What if Mitt Romney was actually elected President, how might America be transformed?

Based on the statements he has made and his pandering allegiance to the right wing extremists in his party, one can reasonably extrapolate out what policies and laws Romney would support and approve.

To begin, it is conceivable that the GOP could retain the House and win over the Senate. It’s also conceivable that having seen how effective their use of the filibuster was against Obama, Senate Republicans could pass rules limiting the use of it by Democrats.

In such an admittedly hypothetical scenario, the damage to the American society and democracy we have come to know could be severe and long term, with numerous permanent aspects.

The End of Medicare as an Entitlement

The Ryan Plan, which Romney heartily supports, transforms Medicare from being an entitlement into a partial subsidy for buying health insurance. Thus, Americans would no longer be entitled to health insurance when they grew older. This would have a profound and devastating impact on tens of millions of seniors and society in general.

The amount a senior would received from Medicare, as a Ryan-type subsidy program, would be insufficient to fully pay for corporate insurance premiums. At current rates, seniors would have to pay an additional $6,000 a year to have basic medical insurance that would give them less coverage than they receive now between Medicare and Part B. As time goes by, that gap and the percentage of their premium they will have to pay will grow, requiring them to pay $10,000 annually, then $20,000 and on and on until more and more are priced out of being able to afford health insurance. The CBO estimates that by 2030, under the Ryan plan, 65 year olds would be required to pay 68% of the total cost of their coverage, which includes premiums, deductibles, and other out-of-pocket costs.  That compares with the 25 percent they would pay under current law.

And if seniors can’t afford to pay that growing amount of their premium that their subsidy doesn’t cover? They don’t get partial insurance, they get none. No health insurance. End of story. There are around 40 million senior citizens, many of whom live on a very limited budget with Social Security as their primary income (more on this below) and simply can’t afford this additional expense. The numbers of  uninsured senior citizens will grow and one result will be that millions of Americans will die younger as part of this Romney/GOP plan to make the wealthy wealthier.

Ryan and the GOP have cynically played the selfish card on seniors to win their support, assuring them that their changes to Medicare wouldn’t affect them, just their children and grandchildren. In other words, we assume you’re greedy and selfish like us so as long as you get yours, screw the rest of your family. Fortunately, the push back by seniors after Ryan’s first proposed budget reflected that even elderly parents care about the welfare of their children and grandchildren. However, with Romney in the White House and Republican control of Congress, there may be no stopping such a drastic change.

So in addition to the shocking precedent of shrinking lifespans in a modern, industrialized nation, how else might our society be affected by having tens of millions of seniors unable to afford health insurance?

Emergency rooms would likely become increasingly congested with the millions of elderly who don’t have insurance. Since they would not have been treated regularly, many will have more severe conditions, requiring more time and resources at emergency rooms. This will severely tax the already burdened emergency room system, financially and staff-wise, eventually past the point of their capabilities. In such an environment, what kind of care, resources and attention will those without insurance, who only have the emergency room for treatment, receive? And what about people who are brought to an emergency room due to a car accident or severe illness? How quickly will they be able to receive care when many other patients are ahead of them with just as urgent life-threatening conditions?

What happens when the ranks of the uninsured swell towards one third of the nation’s population? When emergency rooms and hospitals have waiting times that double and triple? Or after hospitals close from being bankrupted by their unpaid emergency room costs that multiply? When the resulting domino effect is created that overloads and bankrupts other emergency rooms?

And add to that the cost to society of the potential for mass outbreaks of illnesses and diseases that result from so many Americans not having regular medical care.

This viable scenario would devastate our society.

The End of Social Security as an Entitlement

There was a time in our past when people who worked their whole lives would get too old and/or ill to keep a job and live out the remainder of their lives as desperate and indigent. Some might bring a financial burden on their children, others might be reduced to a horrible life of squalor. To most Americans, that would seem like a tragedy of the past but for Mitt Romney and the GOP, they welcome our returning to those times.

The reason for their wanting to privatize Social Security is obvious. They want to take the over $2.6 trillion in the Social Security trust fund out of government hands and pour it into Wall Street coffers where it can be sucked away by them in part or in whole.

