Tick-Tock--The Clock is Running

++ Darryl Issa has taken his kangaroo court on the road to four states to investigate Obamacare.

++He better act fast because in 43 days, it will be too late. Republicans will have to explain how they are going to strip millions of Americans of their healthcare,deprived millions more of Medicaid and repeal all the benefits the ACA provides for the rest of us. And they only have 12 legislative days to do it.

++Presidents since Theodore Roosevelt have sought to provide healthcare for all Americans. This President using our broken down system of insurance achieved what none of them have. 

++We will hear more outrageous complaints for the next several years. But one thing is certain the whole debate on healthcare has finally changed. President Obama controls the language. It is accepted at least publicly by Republicans that no one should be denied insurance because of a pre-existing condition,there should not be lifetime caps on health expenditures and that adult children should be covered by their parents' insurance. While the media keep manufacturing some imagined crisis,the Republicans have no alternative. 

++You can see this with Ross Douhat's musings about how catastrophic insurance might lower costs--very little. David Frum basically throws in the towel and says that ACA is here to stay with so many entrenched interests supporting it. 

++It is going to be interesting this coming year to see the Republican governors explain why 5 million of their citizens can't have access to Medicaid because they rejected the expansion. 

++Where was the media when 44,000 Americans were being tossed off insurance every month from 2008-2010? Where were the media stories of 70% of personal bankruptcies being the result of medical bills? Where were the media stories about how the majority of these bankruptcies were by individuals who had medical insurance?

++The health care situation in this country has been in a crisis for many years and unlike Bush who fled Katrina, President Obama rushed in to offer a solution.

++Robert Kuttner writes in the Huffington Post that Obama by using the insurance industry failed to provide a simpler solution--Medicare for all. Does anyone think that this would not face as stiff resistance as Obamacare?

++I just have to restrain myself on stories like I saw this afternoon about a Dallas television broadcasting a clip from Veritas of an Urban League receptionist offering advice to someone wanting to sign up for Obamacare. The whole subtext was that black people may want healthcare and that somehow the Urban League is involved in fraud. Taking the Urban League for ACORN is too much. But the reason the GOP in places like Texas don't set up state exchanges or expand Medicaid is because the state does not want minorities to receive any benefits.

++The Democrats would be crazy to walk away from the ACA now since this was a dream for so long. Political reporters here in D.C. proclaim that Democrats are fleeing the ACA,President Obama's credibility is damaged and that soon the ACA would be repealed. 

++Make my day, the clock is ticking and you don't have it in you to strip millions of Americans of their health insurance. You may do this with foodstamps in the middle of the night but you couldn't resist hooting if you actually did it.