What about Bernie Sanders? Hillary is the Same? Yup

Bernie Sanders as Burlington, Vermont’s socialist mayor (left) and as a Democratic presidential candidate speaking at Dartmouth College this year. (Photos: Craig Line/John Minchillo/AP)

In July 1985, Bernie Sanders traveled to Nicaragua, where he attended an event that one wire report dubbed an “anti-U.S. rally.”

The leftist Sandinista government was celebrating the sixth anniversary of the revolution that saw it take power from an American-backed dictator, Anastasio Somoza. Sanders was in a crowd estimated at a half million people, many of whom were clad in the Sandinistas’ trademark red-and-black colors and chanting “Here, there, everywhere/the Yankee will die.”

Onstage, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega accused the U.S. government of “state terrorism” for supporting the rebels who were seeking to overthrow him. The Sandinistas and the CIA-backed Contras would fight into the next decade, with allegations of human rights abuses on both sides. At the 1985 rally Sanders attended, Ortega vowed the Sandinistas would “defend the revolution with guns in hand.”

Sanders was being hosted by the Sandinistas as part of a delegation of American “solidarity groups.” He told reporters their decision to show “support” for the Nicaraguan government was “patriotic.”

“We want to show support for a small country trying to be independent, and we want to tell the truth to the American people when we return,” Sanders said.

Sanders was in the midst of a revolution of his own. Four years earlier, in 1981, he won a shocking victory by only 10 votes to become mayor of Vermont’s largest city, Burlington. Sanders was elected on a socialist platform and led a mayoral administration that he boasted was “more radical” than any other in the country.

And he had a vision. Sanders believed his work in Burlington could spread socialism throughout America. In April 1985, the Los Angeles Times published a lengthy interview with Sanders in which he outlined his plan to spark “radical change.”

“I think from one end of this country to the other, people are ripe for political revolution. Fifty percent of the people do not bother voting in the presidential and statewide elections,” Sanders said. “The vast majority of those not voting are low-income people who have given up on America. The whole quality of life in America is based on greed. I believe in the redistribution of wealth in this nation.”

Sanders went on to suggest his mayoral administration had demonstrated “the people’s contempt for conventional old-fashioned Democratic and Republican politics.

“The radical change in America that must come has to begin on a local level, and it is happening now in Burlington. Then it will spread to state and national levels,” Sanders said, adding, “Of all the 50 states, I believe Vermont more than any other has a good chance of electing America’s first socialist governor. Now that I have proven that I am a good mayor, perhaps the time will be ripe … for me to run for the highest office in the state.”

Sanders ran for Congress rather than governor after leaving Burlington’s City Hall in 1989. But today, his dream of bringing his values to higher office and a national audience is closer to fruition than at any time his life.

A two-term incumbent U.S. senator, Sanders is within striking distance of frontrunner Hillary Clinton in this year’s Democratic presidential primary, with recent polls in Iowa showing the two neck and neck and a Sanders lead in New Hampshire.

As Sanders journeyed from the fringes of Vermont’s political scene to the national stage, many aspects of his agenda and even rhetoric have remained remarkably consistent. However, an extensive examination of his statements and views at the beginning of his political career shows Sanders has moderated some of his positions over the years.

Among other things, during the 1970s and ’80s, Sanders regularly called for public takeovers of various businesses, including utilities and the oil industry. Sanders advocated seizing money from corporations and from one of America’s richest families. And, as a mayor, Sanders made forays into foreign policy that included meetings with representatives of hostile nations, rebel groups and Canadian separatists.

Yahoo News first reached out to Sanders’ presidential campaign to discuss this article last week. In addition to inquiring about Sanders’ past support for nationalizing various industries, Yahoo News asked about Sanders’ presence at the Sandinista rally. This included a request for the campaign to confirm whether a report in the alternative weekly Seven Days that claimed the trip to Nicaragua was paid for by the Sandinista government was correct. The campaign declined to comment. Yahoo also contacted the campaign of Sanders’ Democratic primary rival, Hillary Clinton, which has become increasingly critical of the Vermont senator as the race tightens. It declined to comment as well.

Sanders is now vying to be the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, but his record reflects just how far outside of the two-party system he started out. In fact, throughout his early career, Sanders expressed distaste for both Democratic and Republican politicians. His first campaigns were long shot bids as a member of the Liberty Union Party, a radical, anti-war group that he helped found.

Under the Liberty Union banner, Sanders ran for one of Vermont’s U.S. Senate seats in 1972. He ran for the state’s other Senate seat in 1974. Sanders, who served as Liberty Union’s chairman, was also the party’s candidate in Vermont’s governor’s races in 1972 and 1976. In all four campaigns, Sanders attracted support in the single digits.

In interviews at the time, Sanders was fairly open about the fact he did not expect to win any of these races. Rather, he suggested the Liberty Union Party could serve as a force to mainstream socialist ideas ahead of an eventual national shift.

During his Senate campaign in 1974, the local Bennington Banner quoted Sanders telling attendees at a Liberty Union event about what he hoped to accomplish with his long shot candidacy.

“You have a reason to knock on doors,” Sanders said. “It’s a good way to organize and educate people. … Talk the issues. People can’t see alternatives. Our job is to open their eyes and give them a vision.”

At a press conference for his second gubernatorial bid in 1976, Sanders predicted it would have a “national impact” if the Liberty Union candidates had a decent showing at the polls because it would show voters there were alternatives to the traditional party system.

“He said voters sense that Democratic politicians have similar views about such issues as rising utility rates, an unfair tax system, low wages, and high unemployment,” UPI reported.

Some of his pitch to voters was quite similar to his current platform. As a Liberty Unionite, Sanders railed against income inequality and — decades before the Occupy movement — what he described as a system that privileged “the wealthy 2 or 3 percent.” As he does now, Sanders called for progressive reforms to taxes and campaign finance.

