EXTRA: Obama gives U.S. extension

President Barack Obama behaved Monday like the one-time college instructor that he once was – he gave the nation a day-long extension to sign up for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act to avoid Internal Revenue Service penalties.

Originally as crafted, the health care reform measure that is meant to give Obama his political legacy had a deadline of Monday.

ANYBODY WHO DIDN’T have a health insurance policy in place by now would face financial penalties when they file their tax returns come April 15. Not that they can’t still sign up for health insurance.

The deadline for that is the end of March. It’s just a matter of how much the IRS will ding them, and how quickly the new health insurance policy will actually take effect.

But Obama on Monday said he’s extending the deadline a day. People now have until the end of Christmas Eve in order to get themselves signed up AND make the initial payment. It makes me wonder how lenient he was with deadlines for students back when he was a University of Chicago Law School instructor.

Such leniency is still to be needed, even though federal officials say some 1 million people have used the health care reform provisions to get themselves some form of medical coverage for future incidents when they become ill.

THAT OUGHT TO be the focus of this particular issue – since those people who get hit with medical conditions that require even a short hospital stay can get a double-whammy of an unpayable bill that can drag them down financially.

And that winds up placing even more hits on an economy that may technically be improving, but for which there are still many people who haven’t yet felt a boost.

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How many will miss Monday deadline?

Monday is the deadline by which those of us who haven’t been able to afford adequate health insurance were supposed to use the benefits of a new federal law and sign up for coverage.

Some will get hit w/ penalties for lack of coverage

Of course, there are many of us (myself included) who have failed to meet the deadline – people must have signed up for a plan and made the initial payment by Monday – in order to have coverage come Jan. 1 AND avoid a potential penalty from the Internal Revenue Service when we fill out our income tax returns for 2013.

NOT THAT WE’VE failed to comply with the Affordable Care Act, which allows people to keep using either the federal website or the websites created by various states through March 31 in order to sign up with an insurance company for coverage.

In all likelihood, I will deal with this issue for myself (as a freelance writer, I don’t have anybody offering me an insurance policy as a benefit – even though the entities I do work for expect me at times to perform labor similar to that done by a full-time employee) in coming weeks.

As I suspect many others will do.

President Barack Obama said last week that in California alone, some 15,000 people per day are signing up for insurance coverage. And that some 2 million people will have health insurance Jan. 1 that would not have had it otherwise.

OF COURSE, THE fact that there were glitches in the process for signing up when it began Nov. 1 (and that political people with ideological hang-ups about the idea that all people ought to have some health care coverage were more than willing to enhance the confusion) means that many people still have not been able to get around to dealing with the issue.

Actually, I wonder how much of a rush there will be come Monday from people who hope to avoid those IRS penalties (I’m not sure exactly what they will be) by signing up AND making the initial payment.

Which will all have to be done by the end of business Monday. It could mean a rush of people similar to the mess we get every April 15 for people determined to get their tax returns filed on time to avoid penalties.

OBAMA: Easing 'frustration" in Hawaii

It also makes me think that many people will get frustrated because they will fall short and miss the Monday deadline.

IF I WERE a conspiracy-theorist type of person, I’d wonder if the IRS was determined to have people fail to meet the deadline. Because then there are penalties that will be charged to people that I’m sure some officials already are counting as revenue for the federal government.

As much as I hate the thought of having to pay the penalty, I’m accepting the fact that it will be much less stressful for me now to just deal with it come April.

Which is why I’m not going anywhere near the Illinois website for signing up for health coverage on Monday.

Obama last week said health care website problems were “a source of great frustration.” Of course, he made this comment just before he and the first family took off for their annual Hawaii holiday vacation.

WHILE THOSE OF us remaining in Chicago cope with the wet and snowy weather conditions that hit much of the nation this weekend and threaten to give us not so much a “white” Christmas as a wet-and-sloppy one!

Hoping and wishing that I can resolve my insurance situation sometime during the week between Christmas and the New Year holidays is my goal – one boosted in particular by the fact that for a freelance writer, this is usually the dead week where I struggle to cough up copy that someone will actually pay money for.

