn’t go away, and in fact gets worse.
Even the lowest information voter in the country will now associate anything bad that happens in health care with Obama’s plan being overturned. And plenty bad is going to happen. My insurance just raised rates 12%, despite low claims and a fairly young employee population for our group (and in addition to raising the rate 12%, they dumped drastically higher deductibles on us, so out of pocket coasts more than doubled). Keep in mind health care usage is down significantly in my state.
If it is upheld, the picture will be more complex; some things will be getting demonstrably better over the next couple of years, but Obama will be taking on the growing pains of a new system.
Long term, we will get reform. The big question is how many people have to die so the teabeggers can play-act that they’ve accomplished something.
That’s not an asteroid on the horizon, it’s an obese malignant tumor with complications from type II diabetes and toxic drinking water, with a sprinkle of forest fires and fracking-induced earthquakes. What was the biblical name of the meteor strike…Wormwood. Yeah, I’m pretty sure that was it. And it ain’t about the absinthe, either.
Ohhhh, poor John Stossel is “scared”!
Note: File this one under false equivalency/denial.
1.) Is the car insurance or flood insurance industry 20% (or higher) of our GDP? NO.
2.) Where is it written in the ACA that health insurance companies can’t charge more for overweight people, smokers, drug users, etc.?
3.) “No-discrimination insurance is welfare” and is “hiding the cost”. Duhhhhh, the barely functional system where we have 47 million UNinsured people showing up at hospital emergency rooms for their (delayed) health care is welfare. The hospital passes the cost on to paying customers and their insurance companies. THIS is a hidden cost.
This is one of the malfunctions we are trying to fix, jackass.
http://reason.com/archives/2012/06/28/in-praise-of-discrimination-in-the-healt#commentcontainer
Well, on the bright side, the asteroid would be painless…