We all know what can happen to the majority’s money when Wall Street has their hands on it. As bad as it has been, imagine what would have happened in the midst of the 2008 economic crash if the 40 million senior citizens who rely primarily on Social Security to pay their monthly expenses and Medicare Part B insurance, had that money in the stock market instead of Social Security. What kind of hell would America be with the majority of seniors unable to pay for a roof over their head, food, health insurance and medicine (add the privatizing of Medicare into the mix and you multiply the disaster)?

This massive economic crash would have been made exponentially worse if seniors had all of their Social Security money in the market and in a crisis, they had to sell their stocks for whatever they could get. Add to that, the steep loss of seniors’ spending that would result and further deepen an economic disaster (which of course didn’t occur and helped the economy in this recent case, thanks to Social Security being as it is).

The depth of such a depression that would result from seniors losing everything because their Social Security was in the stock market could dwarf the original Depression and fully climbing out under such a rigged system might not even be possible.

How can we choose to have 99% of our elderly vulnerable to losing their home, food and health insurance when the market has its next crash?

That is of no concern to Mitt Romney and the GOP. Though many of them inherited their wealth and advantage in society as Romney did, they will give lip service to “the dignity of self determination” while actually working to take away the security and independence of the elderly because it interferes with the wealthy achieving greater wealth.

The Destruction of Democracy, the Middle Class and an Inclusive Economy

It is a cornerstone of the modern GOP to continue down the path of cutting taxes for the wealthy and gutting services for the poor and the rest of the 99% of Americans who aren’t wealthy. The overall scheme includes keeping downward pressure on salaries, limiting economic mobility and gaming the system to maximize the accumulation of wealth for the top 1% by taking it from the bottom 99%. Along with this is the perversion of our democracy into a plutocracy, where those with money control elections and use their advertising and marketing expertise to sell the public on voting for “products” that will, in the end, serve only the wealthy.

The ideal America for Romney and his Republican colleagues is one where the wealthy freely buy the White House and Congress that best serves them, reroute the tax revenues from social programs into their pockets, remove all regulations that prevent them from polluting, economic fraud and harming the public if preventing it interferes with greater profits.

Their America has only two classes, the wealthy and workers. The middle class is already shrinking and hastening this is part of the scheme. Attacking unions (which created the Middle Class), job protections, rights and through off shoring, depressing the salary value of American workers.

In 2000, corporate America was already off shoring jobs at a fast clip, sharply reducing the number of jobs it had in the US. When the economic crash of 2008 hit, it just accelerated the off shoring.

These are jobs that are lost forever and are never coming back…unless American wages drop down to being more competitive with third world wages. The whole Free Trade scam was presented as something that would bring up wages around the world and add more jobs in the US due to exports. In fact, it was designed to do just the opposite, to slash labor costs for corporations and put severe downward pressure on workers’ wages in the US. And it has worked well.

The Romney/GOP agenda is to seal the deal on America as a plutocracy, a country of the wealthy, for the wealthy and by the wealthy. They have drilled Orwellian terms into the minds of Americans, deeming the greedy as benevolent “Job Creators” even though all evidence proves that they are willfully not creating high paid jobs in America (the job growth in the public sector has been coming primarily from small businesses).

Romney is running on being wealthy, that is his central platform, “I made a lot of money so that means I’m a good businessman and would make a good President.” Donald Trump flirted with running for President for the same reason, because they define wealth as success. So the reverse would be true, those like Romney view those who aren’t wealthy as failures and lesser people. Thus, it is not so bewildering to see how Romney stumbles around regular Americans like a king trying to pander to those he sees more like odd human-like animals than people like him.

So the concept of the majority’s purpose being that of serving Romney and his ilk is a mentality they already possess. For them, empathy for most Americans just doesn’t compute. With such a President, the depth of exploitation and oppression of the majority would have no limit, there would not be a conscience to say, “That policy would hurt too many people’s lives,” so even if he does it merely to benefit his fellow elitists and isn’t motivated by harming others, he could be capable of subjecting the American people to damaging things and being as oblivious of its impact as he is of how his constant gaffes are perceived.