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Supreme Court won’t play along with ideologue games on healthcare reform

Call it a plus that the Supreme Court of the United States isn’t interested in playing along with the political games that the conservative ideologues of our society want to engage in to try to strike down health care reform.

The justices who wouldn't hear the arguments about whether larger companies should offer health insurance will still consider whether views about abortion should be an issue. Photograph by Supreme Court of the United States

 

The nation’s high court, of course, upheld the basic concept of the Affordable Care Act – the measure that is meant to give people in this country access to health insurance AND give Barack Obama a lasting presidential legacy.

TO THE IDEOLOGUES who are particularly resentful that their constant, hostile opposition to Obama wasn’t enough to defeat him in 2008 or 2012, the latter is enough reason to oppose health care reform.

Although I also realize there is a segment of the conservative element of our society that really wants to believe it’s not “their” problem that some people can’t get medical coverage.

No matter how much the cost of dealing with such people when they become ill hits us as a society as a whole (somebody has to cover the cost of those “emergency room” visits for minor medical matters), they’d rather ignore it.

They seem to follow the same line of logic they follow with any form of public assistance – it is money wasted on people who are undeserving.

THE CALLOUSNESS OF such thought is why I have been a backer of health care reform measures. Somebody has to address the problem, and even if one wants to argue that Obama’s attempts aren’t thorough enough, it is more of a solution than what the opposition has offered up.

OBAMA: Benefits society & his legacy

It is because of that thought that I was pleased to learn of the fact that the Supreme Court decided Monday to do nothing! Specifically with request to the lawsuit that Liberty University in Virginia that wants to knock down the Affordable Care Act on the grounds that it requires companies with 50 or more employees to provide basic insurance.

Liberty wanted the Supreme Court to take on this portion of the case immediately – without requiring it to go through lower-level appeals courts. The high court chose not to.

Part of why I’m pleased is that the reality of our society these days is that many companies want to view the benefit of a health insurance policy for their workers as some sort of undue hardship on themselves.

YES, THEY PROBABLY could have a better financial bottom line if they didn’t have to deal with the issue. Although from the worker’s perspective, the major selling point of a full-time job often is the health insurance benefits one can receive.

Because without it, one serious illness can be devastating financially. A hospital stay of as little as a single weekend can easily run up a $10,000 tab. How many people really have enough money stashed around that they could cover such an expense – if they were hit with it suddenly?

So seeing that the court isn’t about to mess with the idea that people are working for an insurance benefit just as much as a salary is a good thing. Anything else would have me wondering how deeply the high court was in bed with ideologue interests.

Perhaps we can now start moving forward on this issue – particularly since the claims are now that the problems that existed for people interested in signing up for insurance benefits through Affordable Care Act provisions have been worked out.

I’M SURE THE ideologues will want to forevermore believe the flaws exist and will want to tell scare stories in hopes that people don’t sign up.

But this has become a case where we ought to ignore the ideologues – perhaps give them a great big “Shut Up!” from the true masses of our society.

This can't be our health care for the poor!

Besides, the ideologues are still fighting it out over health care reform. They object to the idea that insurance benefits obtained through the program would include coverage for contraceptives – even from companies operated by people who want to impose their own religious thoughts on abortion onto everyone else!

The courts, which have been sympathetic to that line of logic in the past, is scheduled to consider the issue come spring. This fight ain’t over yet!

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Healthcare reform – the fight won’t die

Nothing that was said or heard or done Monday – or will occur in the next couple of days – is meant to sway any of us when it comes to the issue of the legitimacy of health care reform.

This is all about trying to sway the nine members of the Supreme Court of the United States, which is hearing the issue and may well render a decision some time around Election Day on the fate of the reform plan that was the significant achievement of Barack Obama’s first term as president.

WHICH MEANS THE big question we all ought to be contemplating as we hear of the reports from Washington (where attorneys are arguing the issue) is just how much will political partisanship taint the way the court approaches this issue?

I’d like to think the answer to that question is, “It won’t!” But I’m not that naïve.

Although I’m also sure there will be some semblance of “the law” based in the ruling on the case that is brought about by Obama’s partisan critics who are determined to see that health care reform never takes effect.

