Over seventy years ago, the plan for opponents of health care reform, orchestrated by a campaign consultant hired by the American Medical Association (via The New Yorker, “The Lie Factory”):

….1. The immediate objective is the defeat of the compulsory health insurance program pending in Congress. 2. The long-term objective is to put a permanent stop to the agitation for socialized medicine in this country by (a) awakening the people to the danger of a politically-controlled, government-regulated health system; (b) convincing the people, through a Nation wide campaign of education, of the superior advantages of private medicine, as practiced in America, over the State-dominated medical systems of other countries; (c) stimulating the growth of voluntary health insurance systems to take the economic shock out of illness and increase the availability of medical care to the American people….

[emphasis in original]

Okay, the ending of the tune is different today. It’s much darker. Now, if you don’t have any insurance and you have a heart attack, just go to the emergency room:

….Scott Pelley: Does the government have a responsibility to provide health care to the 50 million Americans who don’t have it today?

Mitt Romney: Well, we do provide care for people who don’t have insurance, people– we– if someone has a heart attack, they don’t sit in their apartment and die. We pick them up in an ambulance, and take them to the hospital, and give them care. And different states have different ways of providing for that care.

Scott Pelley: That’s the most expensive way to do it.

Mitt Romney: Well the–

Scott Pelley: In an emergency room…

And still, that small matter of chronic health conditions remains.

“….stimulating the growth of voluntary health insurance systems to take the economic shock out of illness and increase the availability of medical care to the American people….”

…and the poor, and seniors, and the uninsured?

Today, via Twitter:

Rep. Vicky Hartzler ‏@RepHartzler

The House has repealed ‪#ObamaCare‬! We must repeal this bill that’s increasing health care costs & making it harder for businesses to hire. 12:57 PM – 11 Jul 12

First of all, Representative Hartzler (r) [and the republican controlled House] didn’t repeal the Affordable Care Act. That would take the concurrence of the Senate. She [and they] voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

And if repeal came to pass, what would that mean?

Preexisting conditions? Lifetime limits on coverage? Wellness visits? Children on their parent’s insurance until age twenty-six? Limits on insurance company overhead?

From Cass County Prosecutor and 4th Congressional District Democratic Party candidate Teresa Hensley’s campaign:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

July 11, 2012

[….]

CONGRESS, HARTZLER STUCK IN THE PAST WHILE MISSOURI FAMILIES WONDER ABOUT THE FUTURE

Raymore, MO – Today, despite a recent ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that appeared to settle the issue, Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler and the rest of the House of Representatives voted for the 31st time in the last 18 months to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

“The Supreme Court decided that the Affordable Care Act should stand,” said Cass County Prosecutor and congressional candidate Teresa Hensley.  “Whether you believe that’s a good decision or a bad one, the Supreme Court has ruled. Now it’s time to move forward.  The fact that Congresswoman Hartzler and the rest of Congress continue to argue and debate a topic that’s been settled by the highest court in the land is just another example of how broken things are in Washington. Instead of the bickering, Congress needs to start tackling some of the big issues Missouri families are facing.”

According to NPR, since the first attempt on January 19, 2011, “the House has taken 30 floor votes to try to repeal, defund or dismantle the health care law.”  [NPR, 7/9/12]  Today’s vote marks the 31st attempt.  Congress has repeatedly sought to repeal the act, but has yet to offer an alternative policy.

As a Member of Congress, Hensley would prioritize:

Job Creation.  Provide incentives to small businesses for hiring.  End the outsourcing of American jobs.  Make strategic investments to repair Missouri’s crumbling infrastructure.

Responsible Budgeting.  Cutting wasteful spending like big tax giveaways to oil companies that don’t need them – not programs seniors and the middle class rely on.

Support for Military and Veterans.  Prevent cuts to bases – like those in the 4th district – that provide good local jobs for the communities in which they are a part of.  Make sure our military has the resources it needs.  Provide veterans with top-notch health care services and access to job opportunities when they return home.

# # #

Thirty-one attempts to do away with health care reform by the republican right wingnuts in the U.S. House of Representatives. And still no action on jobs.  

That sounded so good this morning I just had to repeat it here.

President Barack Obama talks on the phone with Solicitor General Donald Verrilli in the Oval Office, after learning of the Supreme Court’s ruling on the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,” June 28, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Last week:

Boehner to U.S. House on healthcare ruling: don’t gloat

June 21, 2012|Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner on Thursday told the Republican rank-and-file there will be no celebrating in Congress if the Supreme Court rules against President Barack Obama’s sweeping healthcare reform law.

