BBO Discussion Forums: Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped? - BBO Discussion Forums

What changes?

"A lot of these people ran businesses in the U.S. and did well," said Andrew Selee, vice president of the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. "In the same way that in the United States we saw a wave of Mexicans who became part of the American culture and changed it, we're now seeing a wave of Mexicans moving back who are integrating American culture into Mexico."

At the same time, though, there will be more English-speaking Mexicans entering the workforce who've honed their skills in the United States, a development that in the long run could position Mexico to be a stronger player in the global economy, analysts say.

We act as if the alternatives are to let the illegal immigrants stay or else to shut off Mexican immigration. Wait. We could return illegal immigrants but increase our willingness to accept legal immigrants, could we not?

I also noted:
"Since President Trump took office in January, the number of U.S. government flights landing in Mexico City loaded with deportees has jumped from two a week under President Barack Obama to three, Mexican officials said. "

One could say that"Oh, it's just a minor change in the Obama policy. Two planes, three planes, what does it matter?" But it's a fifty percent increase in the number of returnees. And presumably will get larger. Much more importantly, I think it changes expectations.

His promised infrastructure bill is nowhere to be seen.

Obama made no effort to fix the infrastructure in 8 years.
Democrats are blocking Trump's cabinet appointments.

If the democrats ever wins back the White House, they better also win a majority in the Senate.

So, the Congressional Budget Office expects that AHCA would lead to 24 million more uninsured; would raise premiums by 10-15% in 2018. It would also raise deductibles. Changes is what ldrews wanted, change is what he'll get.

Except...I doubt many Republicans up for reelection in 2018 (and not in a safe seat) will vote for this. They really should have held the vote before the CBO report came out.

Sean Spicer today and Paul Ryan previously have both argued for market driven healthcare. I disagree.

Let's take a useful public need comparison - transportation. With transportation, the market provides a solution based on income levels, i.e., the wealthy can afford to drive Mercedes and own their own airplanes while the middle class can get a less costly car and lower classes get by with used clunkers and still lower classes with motorbikes, bicycles, the city bus, or their own feet. While this is not ideal for the lower classes, it has a degree of fairness if one is considering nothing but income levels.

But to adopt that same market-driven model to healthcare means that the city bus riders have no way to get healthcare other than city hospital emergency room charity. Medicaid, remember, is a government program. Everyone else gets to buy what they can afford from whomever is willing to provide a cheap healthcare insurance policy that covers only what the insurance company is willing to risk. The higher incomes get to buy the best policies and get the best care.

Here is the rub: when that used Ford driver needs an emergency appendectomy, he can't settle for cast on his arm or a box of aspirin. When healthcare is needed, it is as necessary to the poor, lower middle class, upper middle class, and the wealthy. The need is universal. Markets cannot address this equality of need combined with an inability to pay. That is because healthcare is not a commodity. Everyone has an equal need for protection.

And because everyone has an equal need, a basic level of healthcare should be considered a right - because it's right.

So, the Republican plan, which is known as "Obamacare Lite", and is basically a continuation of the ACA with some modifications, is not good. Surprise, surprise! We are in a mess that appears to be unfixable.

In CBO and JCT's assessment, however, the nongroup market would probably be stable under either current law or the legislation.

Most Americans had never heard of Preet Bharara, Manhattan’s federal prosecutor, before he briefly took center stage in the drama over the Trump administration’s Friday order demanding the resignations of 46 United States attorneys.

Mr. Bharara alone refused to resign. He was fired on Saturday, and immediately cast as either a martyr for justice or a sanctimonious self-promoter, depending on one’s partisan inclinations. But New Yorkers, who have had a front-row seat to his work over the last seven years, know him for his efforts to drain one of the swampiest states in the country of its rampant public corruption.

Appointed in 2009 by President Barack Obama, Mr. Bharara quickly went after New York’s rancid political culture, where politicians of both parties have long treated anti-graft laws like suggestions and ethics rules like Play-Doh.

Mr. Bharara won convictions of more than a dozen lawmakers, culminating in 2015, when he brought down two of the state’s three most powerful politicians: Sheldon Silver, the Democratic former Assembly speaker, and Dean Skelos, the Republican former Senate majority leader. Both men have appealed their convictions, which included charges of bribery, extortion and money laundering.

Mr. Bharara also tangled repeatedly with the other member of that entrenched trio, New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo. He investigated Mr. Cuomo’s suspicious disbanding in 2014 of the Moreland Commission, an anticorruption panel that Mr. Cuomo had established a year earlier to address the epidemic of self-dealing in state politics. Mr. Bharara eventually decided there was not enough evidence to charge the governor with interfering in the commission’s work, but at the time of his firing, Mr. Bharara’s office was prosecuting two of Mr. Cuomo’s former advisers in a bribery and bid-rigging scandal.