If it reads like I’m critical of his critics, you’d be correct. This whole legal action reeks of partisanship from people who still haven’t gotten over (and likely never will) the fact that Obama had the gall to win a presidential election in 2008.

THE HEALTHCARE REFORM measure that Obama signed into law just over two years ago (the ideologues made a point last week of pointing out the actual date as one of “shame” that they would spare us from ever having to note in the future) is that measure that would create health insurance plans, of sorts, for people who currently do not have medical coverage.

They would be subsidized by the federal government so that people would be able to afford them, regardless of how little their income is. Which would take away the major cause why many people do not have health insurance – they can’t afford it.

OBAMA: It's about his legacy

In my mind, that knocks down the major line of attack being used by the ideologues – that people are being hit by the threat of financial penalties come Income Tax time if they continue to refuse to get medical coverage.

It’s not really a “tax” on low-income people if the federal government is making it feasible for people to get the medical coverage that would help them avoid the “penalty.”

OF COURSE, THE ideologues don’t really care about the penalty, or even the lower-income people being burdened in that way.

They don’t want to have to assume any responsibility for medical coverage – which would be a big burden for the nation. Although I’d argue the current situation where we have people who can’t get adequate medical treatment because they don’t have insurance (and can’t afford it out-of-pocket because doctor bills have become so costly that no one can really afford the true cost of treatment) is a bigger burden on our nation.

It is another example of a case where the “weak link” of our society threatens to drag us all down.

A lot of the arguments I’m making here are the same ones I made three years ago when this was the hot-button issue before Congress, which ended with Obama making significant compromises and scaling back the plans just so he could say he got something enacted into law that could be called “healthcare” reform.

YET THAT IS not good enough for the ideologues – who likely realize that even this watered-down measure will provide some relief for people who currently fear getting sick. And as Obama spokesman David Plouffe says, the fact that the ideologues use the label “Obamacare” to demonize the plan will be reversed on them by resulting in Obama getting all the credit for the benefits that will kick in as of next year.

That is a partisan line, in and of itself. But it may have a bit of truth. Which is why the ideologues want the Supreme Court to strike this down before it can ever take effect.

Which is why I found it interesting that some of the high court’s conservative-leaning justices (the ones who can lean toward the ideologues) are saying it’s too early to bring this particular argument of an unfair “tax” up. Perhaps people have to actually start being forced to pay it, before the court can find it unfair and strike it down.

Could this wind up as a case where the nation’s high court expresses some sort of sympathy for the critics, but finds a technicality to reject giving them what they want (ie, denying other people access to insurance)?

IT’S NOT A high-minded moralistic win for the Obama administration. Although I’m sure his people would take it and declare “Victory!” before moving on to the next issue (immigration reform, perhaps) that will offend “the right.”

Because that political offense ultimately is what this issue has become all about.

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Federal politics of health care are as much of a mess as the health care issue itself

I find it absurd these days to read or hear the continued Republican rhetoric on the issue of health care when GOP officials claim that President Barack Obama is bringing doom to his Democratic Party colleagues by continuing to push for the issue.

What is so absurd about that issue is not the fact that Republican officials will design rhetoric for this year’s campaign’s meant to damn Obama and his allies, but the idea that they really believe that they’re somehow going to gain a moral victory from this issue.

NOW I DON’T know if the issue is coming up for a vote on Monday, or later this week, or suddenly at a future moment once enough arms have been twisted by the Obama Administration to get them to vote “yes.”

What I see from the various polls is that about half of the people of this nation still approve of Obama’s performance, and that the percentage of people who approve of the measure now pending before Congress to offer health care reform is about the same as Obama’s approval rating.

In short, the people who have a problem with this passing and say they will “take it out” on Obama would have been opposed to the president and his allies regardless and will find some other issue with which to vote against him come the Nov. 2 elections if they can not use health care.

There’s also the fact that those same polls usually show Obama with slightly more people approving of him than disapproving, but Congress usually has approval ratings that resemble something swirling around the political toilet bowl (George W. Bush at his lowest was better liked than Congress is these days).