A President Romney would be in a position to appoint perhaps two or more Supreme Court justices which could cement a right wing SCOTUS for generations. The lasting damage from the last dozen years of Gore v. Bush, Citizens United, etc. is already profound but another thirty to forty years of such pro-corporate, anti-democratic decisions could permanently cast the nation in the image of the wealthy and the majority of Americans as powerless, second class citizens.

War and Conflict That Destroys Our Future

America is pretty war weary. We’re getting out of Iraq, we’re slowly getting out of Afghanistan but trillions of dollars and precious lives have already been lost and continue to be. Americans want it to be over.

To that, Mitt Romney says, “My party’s core says, ‘Screw that! War rocks!’ so I do too!”

Romney has absolutely no foreign affairs experience or education so he merely adopts the stances of those in the Republican right wing he panders to and has hired as consultants. And they profit from the military industry. So, war with Iran sounds good to them. Hostility towards China and calling Russia our enemy, that’s good for business.

If not influenced by others, Romney doesn’t seem like the war mongering type but being greedy and self-serving, Romney would take any position if it benefited him. And threatening war with one country after another yields a gold mine of campaign donations.

What would happen if the US started a war with Iran? Even if it was just air strikes, it could create a hostile backlash against the US around the world while miring us in a very complicated war we could never win, using an already overused and depleted military that could deteriorate as a whole.

What would happen to gas prices and oil prices in this fragile economy, if the Straight of Hormuz became a war zone? How would it affect inflation and jobs in this country if the price of gas went up towards $10 per gallon?

Yes, Romney and the GOP exude hypocrisy when attacking Obama on gas prices while whipping up support for war with Iran but it would be naive to think they wouldn’t be just fine with energy costs skyrocketing…along with revenues for oil companies…who are the top GOP sponsors anyway.

Our remarkable volunteer army has been stretched thin in two simultaneous wars over the last ten years and another war could require more soldiers than we have able to serve. By creating a growing lower class of unemployed and economically excluded people, they have created a great ongoing supply of cannon fodder for their eternal wars-for-profit, draining our nation of blood and treasure.

The Ryan budget and Romney’s budget greatly increase military spending while insisting on reducing the deficit and balancing budgets so there is no alternative but for ongoing war to be financed by degrading America’s social and physical infrastructure even more than it has been and it is already past the point of sustainability.

At the same time, their insistence on cutting taxes paid by the wealthy will transfer that loss of revenue from social programs to the wealthy, adding a greater hacking away at social programs on top of what would already be occurring.

Conclusion

A Romney Presidency, especially when coupled with a Republican Congress could be a profound and devastating blow to the future of this nation. This is not because Romney is a worse person than other GOP candidates (GW Bush can’t be argued to be better) but because America is at a tipping point in so many ways that each Presidential term during this period is make or break.

Had President Obama made disastrous decisions after taking office, never passing a stimulus bill, agreeing to drastic slashing of Medicare and Social Security with no revenue increases, we could have tumbled down into an economic depression beyond what we could have imagined.

If Romney is enabled to tear apart Medicare and Social Security, lock in a pro-corporate SCOTUS for 30 years, cement plutocracy and economic injustice into place and be the vehicle for legally oppressing minorities and women in America, it would be hard to imagine ever fully reversing the damage to the nation.

These are the concrete kind of considerations that should be discussed on the MSM instead of  “scandals” like President Obama not literally saying that he supports gay marriage or puff pieces on how Ann Romney helps “humanize” Romney.

There are serious and powerful issues at stake right now, we can’t afford to be distracted by the trivia of the horse race and gotcha games in the media.

We need to have the public discussing what really matters and what country America is going to be in reality, not just in mindless nationalistic blather.

There might not be a more important election in our lifetimes than the one we will have in November. The value of keeping that in mind and impressing that on others can’t be understated.

They’ve Got the Best Health Care Tax Payers’ Money Can Buy

For the Justices of the Supreme Court, and the members of the Congress opposed to the Affordable Care Act there is no risk for them if the ACA is knocked down. They will continue to enjoy very fine, very affordable coverage in a tax payer supported program that does as much for them as the ACA hopes to do for most citizens and more. But they have no reason to be personally concerned about throwing health care reform under the bus. They are covered.