Other parts of Sanders’ Liberty Union platform went well beyond anything he is currently advocating. In 1973, UPI reported that Sanders urged Vermont’s congressional delegation to “give serious thought to the nationalization of the oil industry.”

The following year, the Bennington Banner reported Sanders’ Senate campaign was focused on “two prime issues.” The first was rate increases for electric and telephone service, which the paper said Sanders sought to confront with “public takeover of all privately owned electric utilities in the state.” Sanders’ plan for public ownership of utility companies involved the businesses being seized from their owners.

It was a view he would carry forward into his 1976 gubernatorial bid: That year Sanders said the Liberty Union platform called for a state takeover of utilities “without compensation to the banks and wealthy individuals who own them.”

These weren’t the only assets Sanders suggested should be seized from the wealthy.

Sanders’ second main theme in his 1974 Senate race was what the Bennington Banner called his “own pet issue,” the “incredible economic power of the Rockefeller family.” As a presidential candidate and member of Congress, Sanders has assailed the influence billionaires and megadonors hold over American politics and media. However, his plan for the Rockefellers went much further, with Sanders implying he would push to have the family’s fortune used to fund government programs. In a 1974 press release, Sanders said “the incredible wealth and power of this family must be broken up.” The Rockefellers’ billions should be “used to create a decent standard of living for all people” by being redirected toward government social programs for the elderly or lower taxes.

Sanders was in the middle of running on an anti-Rockefeller platform in August 1974 when reports began to emerge that President Ford planned to nominate Nelson Rockefeller to be his vice president after the impeachment and resignation of President Nixon. Sanders was apoplectic and sent a letter to Ford urging him to pick someone else because “the Rockefellers are already the richest and most powerful family in the world.” Sanders warned that the appointment “could be the beginning of a virtual Rockefeller family dictatorship over the nation.” Rockefeller was officially nominated about a week later and went on to become vice president.

In late 1977, Sanders left the Liberty Union Party. His departure came after the group endangered its major party status by failing to hold local caucuses required by state law. Sanders said the situation showed the party failed to live up to a promise to supporters that it would remain active beyond campaigns and  “would not disappear from the scene the day after the election.”

But Sanders didn’t drop out of Vermont politics — or stop advocating for private assets to become public property. In 1979, he penned an opinion column for the Vermont Vanguard Press about another industry he felt was ripe for a public takeover — television.

The editorial, titled “Social Control and the Tube,” called for people to “address the control of television as a political issue, and organize to win.” Sanders argued the owners of commercial television stations sought to “intentionally brainwash people into submission and helplessness” through “constant advertising interruptions” and “the well-tested Hitlerian principle that people should be treated as morons and bombarded over and over again with the same simple phrases and ideas.” He said the television industry was designed to “create a nation of morons who will faithfully go out and buy this or that product, vote for this or that candidate, and faithfully work for their employers for as low a wage as possible.” Sanders suggested a public takeover of the airwaves could remedy the problem.

“The potential of television democratically owned and controlled by the people is literally beyond comprehension because it is such a relatively new medium and we have no experience with it under democratic control. At the least, with the present state of technology, we could have a choice of dozens of channels of commercial-free TV,” he wrote, adding, “At the moment serious writers are, by and large, not allowed to write for commercial television for fear they might produce something that is true and hence, upsetting to the owners of the media. Under democratic control, people with all kinds of views could make their presentations, and serious artists would be encouraged to produce work for the tube.”

Sanders had a chance to pursue public control of television broadcasting, as well as his fight against utility companies, when he became mayor of Burlington in March of 1981.

Though he identified as a socialist, Sanders ran as an independent when he won his shocking upset. According to the Associated Press, Sanders made it to City Hall with the help of “a coalition of college professors, poor people, labor unions, neighborhood groups and students.”

“The decisions in this city are not going to be made in the offices of banks and big businesses any more,” Sanders warned after his victory.

Still, Sanders promised he would be “extending the olive branch” to Burlington’s business community and political establishment.

“I’m not looking for war,” Sanders said.

Sanders might not have been spoiling for a fight, but he sure got one. He began his mayoralty with only two supporters on the city’s 13-member board of aldermen. The rest were Democrats and Republicans who vehemently opposed Sanders. In his first months in office, the aldermen blocked Sanders’ appointments. He also accused city officials of firing his secretary and even opening his mail. One day Sanders’ rust-covered car was ticketed when he parked in his special mayoral spot.

“I guess now what I expect is that the Democrats on the board are going to attempt to make every day of my life as difficult as possible,” Sanders said at a June 1981 press conference about the rejection of his appointees. “That’s fine. We will reciprocate in kind and we will work vigorously to carry out in one way or the other the mandate we were elected to carry out.”

As mayor of Burlington, Bernie Sanders fought in court for the right to hire city appointees and found tickets on his car when he parked in the mayor’s spot. (Photo: Donna Light/AP)

Burlington’s new mayor was a lot for some of his constituents and colleagues to get used to. Sanders is a Brooklyn native with a decidedly confrontational and prickly demeanor. The New York Times reported on an incident that took place a little over six months after he took office when Sanders essentially insulted a room full of charity workers. Sanders had been invited to speak at the 40th annual Chittenden County United Way fundraising drive. When he stood up to speak at the banquet, Sanders let the attendees know he didn’t support their work.

“I don’t believe in charities,” Sanders said before explaining that he felt government should be responsible for social programs.

Gary De Carolis was one of Sanders’ Progressive Coalition allies on the board. De Carolis spent six years in Burlington city government during the Sanders administration and grew to be “close friends” with him, he told Yahoo News. According to De Carolis, Sanders’ initial battles with the aldermen were “brutal,” “very nasty” and “unbelievably loud.”

