Knowledge of the Health Care Decision

A number of posts have noted that the public has only limited knowledge of many issues.  The health care decision is an example.  Pew reports:

Despite extensive public interest in the court’s ruling, just 55% of the public knows that the Supreme Court upheld most of the health care law’s provisions; 45% say either that the court rejected most provisions (15%) or do not know what the court did (30%). Among those aware that the court upheld most of the law, 50% approve of the decision while 42% disapprove.
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Just 37% of those younger than 30 know that the court upheld most of the law’s provisions; majorities of older age groups know that the court upheld most provisions. Majorities of those who have attended college answered this correctly, compared with 44% of those with a high school education or less.

Politicians in Movies

Other posts have discussed the linkages between politics and the entertainment industry.  The Washington Post reports:

U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont is renewing his fascination with Batman with a cameo appearance in “The Dark Knight Rises,” which will get its first public showing in his home state.

Leahy was invited to be in the movie and says he learned recently he’ll appear in a scene with Christian Bale, who plays Batman, and Morgan Freeman.

Leahy appeared in The Dark Knight (2008).  At the end of this clip, he confronts the Joker (the late Heath Ledger):



Other politicians have appeared in movies. This clip from the 2000 film Traffic features:

• Governor Bill Weld (R-MA)
• Senator Don Nickles (R-OK)
• Senator Harry Reid (D-NV)
• Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA)
• Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
• Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA)

 

And the 1993 file Dave included a number of real-life political figures.  This clip includes (starting at 3:00):

• Senator Christopher Dodd (D-MA) -- now head of the Motion Picture Association of America
• Senator Alan Simpson (R-WY)
• Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA)
• Senator Howard Metzenbaum (D-OH)
• Senator Paul Simon (D-IL)

It also features journalists Nina Totenberg, John McLaughlin, Eleanor Clift, Morton Kondracke, Bob Novak, and Michael Kinsley.

Medicaid, the Court, and Federalism

Although the court upheld the health care law's individual mandate as a tax, it struck down a provision involving Medicaid, the federal-state health program for low-income and needy people.  From the syllabus:

(a)

 The Spending Clause grants Congress the power “to pay the Debts and provide for the . . . general Welfare of the United States.” Art. I, §8, cl. 1. Congress may use this power to establish cooperative state-federal Spending Clause programs. The legitimacy of Spending Clause legislation, however, depends on whether a State voluntarily and knowingly accepts the terms of such programs. Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 451 U. S. 1, 17. “[T]he Constitution simply does not give Congress the authority to require the States to regulate.” New York v. United States, 505 U. S. 144, 178. When Congress threatens to terminate other grants as a means of pressuring the States to accept a Spending Clause program, the legislation runs counter to this Nation’s system of federalism. Cf. South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U. S. 203, 211. Pp. 45–51.

(b)

Section 1396c gives the Secretary of Health and Human Services the authority to penalize States that choose not to participate in the Medicaid expansion by taking away their existing Medicaid funding. 42 U. S. C. §1396c. The threatened loss of over 10 percent of a State’s overall budget is economic dragooning that leaves the States with no real option but to acquiesce in the Medicaid expansion. The Government claims that the expansion is properly viewed as only a modification of the existing program, and that this modification is permissible because Congress reserved the “right to alter, amend, or repeal any provision” of Medicaid. §1304. But the expansion accomplishes a shift in kind, not merely degree. The original program was designed to cover medical services for particular categories of vulnerable individuals. Under the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid is transformed into a program to meet the health care needs of the entire nonelderly population with income below 133 percent of the poverty level. A State could hardly anticipate that Congress’s reservation of the right to “alter” or “amend” the Medicaid program included the power to transform it so dramatically. The Medicaid expansion thus violates the Constitution by threatening States with the loss of their existing Medicaid funding if they decline to comply with the expansion. Pp. 51–55.