WHAT IS DISGUSTING to the American people about this issue is not so much that Obama has tried to do something about the current situation in this country where roughly 47 million people who live here do not have any kind of health insurance.

Which means if they get sick, they either do not get treated or they wind up pushing off the expense for their health care upon government-run public hospitals. Which means the taxpayer gets hit with the bill.

So much for the idea that Obama has devised a plan so expensive that the taxpayer will get hit with the bill. We’re going to get hit with a big bill either way. It’s just a difference whether it will be the federal government helping out, or will the county government (that runs the public hospital) have to deal with this all by themselves?

What bothers us is the partisan maneuvering, and on both sides.

WE HAVE A serious problem that for the first time in 16 years, a president is trying to show the initiative to address. Yet on the Democratic side of the Senate and House of Representatives, we have elected officials who behave as though they wish they wore the “R” after their names (for Republican) and are all too quick to make compromises so as to minimize the extent to which health care reform would truly “reform” anything.

And on the Republican side, we get too many partisan pols who just don’t want to touch the issue until a time when they can take credit for it while also protecting the financial interests of the insurance industry officials who are among their biggest financial supporters.

A Gallup Organization poll last week found 48 percent of people disapproving of the current health care reform measure, while only 45 percent liked it.

Considering all the partisan games that have been played with the legislation by Congress, it’s a wonder that the disapproval rating isn’t higher.

YET I THINK it is foolish to think that this somehow reflects poorly upon the president, who currently has 49 percent of the electorate approving of his performance on the job (compared to 44 percent disapproving).

That same Gallup Organization currently gives Congress a 16 percent approval rating overall, with 24 percent approving of Democratic congressmembers and only 14 percent approving of the GOP members.

Anyone who claims the disgust level is aimed solely at Democratic congressmen is lying to you. Part of my intent in writing this commentary is to un-spin that little lie we’re going to hear repeatedly in coming months.

We’re tired of the fact that some people wanted to take health care reform and use it to make statements related to the immigration and abortion debates currently taking place in this country. We hate the fact that the only way this issue has a chance to get through Congress is through political maneuvers so arcane and questionable that some wonder if they comply with the U.S. Constitution.

WE DESPISE THE fact that we are not going to get a straight “up or down” vote on this issue, and that coming up with a way to cover the health care costs of as many people as possible has become bogged down in the muck.

When some people say that Obama should have focused on unemployment and economic issues in general during his first year as president, I wonder how many of those people are making the mistaken assumption that putting people back to work will get them a health insurance plan as a job perk?

For I can’t help but notice the number of jobs that don’t offer any such insurance, or where companies are trying to cut the perks they offer in an attempt to bolster their profitability (although in all fairness, there are cases where it is a matter of turning any kind of profit at all).

Thirty-one percent of people polled may have told Gallup recently they consider “unemployment” to be the most important issue (“healthcare” was third with 20 percent), but health care is an issue that is going to have to be resolved or else it’s lack in certain segments of our society will be the key factor that drags us all down in future years.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Several polls by the Gallup Organization say much about our society these days, but this (http://www.gallup.com/poll/126614/Americans-Say-Jobs-Top-Problem-Deficit-Future.aspx) one about people being more concerned with unemployment and the economy makes me wonder how much people understand how the issues are intertwined.

I wonder how many Chicago-style political tactics are being applied this weekend to remind those so-called moderate Democrats (http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/03/sunday-snapshot-the-coming-crunch-week-for-health-care/37461/) in Congress that they do bear the “D” after their names and ought to vote accordingly.

Even if a favorable health care reform vote is taken this week, Barack Obama is going to have to immediately cope with those people who think immigration reform must now become the priority issue (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=10081177) for this administration.

GOP’s strategy towards Obama: Lets use it on him before he uses it on us!

I have been to enough rallies and events as a reporter-type person in which the conservative opposition to Barack Obama vents its views that I have repeatedly heard how the incumbent U.S. president is “Hitler-esque.”

Now, it would appear that the right is coming up with another label, one that will make Obama’s supporters shudder. They’re saying the president is “Nixonian.”

