Much ado was made (and rightly so) about the Supreme Court upholding the central tenets of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; unfortunately, not all of it was celebratory. Tucked into the 5-4 decision declaring the Act constitutional was a nasty, if subtle, piece of work from Chief Justice Roberts:
In the ACA decision (PDF), the chief justice struck two blows against progressive values: (1) he gained five votes for a theory of limitation of federal power under the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause of the Constitution; and (2) he gained seven votes (two of them quite shocking, from Justices Breyer and Kagan) for the novel proposition that states have a constitutional right to federal funding from existing programs without condition (or "coercion" as the Court termed it) of the federal government.
In the wake of the decision, too many
Republican governors have already pledged to reject the Medicaid expansion contained within ACA:
Nevertheless, South Carolina's Nikki Haley, Florida's Rick Scott and many of the same GOP governors who brought the suit against the Affordable Care Act have said they will reject the new dollars from Washington. The result, as the Christian Science Monitor and the New York Times each reported, "The poorest adults -- primarily parents and other adults working for low wages -- will be left out in the cold":
"We are concerned many states will choose not to expand coverage," Bruce Siegel, president of the National Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems, said Thursday in a statement released following the court's decision. "In the 26 states that participated in the federal lawsuit, more than 27 million people have no insurance," he added, and many of those who would have been eligible for Medicaid in 2014 "might no longer have that option."
I, for one, am baffled by the GOP's commitment to having extended tantrums over PPACA. It's been over two years now and they still can't get over it. How did
Boehner react to the SCOTUS decision? By crying into his martini, yet again, and pledging to, yet again, vote on repealing the ACA. Then there are the aforementioned governors happily telling millions of constituents to go take a long walk off a short pier. I have no idea what the GOP expects to reap from this
* ahem * strategy, but they are right about one thing: it truly is
the gift that keeps on giving. Just not to them. As
Seneca Doane put it:
I think that this is the gift that will keep on giving to Democrats at the State Legislative level.
The court found problems with the law's expansion of Medicaid, but even there said the expansion could proceed as long as the federal government does not threaten to withhold states' entire Medicaid allotment if they don't take part in the law's extension.
What that means is that a state can keep its existing Medicaid funding (for the poor) even if it turns down the new Medicaid funding (for, essentially, the working class) given to them through PPACA.
Many conservative states are expected to turn down that PPACA Medicare Expansion funding. Meet your winning Democratic issue of the 2010s!
Oh yeah, baybee. Big time. As we all know, "keep the government out of my medicare" was quite the rallying cry at the teabagger HCR town halls. So there are clearly some issues where they don't mind federal money at all. And since more and more people are close to the 133% poverty threshold thanks to two terms of Bush the Lesser, the need for Medicaid, and therefore its popularity, is only increasing. Soon it will be as venerated as Medicare.
When it comes to health care, people actually have too much life experience with the issue to fall for the GOP bullshit. They get away with it on, say, economic issues; it's easy to vote GOP because one believes all the trickle down faerie tales and that they, too, will one day be rich. But waaaaaay too many people have been the victims of rescission, have dealt with the denials of necessary care from the bean counting division. The GOP's bullshit just doesn't hold up in the face of direct experience, and pretty much everybody has direct experience with healthcare.
Every family whose under-26 children are now still insured knows the GOP is full of it. Every family whose bacon has been saved by the ban on lifetime benefit caps knows the GOP is full of it. Every family whose children have not been denied due to a pre-existing condition knows the GOP is full of it.
Even those who managed to remain oblivious to the above issues won't fail to notice the rebate checks floating around come August. If they don't get one themselves, odds are they will know someone who does. And for better or worse, people pay attention where money is involved. Those rebate checks are worth ten times the dollar amount's worth of PR. Now that the SCOTUS has ruled ACA constitutional and the push to sell the bill is on in earnest, it will only become more popular over the summer.