(c)

The constitutional violation is fully remedied by precluding the Secretary from applying §1396c to withdraw existing Medicaid funds for failure to comply with the requirements set out in the expansion. See §1303. The other provisions of the Affordable Care Act are not affected. Congress would have wanted the rest of the Act to stand, had it known that States would have a genuine choice whether to participate in the Medicaid expansion. Pp. 55–58.

Dylan Scott writes at Governing:

What does this mean for other federal-state programs? Federal education funding, for example, is based on states meeting certain student achievement goals. Likewise, states must meet federal safety requirements to receive some infrastructure and transportation funding. Does the Court's decision change the federal-state relationship and lay the grounds to challenge future attempts by Congress to set conditions for federal funding to states?

“I think that’s the million-dollar question, and it might,” said Lisa Soronen, executive director of the State and Local Legal Center, during a discussion on the ruling’s implications Friday. “But only time will tell.”

Obama "Truth Team"

At United Features Syndicate, Cokie and Steven V. Roberts reported back in February on a mass email by Stephanie Cutter, deputy manager of the Obama campaign:

Cutter was encouraging recruits to join a "Truth Team" that would promote Obama's record and rebut the charges already being launched by his Republican rivals. As she wrote: "We'll provide resources for you to learn everything you need to know and tools to help you share it with undecided voters in your life." That's three "you's" and one "your" in one sentence.

They point out that the 2008 Obama campaign was a milestone in the political use of social media and communications technology.

Since taking office, Obama has expanded his use of these tools and tactics. Last month, after his State of the Union address, he fielded questions posted on YouTube and Google+. He and his wife, Michelle, have active Twitter accounts. The White House has created a series called "West Wing Week" on Facebook that chronicles the president's travels and statements. Supporters can sign up with Flickr to get a "photo of the day" sent to their inboxes.

Last December, as part of his campaign to extend the payroll tax cut, Obama asked supporters to go online and post descriptions of what they would do with $40 -- the average amount they would lose in each paycheck if the cuts ended. This week he brought several of those storytellers to the White House and urged supporters to bombard Congress again with more Twitter messages using the hashtag ‥40dollars.

At ABC, however, Jake Tapper points out problems with the "truth team" approach, citing a more recent Cutter email:

“Received a robo-call or an email forward full of falsehoods?” the page asks. “Found a misleading leaflet in your mail? Tell us about it, and help fight back against the attacks on President Obama and his record.”

Cutter in her email hammers Mitt Romney for saying “Since President Obama assumed office three years ago, federal spending has accelerated at a pace without precedent in recent history,” which she refutes with a Market Watch blog saying that federal spending is rising at the slowest pace since President Eisenhower.

Here’s the problem: the Market Watch item has been refuted by several fact checkers as severely flawed, notwithstanding its citation by White House press secretary Jay Carney along with the assertion that reporters should “not buy into the BS that you hear about spending and fiscal constraint with regard to this administration. I think doing so is a sign of sloth and laziness.”

The Washington Post’s Fact Checker gave Carney three Pinocchios, writing that the “data in the article are flawed, and the analysis lacks context — context that could easily could be found in the budget documents released by the White House.”

Tapper concludes that "voters should generally beware of campaigns claiming that they are fact checking. They have an interest in conflating nonsense — like the bizarre assertion that President Obama was born in Kenya — with legitimate criticisms. They want all attacks to be dismissed as falsehoods — and that is simply not the case."

The Roberts Switch

At CBS, Jan Crawford reports that Chief Justice Roberts initially sided with four conservative justices to strike down the health-care mandate, but then changed his mind.  He agreed that the Commerce Clause does not give Congress such power. But...

Roberts was less clear on whether that also meant the rest of the law must fall, the source said. The other four conservatives believed that the mandate could not be lopped off from the rest of the law and that, since one key part was unconstitutional, the entire law must be struck down.

Because Roberts was the most senior justice in the majority to strike down the mandate, he got to choose which justice would write the court's historic decision. He kept it for himself.

Over the next six weeks, as Roberts began to craft the decision striking down the mandate, the external pressure began to grow. Roberts almost certainly was aware of it.