AT LEAST THAT was the impression I got from learning of Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., who made remarks Wednesday in Washington that imply Obama and his aides are developing an “enemies list.” That tactic literally was used by former President Richard M. Nixon, who put together a literal list of people he considered to be the opposition, with the idea that the federal government would single them out for abuse (an IRS audit, anyone?)

Anyone with sense will realize how ridiculous this tactic is, because it is coming from the people who ideologically were sympathetic to the Nixon administration, and probably had no problem with the idea of a list that singled out certain Democratic political officials, labor union executives and several news media editors and commentators.

About the only way using this tactic makes any sense is if it is viewed as a distraction. Getting political pundits to spend a few days debating the issue of “Is Obama Nixonian” will shift the focus away from the political hardball that Republican political people are playing with their opposition to health care reform.

For the record, that is the issue upon which Alexander says Obama is using such “Nixonian” tactics, and may very well be putting together an “enemies list” of people who won’t back his goal of trying to do something about the 47 million people in this country who currently have no health insurance (and therefore, no way to pay for medical treatment, should they need it).

DOES THIS MEAN that Republican opponents fear they are going to lose this political fight, and now they’re trying to set things up so that anything bad that happens to them in the future can be blamed on partisan politics?

Considering that the country as a whole is split on this issue, it probably is completely appropriate that the debate these days is messy. Take the latest Gallup Organization poll, which on Wednesday said that 50 percent of the populace wants a health care reform proposal with a public option (which in my mind is kind of the whole reason for even bothering with reform).

Also, while 58 percent of the people surveyed (25 percent for and 33 percent against) have made up their mind – another 39 percent (a rather significant total) want to see exactly what is in the final proposal before deciding whether to support it or not.

Now I’m not going to lie. Despite possessing some ideals about a Better America, I know better than to think Obama is “Saint Barack.”

HE MAY BE Hawaii-raised, but this is a man who learned his electoral politics in Chicago and at the “Statehouse in Springpatch.” This is a man who was mentored by former Illinois Senate President Emil Jones, D-Chicago, who wasn’t a “goo goo” by any means.

Heck, this was a guy who got elected to his first electoral office by playing political hardball and getting his incumbent opponent kicked off the ballot (remember Alice Palmer?).

Barack Obama isn’t a political virgin.

I don’t doubt that he and his people are capable of engaging in political tactics meant to hinder the opposition in order to try to get measures they want passed into law. That is what electoral politics is about.

IN A SENSE, I don’t really blame the Republican opposition for the tactics they are using these days to try to stall action (if not kill it outright) on a healthcare reform measure. That also is what electoral politics is about.

Would we really rather have a government where officials just impose actions by issuing statements, rather than have to engage in the give-and-take of politics? That give-and-take, by definition is what Democracy is all about.

Government by pronouncement is something more in line with fascism – and I don’t think many people in this country seriously want that approach.

Now I’m not calling Alexander a fascist. That would be ridiculous.

BUT I FIND it equally ridiculous that he’s trying to blame Obama for trying to fight back against his health care opponents, who have been blasting him for months for bringing the issue up in the first place.

Could it be that this latest round of attack about an “enemies list” is something that should be dismissed as nothing more than political whining?

Or is this just a matter of conservative officials who know how to use dirty political tactics automatically assume that the whole world plays the political game the same way they do?

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EDITOR’S NOTES: By his own admission, Lamar Alexander knows about “enemies lists” (http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2009/10/obamas_enemies_list_lamar_alex.html) because he was a low-level aide in the Nixon administration.

The latest thoughts of the American people on health care reform (http://www.gallup.com/poll/123782/In-U.S.-39-Say-View-Healthcare-Depends-Details.aspx) from an organization that says Barack Obama has a “favorable” rating from 50 percent of the public.

Could Copenhagen be a needed break from health care reform trash talk?

When President Barack Obama insisted he could not be present in Copenhagen on Friday to learn whether his adopted hometown gets the 2016 Summer Olympic games, the claim was always that he was so busy trying to reform the way health care is paid for that he couldn’t spare the time.