Simply put, the ultimate goal of The Affordable Care Act, (a.k.a. Obamacare), is to provide most Americans with the level of care the President, Congress, the Supreme Court and most federal employees have for themselves and their immediate families.

I know about this care from my 30-year experience as an active (now retired) federal civilian employee. The plan is great. But you wouldn’t think so given what the GOP has put forth regarding ACA.

The GOP has so intensely and successfully embedded the notion that the ACA will bankrupt the nation while destroying the quality of our health care that there is widespread popular support for setting Obamacare aside. This obsession with the debt is curious when that same GOP had few problems with two wars, massive tax cuts, an explosion in the size of the government, Medicare D, and a host of supports for big business when their impact on the national debt has been and continues to be far greater than that of the ACA.

The $2 trillion cost of two wars which have reaped very few benefits over 8 years is acceptable, but the $1.76 trillion cost for health care reform over a 10 year period is deemed excessive. Furthermore, that $1.76 trillion cost is offset by explicit savings and new funding sources. In fact, the CBO projections show it reducing the deficit in the mid and long term. No such claims could be made for those two wars.

THE FEDERAL EMPLOYEE HEALTH BENEFIT (FEHB) AND HOW IT WORKS

The President, the members of the Supreme Court, the members of the Congress, and most of their staffs and other federal employees count on the FEHB to care for their health needs.

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) manages the FEHB Plan. It negotiates costs with the insurance companies and health care providers for services to its members. It functions as an insurance exchange much like the one the ACA proposes to establish for those who are not privately insured or insured through an employer.

President Obama said early in his presidency that he wanted all Americans to have the same quality health care that he and Congress access. It’s the same kind of plan the Supreme Court now holds in its hands.

In the federal program the key is choice. Many plans are available from which to choose. They vary throughout the country; costs depend on location. I live in California. My plan offers Blue Cross/Blue Shield (BC/BS); Health Net; Kaiser, et al. I have BC/BS. Within that plan are several providers: Catholic Healthcare West (CHW), Kaiser, Sutter Health, etc.

Every year, from mid-November to early December, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) offers Open Season during which members make changes in providers, adjust payments, select or jettison various coverage elements, and even change plans entirely without loss of benefit. A member’s plan cannot be cancelled unless personally requested in writing. If that choice is made, coverage is lost; the member may not re-enroll.

EXAMPLES OF SERVICES AND COSTS

The costs have always been reasonable and the coverage excellent even for Basic Medical. But for the first time, three years ago, OPM negotiated for Vision and Dental care, the costs of which, like Medical, are borne by members and deducted from current or retirement pay. Vision covers one exam per year with one pair of free glasses. MetLife Dental for a single person such as myself provides annual coverage of $10,000 including the rarely covered implants.

Here are the monthly BC/BS premiums for Basic coverage, reflected in its Service Benefit Plan manual. Fees are deducted from current or retirement pay:

Individual Coverage:
Medical: $121.88
Dental: $48.00
Vision: $24.00
Prescriptions $10.00
Total: $203.88

So, when I had a vision problem here is what two office visits to my general practitioner and one referral visit to an ophthalmologist cost as billed on the same PHYSICIAN STATEMENT:

Total Charges: $682.00
Plan Allowance: $207.00
BC/BS Payment to Medical Providers: $132.00
MY DIRECT PAYMENT TO MEDICAL PROVIDERS: $75.00

The Plan Allowance is the OPM-negotiated cost. Great deal, yes?

How does the plan do with hospital related costs? Here is one example. In a cluster of four billings for my 2010 surgery, the surgeon fee, hospital care, in-hospital prescriptions, x-rays, MRI, physical therapy, two weeks in an assisted care facility, and six in-home nurse visits were billed at:

Total Charges: $79,888.00
Plan Allowance: $10,875.00
BC/BS Payment to Medical Providers: $9154.00
MY DIRECT PAYMENT TO MEDICAL PROVIDERS: $1,721.00

The cumulative charges (all billing) for the surgery/hospital/recovery was: $146,095.00. My plan allowance was $22,585.00. BC/BS paid $18,921.00. My out of pocket cost (what I paid directly to the medical providers) was $3,664.00.