“Most nights you went in there and you knew it was going to be hell,” De Carolis explained. “You had to stand up for what you believed in … it was not pretty.”

De Carolis attributed the anger at Sanders to the city’s Democratic establishment losing power to an independent socialist.

“Most times he had, in a sense, the law and the statutes of the city behind him,” said De Carolis. “A lot of what was coming at him was total anger for the loss of power from the Democratic Party.”

Sanders’ appearance may have stood out almost as much as his policies. Multiple articles about the early days of his mayoral administration allude to his casual and even sloppy personal style. Sanders reportedly purchased a suit an hour before his inauguration and lived in an apartment that De Carolis described as “a mess.” In 1982, Knight-Ridder news service spoke to James Burns, one of Sanders’ rivals on the board of aldermen. Burns said he didn’t “get along too well” with the mayor and went on to mock Sanders.

“He’s quite crude,” Burns said before imitating the way he claimed Sanders would slouch at meetings. “It doesn’t put forth an executive image, when you see someone slinked in a chair.”

Still, in spite of the rocky start, Sanders eventually won over the board — literally. By 1985, six of the aldermen were members of Sanders’ Progressive Coalition. During his four terms in office, Burlington’s socialist mayor presided over a prosperous economic climate and his treasurer discovered a $1.9 million surplus that had gone unnoticed in the budget. Though Sanders installed a new tax on money spent at hotels, restaurants and bars, he pushed for lower property taxes. Sanders also audited the city’s pension fund and initiated competitive bidding for many government contracts.

‘I am a socialist,“ Sanders told the New York Times in 1987. “But what we’re doing here is not socialist. It’s just good government.”

Sanders also began dabbling in mainstream politics. He endorsed his first Democratic presidential candidate, Walter Mondale, in 1984. Sanders even wore a suit sometimes. De Carolis said Sanders would dress up for his visits to the State House in Montpelier. The Associated Press pointed out Sanders wore a suit for a debate when he was running for re-election in 1983 though the reporter said aides had to help Sanders fix his tie before he went out onstage.

“I used to dress up a little bit better than Bernie,” De Carolis recounted. “He used to say to me, ‘Gary, you got to teach me about these ties and all this nice coordinated clothing.’”

Of course, Sanders still pursued a staunchly progressive agenda while he was mayor. He continued battling with Vermont’s utility companies. He charged them new fees for excavating on city streets and pushed for them to raise commercial rates in order to lower costs for residential clients. And while he didn’t try to seize the local television industry, Sanders sought to establish a city-owned and -operated cable system to compete with the private Green Mountain Cable Television network.

Sanders was an early crusader against gentrification. During his eight years in office, Sanders fought for rent control and tenants’ rights. He also battled to secure public space on the Lake Champlain waterfront when developers wanted to use the land for high-end housing. Almost immediately after being elected in 1981, Sanders declared, “luxury condominiums will not be the priority of this administration.”

“We have a city that is trying to help a developer build $200,000 luxury waterfront condominiums with pools, and health clubs, and boutiques, and all sorts of upper-middle-class junk five blocks from an area where people are literally not eating in order to pay their rent and fuel bills,” Sanders said.

The waterfront park Sanders pushed for was eventually built. In fact, it’s where Sanders stood when he held a rally to launch his presidential campaign last year.  Along with fighting development on the lakefront, Sanders also established anti-pollution programs and a community land trust. Other progressive achievements during the Sanders administration included a law requiring women to get 10 percent of city-funded trade jobs, a 1985 resolution supporting gay rights, and programs that allowed city employees to have input on personnel policies including sick leave.

Still, Sanders’ most radical actions as mayor had little to do with Burlington. While in office, Sanders pursued a foreign policy agenda independent of and at times at odds with the aims of Washington. This included engagement with controversial international political groups and countries that had hostile relationships with the United States.

Sanders found multiple ways to involve himself in the war between the Sandinistas and the Contras in Nicaragua. In addition to traveling to the country and attending Ortega’s rally, Sanders’s Progressive Coalition on the board of aldermen passed a 1985 resolution pledging Burlington would defy President Ronald Reagan’s embargo of Nicaragua. Sanders also established a sister city relationship with a Nicaraguan town, Puerto Cabezas.

His actions drew such attention that the “Doonesbury” comic strip infamously nicknamed Sanders’ city the “People’s Republic of Burlington” after he took office. Along with visiting Nicaragua, UPI reported, Sanders traveled to Cuba and the Soviet Union during his years as mayor. And on Dec. 6, 1981, Sanders went to Canada for the policy convention of the Parti Québécois, the separatist party that led the Canadian province of Quebec. At that gathering, which reportedly was also attended by representatives of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, the PQ voted to push for independence from Canada even if it required breaking economic ties.

Sanders’ diplomatic efforts also included welcoming dignitaries to City Hall in Burlington. In 1985, the Los Angeles Times noted “politicians from France, England, Mexico, Scandinavian countries, visitors from the Soviet Union and China, and representatives from the Irish Republican Army have stopped by Sanders’ office during the past four years.” Sanders also told the paper about his unusual idea for confronting Cold War tensions.

“A handful of people in this country are making decisions, whipping up Cold War hysteria, making us hate the Russians. We’re spending billions on military. Why can’t we take some of that money to pay for thousands of U.S. children to go to the Soviet Union?” Sanders asked, adding, “And, why can’t the Soviets take money they’re spending on arms and use it to send thousands of Russian children to America? We’ve got to start breaking down the walls of nationalism. We’ve got to get people to know one another.”

De Carolis, Sanders’ friend and ally in city government, said Sanders was able to delve into foreign policy because he focused on Burlington first and constituents were happy with basic services.