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There were countless news articles in May warning of damage to the court - and to Roberts' reputation - if the court were to strike down the mandate. Leading politicians, including the president himself, had expressed confidence the mandate would be upheld.

Some even suggested that if Roberts struck down the mandate, it would prove he had been deceitful during his confirmation hearings, when he explained a philosophy of judicial restraint.

It was around this time that it also became clear to the conservative justices that Roberts was, as one put it, "wobbly," the sources said.

Crawford acknowledges that her sources do not know exactly why he switched.  His critics say that he buckled to pressure while supporters say that he reasoned on the merits.  Here is what Roberts himself wrote:

Under the mandate, if an individual does not maintain health insurance, the only consequence is that he must make an additional payment to the IRS when he pays his taxes. See §5000A(b). That, according to the Government,means the mandate can be regarded as establishing acondition—not owning health insurance—that triggers a tax—the required payment to the IRS. Under that theory, the mandate is not a legal command to buy insurance.Rather, it makes going without insurance just another thing the Government taxes, like buying gasoline or earning income. And if the mandate is in effect just a tax hike on certain taxpayers who do not have health insurance, itmay be within Congress’s constitutional power to tax.

The question is not whether that is the most naturalinterpretation of the mandate, but only whether it is a “fairly possible” one. Crowell v. Benson, 285 U. S. 22, 62 (1932). As we have explained, “every reasonable construction must be resorted to, in order to save a statute from unconstitutionality.” Hooper v. California, 155 U. S. 648, 657 (1895). The Government asks us to interpret the mandate as imposing a tax, if it would otherwise violate the Constitution. Granting the Act the full measure of deference owed to federal statutes, it can be so read, for the reasons set forth below.

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The Affordable Care Act’s requirement that certain individuals pay a financial penalty for not obtaining health insurance may reasonably be characterized as a tax. Because the Constitution permits such a tax, it is not our role to forbid it, or to pass upon its wisdom or fairness.

Unusual Congressional Video

The Politwoops site presents tweets that politicians have posted and then deleted.  Recently, it included a tweet touting a video by Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-CA):

 

The Washington Post adds:

It fell to Rep. Loretta Sanchez to combine, at last, your two favorite things of the summer: Capitol Hill interns and “Call Me Maybe” video parodies. In what is believed to be the first congressional take on the Carly Rae Jepsen earworm, the California Democrat grooves to the tune from behind her desk — while watching the YouTube viral video of the Harvard baseball team doing the same, and mimicking their herky-jerky dance moves. Then a deadpan chorus line of office interns pop up to join her. Hey, how come only 60 seconds of music? “We were just trying to take a minimum of her time,” spokeswoman Adrienne Watson told us. Oh, and btw — why? After a rough couple days of partisan mudslinging, she said, it “seemed like a great way to inject some lightheartedness into the week.” Plus, “Call Me Maybe”! Who can resist? (See the video, below. . . )

The Health Care Decision, Social Media, and Mainstream Media

Buzzfeed collects some premature celebration of the health care decision from the Politiwoops site, which specializes in saving tweets that politicians share, then delete:

Buzzfeed reports some additional detail on how the rush to report led to a big mistake:

News staffers at the cable network CNN, long the gold standard in television news, were on the verge of open revolt Thursday after CNN blew the coverage on the most consequential news event of the year.

As Chief Justice John Roberts began reading his decision on the future of President Obama's health care overhaul, the CNN team inside the courtroom jumped the gun, believing that Roberts was saying the individual mandate was unconstitutional and would be overturned.

A producer inside the courtroom, Bill Mears, communicated the information to a relatively junior reporter, Kate Bolduan, the face of the network's coverage outside on the courthouse steps.

Bolduan then reported, on air, that the invidual mandate was “not valid,” citing producer Mears.
“It appears as if the Supreme Court justices struck down the individual mandate, the centerpiece,” of the law, she said.

...

Moments after Bolduan spoke, the false story began to metastasize inside the network's online operation.

 


Buzzfeed