Forcing the Issue

After seeing the assignment for this week’s blog, I became quite excited about reading up on the Affordable Care Act as I have very little knowledge of its specifics. Unfortunately, I have not been motivated to really look into Obama’s proposal because it really does not have much of an effect on me in the immediate future. However, I do understand the historic importance of the act as it is probably of the largest and most contentious pieces of legislation that has been passed in my lifetime. Furthermore, I believe that it represents the first significant health care reform passed since Truman’s presidency (correct me if I am wrong). As indicated in the directions, I began my research by taking the quiz on the Act and, much to my surprise, got 6 out of 10 correct. I was slightly impressed by my results, but have to admit that I guess on about half of them.

In choosing exactly what aspect on the act that I wanted to focus on, I thought it would be prudent to start with arguably the most important part: the Individual Mandate. Ultimately, I wanted to start here because it appears to be the most controversial part of the reform and the part that is most important for it to work as planned. Now I will attempt to explain it as I understand it:

Blog Post 7 (Affordable Care Act)

In March 2010, over three years ago today, Obama and his administration passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), also known as “Obamacare.” Even the name has been a political football with Obama at first not wanting it labeled with his name as Republicans were doing,  and then embracing it.  This has been a topic that has swirled in our newsfeeds and is frequently a topic of conversation. Yet, much of the general public does not know the details or even the major facts of the act.   In fact, the Democratic party has been proposing some form of national health insurance since at least President Truman.

However, it seems the government, politicians, and the media have not done a great job explaining this law.

TAKE THIS QUIZ... post your answer below.  Th BC would be surprised in you get 2-3 right.

For this week, we invite you to learn more about the act, which, in reality, has many, many parts.   Write about one specific provision or aspect of the PPACA law.  Use  good resources about the PPACA explore one aspect of the act that you had not previously known about.  Your goal is to explain what it does in specific terms.

This post links into doing paper 2 and the final paper in terms of information literacy.  To explain your provision, you may find government sites, news coverage, research centers, or think tanks are useful.

We invite you to learn about it it “before’ you put on your own political lenses.  Does the provision or aspect you describe seem like a good idea?

After you have done so, please think back to last week and analyze the provision FROM your apparent political ideology.

PLEASE, try NOT to repeat topics!

Refusal to Stop the Time Bomb

A protester depicts the frustration of the American people towards government officials

I must preface this post by saying that I lean toward a conservative political ideology, but after digging deeper into the viewpoints of liberals regarding the government shutdown and debt crisis, I understand their point of view.  Republicans were essentially holding the nation’s economy hostage in leaving the government unopened and threatening not to raise the debt ceiling if Obamacare is not repealed.  I agree that targeting the Affordable Care Act, the legacy of President Obama’s term, was a poor move because even if Republicans could muscle their way into getting enough votes to edit the legislation through Congress, the President would veto it.

That being said, Democrats are just as much to blame as Republicans.  They refused to negotiate on any terms unless the government was first opened and the debt ceiling was raised long-term. Harry Reid essentially was telling Republicans to concede to all of the Democrats’ terms and then negotiations will begin. This caused strict partisanship and lengthened the government shutdown, as Republicans could not find any common ground with Democrats.