THE BOTTOM LINE
The Bigger the Pool, the Bigger the Savings

Why was this so affordable? The United States Government is the greatest negotiator in the world. Insurance companies and health providers agree to accept specific maximum limits for their services, which are far less than they bill individual clients. Of course, this is also true of insurance policies in general. Most insurers pay 30 to 38 percent of the “billed” cost of medical care. Think of those medical bills in the same way as smart new car shoppers think of the sticker price on a car- only far more inflated.

The Federal Government gets the best rates because its pool is so large (FEHB plus Medicare plus Medicaid plus Veterans Affairs ). Imagine what National Single Payer (Medicare for All) would do?

This is why so many other developed nations with national health care programs get so much more coverage for so many more people for so much less money.

The SCOTUS, the President, the Congress etc. have an excellent federal health care insurance plan but when it comes to providing such a plan for most of its citizens, it seems that not only are the GOP in Congress, joined by a number of state governments, willing to throw the citizens under the bus, but the SCOTUS’s conservative justices may also be willing to drive the bus that runs over the rest of us.

Sources:
http://phobias.about.com/od/treatment/a/obamaplan.htm
http://www.aarp.org/work/employee-benefits/info-12-2010/benefits_what_does_congress_really_get.html?plckOnPage=2
http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/uscourtsystem/a/scotusretire.htm
https://www.pcip.gov/
http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/25/1/57.long

Acknowledgement: The author appreciates the assistance provided by MurphtheSurf3 in research, editing and the publication process.

In the Supreme Court’s hearings this week on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, a surprising variety of ridiculous and small minded thinking was put on display by some of the justices. Antonin Scalia who is for some reason described as an intellectual (just as Moon Unit Gingrich is…”intellectual” must be Republican for “crazy”), tried to argue that universal health care is a slippery slope to government enforced broccoli.

Now, any right wing brain-damaged ideologue would agree that the national health insurance market is identical to a supermarket in that each have the word “market” in them. Otherwise, for those of us not required to take anti-psychotic medication, the idea that having universal health insurance (as nearly all other western nations have) is comparable to or a slippery slope to a vegan tyranny, is quite insane. It would be fascinating to hear Scalia’s explanation of how European countries, Japan and other nations throughout the world have been able to provide health care to all while somehow avoiding the natural progression to broccogeddon.

Poor Samuel Alito, he had such high hopes for his inanity taking the gold medal for the Conclusion High Jump in this Special Session Olympics but Scalia’s years of petrifying his brain into a hard and impenetrable substance similar to a stale Abba Zabba bar, forced him to settle for the silver.

Alito did try his best though when he said:

“I don’t see the difference. You can get burial insurance. You can get health insurance. Most people are going to need health care. Everybody is going to be buried or cremated at some point. What’s the difference?”

His unreasoned question is hard to argue against…unless one has a high school education or better (i.e. “elitist”). As Alito points out, the burial industry, like the health insurance industry, is a crucial part of our economy and its rapidly rising costs are responsible for plunging the nation into trillions in deficits and endangering the nation’s future.

I can’t tell you how many people have been bankrupted and have lost their homes having to pay for their own sudden burial and the ongoing costs of remaining dead which could grow into hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars. Really, I can’t tell you.

In fact, the argument Alito advances, that the burial industry could be bankrupted by people only paying for burials AFTER they die, does hold water…like the Titanic. Using Alito’s logic, if universal health care was upheld, then wouldn’t government have the power to insist that burials be paid for by people who are alive so that those who have been more responsible and died first, don’t have to deal with higher burial costs on top of being dead?

Samuel Alito isn’t taking his loss to Scalia on moronic rationalizing lying down. In fact, anticipating that the US may eventually pass an Affordable Casket Act, he has invested in his own new startup, “Caskets R’ Us!”.