“If you’re going to take on bigger national and international issues, you better take care of the home front first,” De Carolis said. “He was very good about making sure the streets were plowed, the sidewalks were in good repair, all those things that concern people every day of their life. He was great about that, and that afforded him the opportunity to develop relationships with various countries around the world.”

Sanders left the mayor’s office in 1989 after deciding not to run for re-election. He was followed by Peter Clavelle, whom UPI described as his “hand-picked successor.” Sanders, who unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 1988, won a House race two years later, beginning his career in Washington. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2006.

Sen. Bernie Sanders smiles as former Sen. Paul Kirk, not pictured, endorses him for the Democratic presidential nomination at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H. (Photo: John Minchillo/AP)

As a presidential candidate, Sanders has maintained the relentless focus on income inequality and tax reform that was a hallmark of his earlier career. Still, there’s no question he also has moderated some of the views he espoused at the start of his political career.

Sanders was an independent in Congress and an opponent of the two-party system. Today, his very presence in a Democratic presidential primary signals a shift in his longstanding position and a softening of his views. He also has stopped calling for the nationalization of industries. In November of last year, as his campaign gained steam, Sanders gave a landmark speech defining his “democratic socialist ideals.” In the address, he explicitly said he does not “believe government should take over the grocery store down the street or own the means of production.”

Washington writer Harry Jaffe, author of the new book “Why Bernie Sanders Matters,” suggested that this turn away from advocating for the public takeover of industries has been the biggest change in Sanders’ platform over the years.

“The basic socialist plank is … public control of the means of production,” Jaffe said. “He believed that because he said it and I quote him as saying that. … He’s totally changed that.”

Indeed, leftists have criticized Sanders for no longer supporting nationalization of industries and openly speculated about whether his current brand of “democratic socialism” is socialism at all.

“Once Bernie Sanders made it clear that he wasn’t a socialist in the classic terms, he’s pretty much stayed true to … his basic positions … that there’s too much of a difference between the rich and the poor,” Jaffe said. “He’s been pretty straightforward on that. I think he’s been pretty straightforward on the universal health care.”

Jaffe described the situation as a “deal with the devil” Sanders made as he sought higher office.

“Bernie Sanders is not stupid. He’s a very canny, canny political operator. He just really is smart and he’s expedient,” said Jaffe. “He made a deal with the devil. It’s a very, very slick and small deal in that, you know, he said, ‘OK, I will come off of my hardcore socialism, but I’m going to stick very tightly to the rest of my basic belief system.’ … He certainly did that.”

Sanders’ foreign policy ideas are also far more mainstream than they were when he was mayor of Burlington. Jaffe cited Sanders’ votes to approve increased defense spending — even though they came begrudgingly — as another area where his views have “moderated.” Though Sanders has heavily focused on the fact he voted against the Iraq War, Sanders has voted to authorize military force in other instances. Jaffe said this is another shift for a politician who began his career extremely “skeptical” of war.

“He voted a couple of times for troop involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq,” Jaffe said. “He’s going to shove his first vote in front of Hillary Clinton forever because he did vote against the Iraq War, but after that, he did vote for troop engagement.”

Though his campaign has promised he would “move away from a policy of unilateral military action, and toward a policy of emphasizing diplomacy,” Sanders is not opposed to military action. In Congress, he voted to authorize NATO bombings in the Kosovo War in 1999 and in Afghanistan following the Sept. 11 attacks. Since the start of the Iraq War, Sanders has voted to approve funds used to finance that conflict, leading to criticism from the left. As Sanders ran for Senate in 2006, the website of the Socialist Worker newspaper described those votes as “betrayal.”

When asked if Sanders has moderated his views since the early days, his old friend De Carolis allowed that facing past political fights may have led Sanders to temper his positions somewhat.

“Knowing what he’s been through the last 20 or 30 years, maybe to a degree but not much,” De Carolis said.

“What you hear today is very much what you heard back then,” he said.

However, Sanders’ ally has noticed one major difference. These days, Sanders generally wears a suit and tie.

“If there’s anything that’s changed, it’s that he dresses much nicer now,” De Carolis said.

CBO: Gutting Obamacare Saves Half Trillion

Bill gutting ObamaCare would save half-trillion over a decade, CBO finds

TheHill: A GOP-led effort to repeal the biggest parts of ObamaCare would cost about $42 billion less than previously expected, saving more than a half-trillion dollars over a decade, the congressional budget scorekeeper said Monday.

Legislation to gut most of ObamaCare’s mandates and taxes, known as Restoring Americans’ Healthcare Freedom Reconciliation Act, would reduce the deficit by $516 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

The bill is expected to get a vote in the House this week, followed shortly by a vote in the Senate. President Obama has said he would veto the bill.

The CBO had previously said the bill would reduce deficits by $474 billion, but the estimates have been reduced in light of the recently enacted governing spending bill. That funding bill, which has already been signed by Obama, delays three key healthcare taxes, which each would have brought billions in revenues.

As part of a congressional deal reached on the spending bill, the so-called Cadillac tax on high-cost healthcare plans is delayed for two years and the medical device tax and the health insurance “premium” tax are paused for two years and one year, respectively.

Republicans are looking to pass their latest bill targeting ObamaCare through a budget process known as reconciliation. Under the Senate’s rules, a party that controls both chambers can pass legislation with a simple majority – sending a bill gutting ObamaCare to the president’s desk for the first time.

***

GOP-led Congress set for first time to vote, pass bill to replace ObamaCare
FNC: Within hours of reconvening Tuesday, the GOP-led Congress will finally act to fulfill a 2010 promise to repeal and replace ObamaCare.

The effort is set to begin Tuesday afternoon when the House Rules Committee meets on the repeal measure, with a full debate and vote as early as Tuesday. With the Republican-led Senate having already passed its version, GOP congressional leaders will send the measure to President Obama, daring him to veto it.