Which brings us back to Doane's point: we can work the hell out of these dynamics. But it will take, well, work. Mostly, though, it requires info. This is where you come in: we need to crowdsource our own 50-state strategy, because it's obvious that left the DNC when Dean did. So, what kind of info do we need? This kind:
I'm hoping we can get a "State of the States" series started here to provide handy-dandy references for just that! Please join me below the divider-doodle.
What I am on about is the desire to have diaries like this and this for every state. It looks like the California diary hit the rec list, but fell off before it inspired other Kossacks to write similar diaries for their own states.
So here I am, writing this diary in the hopes that we can get this kind of local flavor info on all the races. Think of it as a 50-state strategy on steroids. I think this kind of information will be invaluable this election season, given how critically important downticket wins are.
I know a lot of people here are less-than-thrilled with Obama and, while committing to voting for him in November, don't want to donate or campaign for him. A resource like this would be invaluable in helping people decide where they do want to give support. And together, we can all re-elect Obama and deliver progressive Congressional/state-level support.
So, in light of all the above: has your governor threatened to reject the Medicaid expansion? Is he/she up for re-election this year? If yes; who is his/her opponent and who are his/her allies in the state lege? How did your state's House Reps vote on HCR and have they spoken up on the issue recently? If so, what did they say? Do they have an opponent?
The main goal here is to target races and candidates to help prioritize activist efforts, because we are not the Koch brothers and do not have unlimited millions to spend freely. So it's imperative that we focus on races where we're needed or can make the most difference. A state-level lege race is going to view $200 very differently than Obama would. It's a lot easier to sway 100 people than 1,000. etc.
A lot of little wins can add up to a lot of gain in the political landscape big picture. A perfect example of this situation is the Mourdock/Donnelly race in Indiana. Since Mourdock, an avowed teabagger, knocked Lugar out of the running, we have a serious shot at taking that Senate seat. Donnelly didn't stand a chance against Lugar, but polls pretty evenly with Mourdock. Given that Indiana went for Obama in '08, we can totally win this.
It's basically an open seat at this point, which is another excellent example of the kind of races with great ROI that we can target. Incumbents are always harder to take on than simply winning a vacant seat. Thankfully, the Women's Campaign Fund classifies candidates by just such criteria: incumbents, challengers, and open seat contests.
So, which races are you watching? What can you tell us about those dynamics? How do things look in your neck of the woods? I'm in Oregon, so there really isn't so much to report or do; that's going to be pretty much true for anyone in a solidly blue state. This is why we blue-staters so desperately need information from you, so that we can help where we are needed. Since our representation is already sufficiently Dem, let us adopt your red state! Tell us what we need to know.
Along these lines, StellaRay had the fun idea that we should engage an "Adopt-a-Senator" exercise. If your Senator is GOP, vulnerable, really, really odious or what have you, please let us know. Unfortunately, it looks like Hatch is safe, but who else has suffered from their primaries? A primary-weakened candidate is another example of a good ROI race where a little effort can make a lot of difference.
I've been thinking that I'm not seeing any unified or focused fight here to keep the Senate, beyond all of our own passions to do. Follow me beneath the fold to discuss and vet this idea.
So my idea is a DKos campaign: Adopt a senator. This would certainly be for those of us who are in fairly safe blue areas, with reps very likely to be re-elected. But also for those who can take on more than a race or two at a time.
I imagine the effort starting with a list of vulnerable democratic senate seats, as well as a list of democratic senatorial candidates running against incumbent republican senators.
Notice the flip side of what I've been saying: in addition to targeting vulnerable GOP congresscritters, we also need to be paying attention to and bolstering our own vulnerable candidates. There's something for everyone in this strategy: our nurturers can help the campaigns they've adopted and the warriors can take the fight to the GOP candidates. We win either way.
But we just can't do it without knowledge, because I'm sorry, but the old adage is 1000% true: Knowledge is Power. Full-stop, incomparably. So please tell us what you know about candidates and races in your state. We may not have the DNC's polling resources and consultants to pick and choose races and causes, but we have each other. And we have passion; armed with the knowledge we need, we can so pull this out.
So, whaddaya know?