Pun Salad

[Inspired by yesterday morning's mail from Jim Geraghty.]

Tuesday, the Washington Post featured a story from "Kaiser Health News":

Some Democrats have now joined their Republican counterparts in asking the Obama administration to moderate scheduled Medicare Advantage payment cuts for 2015.

Wha? Well, cut to the letter wherein this request is made to Ms Marilyn Tavenner, Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMMS). Sure enough, one of the signatories is:

Yup, that's one of my state's Senators, Jeanne Shaheen. Our other Senator, Kelly Ayotte, also signed, but that's not important to my point.

Which is this: the Medicare Advantage cuts are (in fact) part of Obamacare.

And Jeanne cast one of the deciding votes for Obamacare. It wouldn't have passed without her.

Worse: there was a separate vote that would have prevented these changes (see vote 72 description here). Like all but two Democrats, Senator Jeanne voted in favor of keeping the Medicare Advantage cuts in the final legislation.

In short: Jeanne should have known these cuts were coming. She voted for them. (And she voted, separately, against preventing them.) Now (as I type), 256 days away from Election Day, she wants backsies? Her letter to the CMMS Administrator is a good indication that she's aware her Obamacare support is sinking her polling numbers. (Her near-mindless voting record in support of President Obama continues to this day.)

Back in 2009, Jeanne was fully invested in the "if you have health coverage that you like you can keep it" lie; in fact, she has not yet memory-holed her response to "Emil from Salem" where she proclaimed this was "a requirement that I have for supporting a bill".

But many of us knew that was a lie back then; see the e-mail I sent to her back then in response to her empty promise, and (if you're feeling masochistic) my response to her form-letter reply.