So back in December, @JonWalkerDC wrote a piece for us showing that the threat to the Affordable Care Act from litigation before the Supreme Court could be neutralized with a one-line bill. Since that's more important than ever, we re-ran that today.
The lawsuit says that if the individual mandate is $0 it's not a tax, therefore the whole bill must fall.
It's a dumb lawsuit.
But the solution is: repeal the individual mandate. No mandate, no lawsuit.
There's an active fight right now over the must-pass government funding bill. McConnell wants money for a farm bailout in it. Pelosi could demand this one-line rider go in, to save the ACA.
This could happen right now, but we've been arguing this since *December*
It could have gone in the first coronavirus bill. Or the second. Or the third. Or the fourth. It could have gone into any must-pass bill over the past two years. There was no reason to put the ACA at risk, and there still isn't. Read the piece. prospect.org/health/pelosi-…
Even if you believe that McConnell and the GOP would rather shut down the government than give up a shot at killing Obamacare, the way that would have to do it here—by opposing the repeal of the individual mandate—would be political gold for Democrats.
Any member of the House could at least file this amendment to the government funding bill, and put pressure on the Rules Committee, which is in Pelosi's pocket, to put it up for a vote. Who's going to decide to save healthcare for 20 million people?
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
So:
Judge Pittman (Trump judge in Texas) got the Chamber's challenge to CFPB credit card late fees.
He said it wasn't germane to Texas, sent it to DC
The 5th Circuit said no, sent it back to Pittman
And now Pittman put it on hold. accountable.us/wp-content/upl…
Pittman clearly seems mad about how the process went and mad at the Chamber. He even added this graph of the winding timeline of the case.
But that didn't stop him from ruling for big banks.
The preliminary injunction is entirely based on the 5th Circuit's ruling that CFPB is using unconstitutionally derived funds.
That's at the Supreme Court now & will likely be overturned, and then presumably Pittman and the Fightin' 5th will come up with another reason.
The $138 billion in student debt that's been relieved by Biden has nothing to do with his "Plan B" for debt relief after the Plan A was shot down by the courts. It's just about Biden's Education Department running existing forgiveness programs with a modicum of competence.
Today's announcement, for example, involves the speedy implementation of the updated income-driven repayment (SAVE) program, which promised that people paying 10 years with less than $12,000 in debt would get it forgiven. npr.org/2024/02/21/123…
$56.7bn in debt relief came from actually fulfilling Public Service Loan Forgiveness, which almost nobody successfully navigated before Biden.
Another $45.7bn came from fixing servicer errors on income-driven repayment to give debtors what they deserved ed.gov/news/press-rel…
The UAW's selective strike strategy is new for UAW, but it's been very successful for one other union. So much so that they trademarked the practice.
That would be @afa_cwa's CHAOS strategy. 🧵
CHAOS stands for Creating Havoc Around Our System. It began at Alaska Airlines in 1993. There was a protracted strike with the flight attendants, despite the airline earning record profits. Negotiations had dragged on for 3 years.
Under the Railway Labor Act, the flight attendants' union had the authority to devise intermittent surprise strikes, walking off flights at the last minute.
I read @FranklinFoer's Biden bio The Last Politician, and found this disconnect between a peripatetic presidency of action and the public perception that nothing's happening. What accounts for it? Maybe it's the White House's theory of politics. prospect.org/culture/books/…
Reading the accounts of Biden directing meetings and horse-trading with Congress—the work of politics—is so disconnected from this White House's extreme cloistering of the president that it called to mind the old SNL Reagan mastermind sketch:
No review has yet highlighted the bits about how much Biden dislikes Zelensky. At one point, CIA director Bill Burns had to give Zelensky “relationship-management tips.” prospect.org/culture/books/…
Aug 7: Josh Wright suddenly announces he's leaving GMU
Aug 7: Prof Laser releases Wright's attempt to turn a job interview into a date ()
Aug 8: GMU bids Wright a fond farewell ()
Aug 14: Law360 publishes account of two GMU students who say they were coerced into sexual relations with Wright, then were denied job opportunities when they broke it off law360.com/legalindustry/…
Our business of health care series continues with a history of UnitedHealth, the largest insurer & the largest employer of physicians in the country, with so many subsidiaries that 25% of its revenues come from *itself*.
From @SaraLSirota & @KristaKBrown. prospect.org/health/2023-08…
We go through UnitedHealth's entire history, from its founding as a way around state laws that required HMOs to be nonprofits run by physicians to its serial acquisitions of just about everything in healthcare.
https://t.co/DYbarYOQxJprospect.org/health/2023-08…
PBMs? UnitedHealth invented them.
Medicare Advantage? United's the biggest private company.
Health savings accounts? United has a *bank* with $20 billion under management.
IT? United's claims data subsidiary has information on 285 million patients. prospect.org/health/2023-08…