Obama will undoubtedly veto the measure to undo his signature health care law, and Congress has nowhere near the votes to override a presidential veto.

But Republicans hope the entire exercise might start to change the circumstance on Capitol Hill regarding the years-old argument about ObamaCare and its repeal.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., is promising to unveil a bill to, in fact, replace ObamaCare.

For all of the GOP’s Sturm und Drang about ObamaCare, neither the House nor the Senate has ever debated a bill that attempts to succeed the law.

The reason is that nobody has crafted a plan that would pass in either chamber.

In 2010, House Republicans concocted the “Pledge to America.” It was a political compact created to help the GOP seize control of the House from Democrats and tell voters what they would do if in control.

One of the promises was to “repeal and replace” ObamaCare. After Republicans earned the House majority, the first major vote of 2011 was to repeal the health care law. The House and Senate have voted more than 60 times to either fully or partially repeal the Affordable Care Act, as it is more formally know. Yet they’ve never held a vote to replace ObamaCare.

But with Ryan now at the helm in the House and the GOP controlling the Senate, this may be one of the few chances the party has to come together around a bill which would replace the six-year-old law.

Ryan is, nevertheless, tempering expectations. In a recent meeting with reporters, he indicated that the House was practically obligated to pass a replacement bill. And though Ryan was confident about the House doing so this year, he underscored the unlikelihood that Obama would sign the legislation into law.

Still, the effort is part of Ryan’s attempt to contrast Republicans with the agenda of Obama and the left. Democrats have long hectored Republicans for failing to cough up a bill to succeed ObamaCare.

Such a measure is a unicorn.

If there were the votes to approve that elusive bill, Republicans would have done it. But if they finally at least draft a bill and better yet pass it, then the sides can argue about policy and not just exchange hypothetical catcalls.

Still, if Ryan is correct, the House GOP will write an ObamaCare alternative seven years after a triumvirate of House committees prepped the initial iterations of the ACA in the summer of 2009.

The House approved the first version of ObamaCare in November 2009. The Senate did so on Christmas Eve of 2009. Both bodies ushered the final health care packages to passage in March, 2010.

This enterprise won’t be easy for Republicans.

Some GOP aides defended not having a replacement bill at the ready.

They suggested the promise in the Pledge to America was to “repeal and replace” the ACA. Certainly there were votes to repeal the law (at least in the House). But the law was never repealed. Therefore, they argued, it wasn’t yet incumbent upon Republicans to make good on the second contingency and replace the statute.

Ryan won’t be able to implement the replacement package either with Obama still in the White House in 2016 — if it does, in fact, get that far. But if Ryan’s successful, he’ll have come a lot further than anyone else has before.

Which brings us back to what the House is up to next week.

Though the House has approved dozens of repeal bills over the years, the Senate has not until a few weeks ago taken a direct, up-or-down vote on eliminating ObamaCare.

Democrats controlled the Senate until January 2015. That meant they could block any Republican effort to deposit a repeal bill on the floor.

However, the story changed when the GOP won the majority. Still, Senate rules often favor the minority party. Republicans would have to vault two anticipated Democratic-filibusters just to bring up a repeal bill for debate. Overcoming those filibusters would require two roll call votes of 60 yeas. That wasn’t happening.

The GOP nevertheless had one option at its disposal — something called “budget reconciliation.”

Budget reconciliation is a unique, once-a-shot piece of legislation that operates under special rules. It’s inoculated from pesky Senate filibusters. And if you can jam something into a budget reconciliation measure, you can usually get it through the Senate because it just requires a simple majority for passage.

The House recently started this process and knocked out a dual reconciliation bill that simultaneously repealed ObamaCare and defunded Planned Parenthood. It then shipped the measure to the Senate. But because of special Senate rules governing budget reconciliation, the upper chamber had to tweak the plan to pass it. That meant that the House and Senate had approved slightly different bills. So the Senate then bounced its updated version back to the House.

This is where things stand: The House is expected to debate and vote on the final, Senate-amended version of the reconciliation plan. If approved, the House and Senate are in alignment and the bill goes to Obama to sign or veto — though this is a fait accompli.

House Republicans initially planned to take up the reworked Senate bill right before Christmas. But at the last minute, they decided to delay that gambit. They had a new tactic. Wait until after the holiday to maximize exposure of the House debate and vote — as well as the President’s planned veto. Plus, it might help tee up Republican plans on health care in the new year.

The GOP hopes it can artfully message its plans to design and approve a replacement bill for ObamaCare — with something with a lot more policy teeth than the other parliamentary gymnastics of just voting to repeal parts or all of the legislation over and over again.

Republicans also are hoping the public embraces these policy ideas as a contrast to those propounded by Obama and Democrats with health care topping the list.

Obamacare Co-op in NY Refusing New Patients

WatchDog: The Consumer Operated and Oriented Plan, or Co-Op, portion of the health care law established nonprofit health insurers that would receive federal funding and were intended to compete with private, for-private insurers on the exchanges as a way to lower prices. They were supposed to be small-scale single-payer systems that would be free from the profit motive; a progressive’s dream solution to the problem of providing health insurance for all.

Instead, they’ve turned into a nightmare. So far, 12 of the 23 co-ops have failed, defaulting on more than $1.2 billion in federal loans. Only two have been able to break even so far, and most of the remaining co-ops are eyeing massive premium increases – as high as 40 percent in some cases – to stay solvent.

A government program being poorly run is nothing new, of course. But the co-ops established under the health care law were subject to a series of regulations that make you wonder how they were ever supposed to succeed in the first place.