Putting a fresh spin on the burial business, Alito’s Caskets R Us creates custom caskets for the deceased, in the shapes of objects most associated with the deceased. Here are a few samples from their brochure that use well known Republican figures as potential clients:

Rush Limbaugh’s Casket

Mitt Romney’s Casket

 Antonin Scalia’s Casket

The Koch Brothers’ Caskets

John Boehner’s Casket

If you have any casket suggestions, Sam Alito and Caskets R Us invite you to post them below and you’ll be entered in a drawing for your own custom casket (free custom casket certificate expires in 90 days so act now!).

(BTW, props or blame go to Chernynkaya for encouraging me to write this post!)

The Core of this challenge is whether the Mandate that everyone have health insurance is constitutional. There are secondary issues, but this is the heart of the matter.

If the Court upholds the mandate, the ACA goes forward as planned to the continued objections of many conservatives. Getting everyone into the pool sharing the costs of the entire system is seen as the only way to keep costs down and maintain the insurance system. Jurists across the country are leaning slightly in favor of this as the likely outcome based on previous efforts to regulate commerce.

If the Court finds the mandate unconstitutional, do they find it severable from the rest of the law? If not, that will strike the whole ACA down. This according to the jurists seems like the least likely outcome.

If, on the other hand, they do invoke severability, the ball is back in the White House’s court. At that point the White House will have to answer this question: Can health care reform be successful without the individual mandate?

Why is the Mandate essential? First, if we don’t require everyone to buy insurance, then insurance will be disproportionately purchased by those who need it, the likely sick, making it more expensive/unaffordable. This would lead many to discontinue coverage in a continuous cycle that drives the price higher and higher until no one but the very rich can afford insurance any more and the system collapses.

Second, if a person is not covered by health insurance then any bills he/she accrues must be paid by the individual. If he/she cannot pay the bills, then civil suits are one remedy. If there are insufficient assets for a suit to be successful, then the cost is either covered by the care giver (as a loss) or by the government (in direct aid to care givers).

However, if the entire system is under-financed then the ability to continue bearing losses or covering expenses via government subsidy is at risk.

So….What happens if the Supreme Court strikes down the individual mandate but rules that severability applies? Two options. The Obama administration washes its hands of health reform, proclaiming that it can’t be done without the individual mandate because costs will rise too rapidly and the insurance system will collapse. Or the Obama Administration forges onward with a modified system.

Option one is terrible politics with the President and his Democratic allies admitting defeat on one of the defining aspects of the Obama presidency. Moreover, it would have tremendous negative implications for the future of health reform initiatives generally.

Option two looks good politically but it could destroy the health insurance market and hurt Americans in the process. If it shapes up that way it would be an example of very bad leadership and be incredibly painful.

But, could it be done in a way that demonstrates sound leadership and minimizes the pain. New evidence suggests that the pain might not be as great as many fear. Simulation models from the Kaiser Foundation and John Sheils and Randall Haught of the Lewin Group have found that health reform without the individual mandate would result in fewer people being covered and insurance premiums increasing, but things would still be better than if we did nothing at all.

According to their findings, without reform 51.6 million remain uninsured. With mandate based reform 20.7 million remain uninsured. Without the mandate but with reform continuing 28.5 million remain uninsured. Premiums without reform rise by 15.9%. Premiums with reform (but without the mandate) rise by 12.6%.

However. the CBO is not nearly as optimistic with many more uninsured and the costs much higher but there would still be some improvement. The CBO expects that axing the individual mandate will mean 44 millon insured persons and a premium increase between 14 and 16%

If the Court finds the individual mandate unconstitutional, the White House will have more actuaries and health economists crunching numbers than you can imagine and the political pressure on the GOP will increase tremendously.

How so?

If the Supreme Court finds the ACA unconstitutional in any way THEN the Obama campaign will launch an Information Campaign that will feature all the features immediately endangered by the decision. The following, the campaign would say, are now on the chopping block—-

1) …insurance companies are prohibited from imposing annual and lifetime dollar limits on essential coverage.

2) …job-based health plans and new individual plans aren’t allowed to deny or exclude coverage for children (under age 19) based on a pre-existing condition including a disability.

3) …children under age 26, covered by their parent’s insurance if it covers dependent children at all.