“No one knows what the court will decide,” Boehner said in a memo to fellow Republicans. “But if the court strikes down all or part of the president’s healthcare reform law, there will be no spiking of the ball.”

Yeah, like anyone in his party would’ve followed that advice.

Now they can’t celebrate, but we will.

In the wake of today’s Supreme Court decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act (ACA), a.k.a. Obamacare, my email box has been filled with emails that sport the words “my take” in the subject line. Of special interest: Roy Blunt’s quickly rendered “take” on the decision (full text below the fold).

To take the silliest statement first, Blunt declares that the decision will lead to “greater uncertainty” for small business owners – in spite of the fact that the main source of indecision was rendered moot with today’s ruling. Some folks are slow to pick up on the obvious – and if Blunt isn’t, he’s banking on the fact that his most likely supporters are.

Blunt’s claim that the ACA will lead to higher federal spending has been dealt with ad nauseum. Almost every respectable authority has conceded that if properly implemented, the ACA has the potential to save money by tamping down health care costs. The most recent Congressional Budget Office analysis affirms that belief. Blunt’s mindless repetition of this talking point doesn’t really deserve a response – except that if unchallenged, it has the potential to continue to do harm.

One would be tempted to respond in the same vein to Blunt’s main contention, that “Obamacare will lead to higher health care premiums.” This assertion – particularly now that the mandate has been upheld – is pure fabrication and one is tempted to think that the odor it gives rise to in the current context is the reek of desperation. However, there are scenarios where Blunt’s claim of higher premiums could be realized – but if that is the case, it will be only be because of the actions of Mr. Blunt and his GOP congressional colleagues.

Ed Kilgore points out that many of the ACA’s provisions are dependent on congressional funding and that fact could allow the Republicans to wreak havoc:

…while there was a case to be made that you can’t enact something as complicated and wide-ranging as ACA as part of the budget process, there is zero doubt it would be easy to disable it simply by denying funding for the subsidies, the Medicaid expansion, the exchanges, etc., etc. All of these actions are entirely legitimate in a reconciliation bill, which cannot be filibustered. And on top of everything else, as TPM’s David Kurtz astutely observed today, the Supreme Court’s definition of the mandate as a “tax” may well make the mandate itself germane to a reconciliation bill.

If the mandate were to be repealed via such an indirect strategy, the resulting mess could result in steeply higher premiums. That mess would, of course, be due to the actions of Blunt and pals, but I’m betting they’d get their right-wing echo-chamber fired up and the traditional media would, as it so often does, take its cues from the noisiest parties, and, in the popular mind, the braying of pols like Blunt would be vindicated. I imagine lots of GOPers, not just our Roy, are hoping that this will be the way it works. Of course, to quote Kilgore again:

The best strategy for maintaining ACA, of course, is to win the damn elections.

Dear Friend,

The three questions about the President’s health care plan that have needed to be answered from day one are: Is it constitutional, is it a good idea, and can we afford it? The Court, in a 5-4 decision, answered the first question today. The American people now will decide if the President’s health care takeover is the right thing to do and whether we can afford it.

This decision does not change the fact that ObamaCare will lead to higher health care premiums, increased federal spending, and greater uncertainty for small business owners nationwide. That’s why Congress must repeal this deeply flawed law in its entirety and replace it with thoughtful, common-sense reforms that put patients and doctors in control of health care – not Washington bureaucrats.

I invite you to take a look at my video response to the Supreme Court’s decision.

In 2010, Missourians overwhelmingly rejected the individual mandate and sent a clear signal to Washington that Americans oppose ObamaCare. Elections matter, and this decision underscores the fact that we need new leadership in the White House and the Senate.

As always, I encourage you to join the conversation online by visiting my Facebook and Twitter pages and to learn more on my website.

I also hope you’ll take a moment to learn more about the common-sense health care solutions that I support.

The Affordable Care Act is, apparently, constitutional. The right wingnuts have a sad.

Via Twitter:

Rep. Vicky Hartzler ‏@RepHartzler

Unbelievable! It appears SCOTUS has ruled the individual mandate is upheld as a permissible ‘tax’. We will continue to work to repeal! 9:17 AM – 28 Jun 12

Believe it.