Collapse of NY’s largest Obamacare co-op has doctors refusing new patients

HotAir: Back in the middle of November we covered the announcement that one of the largest New York health insurance providers under the Obamacare co-op umbrella was in trouble. Health Republic had jumped on the Affordable Care Act bandwagon and signed up nearly a quarter million new subscribers, offering cut rate prices and surging to the top of the market in that area. Unfortunately, the expected cash bonanza from the government program failed to live up to expectations and the company quickly ran out of operating capital. Yesterday was the end of the line for Health Republic and they closed their doors.

Unfortunately for the citizens of New York, this failure didn’t just represent a blow to the company’s profits and the reputation of the White House’s signature legislative achievement. There have been real world consequences for the people who signed up for the plan, including running into doctors who won’t even accept appointments from people using the company’s services. (From The Watershed Post)

The shuttered company is no longer paying its claims, leaving doctors unsure whether they will ever be paid for seeing Health Republic patients. Some doctors have turned patients away, or are bargaining directly with patients over their medical fees…

Health Republic’s collapse has forced a panicked scramble among patients and doctors in upstate New York. Local doctors have worried that Health Republic will default on bills, and at least one practice, the Llobet Medical Group, has turned away patients who have Health Republic insurance.

“This was one of the biggest disasters ever,” said David Cordner, an administrator at Llobet Medical Group, a primary care practice with offices in Margaretville and Kingston. “I don’t understand why New York didn’t see this a lot sooner. Nobody got paid. Where was the money going?”

Where was the money going? Several New York legislators are asking exactly that question since a lot of taxpayer dollars were flushed down this rat hole before it was finally closed. Health Republic had received $265 million in federal loans to get started and that money has pretty much evaporated. Two state senators along with U.S. Congressman Chris Gibson have called for an investigation and are asking Governor Andrew Cuomo to explain where the money went and what he plans to do to ensure this doesn’t happen again.

“$265 million of taxpayer money disappeared and 215,000 New Yorkers are facing turmoil in their healthcare coverage,” he told the Watershed Post. “There is no question that there needs to be an investigation to see where there was wrongdoing. This happened on Governor Cuomo’s watch.”

Some of the personal stories which Watershed Post dug up are precisely the sort of outcome which people had feared, They talked to Candace Rudd, the owner of a hair salon, who called her doctor for an appointment and was told that her insurance was no longer accepted. They were willing to give her an appointment, but wanted a $100 cash payment to get in to see the doctor. Whether or not she’s able to afford that, there are far too many families who couldn’t in upstate New York’s struggling economy.

This is the larger, national potential for Obamacare on a local level. More than half of the state exchanges have closed at this point and nearly all the rest of them are in financial peril. But with the law in place, what happens to all of the collapsed segments of the system? Legally the states can’t simply walk away, but someone still has to pay the bills. Care to guess who that’s going to be?

VA Scheduler Whistleblower/Confessions

FNC report and video here. Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald has made a point of giving out his personal contact information, to show how accessible he is as he works to overhaul the embattled agency.

But the bid backfired Thursday, after he urged one famous veteran dealing with poor treatment to contact him. When “Fox & Friends” tried his number, they reached his voicemail — and got a message to call back later as his voicemail was “full.”

– Bay Area veterans say they’re still facing excessive wait times for benefits and health care. The VA Inspector General found 307,000 veterans may have died waiting for access to the VA health care system.

Veterans who do get enrolled say significant delays for medical service persist.

“They gave me an appointment six months down the road, and then called to say they had to cancel,” said Winter Haven veteran Keith Brown. “It can be a year before you get the actual appointment.”

That conflicts with information provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs, which showing wait times have improved following the VA scandal of 2014.

Nick McSwain says there may be a reason for that. He said when he worked as a VA scheduler through the beginning of 2015, he was told to disregard patients’ desired dates for appointment, then note the actual scheduled date as the ‘desired’ date — thereby showing no delay based on what veterans requested.

“It says ‘What is the desired date’ (in the system) and instead of using that date, we use the appointment we actually give them so it shows no gap,” said McSwain.

He also claims veterans who complained had to wait even longer for future appointments.

“Vets who should have been seen top priority were passed over because of the way providers feel about this guy. They’d say ‘I hate this guy’ or ‘he’s annoying,” said McSwain, w

ho also noted that consults for specialty health care piled up when he worked in a scheduling center. “There have been times when stacks of consults disappeared.”

A spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. Gus Bilirakis said his district offices have opened 314 VA-related cases since January 2, 2015, pertaining to both benefits and health care.

FOX 13 asked the Department of Veterans Affairs to respond to a range of questions and issues raised by Thompson, Brown, and other veterans. The department answered our questions and provided data to show the VA is making progress and notable improvements since the national VA scandal broke in 2014.

The VA provided the following snapshot of data through November 1, 2015:

  1. Between June 1, 2014, and November 1, 2015, the electronic wait list (EWL) went from 56,271 appointments to 46,146, a 17.99 percent reduction.
  2. VHA created 2.5 million authorizations for Veterans to receive care in the private sector from October 29, 2014 through October 28, 2015. This represents a 3 percent increase in authorizations when compared to the same period in 2013/2014.

A spokeswoman at the James Haley Veterans Hospital and clinics also sent us an email including the following statement and response to our questions.

“James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital and Clinics is a continuous improvement organization. We are always looking to improve processes and quality of care for our patients and their caregivers. As a matter of fact, we will be participating in the national VA Access Stand Down this Saturday. The Department of Veterans Affairs is committed to providing timely access to Veterans as determined by their clinical needs.  On Saturday, November 14, VA medical centers across the country will participate in a first ever National Access Stand Down.  A team of clinical leaders, administrators and volunteers will be on site at every VA medical center to reach out to all Veterans identified as having the most important and acute needs to make sure they can be seen either in VA or in the community – including here at JAHVH…”

The James A. Haley Veterans Hospital answered our questions as follows:

What are the current average wait times for primary care, specialty care and mental health care?

