25 posts tagged thirdway
Men Matter: In 8 of the last 9 Presidential elections, the winner also won the male vote.
President Carter won men by 4 points in 1976, Pres. Reagan by 17 in 1980 and 24 in 1984, Pres. H.W. Bush by 16 in 1988, Pres. Clinton by 3 in 1992, Pres. W. Bush by 11 in both 2000 and 2004 and Pres. Obama by 1. The only outlier is President Clinton in 1996, who lost men by 1. The gender gap matters, but so do men.
If you don’t comply with the individual mandate, what happens to you? You can be subject to five years in prison.
-Rep. Peter Roskam (R-IL) 11/18/2009
Actually, the law specifically states that people who don’t pay the penalty cannot be charged criminally. It also forbids liens or levies placed on property for failure to pay.
Read more in our new memo debunking the 12 biggest myths about the Affordable Care Act.
A little less than 50 percent of the people in this country depend on some form of government benefit to help provide for them. After Obamacare, it will not be less than 50 percent; it will be 100 percent.
-Rick Santorum, 03/06/2012
Actually, the new law will make coverage affordable to those who cannot afford it now, but the number of people receiving assistance will be well below 100 percent of the population. According to Politi-Fact.com about 60 percent of the population will be receiving some form of government assistance. This assistance includes a tax credit for private insurance, Medicare or coverage through another government program like the VA or federal employee benefits.
Read more in our new memo debunking the 12 biggest myths about the Affordable Care Act.
“…we won’t have anywhere near enough doctors to care for the expanded volume of patients that Obamacare will create.”
-Marc Seigel, National Review, 03/30/2012
The new law will give more Americans coverage that will help them afford care, and in turn, there will be more demand for services such as primary care, which is already in short supply. Congress anticipated this problem, however, and increased reimbursement and funding for primary care doctors and other health professionals including physician assistants and nurses. President Obama’s administration recently announced an additional $250 million to boost the supply of primary care providers.
Read more in our new memo debunking the 12 biggest myths about the Affordable Care Act.
Plan elimination is the first major consequence of PPACA that small-business owners likely feel.
-National Federation of Independent Businesses, 07/2011
Actually, studies by the Congressional Budget Office, the Rand Corporation, and the Urban Institute have shown how employers will continue to have strong incentives to cover their workers. They will continue to compete for the best employees by offering benefits that employees want. Employers and employees will also still have strong tax advantages for employment-based coverage.
Read more in our new memo debunking the 12 biggest myths about the Affordable Care Act.
Obamacare contains an “abortion surcharge and a secrecy clause” that forces
“pro-life Americans … to pay for other people’s abortions.”
-Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), 03/15/2012
Actually, the health insurance reform legislation maintains the current law of no federal funding for abortions, except in cases of rape, incest or when the life of the woman is endangered. A federal judge recently wrote “the express language of the [Affordable Care Act] does not provide for taxpayer funded abortion. That is a fact and it is clear on its face.”
Read more in our new memo debunking the 12 biggest myths about the Affordable Care Act.
This [Obamacare] will be the biggest job-killer ever.
-Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL), 03/26/2012
Actually, In contrast to the “significant job losses” projected by a 2011 GOP report, the law’s impact on jobs is likely to be minimal according to the CBO. The Republican report fails to mention that in many cases workers may be choosing to exit the labor market voluntarily. With new options to qualify for Medicaid or subsidized coverage, the Affordable Care Act allows those working solely for the purpose of keeping their insurance to work less or retire. Although fines imposed by the employer mandate may reduce the number of low-wage jobs, those cuts will be limited and largely offset by potential job increases in health and insurance industries.
In sum, the new law introduces incentives that will push employment numbers in both directions, but the net effect is hardly a doomsday for jobs.
Read more in our new memo debunking the 12 biggest myths about the Affordable Care Act.
Obamacare adds trillions to our deficits and to our national debt, and pushes those obligations on to coming generations.
-Mitt Romney, 06/28/2012
Actually, the Congressional Budget Office says that the health care law will lower the deficit, by about $124 billion over 10 years. The reason is simply that the health care law has offsetting revenue and cost savings that exceed new spending.
Read more in our new memo debunking the 12 biggest myths about the Affordable Care Act.
by Mieke Eoyang & Matt Bennett via Politico.
A sword of Damocles is dangling over the Defense Department. Congress and President Barack Obama hung it up intentionally, in a good-faith effort to hasten deal-making on the budget deficit. But the threat has not had its intended effect of pushing lawmakers toward a grand bargain. So the time has come to ratchet up the pressure.
Late last year, as the debate over lifting the debt ceiling threatened to derail the U.S. economy, Congress created sequestration — more than $500 billion in deep and indiscriminate future defense cuts and another half trillion in domestic cuts all designed to be harmful. The idea was that the specter of these cuts would force Congress to reach a grand bargain, solving the long-term fiscal shortfalls.
But that’s as far as it went. Congressional Republicans have remained loyal to tea party dogma and squarely oppose a balanced deal. But with sequestration looming, that obstructionism is not only irresponsible, it could be dangerous.
Obamacare means that for up to 20 million Americans, they will lose the insurance they currently have, the insurance that they like and they want to keep.
-Mitt Romney, 06/28/2012
Actually, Romney’s campaign has cherry-picked the results of a Congressional Budget Office study. CBO’s official position is that 3 to 5 million people will no longer receive coverage through their employer. Instead, they will receive coverage elsewhere such as an insurance exchange where individuals, not employers, pick the coverage they want. The 20 million figure comes from a CBO analysis designed to show the uncertainty of making predictions using a wide range of possibilities, not its actual prediction.
Read more in our new memo debunking the 12 biggest myths about the Affordable Care Act.
Obamacare will lead to a government takeover of health care.
-Mitt Romney, 05/11/2012
Actually, the health care law provides Americans with a choice of private health insurance plans; it does not offer a public option or provide Medicare-for-all as some members of Congress proposed. Instead, it lets individuals choose their own coverage and provides them a menu that compares the price and quality of insurance plans.
Read more in our new memo debunking the 12 biggest myths about the Affordable Care Act.
Third Way’s Senior Policy Analyst Michelle Diggles talks about voter registration in swing states in this article from Bloomberg. Check it out!
By John McCormick - Jul 9, 2012 8:00 PM ET via Bloomberg.
Independent voters are growing in numbers at the expense of Democrats in battleground states most likely to determine this year’s presidential election, a Bloomberg News analysis shows.
The collective total of independents grew by about 443,000 in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and North Carolina since the 2008 election, according to data compiled by Bloomberg from state election officials.
During the same time, Democrats saw a net decline of about 480,000 in those six states, while Republicans — boosted in part by a competitive primary earlier this year — added roughly 38,000 voters in them, the analysis shows.
“Democrats hit the high-water mark for registration in 2008, so it’s natural that they are going to see some drop off,” said Michelle Diggles, a senior policy analyst with the Democrat-Leaning Third Way research group in Washington who conducted a similar study earlier this year.
The rise of independent voters has had a major impact on recent election results.
