29 March 2019
Dear Interested Readers,
The Next Act In The Continuing ACA Horror Show: “The Republican Party Will Soon Be Known As The Party Of Healthcare.” Really?
Last Friday Robert Mueller finished his investigation of possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. I was happy to get the news that there was no evidence of collusion because I well remember the diversions of Watergate, Iran Contra, and Whitewater. I also realize from the Impeachment of Bill Clinton that our history of these events suggests that they are political exercises and not a judicial process. I think the spectre of the Impeachment process is more effective than the event itself. Nixon resigned to avoid the process once it was clear that there was a bipartisan majority forming against him.
Mueller’s investigation and his indictments have established beyond doubt that Russia did interfere with the 2016 election. Collusion was not really necessary, and I am being snarky when I say that the Trump campaign probably did not have the organizational capacity to enter into a collusion. The Russians did not need to work with the president’s people to achieve their objective. Using all the tools of misinformation that the Internet and social media make possible, an organization with the assets the Russians have is capable of effective mischief on their own. Roger Stone may well have known what was going on between Russian hackers and WikiLeaks, but so what? There is little doubt that hacked documents of the Democratic Party that were published by WikiLeaks at the time of the 2016 Democratic Convention were disruptive to Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and may have been a deciding factor in the 2016 election. What value could the Trump organization have added to that process?
I do hope that William Barr does not perpetuate our ordeal by failing to quickly release enough of Mueller’s report to definitively answer the remaining questions about the concern that the president may have obstructed justice. Why did Mueller not try to force the president to personally testify as Ken Starr forced Bill Clinton to do? Was Mueller deferring further investigation of obstruction of justice to Congress? Does he buy into the debatable position that a sitting president can not be indicted? Barr and Rod Rosenstein reported in their three and a half page letter to Congress that Mueller’s report did not “exonerate” the president from the question of obstruction of justice, but then they surprise us by saying that it was their judgement that the information available was not adequate for an indictment. That statement sidesteps the question of whether the Constitution allows indictment of a president and is an opinion that must be reviewed. Barr is the last person who should be responsible for the decision of whether or not there is a case that merits charging the president with obstruction of justice. The subjective nature of that decision is always going to be debatable coming from a man who appears to have been appointed by the president because of his stated objection to Mueller’s investigation. Barr’s judgement definitely needs the review of other experienced prosecutors who do not share his previously expressed opinion about the proper scope of Mueller’s work.
I understand the argument that a full disclosure of the Mueller report may release information that could compromise ongoing litigation, but I am willing to see a few white collar criminals beat their rap if that is what is necessary to give us the whole report and bring this ordeal to an end. Unless there is an egregious event that has not been reported, it is clear that no matter what is in Mueller’s report there will never be enough Republicans willing to remove the president by a trial in the Senate to make Impeachment anything other than bad theater. We have time because the proper court of accountability is the 2020 election. If Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush, two men who had flaws but character, could be denied a second term, surely this man who has desecrated the office in ways that were previously unimaginable does not deserve a second term. This story is not over.
Our president is the unchallenged champion of falsehoods uttered in the face of obvious data that contradict his assertions. As of late January, The Washington Post had counted over 8000 lies in the first two years of his term. What is probably more important to peace, prosperity, and the future of the planet are the sudden unexpected pronouncements that the president has made, like his sudden decision to remove transgender individuals from the service, his partially reversed decision to remove all troops from Syria, or his ill advised meetings with the leadership of North Korea. Coming on the heels of his “survival” of the Mueller investigation and the misinformation that he is busily spreading that he is completely exonerated every time someone gives him a microphone, I was extremely surprised on Monday to learn that the President had directed the Justice Department to file a brief in support of the December 2018 decision by Judge Reed O’Connor, a federal district court judge in Texas, that the ACA was now unconstitutional. Many of the president’s actions are best understood as attempts to fulfill his campaign promises to his base.
There was no bigger campaign promise than to abolish the ACA. The ACA is the most significant legislation of Barack Obama’s presidency. For reasons that only a psychologist could explain, the president seems to have an intense need to reverse or undermine everything that is positively connected to President Obama. President Trump’s supporters like to talk about his accomplishments, but he has drawn a big zero in his attempts to get Congress to repeal, or repeal and replace the ACA. Given his failure to get Congress to give him a bill that cancels the ACA he has vigorously attacked it through administrative tools and by offering sham policies as alternatives. Ironically, now because of the shameful tax law that was passed in December 2017 that contained a repeal of the mandate, he has the chance to do through the courts what he has not been able to do in Congress, or partially do through the control of CMS. I am sure that you have heard all about this event. I am not so sure that everyone is aware of how this event has evolved. I am not reassured by all of the pundits who say that it is an unlikely long shot. To defend against this latest attack we should understand the history of how we got to this moment by reviewing some of the key realities of the ACA.