Update:

Get your bumper sticker from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee:

Jonathan Chait, yesterday, at New York Magazine:

….This is why it’s vital to bring yourself face-to face with the implications of mass uninsurance – not as emotional manipulation, but to force you to decide what forms of material deprivation ought to be morally acceptable. This question has become, at least at the moment, the primary philosophical divide between the parties. Democrats will confine the unfortunate to many forms of deprivation, but not deprivation of basic medical care. Republicans will. The GOP is the only mainstream political party in the advanced world to hold this stance….

Go. Read the whole thing.

Yesterday, via twitter:

Rep. Vicky Hartzler ‏ @RepHartzler

Today’s the 2nd Anniversary of ObamaCare being signed into law w/ it’s higher costs & less access. Repeal it! 6:09 PM – 22 Mar 12

Today, from the White House [pdf]:

….Health reform is already making a difference. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act:

•• 2.5 million more young adults have health insurance on their parent’s plan.

•• In 2010 and 2011, over 5.1 million seniors and people with disabilities on Medicare have saved over $3.1 billion on prescription drugs. These savings include a one-time $250 rebate check to seniors who hit the “donut hole” coverage gap in 2010, and a 50 percent discount on brand-name drugs in the donut hole in 2011. And everyone with Medicare can get key preventive services like mammograms and other cancer screening tests for free.

•• Insurance companies can no longer drop your coverage when you get sick because of a mistake on your application, put a lifetime cap on the dollar amount of coverage you can receive or raise your premiums with no accountability.

•• Insurance companies can no longer deny coverage to children because of a pre-existing condition. And in 2014, discriminating against anyone with a pre-existing condition will be prohibited….

….•• No more pre-existing condition denials for children: The parents of over 17.6 million children with pre-existing conditions no longer have to worry that their children will be denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition.

•• No more lifetime dollar limits on coverage: 105 million Americans no longer have a lifetime dollar limit on essential health benefits. Annual dollar limits are set at increasingly higher amounts until January 1, 2014 when most plans issued or renewed are banned from having an annual dollar limit on coverage….

There is a difference.

Evidently Representative Hartzler (r) and the other right wingers in Congress resort to Twitter when it comes to criticizing health care reform. A real solution to the real health care access problems for all Americans takes more than 140 characters. And the republicans don’t have any real solutions.  

The Senate voted today to table Senator Roy Blunt’s (r) amendment. You know, the one which would allow any company or entity to eliminate any health care coverage on the grounds that they found it morally objectionable. The vote was close (a yes vote was to kill the amendment, a no vote was to support it):

U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 112th Congress – 2nd Session

[….]

Vote Summary

Question: On the Motion to Table (Motion to Table Blunt Amdt. No. 1520 )

Vote Number: 24 Vote Date: March 1, 2012, 11:31 AM

Required For Majority: 1/2 Vote Result: Motion to Table Agreed to

Amendment Number: S.Amdt. 1520 to S.Amdt. 1730 to S. 1813 (MAP-21)

Statement of Purpose: To amend the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to protect rights of conscience with regard to requirements for coverage of specific items and services.

Vote Counts: YEAs 51

NAYs 48

Not Voting 1

[….]

Blunt (R-MO), Nay

McCaskill (D-MO), Yea

[….]

The discussion at the Great Orange Satan before the vote was interesting:

….Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) is a cosponsor of the amendment, so he’ll be a no. Other Democrats to watch are Joe Manchin (WV), Bob Casey (PA), and Claire McCaskill (MO)….

[emphasis added]

That’s what happens when you consistently help pull the Overton Window to the right.

Previously:

Roy Blunt tries to pull a fast one (February 10, 2012)

Sen. Roy Blunt (r): desperately trying to cram the genie back into the bottle (February 15, 2012)

For Roy Blunt free-market anarchism trumps religious freedom (February 15, 2012)

We knew that already (February 17, 2012)

Roy Blunt’s contraception “Fact Check” is short on facts (February 21, 2012)

More proof that the Blunt-Rubio-Ayotte Amendment is a loser (February 21, 2012)

Today, via Twitter:

Rep. Vicky Hartzler @RepHartzler

The First Amendment isn’t something to be “balanced.” It must be revered in all areas of government! #religiousliberty #consciencerights 11:38 AM – 15 Feb 12