Our wait-times are published every two weeks, the same as other VA facilities and current and historical wait time and access data can be reviewed at: http://www.va.gov/health/access-audit.asp

Currently James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital and Clinics average wait times are 1.33 days for Primary Care, 6.33 days for Specialty Care (just as in the public sector, length can vary significantly by Specialty Clinics) and 3.66 days for Mental Health.

JAHVH has more than 90,000 unique patients and we schedule between 4,000-5,000 appointments daily in all areas of our medical facilities and at our outpatient clinics and receive more than 46,000 consults per month in FY 15.

Every new consult is reviewed by a clinical provider as part of the triage process to determine the clinical urgency of the request. Patients are seen as soon as possible based on clinical review – the more acute the need – the faster the patient is scheduled for an appointment on average.
Do lengthy hold times by phone to schedule a doctor or specialist persist? 

Our average wait time to answer the phone is 49 seconds in FY 15 (the national goal is less than 30 seconds) and our abandonment rate is 3.9% (the national goal is less than 5%), but depending on the location within the medical center a person is calling, hold times and speed to answer the phones can vary. We recognize this can be one of the biggest areas of dissatisfaction with patients and the medical center has established a workgroup that is working to improve telephone access to all areas. Additionally, patients are encouraged to use secure messaging if possible to consult with their health care providers.

Are there safeguards to prevent veterans seeking medical appointments from being left on hold indefinitely?  If so, can they be worked around?

The phone system has different features throughout the medical center based on the volume of calls and staffing level of clinic areas.  One tool we use in high volume areas is the Automatic Call Distributor (ACD) lines. These lines will automatically roll over to the next available operator after a certain length of time. Also some clinics are piloting the use a call back feature for patients who choose not to wait on hold.  Secure messaging is always another option that patients can use to communicate with their providers, and if a patient has difficulty reaching a provider, we encourage patients to reach out to the Service Liaisons or Patient Advocates Office.

Do veterans in the Tampa Bay area continue to encounter lengthy delays to see a doctor or specialist once appointments are booked?

Again, wait times vary based on the type of care, but our average wait times range from 1.33 to 6.33 days. If a patient is unable to be seen at our facilities within 30 days of the clinically indicated/preferred date, that patient is offered care through the Choice program and is then eligible to receive care in the community. Wait times in the community can also be lengthy based on the availability of certain specialty care required and can be a longer wait than VA care in some cases.

We are continuously and proactively reviewing our high demand specialty areas to help further increase capacity and efficiencies. For example, we do “Super Saturday Clinics” in both Ortho and GI to reduce some of the current patient wait times and are actively working to fill vacant provider positions. JAHVH hiring emphasis has been on Patient Aligned Care Teams (Primary Care) and high demand Specialty Care Services to increase access, including Orthopedics, GI, Ophthalmology and Radiology and we’ve filled over 100 new FTE positions under VACAA funding including providers, nurses and support positions.

During FY 14, JAHVH activated more than 300,000 square feet of new space, which opened up space for specialty care to expand. JAHVH increased specialty care spaces from 34 to 84 exam rooms for a net increase of about 150%, including an additional:

  • 18 in Ortho
  • 14 in GI
  • 17 in Neurology to open in first quarter of FY16

Additionally, extended hours and weekend appointments are offered at Tampa, New Port Richey Outpatient Clinic, and Lakeland Community Based Outpatient Clinic.

How are consults (enabling veterans to seek specialty care) organized and accounted for to prevent them from getting lost?

Consults are managed and organized in compliance with the National Consult Management Business Rules. All notes are kept in individual patient records.

JAHVH also has a Consult Management Committee (CMC) and designated consult managers within each service who are responsible for ensuring the consults do not get lost. The CMC is a standing medical center-level committee designated to receive, monitor, analyze and address all aspects of consult management to meet the facility’s mission and commitment to timeliness of care, provide support to enhance communication of Veterans’ needs, and outcome of treatment.  As part of these activities, the CMC functions to coordinate the assessment, implementation, and management of consults and related VISTA structures with all other appropriate entities and reports these activities as appropriate. The CMC identifies opportunities for improvement, and recommends corrective action plans.

Have schedulers within the VA health care system ever been told by VA management to disregard regulations in any way?

Schedulers are trained to follow all scheduling guidelines. Refresher training is provided to schedulers when scheduling errors are identified through observation, periodic and scheduled audits, etc. There was refresher scheduling training completed for all staff who have scheduling options conducted between July – September 2015. Any staff that did not complete this training had their scheduling access removed.

Specifically, have schedulers been told to disregard ‘desired’ appointment dates, to avoid gaps between ‘desired’ dates and scheduled dates?  

Employees are fully and regularly trained and should never disregard regulations when making an appointment for patients. JAHVH is audited by both internal and external organizations to review and ensure data and appointment policies and procedures are followed correctly.  JAHVH executive leadership does not advocate or condone any data manipulation or scheduling irregularities. Should an instance of irregularity be identified, it would be reviewed and corrective action would be taken as necessary.

Have veterans who complain about poor service or delays been adversely affected (with longer waits) as a result of their complaints?

We encourage anyone with a specific concern to contact the hospital’s team of Patient Advocacy Specialists that work as liaisons for the Director’s Office and are on staff specifically to assist Veterans with any issues or concerns they may have. Additionally, we have Service Liaisons, who field incoming calls from Veterans and either answer their questions or route the individuals to the appropriate office to handle their concerns. JAHVH follows national scheduling guidelines and reviews all appointment and consult requests to ensure they are scheduled timely according to the patients’ clinical needs and condition.

For veterans who complain they are unable to utilize their choice cards as they would like, how does VA respond?

