Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from> around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
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Paul Krugman: Conservatism’s Monstrous Endgame
The midterm elections were, to an important extent, a referendum on the Affordable Care Act; health care, not Donald Trump, dominated Democratic campaigning. And voters delivered a clear verdict: They want Obamacare’s achievements, the way it expanded coverage to roughly 20 million people who would otherwise have been uninsured, to be sustained.
But on Friday, Reed O’Connor, a partisan Republican judge known for “weaponizing” his judicial power, declared the A.C.A. as a whole — protection for pre-existing conditions, subsidies to help families afford coverage, and the Medicaid expansion — unconstitutional. Legal experts from both right and left ridiculed his reasoning and described his ruling as “raw political activism.” And that ruling probably won’t be sustained by higher courts.
But don’t be too sure that his sabotage will be overturned. O’Connor’s abuse of power may be unusually crude, but that sort of behavior is becoming increasingly common. And it’s not just health care, nor is it just the courts. What Nancy Pelosi called the “monstrous endgame” of the Republican assault on health care is just the leading edge of an attack on multiple fronts, as the G.O.P. tries to overturn the will of the voters and undermine democracy in general.
Elizabeth Warren: It’s time to let the government manufacture generic drugs
Forty-seven states and the Justice Department are investigating a price-fixing conspiracy that’s driving up the cost of generic drugs in the United States. One investigator called it “most likely the largest cartel in the history of the United States.” This crisis calls for action. That is why I’m introducing legislation to authorize the public manufacture of generic drugs wherever drug companies have warped markets to drive up prices.
Drug companies use the “free market” as a shield against any effort to reduce prices for families. But they’re not operating in a free market; they’re operating in a market that’s rigged to line their pockets and limit competition. The entire pharmaceutical industry in reality runs on government-granted monopolies, mostly in the form of long-term patent protections.
This system, intended to compensate drug companies for innovation costs, should be closely scrutinized. One of its few remaining virtues is supposed to be that when these exclusive monopolies run out, market competition kicks in to produce cheap, generic versions for consumers. Sounds great — but it isn’t working.
Antibiotics, steroids, heart medications, thyroid pills — nearly 90 percent of American prescriptions are written for generics. But the generic drug market is fundamentally broken.
Michelle Cottle: Chaos? A Trump Specialty
’Twas the week before Christmas, and all through the House, not a creature was stirring — even though a chunk of the federal government will shut down at week’s end unless Congress and President Trump reconcile his demand for $5 billion in border-wall funding with Democratic lawmakers’ position that they’d rather eat their own toenails than approve a penny for his folly.
Lest anyone have any doubts, if a shutdown does come to pass at midnight on Friday, when parts of the government are set to run out of funding, this president will own it 110 percent. Lawmakers, in a rare display of bipartisan, bicameral unity, have made this abundantly clear — in large part because Mr. Trump has given them no other choice.[..]
Whatever his ultimate plan — assuming he has one — the president is clearly looking to wring every ounce of drama he can from this game of chicken. These standoffs jibe neatly with his belief that negotiations, and life in general, are a never-ending battle of nerve. He lives to make the other side blink and is eager to signal that he’ll do whatever it takes to win.
Katrina vanden Heuvel: Why the time has come for a Green New Deal
Almost 20 years ago, writer Mark Hertsgaard suggested a bold idea to upend the climate debate. Arguing that ambitious climate action was politically impossible without simultaneously meeting people’s economic needs, he proposed a massive public works program to “retrofit everything from our farms to our factories” that would be “a huge source of jobs, profits, and general economic well-being.” He called it the Global Green Deal.
Now, as climate scientists warn ever more urgently that humanity must immediately transform and decarbonize our economies to avoid an unlivable future, this idea’s political moment has finally arrived. A new generation of progressive activists and lawmakers has forced debate over a Green New Deal into the national conversation. Likely 2020 Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Cory Booker are just two of the scores of elected officials who have endorsed a Green New Deal. Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) is organizing House Democrats to draft and pass corresponding legislation.
Catherine Rampell: Republicans’ relentless attempts to undermine Obamacare escalate American anxiety
“How many times do we have to go through this?”
That’s what Kathy Tomasic wants to know. Painstakingly, she has planned her life — and that of her teenage son, who has a rare genetic disorder — around access to health care. She did so based on a specific set of assumptions about what kinds of insurance would be available to her family, under what conditions and for how many years.
But Friday, that careful planning was once again thrown into doubt — this time by a federal judge’s decision declaring the entire Affordable Care Act unconstitutional.
In public remarks, Republicans have tried to reassure the public by saying that “Nothing changes tomorrow.” This case may or may not make its way up to the Supreme Court, they note; the high court may or may not reverse the ruling; and Congress may or may not pass new legislation ultimately preserving the many popular provisions of Obamacare, which, by the way, turn out to be almost every major provision of Obamacare.
In other words: Don’t worry! It could well be years before this latest threat to the law you depend on does damage!
Coming from Republicans, this is truly a bizarre message.
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