Monday Open Thread [5.4.15]

This chart shows the participating in the individual health insurance market, and it shows a very noticeable increase in participation after Obamacare took affect.

Kaiser Family Foundation analysis of recently-submitted 2014 filings by insurers to state insurance departments (using data compiled by Mark Farrah Associates) shows that 15.5 million people had major medical coverage in the individual insurance market—both inside and outside of the Marketplaces—as of December 31, 2014. Enrollment was up 4.8 million over the end of 2013, a 46% increase. […]

The insurance company filings do not break down whether coverage was purchased through a Marketplace or in the outside market, nor whether coverage was first purchased after January 1, 2014 and therefore subject to the new ACA insurance market rules. However, juxtaposing these enrollment figures with the federal government’s estimate of 6.7 Marketplace enrollees as of October 15, 2014 suggests that about 43% of all individual market coverage was purchased through the marketplaces in 2014. It also means that new enrollment in the individual market among those who would have otherwise been uninsured likely took place inside the Marketplaces, driven by the availability of premium subsidies. Among those signing up for Marketplace plans in 2014, 85% qualified for premium subsidies.

A survey from the Harvard University Institute of Politics shows that younger voters, a key part of President Obama’s victories in 2008 and 2012, want the Democrats to keep control of the White House in 2016.

Overall, young Americans prefer that a Democrat (55%) win the White House over a Republican (40%) in the 2016 race for president, a view held within the younger (18-24 year-olds – 53%: Democrat; 41%: Republican) and older (25-29 year-olds – 57%: Democrat; 39%: Republican) segments of the age-group. ‎This view is stronger among young African-Americans (87%: Democrat; 8%: Republican) and young Hispanics (68%: Democrat; 27%: Republican).

Younger voters support Hillary Clinton over Elizabeth Warren 47%-11%. Clinton leads Bernie Sanders 47%-1%. No Republican candidate was able to break 10% support with younger Republicans. Ben Carson (10%), Rand Paul (8%), Jeb Bush (7%), Mike Huckabee (7%), and Scott Walker (5%) were the top five Republicans.

Republicans love to call themselves Christians and denounce anyone who doesn’t vote for or follow them as un-American non-Christians, but the truth is it is all projection:

Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) was criticized by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) for “hiding behind Jesus to expand Medicaid” according to a report in The Atlantic.

The two Republican governors confronted Kasich at a donor forum hosted by the Koch brothers in Palm Springs.

A source at the event told The Atlantic, “It got heated.”

If Bobby Jindal and Nikki Haley were Christians they would actually follow Jesus Christ and care for the poor, sick, elderly and the needy. Instead, they are fellating their rich benefactors and criticizing those who are following Christ’s example. I hope they both go straight to Hell.

First Read:

“The shortened nominating calendar: After the party’s 2012 loss, the Republican National Committee decided to shorten its nominating calendar. The logic: The long-ish slog between Mitt Romney and underfunded Rick Santorum didn’t do the party any good, especially when facing an incumbent Democratic president. But the unintended consequence of a shortened nominating calendar is that about 70% of the delegates might not be decided until May. And with no incentives for candidates to drop out (because of well-financed Super PACs supporting them or with a convention in July), it’s possible that no one candidate has a majority of delegates by May or even later.”

“Does that mean a contested convention, with no candidate able to snag enough support to nail down the nomination? Maybe not, but it could mean behind-the-scenes agreements and forced alliances between campaigns as they limp to the finish line, or it could mean the ultimate winner has to pick a running mate who otherwise wouldn’t be their first choice.”

This First Read piece misses the obvious risks of a shortened calendar: what happens if Ted Cruz or some other crazy whack job wins Iowa, stays real close or even wins New Hamsphire, gets a landslide win in South Carolina and then steam rolls through Super Tuesday with a lot of wins? That candidate will be the nominee. Remember, the Republican Party DOES NOT award their delegates proportionately. It is winner take all.

Rick Klein: “For a race that may wind up not being much of a race, we sure have seen a lot of action in recent days. Consider the ways that the contours of the Democratic primary have come into view this week. The liberal/Warren wing of the party got its seat at the 2016 table, in the person of Sen. Bernie Sanders, who’s still not becoming a Democrat but figures to tip the eventual nominee leftward before he’s done. The not-declared candidate Martin O’Malley saw his first moment in the campaign glare, with events far from his choosing bringing him onto the streets of his native Baltimore. And Hillary Clinton pushed up plans for a first policy address by giving a strong speech that showed daylight between her vision and Bill Clinton’s presidency – a theme of 2015 and 2016, surely, that we’ll see again. As major news events are wont to do, the would-be nominees were drawn a bit out of their early shells. They’re preparing for a race that, at least for now, has some spark.”

More Rick Klein: “Bernie Sanders has almost no realistic chance of becoming the Democratic nominee for president. But that’s not the most effective way to think about his candidacy. His presence in the race ensures that Hillary Clinton will be pressed continually and consistently from the left — and now potentially from across the debate stage. Interest in Sanders will be driven by many of the same activists and other Democratic faithful who wanted so desperately to see Elizabeth Warren in the race. And Sanders’ timing could hardly be better: the left is growing anxious over President Obama’s agenda and nervous that Hillary Clinton might be tempted to provide minimal amounts of daylight between her policy positions and his.”

Nate Cohn: “With the legality of same-sex marriage being argued on Tuesday, the court could allow Republicans to abandon an unpopular position without abandoning their principles or risking a primary challenge. History would effectively be bailing out the party.”

“Sometimes history helps Democrats, as when the Cold War ended and made the long-held view that they were weak on national security less salient. This year, if the Supreme Court rules that same-sex marriage bans are unconstitutional, the court could free Republicans from defending a policy that makes it far harder to confront their generational and demographic challenges.”

Another conventional wisdom out there that is completely wrong is that a Supreme Court win for Marriage Equality removes the issue for all time from Republican politics. LOL. That is such an idiotic opinion that anyone who holds it should be required to return to the elementary school. It is like saying 2 + 2 = 6.

The radical theocratic Christianist base of the Republican Party will demand that every single Republican alive pledge to pass a Constitutional Amendment to reverse the Supreme Court’s ruling. If if that candidate does not so pledge, they will not get their votes.

“One of the apparent side effects of the religious freedom controversies in Indiana and (to a lesser extent) Arkansas: More Americans now oppose such laws than before,” the Washington Post reports.

“While a Pew Research Center poll conducted in September showed Americans were split on whether businesses with religious objections should be able to refuse service to a gay wedding (with 47 percent in favor), and a January AP-GfK poll showed a clear majority (57 percent) thought they should be able to, a new CNN/Opinion Research poll suggests increasing skepticism of religious freedom laws. The new poll shows just 41 percent think businesses should be able to refuse service to gay weddings, while 57 percent disagree.”