But with the absurdities to which the health care debate has sunk these days, could it be that the real reason Obama decided that he could fit a few days in Denmark into his schedule was that he needed a break from health care?

I’M SURE THE Obama loyalists will contend that he’s merely standing up for his country by going to Copenhagen to try to awe the International Olympic Committee with his presence.

But I wouldn’t blame him for a bit if he figured that being away from Washington was good for his sanity. Going to a place for a couple of days where he can focus on the idea of being able to walk from his home to the Olympic Stadium in Washington Park could offer a breather.

How ridiculous has the health care debate become?

The real scarlet “A” (for abortion, not amnesty) has crept up into the debate.

FOR IT TURNS out that the anti-abortion activists who figure that since they can’t make the termination of a pregnancy a criminal act, they will do the next best thing and make it as difficult for a woman to obtain as is possible are now turning to the health care debate.

If it turns out that purchasing plans are created to make it possible for people without insurance to actually buy an affordable health plan, the activists want to make sure that obtaining an abortion is not among the medical procedures covered.

The New York Times reports that such actions have the abortion rights crowd scared, in that they fear existing insurance plans that do cover the cost of an abortion may very well be altered to quit paying for the end of a pregnancy.

The end result is that abortion would become one of those elective medical procedures, similar to obtaining cosmetic surgery. It definitely would become something that most women would not be able to afford to do, even in cases where their physical well-being is better off by ending a pregnancy.

THOSE WHO WANT to claim the abortion supporters are somehow being paranoid, all I have to say is that I doubt it. Because the reality of most insurance policies is that they are written in ways to justify covering as little as they absolutely have to.

To an insurance company, the perfect client is the person who makes their monthly payment on time always – and never files a claim.

It is part of the reason why so many people currently do not have insurance – the old standby of pre-existing conditions. People who need health insurance to cover the cost of their treatment will have trouble getting it because the insurance companies know they will have to pay claims.

Now I know there are some people who naively feel sympathy for insurance companies, claiming that the payment of claims costs everybody money. Of course, I’d argue that the only reason to have insurance is so that it will cover the cost of treatment.

SO IN A time when insurance companies are looking for reasons to cut back on what they have to cover, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to learn that this abortion quandary could stick.

It also does not help clarify the issue in that Obama himself has tossed out some rhetoric expressing some sympathy for the anti-abortion proponents, claiming he would not want to force for payment of elective abortions. I guess he thought such rhetoric would sway some social conservatives to his side.

All it has done is gotten worked up the people who want to think that all abortion is somehow elective, and that their partisan rhetoric about sticking up for life always seems to place a premium on the life that does not yet exist over the one that is here and now and ought to get our priority.

With the health care reform issue tainted by abortion, it might be blatantly obvious that a switch to Olympics mode might be a nice change of pace.

OF COURSE, THERE he faces the nasty rhetoric from the critics of Chicago’s bid to bring the Olympics here. Those people picketed outside of City Hall on Tuesday to express their belief that city officials can’t be trusted to ensure that the games don’t go ridiculously over budget – which they say has the potential to bankrupt Chicago city government.

A part of me has always considered their rhetoric to be a bit over the top and somewhat shortsighted (there are long-term municipal benefits to be derived from hosting an Olympic games here, if they are handled properly).

But I have never doubted the sincerity of the people who have spent the past few months trashing the thought of the Olympic flame working its way around the world to – in the end – pass through Washington Park to kick off the games seven years from now.

I also have wondered how many of those people who trash-talk a Chicago Olympiad were among those who were Obama supporters in last year’s presidential elections. I would suspect many of them were.

WHICH MAKES ME wonder if they feel as betrayed by Obama’s support for a Chicago Olympiad similar to how some of those abortion rights proponents feel about Obama, wondering if his reform plan is going to put at risk the ability of a woman to obtain what basically is a medical procedure.

I guess there are times that a president just can’t make anybody happy.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Abortion has crept its way into the nasty debate over (http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/09/29/Abortion-politics-enter-healthcare-debate/UPI-60011254226734/) health care reform.

Where does Barack Obama go when he needs a break from the health care reform and Olympics (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/28/AR2009092801150.html) debates?