3) …if income is less than the equivalent of about $88,000 for a family of four today, and employment doesn’t offer affordable coverage, families may get tax credits to help pay for insurance. (THIS IS 28.6 MILLION AMERICANS, by the way)

4) …pregnancy and newborn care, along with vision and dental coverage for children, is covered in all exchange plans and new plans sold to individuals and small businesses.

ALL OF THAT GONE?

DONE AWAY WITH BY A SUPREME COURT DECISION?

And then the White House will push what WOULD HAVE BEEN IN PLACE by 2014 when public exchanges and subsidies would have expanded the number of insured tremendously, health insurance premium oversight would increase and the protections now applied to children would be expanded to cover everyone. NONE OF THAT HAPPENS IF THE LAW IS STRUCK DOWN.

IT WILL EMPHASIZE THE IMPORTANCE OF HAVING APPOINTMENTS TO THE COURT WHO ARE NOT FIRST AND FOREMOST AGENTS OF THE GOP. IT WILL EMPHASIZE THAT THE GOP HAS NO PLAN TO DEAL WITH HEALTH CARE NEEDS.

Two likely results? If that info campaign is successful, the Obama campaign will be lifted as Americans suddenly realize ALL they have lost and turn on the GOP in large numbers. The White House, buoyed by public response will push ahead with reform without the mandate demanding that Congress find a way to fund the program fully. And the Health Care Reform debates begins again.

Sources:
http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2011/11/supreme-court-strikes-individual-mandate.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/26/supreme-court-health-care-reform-affordable-care-act-obamacare_n_1379805.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/affordable-care-act-provisions-get-historic-review-by-supreme-court/2012/03/26/gIQAVKNBcS_story.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/opinion/sunday/a-moment-of-truth-for-health-care-reform.html?_r=1&ref=affordablecareact

Professional spatula, Mitt Romney has attacked President Obama on defense claiming that his proposed cuts will prevent us from conducting two wars at once. Put aside for a moment that Mitt Romney knows as much about defense as he does about caring for your dog on a road trip, the idea of wars arouse the GOP base in a way that only the thought of a naked Ronald Reagan could.

Republicans love to hate, in fact, for Valentine’s Day today, the GOP website will send a dozen hateful pejoratives in a gift box to that special Muslim or gay person on your enemies list.

And as Mitt Romney voices for them, they like to have as many wars as they can eat (they love the “all you can hate” lunch buffets). They are at war with 99% of Americans who want economic fairness, Hispanics, gays, climate change, Kermit and Miss Piggy, clean air and water, protecting consumers and their savings and homes, green energy, peace, Muslims and all others who don’t profess Christianity, efficient light bulbs…and on top of all this, they are at war with over half of the U.S. population…women.

Republicans have been at war with women for a very long time (for an explanation, see: Larry Craig v. MN Airport Bathroom), recognition of this might have faded over a number of years because of how caught up they became in hating blacks, Latinos and gays…too much hate, so little time! But like a dung beetle chasing his dung ball downhill, the Republicans have finally caught up with their hate of women and are now positioning themselves to make it a major issue of their 2012 election campaign.

Last week, President Obama deftly diffused the controversy over the ACA’s rule that all employers provide free contraceptive care to women. The Republicans were gleefully gearing up for a battle with him, casting him as attacking religion for preventing religion from attacking the rights of 99% of women but they were out maneuvered when Obama transferred the obligation from church owned businesses to insurance companies.

Republicans were frustrated, they were all dressed up in all this hate with nowhere to go…unless…instead of giving up when the door was closed on them, they decided to kick down the door and invade everyone’s bedroom…of course! That would surely rally a majority of people to the GOP and against that baby hating, woman loving Obama!

We’ve seen the Right Wingers passing laws in states to block or make difficult women’s ability to have an abortion (even when her life is endangered), ongoing attacks on Planned Parenthood both from politicians and RW execs at The Susan G. Komen Foundation, statements by GOP Presidential candidates that women are incapable of combat missions in the military or have been brainwashed into thinking they should have careers by “liberals”…to hear these Right Wing men spew their spite towards women, you’d think they believed they gave birth to themselves.