- Many people think that the mandate was the most controversial piece of the ACA which was such a sweeping piece of social legislation that it created many controversial issues. In the minds of most of those who understand how insurance markets work, a mandate was essential if there was going to be a guarantee of insurability for all those who have prior conditions. Everyone needs to participate if the risks of those who have disease, or the risk of disease, are going to be insured at “community rates.” In retrospect, the “penalty of the mandate” was set too low to optimize the public’s participation in the program, but any penalty was politically problematic. In a cruel twist, the funds from penalties were part of the finance of the program. Much of the resistance from small business owners has been due to the expenses that the ACA forced on them for their employees.
- In 2012 Justice Roberts cast the deciding vote in the Supreme Court to preserve the ACA because he reasoned that the mandate was a tax, and Congress has the ability to create taxes. In the same decision he dealt the ACA its first blow by ruling that the mandatory extension of Medicaid was unconstitutional because Medicaid was a voluntary federal/state program and the states had the right to refuse the benefit offered their citizens by the ACA. There are still 14 states that have not accepted the expansion even though there have been modifications that have been negotiated to bring in several reluctant participants.
- The tax law that was passed in December 2017, which still stands as the most significant legislative victory for the president, included a repeal of the mandate. It was an end run that forced Republican senators like Susan Collins to show their true stripes after multiple attempts to repeal or repeal and replace the ACA had failed to pass Congress. Every Republican senator (except John McCain who was dying) voted to give a huge tax cut to the wealthy, and at the same time to repeal the mandate.
- The Attorney General of Texas, Ken Paxton, reasoned that if the ACA was constitutional because it had a tax, it could be challenged as unconstitutional without its mandate. He and seventeen other Republican Attorneys General and two Republican Governors brought suit to rule the ACA unconstitutional, since it no longer contained a tax. In the past, Attorney General Paxton has used Judge O’Connor as his go to guy for politically conservative decisions, and once again in December 2018 Judge O’Connor delivered the goods by declaring the ACA unconstitutional.
- Historically, the Justice Department has functioned to defend laws that Congress has passed. One significant exception was that under President Obama, the Justice Department did not defend the Defense of Marriage Act when it became clear that this particular law was unconstitutional under the concept of “equal protection,” and a majority of Americans had expressed the opinion that marriage was a personal right that permitted any person to marry whomever they loved. Most legal scholars were surprised that President Trump has ordered the Justice Department to violate that norm since there are no parts of the ACA that are widely accepted as being harmful to individuals, or to be unconstitutional.
- Robert Pear and Maggie Haberman report in a NYT article published on March 27 that the president was pushed to try to get the ACA ruled as unconstitutional by Mike Mulvaney, the president’s Chief of Staff who argued for the move along with Joe Grogan, the head of the Domestic Policy Council. They won a debate with Vice President Pence and Attorney General Barr about the case against the ACA in front of the president at the White House. Since his healthcare decision, the president’s hypomanic behavior that was precipitated by Barr’s letter to Congress has escalated. He showed up for a regular meeting at the Capital with Senate Republicans on Tuesday proclaiming, “Republicans will soon be known as the party of healthcare!”
Pear and Haberman offer an explanation for how Trump’s decision to support the case against the full ACA happened:
Mr. Trump has touted that he has kept his promises, Mr. Mulvaney and Mr. Grogan argued, and as a candidate, they said, he campaigned on repealing the health law. His base of voters would love it. Besides, they argued, Democrats have been campaigning successfully on health care, and Republicans should try to take it over themselves. This could force the issue.
Among those with concerns was Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel, who shared that it was opposed by the new attorney general, William P. Barr. Vice President Mike Pence was concerned about the political ramifications of moving ahead without a strategy or a plan to handle the suddenly uninsured if the suit succeeds.
Those are the major points that explain how we got to where we are, as I understand them. I think the chronology or the suppositions offered by Pear, Haberman, and other pundits only partially explain why President Trump has chosen to do what he has done now.
Before proceeding, let me confess true awe and fear of the president’s gut tactical skills. He has an exquisite sense of his opponent’s vulnerabilities, and he plays by a new set of rules that he displays every day, but that few people can defend against, although I think Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi are beginning to figure out counter strategies. In 2016 Trump ran on the fears that he could generate around immigrants and on an exploitation of concerns about Hillary Clinton’s trustworthiness. I am impressed by articles that I have read that in 2020 Trump will seek to add independent votes to his 40% base by focusing on the innate fears that many independents have of a socialist bureaucracy, ala Bernie Sanders or Representative Ocasio-Cortez. (This link will take you to a must read article recently published in The Atlantic.)
If Trump could convince some traditional Democratic voters in rust belt states to elect him in 2016 by telling them that if he was elected they could dig for coal at a profit, and that he would bring back manufacturing jobs while simultaneously forcing Mexico to build a wall while lowering their taxes and not threatening Medicare, when there was no way that any of those things could happen, how big a stretch would it be for him to convince them that he really can fix healthcare? It is easy to deceive those who, based on their own biases, want to believe in you.
