Romney: Obama's Gift-Giving Beat Me

Mitt Romney isn’t running for president any longer, but he’s still our there saying odd things. My local paper this morning contains several snarky letters-to-the-editor about that conference call last week, where he said President Obama won a second term by giving “gifts” to special interest groups. Even Newt Gingrich and Bobby Jindal are on his case!

It feels weird to be on the same side with those guys (especially Newt), but I must also take exception to what Romney said. Of course, I wasn’t in on the call, so I didn’t actually hear him say it. But I’m told it went something like this:

"With regards to the young people, for instance, a forgiveness of college loan interest was a big gift. Free contraceptives were very big with young, college-aged women. And then, finally, Obamacare also made a difference for them, because as you know, anybody now 26 years of age and younger was now going to be part of their parents' plan, and that was a big gift to young people.”

The college loan interest isn’t one of my issues, but health care is. So I’ll start with those free contraceptives.

You may be right, Mitt. Getting pills and diaphragms without a copay might make life easier for many young women, and may have won some points for Obama. On the other hand, it’s just as likely that you lost points with your vow to “get rid” of Planned Parenthood, along with other things you’ve said about abortion and birth control. I was a college-aged woman in the 1970s. My primary concern wasn’t getting those services for free; it was being able to get them at all.

And those young adults who can stay on their parents’ health insurance until they’re 26? You’re not the first to take a pot-shot at that. Somewhere back in the campaign cycle, another guy -- it might have been Ron Paul -- said, well, if that’s going to be the rule, we ought to raise the voting age to 27.

I’m tired of hearing politicians speak of this provision like it was some kind of wild, new, un-American idea, because it isn’t.

First of all, it isn’t a “gift.” Young folks up to 26 can be covered on a parent’s health insurance policy if (a) the parent has health insurance, and (b) the parent agrees to keep the kid on as a dependent.

Parents may not have insurance. A lot of Americans don’t. Those parts of Obamacare that say we all have to get some and the insurance companies can’t refuse to sell it to us won’t kick in until 2014. If parents do have insurance, and choose to keep under-26 offspring on the policy, chances are it won’t be free. I’ve worked at places that had group health plans. Most paid at least part of the premium for the employees, but if I wanted coverage for my family, I’ve always had to pay extra for that.

Point two: Young adults need that insurance, and many don’t yet have the means to get their own. We’ve seen some job growth in recent months, but it’s still tough out there, especially for young folks just entering the market. When they find a job, it often comes without benefits. In the two weeks since the election, I’ve heard businesses wailing about Obamacare and how it’s going to break their budgets, how they can’t afford to provide health care for their employees, The complaints all seem to be coming from restaurant chains, and that’s where a lot of young adults work.

Point three: This is not a new idea. Before Obama signed the health care act, before he was elected to his first term, many existing health insurance plans (including the one at my company) offered coverage for unmarried dependents up to age 25. And I personally know quite a few parents who have used that option for kids who were still in school or still trying to find their place in the economy.

Under the new law, young adults can stay on until 26 and it doesn’t matter if they’re married. On this provision at least, Obamacare didn’t make a big, sweeping change. It simply took an existing industry practice, made a couple of incremental changes, and made it a required feature of any policy issued after September 23, 2010.

Gifts, indeed.

Five Good Things About the 2012 Election

Barack Obama won a second term. I’m glad about that, but I didn’t feel like popping balloons and shooting fireworks on election night.

This campaign season was crazy, disheartening, hideously expensive and unconscionably long. And what do we have at the end of it? Same President, same Speaker of the House, same Senate Majority Leader, and more or less the same divided Congress. Is there any hope that our elected leaders will solve any of our pressing problems in the next four years, or will it be the same old gridlock?

Now that a week has passed, and some of the dust has settled, I find a few signs of hope in last Tuesday’s results.

1. Big Money didn’t buy our votes. This was our first presidential contest since the Citizens United ruling. Corporations and SuperPacs spent $billions to elect Mitt Romney and other candidates who would do things their way. For the most part, they lost.
2. Health care reform (the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, or whatever you want to call it) has survived a Supreme Court challenge and a slew of candidates who vowed to repeal it. Looks like it'll stick around long enough for all its provisions to go into effect. I don’t doubt it will be a rocky road. But I’d rather see the country go down that road, making course corrections as needed, than go back to the way things were.
3. Outrageous comments about rape did not win over the electorate. Missouri’s Todd Akin (legitimate rape rarely causes pregnancy) and Indiana’s Richard Mourdock (if it does, it’s a gift from God) lost their Senate bids.
4. We will, in fact, see some new faces in the Senate, and they aren't all tea-party favorites like Ted Cruz (newly elected in my home state). The League of Conservation voters reports that seven of eight environmentally-minded candidates won. And come January, we’ll have more women in the Senate than ever before. Maybe these leaders will find something better to do than deny climate change and block access to birth control.
5. Texas is still very much a red state, but our House of Representatives will be less lopsidedly Republican than it was during the last session. I suppose that's something.