Let’s consider some simple demographic facts. Women are a majority of citizens in the U.S.. Women are a majority of voters in elections. 99% of women have used or do use contraception.

So how does the GOP plan to win elections when they are at war with the majority of voters and citizens?

There is only one explanation for it…delusion. These types live in a political and social bubble, they listen to Rush Limbaugh, they watch Fox News, they associate or blog only with fellow extremists. So naturally, in the bubble they live in, everyone thinks as they do, everyone is an insecure, underachieving white male who’s intimidated by women, minorities and people who are different from them (“Paging Mr. Santorum! Paging Mr. Rick Santorum!”).

Everyone thinks black people need to be put in their place and women should be subservient to men. Men who fight for the right to decide what women should be allowed to do, even with their own bodies, are real and righteous men that are following what God (the male God that is, who also gave birth to himself) wants.

Of course, the real minority in modern day America are these troglodytes who somehow think that if they wish hard enough, it will become 1950 again and minorities and women will once again cower before the superiority of the Great White Male.

As this mentality pervades the GOP base, even those candidates who might not genuinely believe in this crap, have to gobble it down by the spoonful to prove to the anti-women core of the GOP that they hate seeing women empowered just as much as the Republican Rabble does…if they want to win their votes and the primary.

It is playing out like a self-parody, seeing all the old whte males in the Catholic hierarchy and the pundit class,  making declarations about what should or shouldn’t be a woman’s right, to birth control, abortion, etc.

This oblivious patronization and straight up diss of the entire female population by old white men who believe it’s up to them to decide what’s best for women, brings to mind a cartoon where Yosemite Sam bursts into a ship’s Powder Room with a match and says “Uh oh.” just before it blows up sky high.

The misguided GOP claimed that Obama’s rule on contraceptives has “awakened a sleeping giant”, referring to religious voters. To be fair, it did energize some of the evangelical base on the Right as well as news channels who have been drooling to find some way of hammering Obama to make the race for the Presidency closer and more profitable to them by attracting higher viewership.

Obama’s resolution of the matter and the fact that most Catholics (including men) supported even the original rule that required churches to cover contraception, undercuts the proposition of a sleeping giant being awakened on the Religious Right…more like a sleeping troll has turned over in its sleep.

Meanwhile, there may indeed be a sleeping giant awakened due to all of this but it’s not going to please the Religious Right in the GOP.

Though there have been women’s rights groups at work consistently, many women have not been focused on the fact that an entire political party has been at war with them (though many have been well aware of it). When specific anti-women incidents arise, they may attract the attention and energy of women but there hasn’t been an overall concentration of a majority of women in the nation on engaging their declared enemy in the overall conflict.

That may be changing now. As women’s rights have been usurped in state after state, there has been a building awareness that a coordinated attack on them is under way. The actions of the Susan G. Komen Foundation in trying to de-fund Planned Parenthood as part of this campaign seems to have been the last straw for many women (and men) who have been watching this war on women unfold.

This time, they got mad. They stepped up to SGK in huge numbers and said, “Oh no you don’t!” and SGK said, “Er…you’re right, oh no we don’t.”

That fire has only been stoked by this latest attack on women by the GOP,  who, like the cowards they are, hide behind the robes of the Catholic bishops to attack women (to the delight of the Catholic bishops). And because they get self-validation from the Right Wing echo chamber that what they’re doing is good for the GOP’s cause and chances in November, they have been redoubling their efforts and attacks.

Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri is introducing a bill in The House that would allow any employer the right to refuse contraception coverage if they claimed moral reasons. House Leader John “Cries Like a Man” Boehner and Senate Majority leader and Yertle the Turtle model, Mitch McConnell have both come out in support of such a bill.

Someone should mention three words to them…Little Big Horn.

Deluded into thinking that this is a winning hand, they are pushing in all their chips on making contraception and reducing women’s rights a defining issue. By doing so, they seem to be awakening and an actual sleeping giant and just in time for the elections in November.

They may eventually see this situation as David and Goliath but it’s not.

It’s Bambi vs. Godzilla…someone is definitely going to get squashed and it ain’t gonna be the giant.