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Why millions of Christian evangelicals oppose Obamacare and civil rights

Joni Ernst

American evangelicals have been waiting for the world to end for a long time. But that’s not to say they’ve just been sitting around. Apocalypticism has inspired evangelistic crusades, moral reform movements, and generations of political activism.

In his latest book, Matthew Avery Sutton, a professor of history at Washington State University, traces this history of American evangelical apocalypticism from the end of the 19th century to the present day. In the process, he proposes a revised understanding of American evangelicalism, focused on the urgent expectations of the end of human history. If you want to understand modern evangelicalism, Sutton says, you have to understand their End Times theology.

Daniel Silliman spoke with Sutton at the Heidelberg Center for American Studies, in Heidelberg, Germany.

Why write about evangelical Christian apocalypticism?

Tech ‘surge’ to tackle Obamacare websites

The Obama administration Sunday said it’s called on “the best and brightest” tech experts from both government and the private sector to help fix the troubled website at the root of the Obamacare enrollment problems.

The unusual Sunday 600-word blog post from HHS was the first update in more than a week on the many failings of an expensive website that HHS itself described as “frustrating for many Americans.” But it didn’t specify who the administration had called in, or when the American people would see clear-cut results on Healthcare.gov.

“We’re kind of thinking of it as a tech ‘surge,’” an HHS official told POLITICO.

The Health and Human Services statement didn’t explain everything that’s wrong, or give technical details about the repairs underway. It outlined some steps being taken to fix the site, including updates with “new code that includes bug fixes.” The department also says it’s installing monitors to catch parts of the website that are proving the most troublesome for consumers. And it also said it had seen some improvements in wait times and consumer access to the website, the online portal to health insurance exchanges or marketplaces the federal government is running in 36 states.

The administration said one essential component — the federal data hub — is working as hoped. That hub is crucial. It links federal agencies to determine an applicant’s eligibility for Obamacare coverage and subsidies. States running their own exchanges have to be able to draw on that data as well, and some of them have been doing so successfully.

The HealthCare.gov glitches are not just a high-profile embarrassment; delays could make it harder for the administration to reach its enrollment goals for Obamacare, a centerpiece of the Obama presidency. And they provide even more fodder for the intense GOP opposition to the health law which led to the government shutdown.

President Barack Obama is holding a health care event Monday, and House Republicans are opening hearings into the rough Obamacare rollout later this week. Some Republicans have called on HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to resign or be fired.

Sen. John McCain on CNN Sunday said the whole Obamacare rollout has been “a fiasco”

“Send Air Force One out to Silicon Valley, load it up with some smart people, bring them back to Washington, and fix this problem. It’s ridiculous. And everybody knows that,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

HHS didn’t mention Silicon Valley — or Air Force One— but implied it was doing something along those lines.

“Our team is bringing in some of the best and brightest from both inside and outside government to scrub in with the team and help improve HealthCare.gov,” HHS said.

“We’re also putting in place tools and processes to aggressively monitor and identify parts of HealthCare.gov where individuals are encountering errors or having difficulty using the site, so we can prioritize and fix them,” it added. “We are also defining new test processes to prevent new issues from cropping up as we improve the overall service and deploying fixes to the site during off-peak hours on a regular basis.”

HHS says the updates are improving the shopping and health plan enrollment experience. Consumers have to go through many steps online — creating accounts, logging into the system, getting their identity verified, seeing and comparing health plan options, getting subsidy and cost quotes, and finally choosing a plan and signing up for it.

People have encountered problems at every step of the way — if they even get past the first step.

“The initial consumer experience of HealthCare.gov has not lived up to the expectations of the American people,” HHS said. “We are committed to doing better.”

HealthCare.gov has received more than 19 million unique visits since the Oct. 1 launch, according to the updated numbers released Sunday. As of Saturday, about 476,000 applications have been filed in state-run and federal-run health insurance exchanges — but that’s just applications, not actually getting covered. About half of those applications came from the 36 states where the feds are running the exchanges.

Those numbers, however, don’t indicate how many people have successfully completed enrollment. The administration won’t release those numbers until next month — and it’s likely to be much smaller than the numbers of who have started the application process.

The HHS blog post didn’t provide a timeline for when the administration expects major problems to be resolved. A CMS official said the administration plans to do regular fixes to the system during off-peak hours on a regular basis.

Obamacare saved my family from financial ruin

House Speaker John Boehner and his tea party friends shut down the U.S. government because of people like me. I am the mother of an insurance hog, someone who could have blown through his lifetime limit of health coverage by the time he was 14. My son has managed to survive despite seemingly insurmountable challenges, and he wears his preexisting condition like a Super Bowl ring. 

