Federal Election Commission Fines 2008 Campaign — Five Years After It Ended

Former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT)

Former U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) ended his presidential campaign in January 2008, after a weak showing in the Iowa caucuses. More than five years later, the largely-paralyzed Federal Election Commission (FEC) has fined his long-defunct campaign $42,000 for failure to properly report campaign contributions.

Because Dodd’s campaign was one of eight 2008 presidential committees to take public matching funds, it agreed to an automatic audit of campaign fundraising. That routine investigation — completed in April 2012 — found that Dodd’s campaign failed to report $764,966 in gross receipts. The matter was then referred for possible enforcement action. Nearly a year later, the Dodd 2008 campaign and the FEC signed a conciliation agreement in January. The commission accepted the agreement and make it public on Friday — more than two years after Dodd retired from public life.

Meredith McGehee, policy director at the non-partisan Campaign Legal Center, told ThinkProgress that the delayed and weak action by the FEC “shows what a joke they’ve become… They’re picking on a campaign that was incredibly unsuccessful. The candidate is no longer in office. It’s kind of like going after the mosquitoes when the room is full of lions and tigers and bears. Mosquitoes are bad, you want to get rid of them, but what does it matter if you’re being eaten by the lion, the tiger, or the bear?”

The five-year lag time, she noted, is a result of under-funding by Congress. “They just don’t have enough resources to do this is what most people would consider an effective way.” That lack of effective enforcement sends a signal to other political committees that they have little to fear if they fail to accurately report their own finances. “A lot of the effective enforcement is done when people see that there is enforcement, they self-enforce. When they don’t see enforcement, they don’t self-enforce, say ‘let’s roll the dice.’ When you win your election, the fine is just the cost of doing business.”

Audits from the 2000 campaign were mostly completed within two years. But a number of new FEC policies, instituted since, have further slowed the process. With the sequestration likely to force spending cuts at the FEC, it remains to be seen whether the three 2012 campaigns that accepted matching funds will have their audits completed by 2017.

Chris Dodd for President’s end of 2012 report showed the committee with about $18,000 in the bank. There is little forcing it to actually pay the fine and raising money for failed campaigns after the fact can be incredibly difficult — former Sen. John Glenn (D-OH) spent 23 years paying of the campaign debt from his 1984 campaign.

In addition to paying a $42,000 fine, the conciliation agreement stipulates that Dodd 2008 will “cease and desist” from violating disclosure laws going forward.

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The IRS Is Accessing Your Health Records. You Trust Them?

So how do you feel about turning over access to sensitive healthcare information to the Internal Revenue Service?

In the wake of running disclosures of the agency’s nefarious snooping and political targeting, its new role as chief health insurance enforcer should give us heartburn.

Under Obamacare, responsibility for verifying eligibility for the healthcare program, and monitoring whether you carry “qualifying” health coverage (and are exempt from the law’s penalties) falls principally to the IRS.

The IRS was given expansive, new powers to execute these goals. That includes more authority to share your personal information — not only about your income, but also your healthcare.

And the agency’s reach only grows: Former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman told Congress last year that the agency would need another $13.1 billion to implement Obamacare in 2014, on top of the billion it has already spent.

Officials at the U.S. Treasury, the parent of the IRS, have estimated that the IRS now has about 700 full-time staffers working on Obamacare implementation.

Estimates say that eventually, the IRS will need a minimum of 5,000 and perhaps as many of 16,000 additional employees to carry out the new law’s many mandates.

The IRS is under fire this week, after its Director of Exempt Organizations Lois Lerner admitted on Friday that the agency targeted conservatives for special tax-exempt scrutiny during the 2012 election season. IRS targeted tea party types and groups that specifically opposed the Obama Administration.

This abuse should give everyone pause heading into the fall, when the IRS assumes the lead roll in monitoring what kind of health insurance we carry, whether we are eligible for Obamacare, or subject to the legislation’s myriad list of financial penalties.

A link to more than 75 regulations, notices, guidance documents, and other public directives on how the IRS will implement various provisions of the Affordable Care Act can be found HERE

These are just some of the ways that the IRS will regulate your healthcare.

1. The IRS is responsible for implementing 47 new healthcare tax provisions under Obamacare. These include the right to levy a penalty against businesses and individuals who don’t provide or acquire insurance, determining how to distribute annual subsidies to those qualifying for subsidies to buy the Obamacare coverage, and deciding how to deliver tax credits to small businesses that buy coverage for workers.

2. The IRS will also include new paperwork with everyone’s’ tax returns starting next year, to monitor the decisions all of us make with respect to our health insurance. This tax document must contain sufficient information for taxpayers to prove that they purchased qualifying health insurance under Obamacare.

According to American’s for Tax Reform, at a minimum, the form will need to contain: the name and health insurance identification number of the taxpayer; the name and tax identification number of the health insurance company; the number of months the taxpayer was covered by this insurance plan; and whether or not the plan was purchased in one of Obamacare’s “exchanges.”

