Democracy Corps:
The Republican Party is descending into unchartered realms of unpopularity with the country, even as its deepening divisions leave it immobilized in the face of doomsday budget deadlines.[1] If you want to know why Speaker Boehner has appealed to Democrats for help, you need go no further than the three ascendant blocs of Evangelicals, Tea Party supporters, and moderates that we described in our first Republican Party Project report last month.[2]
But you will understand the current war in the Republican Party better if you are able to see the the six underlying attitudinal dimensions that run through the consciousness of today's Republican Party supporters. It is these dimensions that create the passionate factions at war against ‘Obamacare,” gay marriage, and immigration.
Michelle Singletary:
Under the Affordable Care Act, insurance plans offered in the new marketplaces will have to cover a core set of services called “essential health benefits.” Included on the list of 10 benefits are mental-health and substance-use disorder services, which include behavioral health treatment, counseling and psychotherapy. Specifically, as part of what’s considered preventive services, plans will also cover alcohol-misuse screening and counseling, depression screening for adults and adolescents, domestic and interpersonal violence screening for women, and behavioral assessments for children.
Here are two important points about mental-health coverage under Obamacare. First, the coverage for behavioral health services must be generally comparable with coverage for medical and surgical care. Second, plans offered in the marketplace have to cover preventive services without charging customers a co-payment or coinsurance even if you haven’t met your yearly deductible. But the services have to be delivered by a network provider.
Anyone who claims to want to improve mental health access as a response to gun violence AND opposes Obamacare is a lying weasel. Make that a hypocritical lying weasel. 'Kay? Thanks.
Gail Collins:
The war against Obamacare: All the rationality of a Justin Bieber fan riot, and all the restraint of “Saw VI.”
More politics and policy below the fold.
Greg Sargent:
High profile pundits such as Albert Hunt and Stuart Rothenberg have both suggested Obama’s standing is taking such a hit from the Syria crisis that it could impair his ability to handle domestic politics. Ruth Marcus claims Obama is so diminished that it could have repercussions in the debt limit and government shutdown fights.
The only way to sustain this belief is to ignore the reality of what’s happened for the last five years. The notion that Obama’s “standing” will impact the GOP posture towards him is just deeply strange. How could Republicans be any more intransigent towards Obama than they already have been, short of pursuing impeachment?
Dana Milbank:
Republican sources told The Post’s Ed O’Keefe that in the closed-door meeting, Spokesman Boehner warned the neophytes in the caucus that the 1990s shutdowns were a big boost to President Bill Clinton. “Clinton’s poll numbers were really bad; he was flat on his back,” Spokesman Boehner told the audience, according to the sources.
Several lawmakers in the room chuckled at that remark, taking it as a reference to Clinton’s sex scandals.
They can laugh now, but polls indicate that the public would again blame a government shutdown on the GOP, and rightly so. This is not a case of both sides needing to compromise. Republicans don’t have the votes to enact their policies, so they’re attempting this back-door method: Agree to our demands or we’ll take down the government and the economy. This is government by ransom, piracy over policy
EJ Dionne:
The coming battles over budgets, the debt ceiling, a government shutdown and Obamacare are not elements of a large political game. They involve a fundamental showdown over the role of government in stemming rising inequality and making our country a fairer and more decent place.
Anyone who doesn’t see this should be forgiven. The stakes in this battle are almost always buried in news accounts about tactics and obscured by an unquenchable desire across the media to provide the latest take on whether President Obama is growing “weak” and has already become the lamest of lame ducks.