Agree, and I have read that unpaid medical bills are the biggest cause of personal bankruptcy filings.
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Please do not inhale the highly toxic SchumesâŚ
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I seem to recall that there was something called âthe Stimulusâ for saving the economy that was passed around the same time as the ACA. The problem with the stimulus was that it had to be paired back to get enough conservative Democrats and one or two Republican senators to back it.
Schumer is probably right that the ACA is what cost the Democrats the House in 2010. The ACA benefits only around 15% of the population at any given time, and it angered people on Medicare who didnât need it and got nothing from it, causing them to go nuts and staple tea bags to their hats and dress up as George Washington. The ACA could eventually benefit far more than 15% of the population at one time or another when theyâre between jobs or otherwise unable to get employer-supplied health insurance, but helping lots of people over a long period of time doesnât help win election when you need lots of happy people to vote for you all at the same time. The Democrats sacrificed their chances of winning in 2010 in order to benefit the American people in the long run. Thereâs much truth in the proverb: âVirtue is its own punishment.â
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Then you definitely do NOT agree with Chuck.
At least we know the line Chuckles has been spinning to his Wall Street backers (WhatamIgonnado fellers, heâs young, new & naive, Iâll make sure we fix up all this âhealth care reformâ with the next preznit, whoâs gonna be (wink nod) youknowwho).
If Chuckles is soooo smart, soooo good for the middle class, WTF happened in his âsupportâ for financial reform, and whereâs he been on infrastructure re-investment?
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If I understand the context of Schumerâs remarks, Iâd have to say I agree. The administration went big on health care reform instead of economic issues and look where we are. There is the likelihood of having ACA stripped away piece by piece and itâs unfolding under our noses, and the Rs arenât even the majority party officially. Yes, the country would have been worse off without the big reach of ACA, but the price we Democrats have paid for the intense focus on passing it is high. Rahm, the consummate politician, might have foreseen what we are dealing with today, Democrats out of powers and the Party of No on the rise.
It was more tax cuts than it should have been, but it actually did a lot for the economy (see the âbikini chartâ on jobs at the link in my other comment, and donât forget the rescue of the auto industry). Yes, Republicans and cowardly and craven Democrats prevented further progress, but Schumerâs just perpetuating the bogus GOP-crafted spin on these years. He needs to stuff it.
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Chuck is an idiot. Health care costs were impeding the economy more than almost any other single factor other than the housing/banking collapse. Chuck, Obamas mistake was not seeing that those in banking were prosecuted, you know, your benefactors.
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Rahm says Fuck you just as regularly to just about everything and everyone.
âŚhis party should have focused on fixing the economy first.
But of course that will never happen until we get rid of a$$holes like you, Chuckles.
If they had waited to pass healthcare reform it would never have happened.
But of course, he already knows that.
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Agreed with what he said, not with what we all know he meant as a full owned bitch of Wall Street.
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Disagree. Low turnout cost the Democrats the House in 2010.
Also, seniors on Medicare and the existing insured also benefited from ACAâs expansion of benefits, provision of preventive care services without extra co-pay, elimination of annual and lifetime caps, etc.
Also, Medicare beneficiaries are getting relief from the drug âdonut hole.â
But I agree with you that the Democrats, admirably, used their power when they had it â and it cost them, just like it did when they raised taxes in 1993 and lost Congress in 1994.
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Krugman says a bigger stimulus wouldnât have passed
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and he was on this early and it took him almost the entire first term to figure it thru, having no insider knowledge on all the wrong econ data the careerists and anti-Keynes consultants had fed to the incoming president.
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Yes, they should have done both, or at least not skewed the ârecoveryâ so far toward more (ineffective) tax cuts.
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Well, donât feel bad. It is Rahm Emanuel after all. He says âFuck Youâ right back.
Hey asshole! Yeah you, Chucky Boy. Affordable insurance is an economic issue for the middle class. It is just that you fucking pussies in Congress are too afraid to stand up to the Republicans and make the case to the public. But I forget your fealty to the GOP, as evidenced in your deal to guarantee Scott Brown a seat in Congress.
And there is nothing that would have helped the economy more after Obamaâs election than a single payer system. All the extra money middle income and lower income people would be saving from insurance payments would be going right back into the economy.
I will now vote for anyone but Chuck next NY Senate election.
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And what on earth makes him think that the GOP would have been any more amenable to the things that were really needed to fix the economy? Doesnât he remember the bruising battles over TARP and the 2009 stimulus package? Has he forgotten the carping over the modest efforts of the Federal Reserve to keep the economy from tanking? Has he forgotten that Republicans deliberately made things worse by forcing a government shutdown and risking a debt default?
Besides which, the ACA was aimed in part at aiding the economy by making health care more affordable for more people and preventing people from being driven into bankruptcy from uncovered medical expenses.
Iâm beginning to think it is past time for Chuck Schumer to retire. Heâs beginning to sound senile.
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Focused on the economy instead? Chuckie, check this:
-Sixty-four straight months of economic expansion
-A depression averted
-A deficit reduced by two-thirds
-Stock market at record highs
-GM still in business
-An unemployment rate that dropped from 10.2 [percent] to 5.9.
-Gas prices are down.
Saved the economy. Killed bin Laden. And got rid of the pre-existing conditions crap.
Iâd say Obama focused on the economy quite well.
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Itâs hard to speculate about this.
I recall in early 2009 Nancy Pelosi saying it would be unlikely to get more than $200 billion in direct government spending in the stimulus, but we got close to $300 billion.
And when the stimulus package was formulated, we were still gathering data about the economic damage from the collapse. Remember, early estimates were that the economy shrank by three percent in the fourth quarter of 2008, when the revised figures put the number at almost nine percent.
Krugman was correct that the stimulus was too small, but he since has come around to acknowledging the political restraints on a larger package â the country had just approved a $800 billion bank bailout, and was susceptible to âsticker shockâ fomented by Republicans demogoging about taking on additional debt.
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Define âfix the economyâ, then weâll talk. The ACA, assuming that jackhole Roberts doesnât gut it, is a generation-spanning change along the lines of SS or Medicare. Itâs at least half-crappy, but itâs still significantly better than what we had before.
So what would âfix the economyâ look like, in contrast, Chuck? What big, sweeping, 50- or 100-year change would you propose to âfix the economyâ? This isnât a facetious question, either - I can think of an economic/tax package that might be as transformational as the ACA:
- Add one or two additional tax brackets at the upper end, with a 90%
rate over $100M or so. - Tax capital gains as income.
- $.001 per-share tax on stock trades (or .0001; enough to raise some funds and smooth out spikes)
Does Chuck think that a package like that would ever pass even with a âfilibuster proofâ (it really wasnât) majority? Iâll have what Chuck is smoking.
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