Mason, now 16, was probably born with his brain tumor. We discovered it six years ago. Biopsies showed a slow-growing mass, which was the good news. The bad news was that the tumor could not be removed because it had grown around essential structures in his brain. Under the care of some of the country’s finest specialists, Mason had frequent scans. There was little we could do between tests but hope for the best. Like other children his age, Mason played basketball, argued with his siblings and avoided cleaning his bedroom. He managed to undergo chemotherapy for eight months without getting too sick. He insisted on finding ways to laugh, saying things like: “I have brain cancer. What’s your problem?” It was an uneasy peace — until the tumor ruptured in December 2010, three years after his initial diagnosis, and Mason suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage. 

Mason spent most of eighth grade in the hospital. In the six months he was hospitalized, he spent 65 days in the pediatric intensive care unit. He underwent four brain surgeries. Halfway through his hospitalization, the Affordable Care Act was passed, alleviating lifetime limits on coverage and saving us from the financial abyss. Mason moved to a rehabilitation hospital where he was retaught the most basic skills — sitting up, eating and standing. We faithfully paid the premiums on the employer-sponsored plan through which our family is covered, along with the rest of our bills, thanking God and whoever else would listen for our good fortune to have coverage.

The biggest fear for families such as mine is that we will lose our health insurance and be rendered uninsurable because one of us has been sick. The Affordable Care Act does away with dreaded clauses barring preexisting conditions. It also enables us to keep Mason on our insurance until he is 26; then, he will be able to purchase his own coverage on an insurance exchange. At least, that was the plan until last Tuesday, when the government was shut down in protest of such excesses.

As far as the brain tumor goes, our family might have drawn the short straw. Maybe our story lacks a certain universal appeal. People might thinking to themselves, “I’m so sorry that happened to you, but odds are it won’t happen to me.” I hope it doesn’t, really.

But having lived in hospitals with Mason for months, I have seen that bad things — accidents, freak illnesses — happen to smart, cautious and otherwise undeserving people. It’s one thing we all have in common. We are fragile beings. So what is wrong with allowing us to purchase a financial safety net? What’s so un-American about that?

If I could get John Boehner and Ted Cruz on a conference call, I would explain this to them. I would tell them that, while they were busy trying to derail the Affordable Care Act over the past two years, Mason has again learned to walk, talk, eat and shoot a three-point basket.

Watch Chris Hayes RIP Fox’s Obamacare Lies to Shreds!

It comes as no surprise to those of us who have taken the time to learn at least the rudiments of what the ACA, aka Obamacare actually is and what it will actually do, that there are many people who not only do not know what it does, they think that it will do many things that it will not do. This is in part due to a vigorous campaign of misinformation and disinformation on the part of the law’s detractors.

With the opening of the healthcare exchanges next week looming, the far right has redoubled their efforts to disseminate false information with the full cooperation of the folks at Faux News’ Fox and Friends. After an encounter on his show with TEApublican Representative Renee Ellmers during which the Congresswoman displayed a total ignorance of the law, Chris Hayes decided to create a tutorial for his colleagues at Faux News and those on the fringe right who they serve.

Representative Ellmers said on the show that, “Those who are now uninsured will remain uninsured, those who have insurance right now will lose their insurance.” After playing the clip of the Congresswoman’s remarks Hayes began his tutorial with a background graphic resembling the “For Dummies” books entitled, “Obamacare For Fox and Friends.”

In response to a clip of Steve Doocy bemoaning the fact that the small business exchanges, which will do for small business owners what the public exchanges will do for the rest of us, will be delayed until the first of November, Hayes pointed out that the law does not take effect until the first of January and that the delay, while not ideal, was far from the end of the world, there is still plenty of time. In fact small businesses will still be able to enroll next month, just not online.

He finishes up by pointing out the obvious. Any law is complex and this law is no exception, and it is the duty of the news media to sort through the details and get the information out to the people in a form that they can understand. He admonishes his friends at Fox and Friends to stand up and do their job rather than further contribute to the confusion.

Unfortunately, there are those even in the mainstream media, those who the TEApublicans deride as the liberal media who do not think that it is their responsibility to get the truth out. Chuck Todd, NBC News Political Director and Chief White House Correspondent, last week on a segment of Morning Joe told Ed Rendell (D), former Pennsylvania Governor, that it is not the fault of the media that the TEApublican inaccuracies have not been exposed by fact checking by the press. He said, “They don’t repeat the other stuff because they haven’t even heard the Democratic message.