Rep. Vicky Hartzler @RepHartzler

I support conscience protections for all people and organizations. No one should be forced by the gov’t to violate their faith! #HR1179 11:40 AM – 15 Feb 12

Justice Antonin Scalia, delivering the opinion of the court in 1990, in Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith (494 U.S. 872):

….The “compelling government interest” requirement seems benign, because it is familiar from other fields. But using it as the standard that must be met before the government may accord different treatment on the basis of race, see, e.g., [p886] Palmore v. Sidoti, 466 U.S. 429, 432 (1984), or before the government may regulate the content of speech, see, e.g., Sable Communications of California v. FCC, 492 U.S. 115 (1989), is not remotely comparable to using it for the purpose asserted here. What it produces in those other fields — equality of treatment, and an unrestricted flow of contending speech — are constitutional norms; what it would produce here — a private right to ignore generally applicable laws — is a constitutional anomaly….

….If the “compelling interest” test is to be applied at all, then, it must be applied across the board, to all actions thought to be religiously commanded. Moreover, if “compelling interest” really means what it says (and watering it down here would subvert its rigor in the other fields where it is applied), many laws will not meet the test. Any society adopting such a system would be courting anarchy, but that danger increases in direct proportion to the society’s diversity of religious beliefs, and its determination to coerce or suppress none of them. Precisely because “we are a cosmopolitan nation made up of people of almost every conceivable religious preference,” Braunfeld v. Brown, 366 U.S. at 606, and precisely because we value and protect that religious divergence, we cannot afford the luxury of deeming presumptively invalid, as applied to the religious objector, every regulation of conduct that does not protect an interest of the highest order. The rule respondents favor would open the prospect of constitutionally required religious exemptions from civic obligations of almost every conceivable kind — ranging from [p889] compulsory military service, see, e.g., Gillette v. United States, 401 U.S. 437 (1971), to the payment of taxes, see, e.g., United States v. Lee, supra; to health and safety regulation such as manslaughter and child neglect laws, see, e.g., Funkhouser v. State, 763 P.2d 695 (Okla.Crim.App.1988), compulsory vaccination laws, see, e.g., Cude v. State, 237 Ark. 927, 377 S.W.2d 816 (1964), drug laws, see, e.g., Olsen v. Drug Enforcement Administration, 279 U.S.App.D.C. 1, 878 F.2d 1458 (1989), and traffic laws, see Cox v. New Hampshire, 312 U.S. 569 (1941); to social welfare legislation such as minimum wage laws, see Susan and Tony Alamo Foundation v. Secretary of Labor, 471 U.S. 290 (1985), child labor laws, see Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158 (1944), animal cruelty laws, see, e.g., Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye Inc. v. City of Hialeah, 723 F.Supp. 1467 (S.D.Fla.1989), cf. State v. Massey, 229 N.C. 734, 51 S.E.2d 179, appeal dism’d, 336 U.S. 942 (1949), environmental protection laws, see United States v. Little, 638 F.Supp. 337 (Mont.1986), and laws providing for equality of opportunity for the races, see, e.g., Bob Jones University v. United States, 461 U.S. 574, 603-604 (1983). The First Amendment’s protection of religious liberty does not require this….

….It may fairly be said that leaving accommodation to the political process will place at a relative disadvantage those religious practices that are not widely engaged in; but that unavoidable consequence of democratic government must be preferred to a system in which each conscience is a law unto itself or in which judges weigh the social importance of all laws against the centrality of all religious beliefs….

[emphasis added]

A disadvantage for religious practices that are not widely engaged in? How ironic, via Public Policy Polling:

February 10, 2012

Our polling on the birth control issue

[….]

– 56% of voters generally support the birth control benefit, while 37% are opposed. Independents strongly favor it, 55/36, and a lot more Republicans (36%) support it than Democrats (20%) oppose it. Women are for it by a 63/29 margin.

– Only 39% of voters support an exemption for Catholic hospitals and universities from providing the benefit, while 57% are opposed to one.

– There is a major disconnect between the leadership of the Catholic Church and rank and file Catholic voters on this issue. We did an over sample of almost 400 Catholics and found that they support the benefit overall, 53-44, and oppose an exception for Catholic hospitals and universities, 53-45. The Bishops really are not speaking for Catholics as a whole on this issue.

[….]

[emphasis added]

Effectively, Representative Hartzler (r) wants to use a law (HR 1179) to enforce the rules of a religious hierarchy over its members (and everyone else).