Progressive Opinion

economix.blogs.nytimes.com — The world’s largest banks have been accused of many things in recent years, including taking excessive risk in the run-up to 2008, doing great damage to the American economy by blowing themselves up and then working hard to resist any sensible notions of financial reform. All of this is true, but it misses what is likely to be the most profound negative impact of the banks’ behavior on most Americans. The banks’ actions led directly to an increase in government debt, which in turn has made the reduction of that debt by “cutting runaway spending” a centerpiece of the Republican presidential campaign to date. As a result of this pressure, Medicare now stands on the brink of being eliminated as a viable form of social insurance. Yet the executives who lead these banks – and the politicians with whom they work closely – will not be held accountable this election season. How is this possible?

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economix.blogs.nytimes.com — The world’s largest banks have been accused of many things in recent years, including taking excessive risk in the run-up to 2008, doing great damage to the American economy by blowing themselves up and then working hard to resist any sensible notions of financial reform. All of this is true, but it misses what is likely to be the most profound negative impact of the banks’ behavior on most Americans. The banks’ actions led directly to an increase in government debt, which in turn has made the reduction of that debt by “cutting runaway spending” a centerpiece of the Republican presidential campaign to date. As a result of this pressure, Medicare now stands on the brink of being eliminated as a viable form of social insurance. Yet the executives who lead these banks – and the politicians with whom they work closely – will not be held accountable this election season. How is this possible?

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commondreams.org — There has never been any doubt in my mind that if I face another cancer diagnosis that requires prolonged treatments and has an uncertain outcome, I would rather die than fight it. As an insured American who knows first-hand how quickly a cancer in my body turns to full out trauma in my career and in my finances, I just cannot do it again nor can I ask my husband to risk his own life and security either. It wouldn’t be fair. It’s not that I believe every cancer is a death sentence. But I am 57 years old now -- old enough to be an expensive liability in our society, but too young to be covered by Medicare. If I face a serious illness like cancer again that costs me an awful lot in out-of-pocket expenses not covered by insurance, I will doom my husband to struggles he doesn’t need and that are not his fault. Bad enough that one of us should be sick, there is certainly no need for me to take him down with the ship.

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huffingtonpost.com — If there is a group of people more anxious about how the Supreme Court will rule on the health care reform law than President Obama and the millions of Americans who are already benefiting from it, it is health insurance executives. Not only have their companies been spending millions of dollars implementing the parts of the law that pertains to them -- and most of them do -- but they also have been counting on the law as very possibly the only thing that can preserve the free market system of health insurance in this country. This is why it is so ironic that defenders of the free market are the most vocal critics of the law and the ones hoping most ardently that the Court will declare it unconstitutional.

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truthdig.com — The night after President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act was being mercilessly attacked by U.S. Supreme Court conservatives, I was surprised to find a group of Obama volunteers cheerfully gathered in a nondescript office building east of Los Angeles to make phone calls for the president’s campaign. I wondered at their good spirits. It was as though they hadn’t heard about the hostile reception Obamacare had received at the Supreme Court. But, as I learned, they knew about it and were fully aware of the tough fight Obama faces in November, no doubt against Mitt Romney, who by then will have remade himself into a faux centrist. Many of their phone calls—even to old Obama supporters—require a hard sell. And they know what’s at stake, including future appointments to the Supreme Court. I saw that their good cheer stemmed from determination and the belief they are well prepared for the battle ahead.

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prospect.org — Someday, all Americans will have access to health care, just as all people in Germany and France and Japan and Sweden and every other advanced industrialized democracy do today. It may take a decade or two after the implementation of the Affordable Care Act in 2014 (if it survives the whims of Anthony Kennedy) to fill in the gaps the law leaves behind, or it may take decades beyond that. But it will surely happen eventually. And at some point after it does, we'll come to a consensus as a society that it was a collective moral failure that we allowed things to be otherwise for so long. In those other countries they came to that realization some time ago, and today they look at us and shake their heads in amazement that their American friends could tolerate and even defend such needless and widespread suffering in their land. But our own collective moral sensibilities still have a good way to go.

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dailykos.com — The New York Times notices something that we lefty bloggers have been talking about for quite awhile: that "repeal and replace" mantra the Republicans ran on in 2010 was a fraud. They never had a "replacement" plan and had no intention of doing the hard work to create one. Now they might have to, and they're going back to some old, half-baked ideas.

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thedailybeast.com — Too many analysts are focusing on Romney's weakness among conservatives. That's not the problem. Republicans have the greatest tool in history for motivating conservatives to vote Republican in November: Barack Obama. So, yes, the right will sigh, shrug, and settle for Mitt. And no, their hearts won't be in it — until they see the first Obama rally. The sight of our president standing before 50,000 cheering Democrats, looking like a cross between JFK and Al Green, will send them running, not walking, to the polls. No, Romney's problem isn’t ideology; it's demography. And so all his desperate and pathetic pandering to the kook right has solved a problem he never really had — and created a problem he may not be able to cure: Women. Latinos. Seniors. The moves Romney made in the primary season put him in a deep hole with these three key constituencies.

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slate.com — Conservative intellectuals are feeling giddy. Last week they feasted on the veritable mauling of Solicitor General Donald Verrilli by the Supreme Court’s five conservative justices. It is now conventional wisdom that health care reform—the Affordable Care Act, to be precise—will be deemed unconstitutional, at least in part. I tell the students in my class at the City College of New York that “five” is the most powerful number in the nation. For as we have seen, five votes on the Supreme Court can pick a president—voters notwithstanding—and five votes could redefine our understanding of Congress’ power under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution—precedents notwithstanding. So maybe the conservative celebration is merited. Yet it is also plausible that an element of hubris has overtaken the right. Because, in this moment of conservative glee, there are a few things—indisputable facts—that should not be forgotten, factors that might yet transform glee into a moment of hubris.

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huffingtonpost.com — The conventional wisdom following the oral arguments before the Supreme Court last week is that, at the least, the health insurance mandate portion of the Affordable Care Act is going down. Many observers thought it likely that the Republican-controlled court would strike down the entire bill. Either way, it will be necessary to do some serious rethinking of health care policy. The simpler case, where the mandate is struck down but most of the rest of the bill is left intact, could likely be repaired without great difficulty. Even assuming that the Republicans keep control of Congress, a fix may be possible. However, we will be in a qualitatively different world if the Court rules that the bill in its entirety is unconstitutional. That puts health care reform back at square one.

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