It is not one side or the other that holds the entire blame for the proliferation of bad “information” about the law circulating among the population, there is plenty of blame to go around but Chris is right on this one and Chuck is dead wrong. The main job of the press is to root out falsehood and deception from our elected officials and to make sure that we have full and accurate information about the laws that are pending and, after enactment, those that are about to take effect.

Rand Paul Admits ‘We Probably Can’t Defeat Or Get Rid Of Obamacare’

Rand Paul, who is carefully plotting his path to win the White House, this afternoon finally admitted what much of America has known for a long time. The Tea Party Republican senator from Kentucky said he’s “acknowledging that we probably can’t defeat or get rid of Obamacare,” but suggested “by starting with our position of not funding it maybe we get to a position where we make it less bad.”

Speaking with reporters at the Mackinac Republican Leadership Conference in Michigan, the libertarian son of former Congressman Ron Paul spoke against shutting down the government over Obamacare.

“In the end the sausage factory in Washington will make sausage,” Paul told The Detroit News. “Nothing good will happen though. They’ll pass a continuing resolution. When they do that though, they’re acknowledging that we’re borrowing $30,000 a second and I think that’s unconscionable.”

He also spoke pessimistically about the GOP’s chances of successful obstruction. “Because Democrats perceive disunity, our leverage doesn’t really work,” Paul said. “Leverage doesn’t work unless people believe you’ll actually do something. The fact that Democrats don’t believe we’ll do anything, in the end they’ll get what they want and a bill will be cobbled together.”

The 50-year old freshman senator has been working closely with David Lane, an evangelical political operative who is largely funded by the Mississippi-based American Family Association. Lane’s expertise is reportedly in getting out the vote, and convincing evangelicals to vote for candidates they find less-than appealing. His daughter, Jillian Lane, is a staffer working for Senator Paul in his D.C. office.

Lane, who recently demanded war against “pagan” imposed “homosexual marriage,” is planning an October trip to Israel for the radical right wing Republicans lining up in a premature race to 2016. In addition to Senator Paul, rumored to be on the trip to Jerusalem is Senator Ted Cruz.

In a July World Net Daily op-ed, Lane, head of the AFA’s American Renewal Project and virulently anti-gay, wrote:

“Where are the champions of Christ to save the nation from the pagan onslaught imposing homosexual marriage, homosexual scouts, 60 million babies done to death by abortion and red ink as far as the eye can see on America?”

“Who will wage war for the Soul of America and trust the living God to deliver the pagan gods into our hands and restore America to her Judeo-Christian heritage and re-establish a Christian culture?”

Even Fox Host Admits GOP Being ‘Held Hostage’ by Loony Tea Party Over Obamacare!

As a conservative you would think that a FOX News host telling you that the latest Republican attempt to defund Obamacare by threatening a government shutdown is “a very destructive, unwise strategy” that “smacks of political mummery”, would give you pause for thought.

For conservative commentator and Washington Times columnist Monica Crowley that was too much to ask for. Despite being told by FOX News host Gregg Jarrett that evidence from three separate opinion polls indicates that a shutdown would be blamed on Republicans, Crowley apparently believes that this is a price worth paying because “you don’t surrender the nation to socialized medicine just because you think that you can’t win the PR battle.”

Perhaps the most interesting moment came when Jarrett claimed that Boehner and the rank and file GOP actually had little interest in pursuing the defunding of Obamacare. Was it not just the case that they were being “held hostage” by the Tea Party over this, and were attempting to appease the more reactionary elements in their party? Crowley did not seem too interested in addressing that, instead claiming that “50%-60%” of Americans “hate” Obamacare and that “the country is with us on this.”

Jarrett also tried to appeal to Crowley’s sense of realpolitik; surely she must concede that any attempt to defund Obamacare would never make it past the Democrat-controlled Senate, and even if it did, President Obama would resign before he dismantled his signature healthcare law? Ms. Crowley did concede that, saying that defunding Obamacare is “highly unlikely”, but that doesn’t matter because, apparently this puts political pressure on the Democrats. A rather bizarre conclusion given the polling data Crowley had been shown earlier.

The moment to switch off for many of us came when Crowley pivoted to that old conservative favorite: the “corrupt media”, and its inevitable plan to spin all of this to make it look like Republicans were being reckless and actively pursuing a shutdown. Ms. Crowley has nothing to worry about: a media, corrupt or not, would not struggle at all at the moment to make the GOP look reckless.

