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The conservatives in Congress are already queuing up to offer proposals that would gut amend Obamacare. For instance, leaders McConnell and Boehner are already proposing to raise the threshold number of hours that employees must work per week from 30 to 40 in order to trigger the mandate that their employer provide coverage.

As Paul Van de Water of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities explains on the blog Off the Charts, this will be a destructive idea that will actually lead to less full-time employment:

ACA work thresholdCritics of health reform claim that employers are shifting some employees to part-time work to avoid offering them health insurance.  But the data provide scant evidence of such a shift.

Moreover, raising the threshold for mandating coverage from 30 to 40 hours would make a shift toward part-time employment much more likely — not less so.

Only about 7 percent of employees work 30 to 34 hours (that is, at or modestly above health reform’s 30-hour threshold), but 44 percent of employees work 40 hours a week and thus would be vulnerable to cuts in their hours if the threshold rose to 40 hours.  Under the Boehner-McConnell proposal, employers could easily cut back large numbers of employees from 40 to 39 hours so they wouldn’t have to offer them health coverage.

The bottom line according to Van de Water:

There’s little evidence to date that health reform has caused a shift to part-time work.  There’s every reason to expect the impact to be small as a share of total employment, as we have explained.  And raising the cutoff for the employer mandate from 30 to 40 hours a week would be a step in the wrong direction.

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The powerful combination of history, an inexhaustible money machine and shameless gerrymandering produced impressive electoral victories for the Right in this week’s election, but it also remains a powerful truth that when you actually ask voters directly for their opinions on core pocketbook issues, they continue to favor progressive solutions.

You’ve probably already heard about the overwhelming success of several minimum wage hike proposals around the country, but here’s another striking example in which even red state voters voted overwhelmingly for the progressive position: Medicaid expansion in Wisconsin.

On Tuesday, the Badger state held an advisory referendum in which voters in 19 counties and one mid-size city were asked whether the state should expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.

The vote: Yes – 73%, No-27%.

Now, mind you, the referendum wasn’t just conducted in a few liberal bastions. Read More

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Medicaid expansionConservative political support for one of the central components of Obamacare continues to grow. The latest conversion: North Carolina House Speaker Thom Tillis.

This is from a story by reporter Craig Jarvis in Raleigh’s News & Observer about Tillis’  televised appearance on Time Warner Cable’s “Capital Tonight” show last evening:

Medicaid: Asked if he thought it would be likely that the state legislature would expand Medicaid coverage after refusing to do so previously, Tillis said it might make sense once the state has better control of the financing of the program, which is notorious for its cost overruns.

He said he didn’t have an ideological objection to expanding the coverage. But he said when the state auditor told the previous governor that money was being wasted on it, the appropriate response would not have been to make it bigger and more costly.

“I would encourage the state legislature and governor to consider it if they’re completely convinced they now have the situation under control,” Tillis said.

In other words, the Speaker is echoing the McCrory administration’s imperfect but mostly encouraging line on the issue. Let’s fervently hope that Tillis’ successor as House Speaker and Senate President Pro Tem Berger adopt this same common-sense stance so that the matter can be disposed of as early in 2015 as possible.

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The ideologues on the far right may continue to scream for “repeal” of Obamacare, but the evidence continues to pile up that this is simply not something that’s going to happen. That was the analysis delivered by Judy Waxman of the National Women’s Law Center at this morning’s NC Policy Watch Crucial Conversation breakfast in Raleigh. Waxman noted that amendments to the ACA are certainly likely — indeed, she thinks they are essential — but based on decades of experience in Washington and her numerous political and policy contacts around the country, she believes repeal is simply not in the cards.

Waxman’s analysis is consistent with this AP story that ran on several North Carolina news sites this morning. This is from the version that ran in Raleigh’s News & Observer under the headline “GOP governors don’t see ‘Obamacare’ going away”:

Nine Republican governors have expanded Medicaid for low-income people in their states, despite their own misgivings and adamant opposition from conservative legislators. Three more governors are negotiating with the Democratic administration in Washington.

Rather than demanding repeal, the governors generally have sought federal concessions to make their decisions more politically acceptable at home. That approach is in sharp contrast to the anti-Obamacare fervor of their party in Congress.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich says he doesn’t think there will be a repeal in Washington, even if Republicans win a Senate majority and consolidate their hold on the House in next month’s election.

“That’s not gonna happen,” the Republican governor told The Associated Press during a recent re-election campaign swing.

This take on the situation is consistent with the views expressed recently and repeatedly by the McCrory administration of late that Medicaid expansion in North Carolina under the ACA should and will occur in the near future.

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Conspiracy kooksThere’s very little that right-wing opponents of President Obama and the Affordable Care Act aren’t willing to claim in public about America’s increasingly successful and transformative health care law. From “death panels” to imaginary massive tax hikes to allegations about global conspiracies and plots to impose martial law and suspend the Constitution, the loony conspiracy theories are as endlessly creative as they are delusional.

As a general matter, the kookiness does seem to be somewhat on the wane of late as the ACA slowly but surely moves millions of new people onto the insurance rolls while helping to contain the growth in health care costs. Heck, even the McCrory administration has finally recognized that North Carolina must expand Medicaid under the ACA.

For a few true believers and unrepentant, whatever-it-takes propagandists, however, the battle is still on and just about any anti-Obamacare claim — however preposterous — will do. For a classic example, check out this post by a staffer over at the Locke Foundation entitled “Medicaid Expansion Could Steer Resources Away From the Most Vulnerable.” Here, as best as can be determined, is the “argument”: Read More

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