Mr. Bharara was an equal-opportunity prosecutor. One of the first cases as United States attorney for the Southern District of New York involved bank-fraud charges against a top Democratic donor, Hassan Nemazee, who had ties to Senator Chuck Schumer, for whom Mr. Bharara had worked as chief counsel and who had urged Mr. Obama to hire him.

At the time of his dismissal, his office was in the final stages of a criminal investigation into the campaign fund-raising of New York City’s mayor, Bill de Blasio.

It’s standard practice for United States attorneys to be replaced when a new administration takes office — roughly half of those appointed by President Obama had resigned before last Friday — but Mr. Trump, as president-elect, had personally asked Mr. Bharara to stay on during a meeting at Trump Tower in November. So why fire him now?

It has been reported that Mr. Bharara’s office is investigating whether Fox News, essentially the propaganda arm of the White House, failed to properly alert its shareholders about settlements with employees who accused the channel’s former boss, Roger Ailes, of sexual harassment.

It may be a while before the full story comes out, or before the Southern District of New York sees another prosecutor as cleareyed about rooting out public corruption. In the meantime, Mr. Bharara deserves credit for leaving New York a little cleaner than he found it. “We are not trying to criminalize ordinary politics,” he said in a 2015 speech. “Just try not to steal our money.”

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In other words, Obamacare is not, in fact, imploding. ldrews knows better than the CBO, of course. Who is more likely to make a well-educate guess, CBO or ldrews?

Watching administration officials play cat and mouse with Sunday talk show hosts is a hoary Washington tradition. But yesterday, Trump spokesmen offered a remarkably large number of flat out untruths as they attempted to defend the Republican health care plan.

Untruth #1:

“I firmly believe that nobody will be worse off financially in the process we are going through.” – Tom Price, Secretary of Health and Human Services, on Meet the Press.

Fact #1:

Millions of Americans will be worse off. For those currently purchasing insurance on the exchanges using Federal subsidies, that support will be replaced by tax credits that, for many, will be substantially smaller, as this chart shows:



For those in the 31 states and the District of Columbia that are participating in the Medicaid expansion, Trumpcare will provide far less Federal support, as the chart below indicates. After 2020, states will no longer be able to accept additional enrollees and no one who loses eligibility (such as by getting a higher paid job) will be able to return to the program even if their income drops. All told, the Administration plans to save $370 billion over the next 10 years from these cuts – which will surely make many Americans worse off.



Untruth #2:

“The fact that certain groups will pay less tax is not…central to the issue. We’ve done this in a fashion that allows the people who cannot afford health care now to afford it.”

—Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget on This Week

Fact #2:

That’s two misstatements in quick succession. The plan to repeal $600 billion of taxes that almost entirely benefit the wealthy is very much at the heart of the matter. Those revenues are currently being used to expand Medicaid for the poorest Americans and subsidize health insurance for families with incomes between $24,600 and $98,400 per year. Removing a large chunk of those subsidies surely makes health care less affordable for those with lower incomes.

Untruth #3:

“The number of individuals who actually got coverage through the exchange who didn’t have coverage before…is relatively small.”

—Mr. Price on Meet the Press

Fact #3:

What is he talking about? Of the 11 million people who are buying health insurance coverage through the exchanges, all but 1.7 million are receiving subsidies through Obamacare. As the drop in the total number of uninsured indicates, it’s impossible to imagine that most of them were previously buying unsubsidized insurance directly from providers.

Untruth #4:

“The President is focused on health care, not insurance coverage.”

—Mr. Mulvaney on This Week.

Fact #4:

President Trump was very clear during the campaign: “We’re going to have insurance for everybody,” he said in an interview with the Washington Post on January 14. “Much less expensive and much better.” According to early estimates from Standard & Poor’s and Brookings, between six and 15 million Americans would lose insurance coverage under Trumpcare.

Even House Speaker Paul Ryan, appearing on Face the Nation, seemed to acknowledge that some who currently have health insurance would lose it. “I can’t answer that question,” he said. “It’s up to the people.”

Untruth #5:

“If you want to have coverage – and we think that everyone should have coverage – we’re providing you access to coverage.”

—Gary Cohn, director of the National Economic Council, on Fox News Sunday

Fact #5:

That’s technically true but of course, with or without any federal assistance, individuals are always free to buy health insurance. Mr. Cohn’s comment came in response to repeated questioning by host Chris Wallace about what would happen to the more than 20 million people who have gained coverage under Obamacare. As noted, it’s inconceivable that millions of Americans who are currently insured won’t lose their coverage.

Untruth #6:

“I love the folks at the C.B.O. … but sometimes we ask them to do stuff they’re not capable of doing and estimating the impact of a bill of this size probably…isn’t the best use of their time.”

—Mr. Mulvaney on This Week.

Fact #6:

Estimating the impact of proposed legislation is precisely what the Congressional Budget Office was set up to do back in 1974. And while the C.B.O.’s early estimates of the impact of the Affordable Care Act were, in fact, slightly optimistic, they were closer to the mark than many other forecasters, as this chart shows:



Evaluating complex policy proposals is, indeed, difficult but Mr. Mulvaney’s apparent preferred alternative – doing no impact analysis at all – makes no sense. Just because weather predictions are often wrong, would you not check the forecast before you venture outside?