If the Christian right can rationalize the president’s behavior by saying, “A tool doesn’t have to be perfect to do the job,” then we should be able to understand that those who fear oppression from, and loss of, personal freedom to big government will be vulnerable to the president’s vitriol when it is directed at “socialism.” I think that the president senses that those whose personal philosophies, experiences, and ingrained biases make them more comfortable just a little right of center, will be easy marks for him if he consistently equates progressive programs with socialism, socialism with communism, and then reminds the vulnerable of a lifetime of knowing that communism is a threat to their identity and freedom. He will have won again if he can convince a small number of nervous independents that Democratic offerings on healthcare are a risk because they are part of a progressive program that is really a communist Trojan horse that once inside our walls will end the greatness of America.
At last, the Democratic leadership seems to realize that they can’t just object to the president’s behavior. They must become credible. The timing was incredible. House Democrats responded to Trump’s play with their own bill that could be reasonably called ACA 2.0. They must teach the public that being liberal or progressive has been an honorable stance for Americans. In her recent book, Leadership: In Turbulent Times, Doris Kearns Goodwin presents Teddy Roosevelt as the arch typical progressive fighter of the twentieth century. He was also a solid capitalist who sought to reform capitalism to preserve it. I recently watched a great YouTube presentation of a radio speech, Bacon, Beans, and Limousines, given by the much beloved Will Rogers in 1931. In the speech Rogers describes himself and America, even in a time of devastating economic depression when there was a real threat of communism, as “liberal.”
I doubt that Nancy Pelosi thinks that the Senate will pass her ACA 2.0 bill even after it works its way through the House, but it offers a great opportunity to talk about something other than Donald Trump. It’s a little less than a year before I will cast my vote in the New Hampshire Democratic Primary. “Medicare For All” as a concept may be a bridge too far at this time for many centrist voters but the ACA is now accepted by a sold majority. What is needed now is a discussion that the public can follow. It is not too soon to develop strategies that will simultaneously respond to Trump’s push back against the ACA and his increasing rants against an invasion of “socialism.”
Joys On The Journey From Sap to Syrup
The consensus around maple sugar land is that it has not been a great “sugaring season.” That statement is based on the number of gallons of sap collected for processing into maple syrup. My sugaring friends tell me that the problem is that our days have been too cold. Perfect sugaring weather is typical February weather with nights in the twenties and days in the forties. During February and the first three weeks of March, we have had many days when the night time temp has been in single digits or low teens, and the day time temp has been in the low to mid twenties. The sap does not rise and the taps do not drip under those circumstances. There is a small commercial producer a few miles from our house that my wife loves to visit year round to purchase maple syrup that is “put up” in decorative bottles. She gives them as gifts when people visit us and when we visit others. We stopped by last Sunday during the annual sugaring celebrations to sample their product on tasty pancakes which were free. The proprietor gave us some startling data. By late March 2018 he had collected over 850 gallons of sap. So far this year he had collected less than 200 gallons. The plight of those who make a living producing food and other agricultural products like syrup and wine are always vulnerable to the weather.
What is really fun to see are the sugaring operations of those who do it as a hobby, or just out of love for maintaining the tradition. Last summer one of the headers on these letters showed a “sugar shack” under construction. In the picture a group of guys were “raising a wall.” I was in the picture on the far left. The structure has been the passion of my friends, Steve and Nancy. Some people build tennis courts or swimming pools for home enjoyment. Others flood their yards to make skating rinks. Steve and Nancy have built a sugar house. Their sugar house has become a gathering place for friends and neighbors.
Today’s header shows the apparatus that burns a lot of wood to evaporate about 97% of the sap to produce the raw syrup. It’s also important to notice the rocking chair and the steam. Sugar houses are cozy, relaxing places to sit and rock while enjoying a tasty beverage as you air out your sinuses and swap stories about grandchildren or share concerns about the performance of our elected officials and the future of the nation.
A sugar house offers many of the benefits of a walk in the woods with your friend without being exposed to the elements. For me sugaring has become a spectator sport. My friend expends a lot of energy gathering the sap, cutting and hauling wood for the fire, and then monitoring the specific gravity of the sap as it becomes syrup. After most of the excess water has boiled off the fluid is filtered and carefully cooked through the final steps to syrup. The economics are a challenge. I figure that if my friend was sugaring to earn a living he would need to sell his maple syrup for several hundred dollars a pint to balance his investment and pay himself a wage of twenty five cents an hour. Isn’t it wonderful that everything we do does not require a reasonable “return on investment?” Many of the meaningful things in life pay us in the currencies of love, interest, and community.
Be well, take good care of yourself, let me hear from you often, and don’t let anything keep you from doing the good that you can do every day,
Gene
