It's a Hiccup Not a Catastrophic Disease

Recently, the Obama Administration decided to put off making small businesses of 50 or more employees provide health care or pay penalties until the year 2015.  That decision made the GOP jubilant. They said  that it just proved that Obamacare is a train wreck about to happen.  Nothing could be further from the truth because this only affects about 6% of the companies in that category or to be more precise, 250,000 of them.

I agree with Ezra Klein of the Washington Post, making small companies of 50 employees or more provide health insurance will just cause the company to layoff  employees or cut their hours back so they don’t reach that magic number.  The larger companies already provide 100% health insurance to their employees and those companies that hire less than 50 employees were never affected by law.  It probably should be based on the company's revenues. I believe the 50 or employee mandate idea was provided by former Senator Olympia Snowe and it was one of many ideas from the GOP that was implemented in the new healthcare law.

Whether the White House admits it or not; it takes the issue off the table in the midterm elections.  The Republicans can't say that small businesses will definitely be hurt because the administration has another year to come up with a better plan.  You would think that this would be an opportune time for the Republicans to come up with an alternative plan for small businesses, but they don't have one.

The GOP has two main goals: wait until the midterms when they gain control of the house and senate and don't give Obama any victories.  That's the reason they won't come up with a plan to fix what's wrong with health care or vote on an infrastructure project that will bolster the 195,000 jobs that were created in June. The House immigration reform bill will only include border enforcements measures in piecemeal fashion and it WILL NEVER include a path to citizenship.

The Republican governors know that it's ludicrous to pass up Medicaid funding where the Federal government picks up most of the  tab for the first three years ,knowing that if they lose the midterms, they will only hurt their taxpayers for that short period.  They don't care if  hundreds of thousands of people will be hurt for their political decision because it’s not their constituents besides those states are enacting laws to keep them from voting in high numbers anyway. They haven’t figured out that the state  and taxpayers will still pick up the tab for the use of the emergency rooms.

Kathleen Sebelius,Secretary of Health and Human Service, recently wrote letters to the commissioners of professional sports, asking them to help explain to people how to sign up for the health care exchanges and  to point out other parts of the new health care law. Mitch McConnell immediately wrote the NFL Commissioner and advised him against it and the commissioner declined the offer of the secretary. I've seen professional sports make public health announcements all the time but now it's political.

I understood from the very beginning that it would be difficult to persuade the 90% of the people who had health insurance, that we needed to insure many more in order to bring down costs.  It would be especially hard to convince those who were very skeptical and didn't trust government to get anything right.  Some thought they were going to lose some what they had to distribute it to others who had none.  I didn't expect the exaggerations such as death panels, or as much obstructions as I've seen ,on the right.  The speaker said it was a law of the land; yet he allowed votes to repeal the law knowing  it would be the dead-on arrival in the Senate.

I used to think good jobs numbers were  what the Americans wanted to hear, but not according to one source at Politico. The writer said the decent jobs figures was a bitter pill to swallow for Democrats because that meant that the fed chairman would stop trying to stimulate the economy.  It used to be that good job numbers meant  our economy was improving; not a political win for one party and a defeat for the other. 

When you have the facts on your side, argue the facts. When you have the law on your side, argue the law. When you have neither, holler……………………………………….. Al Gore

Mack Simons of Wharton wrote a confusing letter this morning accusing the Democrats of following double standards on leaks. He thinks Democrats believe that President Obama is a messiah.

Mr. Simons doesn’t know that this matter is now is in the hands of law enforcement and when  and if the time comes, Snowden will be arrested for stealing state secrets, tried in a civilian court and not put to death because he’s being charged with espionage; not treason.

The open and transparency policy refers to domestic issues, such as putting the Affordable Care Act online for all to see as it was being voted on. This administration has also made the visitor's log available on-line. The White House has also established a website where 100,000 signatures on a petition mean that petitioners are entitled to an answer that addresses their complaint. Admittedly, they have a long way to go as far as being more open on national-security issues, but if they do, they will be the first administration to do so. I have to remind Mack Simons that the White House is a lot more transparent than the Ohio Republicans who added in an intrusive abortion amendment to a budget deal, without hearings or debate.

The condemnation of Edward Snowden is bipartisan but those calling his actions treasonous are coming from Republicans. Yes, this administration has been more aggressive going after whistle blowers, more than any other administration in our history, but I can remember Republican legislators condemning President Obama and for being soft on leakers. The administration can only go as far as Congress allows it to. Time after time, Democrat and Republican legislators have reauthorized the Patriot Act and the NSA surveillance systems.

Comparing Edward Snowden stealing state secrets to the actions of Sandy Burger at the National Archives is ludicrous. I remember several Democrats saying it was a stupid action by Mr. Berger, and that he was rightly punished for it and that includes this liberal Democrat. I believe that was just your opening to bring in your Clinton era conspiracies.

The actions of Daniel Ellsberg brought to what some consider the unjust war in Vietnam, to its eventual end. The Pentagon Papers was not favorable to President Johnson “They revealed that the government had knowledge, early on, that the war could most likely not be won, and that continuing the war would lead to many times more casualties than was ever admitted publicly. Further, as an editor of the New York Times was to write much later, these documents "demonstrated, among other things, that the Johnson Administration had systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress, about a subject of transcendent national interest and significance."

The anger, resentment, or pleasure that was taken when people found out what Edward Snowden had done was more about the tolerance of civil liberties more than anything else. The hypocritical stances have more to do with trust; the Democrats trust President Obama more than they did President Bush. Libertarians are the only group that does not trust government with their civil liberties, no matter who’s in power. Republicans are in favor of the NSA surveillance programs.

Unless the Republican candidate for president is Rand Paul (I’m praying for that) I don’t  think we’ll be hearing anything about Edward Snowden or NSA for that matter, in the 2016 presidential election.

I can see where Mack Simons might get his information. Unfortunately, I had to wait over two hours to see the doctor about my torn rotator cuff. I had to sit there and watch two hours of Fox News bad mouthing President Obama in every segment they had.