Finally, a reminder to Mr. Mulvaney: The current director of the C.B.O., Keith Hall, was picked by the Republican leadership on Capitol Hill and served in the administration of President George W. Bush.

Untruth #7:

“Obamacare…is blowing up our fiscal problem.”

—Mr. Ryan on Face the Nation

Fact #7:

The Affordable Care Act was crafted with a mix of tax increases and Medicare cost cuts alongside the new benefits in order to – shockingly – provide a modest amount of deficit reduction. Over its initial decade, the entire Obamacare package was projected to reduce the total deficit by $124 billion. In addition, in its most recent assessment, the C.B.O. said repealing Obamacare would increase the deficit by $353 billion between 2016 and 2026.

Furthermore, the net expenditures on coverage have been revised down several times. In 2010, the C.B.O. projected that benefit costs would total $132 billion in 2016; by last year, that estimate had been reduced to $110 billion.

Untruth #8:

“Obamacare is just not working. You know, in the last year alone, premiums are up 25 percent.”

—Mr. Cohn on Fox News Sunday

Fact #8:

That often-cited statistic applies only to individuals who buy unsubsidized insurance through the exchanges (1.7 million people) and those who get their insurance directly from providers (another six million Americans). These two groups account for just 3 percent of Americans.

And while by talking about “last year alone,” Mr. Cohn implies that this is the latest of a long string of large increases, in fact, premiums increased by 7 percent in 2016 and 2 percent in 2015.

Untruth #9:

“The people who are just above Medicaid but still have difficulty buying their own premiums will…have the ability to use [Health Savings Accounts] to pay for their…healthcare on a tax-advantaged basis.”

—Mr. Mulvaney on Meet the Press

Fact #9:

He is talking about people whose incomes are well below median levels and is offering them the opportunity to save money they don’t have and get the benefit of taxes they generally don’t pay because their incomes are too low. How does taking away the Obamacare benefits and giving them refundable tax credits of $2,000 to $4,000 per person replace subsidies that currently run to as much as $9,874 for older low-income individuals?

Untruth #10:

“I was on Obamacare when I was in the House. My family’s deductibles were over $15,000 a year.”

—Mr. Mulvaney on Meet the Press

Fact #10:

Mr. Mulvaney didn’t provide enough information for me to be sure but for one thing, the out-of-pocket maximum for a marketplace plan in 2016 was $13,700. For another, while Mr. Mulvaney is correct that senators and representatives are required to buy their insurance through the District of Columbia exchange, they get a pretty good deal.

According to Congressional Research Service, if they buy a gold plan, the government (meaning us taxpayers) paid up to 75 percent of the premiums. I went to the District of Columbia health care exchange and for a family of 5, like the Mulvaneys, the yearly cost of plans currently being offered is approximately $25,000. That would mean premium costs of just over $6,000 a year. The required deductibles range from zero to $2,000. So I have no idea where Mr. Mulvaney’s assertion came from.

Untruth #11:

Kentucky is a “textbook case of Obamacare’s failures.”

—Vice President Pence in Louisville on Saturday

Fact #11:

While not said on a Sunday show, Mr. Pence’s comment must be noted. In fact, Kentucky has seen the largest drop of any state in the uninsured rate under Obamacare, as this chart shows:

I agree with many of the posters here: The Republican/Trump health care plan won't fix the problems, may make them worse.

I propose that Trump and the Republicans back off and do nothing rather than make the situation worse. Let the current ACA program play out for a few more years and see how it does. What does anyone else think?

A lot of highways here were upgraded by the stimulus money used in 2009 and 2010 to get the economy back on track. The lift bridge here was upgraded in winter of 2014-2015.

The reason that none of the Trump appointments have been blocked by democrats is because of the changes to Senate rules in 2013 preventing filibusters of presidential appointments (except for appointments to the Supreme Court). The democrats changed the filibuster rule (with 3 democrats joining the republicans in voting against the change) because of the extreme blocking tactics used by McConnell and the republicans against Obama's appointments.

If you'll check, you'll see that the republicans do hold a 52-48 majority now, so have clear sailing on presidential appointments. The reason that Trump has fallen so far behind Obama in getting this done is his tardiness in vetting and putting forward nominees for approval.

Obama made no effort to fix the infrastructure in 8 years.

Sure, the Republicans can confirm the appointments, but the Democrats also have the right under Senate rules to hold up the vote on each appointment for 30 hours. The net effect has been that all of Trump's cabinet appointments haven't been confirmed yet. And normally, the Cabinet Secretaries have a big say in the appointment of people under them.

Although Republicans I'm sure didn't like many of Obama's cabinet appointments, they were at least courteous enough to let Obama get his governing team in place fairly quickly. So making any comparison between Obama and Trump on speed of appointments is comparing apples and oranges.