Just one small coda to all this: Crowley seems to be slightly confused. The United States does not have “socialized medicine.” That is what they have here in Britain in the form of the National Health Service. The health system is funded by the tax payer meaning it is free at the point of service for all who need it (even non-British citizens who are injured or hurt while in the UK are entitled to free emergency health care). What America has is a system that preserves the role of the market in providing healthcare, but now protects against excessive charges and premiums, with the government there to subsidize those Americans who cannot afford healthcare coverage.

WaPo Gives Senator Ted Cruz’s Obamacare Video Three Pinnochios

We all know that popular Tea Party adage, don’t we? “If at first you don’t repeal, lie, lie again.” Perhaps no one personifies their expertise in such matters than the neo-McCarthyite smarm king himself, Senator Ted Cruz. The Canadian Senator from Texas has just released a new one-minute video about his opposition to the Affordable Care Act, known more commonly as Obamacare, and it was so full of lies that The Washington Post gave Cruz three of their “Pinnochios” for his effort. In other words, Cruz’ video is worthless for anything other than propaganda distribution.

Cruz starts by taking Senator Max Baucus ridiculously out of context with a quote from around April of this year where Baucus said the way that information was getting to the public about Obamacare was a “train wreck.” Cruz took that one snippet and just like the Romney campaign did with Obama’s “You didn’t build that” sound byte, he created an entire premise of his video that one of the people who helped craft the bill himself thinks that Obamcare is a “train wreck.”

But that wasn’t all. He lied about large corporations quietly being excused from the mandate (the employer requirement side of Obamacare was delayed for all employers, and the news was anything but quiet). He lied about the teamsters being opposed to the ACA because it would destroy the 40-hour work week. While the quote Cruz used from Jimmy Hoffa, Jr. was correct, the context was once again completely wrong. Hoffa and the teamsters he represents were concerned about regulations and there are economists who say what the unions were pushing for was “double-dipping” into benefits anyway. In any event, the president of the AFL-CIO, the country’s largest labor organization, says that great progress has been made, so pretty much from start to finish this new ad from Cruz is one lie after another…and the sad part is many of his constituents probably have no clue just how mendacious it is.

Rick Perry Quietly Asks For $100 Million Obamacare Benefit, Even Though He Opposes It

Rick Perry has vocally opposed 'Obamacare' for years, be it throughout his failed presidential candidacy or simply his three-term stint as the governor of Texas. As recently as this past April, Perry turned down $100 million in federal funding to help expand Texas' Medicaid program--funding which, according to ThinkProgress, could have helped provide basic health benefits to 1.5 million low-income Texans. Now, Perry is in negotiations with the White House to receive $100 million in order to help expand a program called Community First Choice. ThinkProgress reports:

"The Affordable Care Act grants state funding to expand a program called Community First Choice, which aims to improve the community-based medical services available to disabled and elderly Americans. The wildly popular program is administered through Medicaid and could prevent thousands of disabled and older Americans from being uprooted from their homes and into a long-term care facility for their treatments. Approximately 12,000 Texans could take advantage of it in the first year alone."

What's perhaps even more laughable is the fact that Perry's spokespeople insist that, even though the governor is negotiations to accept funds from the program, he still opposes Obamacare. The office released a statement to Politico, in which they claim that Perry has sought to help the poor in Texas long before 'Obamacare' became the law of the land:

“Long before Obamacare was forced on the American people, Texas was implementing policies to provide those with intellectual disabilities more community options to enable them to live more independent lives, at a lower cost to taxpayers. The Texas Health and Human Services Commission will continue to move forward with these policies because they are right for our citizens and our state, regardless of whatever funding schemes may be found in Obamacare.”

Advocates of the Community First Choice program contacted Politico as soon as the story broke, worried that even mentioning the program as having any relation to Obamacare might change Perry's mind.  “I would hate for the CFC to become a political football,” said one advocate of the program. The article then went on to admit that, "with the possible exception of Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), few other politicians have made as big a stink about Obamacare as Perry has."
Perhaps the governor has softened his stance on the program due to the fact that he does not plan to run for reelection at the end of this term. Or perhaps Perry has finally come to terms with the fact that, ever since the Supreme Court reaffirmed the constitutionality of 'Obamacare', it is going to eventually become the law of the land, and has the potential to actually benefit millions across the country.

Republican Logic!

Thanks To Obamacare, Major Insurers Have To Give Back $36 Million To California Small Businesses

On Tuesday, Golden State small businesses and their employees got some great news: two of the state’s largest insurers will have to give them over $36 million in insurance rebates because of an Obamacare consumer protection.

The health law forces insurers to spend at least 80 percent of the premiums they charge on paying for actual medical services, rather than administrative overhead or profits. That means more money for ordinary consumers — and less for profitable insurance companies.

