Ari Shapiro reports at npr.org on “Obama’s Next Big Campaign: Selling Health Care To The Public,” leading up to October 1, when 7 million uninsured Americans will be able to purchase health insurance on the public exchanges implemented by the AffordableCare Act.
At The Plum Line, Jonathan Bernstein explains why it makes sense to ignore the latest CNN poll finding that 54 percent oppose Obamacare: “Yes, 54 percent oppose the ACA, but almost half of those think it’s not liberal enough…it won’t really matter what people thought they were going to get in the many long months before the law was fully implemented. So if you want to know what people will think of Obamacare next year, follow the news on implementation — not the current polls.”
Also at The Plum Line, Jamelle Bouie has some sobering advice for Republicans regarding the ACA: “…At this point, repeal is unlikely. With President Obama’s reelection, we crossed a point of no return. States have already begun to implement major provisions of the Affordable Care Act, and governors of all stripes — including conservatives like Arizona’s Jan Brewer — are pressuring their legislatures to sign on to the program. Within a year, large numbers of Americans will begin to see concrete benefits from the law, giving them reason to support the system as a whole…Even if a Republican wins the White House in 2016, the Affordable Care Act is likely to survive, for the simple reason that people don’t like to lose benefits. Republicans will have to accept Obamacare as part of the political landscape and move on.”
Joshua Holland’s Alternet post “How America’s Retirement Crisis Is Crushing the Hopes of a Generation of Young People” merits a thoughtful read, especially by Democratic policy-makers and strategists.
Former Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole has cited the GOP’s gridlock strategy in congress in saying his party should be “closed for repairs.” In some states, however, Republicans are actually reversing social and economic reforms. As Michael A. Fletcher reports at The Washington Post, North Carolina has become the new laboratory for right-wing “reforms.” He quotes Rev. William J. Barber II, head of the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP: “Most of the laws that take us backwards do not come out of Congress but out of state legislatures.” Barber is leading a growing protest movement against the GOP assault on social programs and voting rights in the state capitol.
For more on the NC protests, check out Sue Sturgis’s by-the-numbers post at Facing South.
TNR’s Alec Macgillis writes on the arrival of a much tougher gun-control movement.
In his WaPo column on “The Obama Riddle,” D. J. Dionne, Jr. shares a perceptive take on the President’s leadership style: “He’s an anti-ideological leader in an ideological age, a middle-of-the-road liberal skeptical of the demands placed on a movement leader, a politician often disdainful of the tasks that politics asks him to perform. He wants to invite the nation to reason together with him when nearly half the country thinks his premises and theirs are utterly at odds.”
Do share Paul Krugman’s review article “How the Case for Austerity Has Crumbled” at the New York Review of Books with your swing voter friends and acquaintances.
Media Matters’ Tyler Hansen’s “Collapsing Bridges, Collapsing Spending, And Neil Cavuto’s Infrastructure Denialism” shows just how distorted MSM reporting can be on an issue of public safety. Or, as one of the post’s commenters puts it: “this is why we can’t have nice things.”