JAHVH follows the CHOICE Program rules based on the VACAA law that state a Veteran is eligible for non-VA care in the community if he/she lives more than 40 miles from a VA Facility (to include CBOCs even if they don’t offer the specialty) or if based on long wait times (patients that have an appointment scheduled greater than 30 days from when the clinically indicated/preferred date). Veterans may file an “excessive burden” appeal. Additionally, on July 31, 2015, the President signed Public Law 114-41, the Surface Transportation and Veterans Health Care Choice Improvement Act of 2015. Title IV, the VA Budget and Choice Improvement Act, makes several changes to the Veterans Choice Program. We are currently awaiting implementation guidance of these changes. More information about the choice program can be found: http://www.va.gov/opa/choiceact/

 

Obama’s Secret Retreat to Defy Texas Judge Ruling

This clandestine meeting took place about June of 2015. Those in attendance is undetermined. The 8 page memo is here. Obama Secret Meeting

Leaked DHS memo shows Obama might circumvent DAPA injunction

TheHill: A newly leaked internal DHS memorandum produced for an off-the-record agency conclave reveals that the Obama administration is actively planning to circumvent a federal court injunction that suspended part of last November’s deferral-based amnesty initiative. The document, apparently prepared as follow-up from a DHS “Regulations Retreat” last summer, appears sure to re-ignite concerns in Congress as well as federal judges in the Fifth Circuit. The Administration has already been criticized from the bench for handing out work permits to hundreds of thousands of deferred action beneficiaries, in direct violation of a district court’s order. With the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals deciding any day now whether to deny the Administration’s request to reverse that injunction, this public leak has come at a critical juncture for U.S. enforcement policy.

Last June, four months after Texas federal judge Andrew Hanen’s order to freeze President’s DAPA and Expanded DACA programs—disclosure: the Immigration Reform Law Institute has filed briefs in these cases—DHS’s immigration policy makers apparently held a “Regulations Retreat” to discuss “different options” for “open market Employment Authorization Document (EAD) regulatory changes.” EAD is the statutory term for work permits. From a memo recording these discussions, we now know that the Obama DHS has, rather than pausing to allow the courts to assess the constitutionality of its enforcement nullification initiatives, been gearing up to roll out one or more of four plans drawn up at the meeting, each one designed to provide EADs to millions of nonimmigrants, including those lawfully present and visa overstayers, crippling the actual employment-based visa system on the federal statute-book.

The internal memo reveals four options of varying expansiveness, with option 1 providing EADs to “all individuals living in the United States”, including illegal aliens, visa-overstayers, and H-1B guest-workers, while option 4 provides EADs only to those on certain unexpired non-immigrant visas. Giving EADs to any of the covered individuals, however, is in direct violation of Congress’s Immigration & Nationality Act and works to dramatically subvert our carefully wrought visa system.

As mentioned, the first plan the memo discusses basically entails giving EADs to anyone physically present in the country who until now has been prohibited from getting one. A major positive to this option, the memo reads, is that it would “address the needs of some of the intended deferred action population.” Although DHS doesn’t say it expressly, included here would be those 4.3 million people covered by the president’s DAPA and Expanded DACA programs whose benefits were supposed to have been halted in the Hanen decision. On top of working around the Hanen injunction, this DHS plan would also dole out unrestricted EADs to those on temporary non-immigrant visas, such as H-1B-holders (their work authorizations being tied to their employers) and another 5 to 6 million illegal aliens thus far not covered by any of the President’s deferred action amnesty programs. By claiming absolute authority to grant work authorization to any alien, regardless of status, DHS is in effect claiming it can unilaterally de-couple the 1986 IRCA work authorization statutes from the main body of U.S. visa law. While DHS must still observe the statutory requirements for issuing visas, the emerging doctrine concedes, the administration now claims unprecedented discretionary power to permit anyone inside our borders to work.

The anonymous DHS policymakers state that a positive for this option is that it “could cover a greater number of individuals.” In a strikingly conclusory bit of bureaucratese, they state that because illegal aliens working in the country “have already had the US labor market tested” it has been “demonstrat[ed] that their future employment won’t adversely affect US workers.” The labor market, in other words, has already been stress-tested through decades of foreign-labor dumping and the American working-class, which disproportionately includes minorities, working mothers, the elderly, and students, is doing just fine. Apparently, the fact that 66 million Americans and legal aliens are currently unemployed or out of the job-market was not a discussion point at the DHS “Retreat.”

Bottom line: The memo foreshadows more tactical offensives in a giant administrative amnesty for all 12 million illegal aliens who’ve broken our immigration laws (and many other laws) that will emerge before the next inaugural in January 2016. According to the authors, one negative factor for granting EADs to illegal aliens, visa-overstayers, etc., is that they’ll still “face difficulties in pursuing permanent residence due to ineligibility or being subject to unlawful presence inadmissibility for which a waiver is required.” This is in reference to the reality that an EAD isn’t a green card and that eventually the EAD-beneficiaries are supposed to apply to ‘adjust their status,’ which cannot be done without showing evidence of lawful status. But this might change, they write. The DHS “macro-level policy goal”, we’re told, is to assist individuals to stay “until they are ready and able to become immigrants.” This would seem to say that DHS, the largest federal law enforcement agency in the nation, is banking on awarding those who’ve broken our laws and violated our national sovereignty.

Will the 26 plaintiff states that have challenged the President’s DAPA program bring this memo to the Fifth Circuit’s attention, before they issue their closely-awaited decision?  If this document is indeed the cutting edge of Obama’s strategy for DHS to circumvent Judge Hanen’s injunction order, it would confirm the Administration’s bad faith and contempt both for the court and the law.

Smith is an investigative associate with the Immigration Reform Law Institute.