The so-called “80/20 rule” put $1.5 billion back into Americans’ pockets in 2011 alone. The average rebate was $151 per family across all insurance markets, and in states where insurers blatantly gouged prices, average rebates topped a whopping $500 per family.

Now, the benefits for Californians with small business health plans are beginning to materialize. Blue Shield of California will be forced to pay back $24.5 million in rebates. Anthem Blue Cross will have to pay back another $12 million.

While cheering the latest numbers as a victory for California small businesses and their employees, consumer advocates argue that the insurance industry should try harder to proactively lower costs for companies and individuals.

“Health insurers should work to cut upfront premiums rather than reimburse consumers afterward,” said Jon Fox, consumer advocate at the California Public Interest Research Group Education Fund, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. “Millions of dollars in rebates are a clear sign that health insurers are overcharging consumers.”

Large insurers like Anthem Blue Cross have tried their best to circumvent Obamacare protections like the 80/20 rule by threatening outlandish premium rate hikes. The health law requires state insurance regulators to review any premium hike request above 10 percent, but it leaves the decision of whether or not reject those rates with the states. Although 37 states can negotiate or reject insurers’ rates, some large-population states — including California — can’t.

Still, any rate hikes imposed by insurers will be held accountable to the 80/20 rule. Financial gimmicks may give insurers a short turn profit — but it’s one they’ll have to give right back to consumers.

Insurance companies aren’t the only ones who aren’t huge fans of this consumer protection. Last September, the Republican-led House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Health Subcommittee passed H.R. 1206, which would have repealed the 80/20 rule and amounted to a massive premium hike for over 13 million Americans. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the bill would also increase the federal deficit by $531 million in the next four years.

The Affordable Care Act in 90 Seconds

Please share this with your friends. This is what the Republicans don't want you to have.

So much that they have voted 37 times to repeal these great benefits.

South Carolina House Attempting to Make Obamacare a Crime

The South Carolina state House passed a bill on Wednesday that makes the implementation of Obamacare a criminal act.  The bill named The South Carolina Freedom of Health Care Protection makes The Affordable Care Act null and void in South Carolina.  It passed the House 65 to 39.

Its stated intention is to “prohibit certain individuals from enforcing or attempting to enforce such unconstitutional laws; and to establish criminal penalties and civil liability for violating this article.”

Nullification as an alternative to secession is a controversial subject, but an idea obviously embraced by the South Carolina House.  While some say the Tenth Amendment allows states to ignore federal laws they deem unconstitutional, many constitutional scholars argue against that notion.  Although Gov. Nikki Haley (R) hasn’t confirmed that she would sign the The South Carolina Freedom of Health Care Protection  bill, she seems to support the spirit of the legislation.  Haley said  recently,

South Carolina does not want, and cannot afford, the president’s health care plan.  Not now, and not ever.  To that end, we will not pursue the type of government-run health exchanges being forced on us by Washington.  Despite the rose-colored rhetoric coming out of D.C., these exchanges are nothing more than a way to make the state do the federal government’s bidding in spending massive amounts of taxpayer dollars on insurance subsidies that we can’t afford.

 Source

Five Myths About Obamacare

Myth #1: Starting in 2014, everyone must either have health insurance or pay a penalty—no exceptions.
Truth: The following groups are exempt from the ACA requirement to have coverage:

see article for the list

Myth # 2: If you're insured through your employer, Obamacare won’t help you.
Truth: The healthcare law provides many new protections to those who already have health insurance 

Myth #3: All businesses will be required to provide health insurance to their employees. through their jobs, and it also gives employers incentives to offer better coverage.
Truth: This is simply not true. The “shared responsibility” requirements in the Affordable Care Act apply to employers with at least 50 full-time employees. These large employers may have to pay a penalty if they don’t offer coverage to their full-time employees. The majority of American small businesses don’t have 50 employees.

Myth #4: Undocumented immigrants will receive federal aid to buy health insurance.
Truth: Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for either Medicaid or the new tax credits that will help pay for private insurance.

Myth #5: My state isn’t setting up its own health exchange, so it’s exempt from Obamacare.
Truth: If a state doesn’t set up its own health exchange the federal government will ensure that consumers in that state still have a place to get insurance by setting up an exchange for the state.

All of the other important consumer protections in the Affordable Care Act—like the prohibition on discrimination based on pre-existing conditions; the option for young adults to stay on their parent’s plans until they turn 26; and access to recommended preventive services with no co-payments—will still apply to that state.

I just put the myths and the truth's here see the article for much more info!