You can view the projected IRS form at www.ObamacareTaxForm.com.  On the form, lines 3-4 show where taxpayers will disclose their personal health ID information.

3. The IRS will also have to actively share with other agencies, state exchanges, and maybe even individual health plans; the financial information of folks purchasing coverage on the Obamacare exchanges (and qualifying for subsidies). Right now, there’s no other way to make sure people qualify for the federal money.

The new enrollment form unveiled two weeks ago – for people to use in applying for the Obamacare subsidies — failed to ask the relevant and probing questions that the government will need to know in order to verify financial eligibility.

The Obama White House probably wanted to stoke a perception that the application will be simple. They had been criticized for the form’s first iteration, which ran dozens of pages.

But the shorter that form is, the more burden the government assumes on itself to cross reference the application with income information maintained by the IRS. It’s now clear that the IRS will be heavily involved in vetting eligibility for the subsidies and the new exchanges.

4. Among other things, the IRS is now requiring employers to report the cost of the healthcare coverage you get at work under an employer-sponsored group health plan on an employee’s Form W-2, Wage and Tax Statement, in Box 12. The IRS says that this reporting is for informational purposes only, to show employees the value of their health care benefits. But it could be a first step to taxing those benefits.

5. Obamacare also creates a new definition of income – “household income” — that could be used to change tax liability down the road. Household income is meant to include not only the income of the family principals such as a husband and wife, but also the income of all other members of the “household” who live with the family.

You can follow Dr. Scott Gottlieb on Twitter @ScottGottliebMD

This is not limited to children. According to the Tax Freedom Institute, any person who qualifies as a dependent under code section 151 is included in household income. This might be a grandparent, for example, or a grandchild. Measuring household income is a way to determine eligibility for Obamacare’s subsidies.

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Deadline for introducing immigration legislation looms

Mehdi Mahraoui dreams of getting his doctorate in social work because he wants to improve his community and he is passionate about social justice. Like many 22-year-olds, Mehdi has a lot of dreams. Unlike other young people his age, Mehdi may have to put his dreams on hold.

Mehdi was brought to the United States from Morocco at age seven. Until late last year, he was undocumented. His oldest sister and both of his parents, however, remain in deportation proceedings. If they are deported, Mehdi will be the sole care taker of his eight-year-old sister who is a U.S citizen.

Mehdi is telling his story because he – and the millions of families like his – can no longer be silent about the injustices caused by our broken immigration system. Mehdi is demanding change now. That’s why he joined more than 500 families like his on a bus tour that traveled the country as part of the Keeping Families Together Story Tour. 

The tour, organized by a coalition of immigrant rights groups in 30 states called the Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM), crisscrossed the country, visiting 19 states and more than 90 cities and 100 congressional districts. At each stop on the tour, families told their stories and demanded that policymakers in Washington pass legislation that includes a real path to citizenship for hardworking immigrants.

On March 13, these families will culminate the tour in the nation’s capital to raise their voices and tell their stories. 110 families, representing the 1100 people who are deported every day, will stand up to Congress, united in the belief that keeping families together must be the core principle of our immigration laws.

One week later, on March 21, the Senate will face a deadline from FIRM to introduce immigration legislation. Families like Mehdi’s cannot afford to wait.  We need humane and compassionate immigration reform, and we need it now.

Political leaders on both sides of the aisle are realizing that the time has come for a new plan that will keep families intact. It’s truly amazing to see so many elected officials stepping forward to embrace the idea that our country needs to change our draconian and ineffective immigration policies. 

As the election showed, no candidate is going to be elected to the White House without Latino and immigrant support. And no candidate will earn this support without being strong on immigration reform. Polls show that Latinos and immigrant voters take the issue of reform that includes a pathway to citizenship personally – opposition to reform is taken as insult to real families and community members.

The demands of our immigrant nation are clear. We are not willing to settle and we are not willing to wait. Our country needs an immigration system that will honor the sanctity of the family unit, not tear it apart. We need bipartisan support for a plan that includes a pathway to citizenship, and this plan cannot be contingent on enforcement provisions. Immigrant families should not be forced to wait while far-right extremists continually move the goal posts on border security.

The Senate must meet the March 21 deadline to introduce immigration legislation that will ensure that Mehdi and his family can realize their dreams.

Bhargava is executive director of the Center for Community Change.

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Hilarious Conan Video Skewers Media Reporting On Gasoline Price Rise

I guess you don’t need anyone to tell you gas prices are back on the rise:

But then what do we need local media for?

So maybe those folks who said there’s just one person writing all the news were right….

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Aetna Cuts Predictions For Obamacare Enrollment

In a new sign that implementing the health law could take longer than expected, insurer Aetna said Tuesday it lowered the number of medical policies it expects to sell through online marketplaces that open for business in October.

“This is going to be a slow uptake,” Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini told investment analysts on a call to discuss financial results. “The process required to sign up, to get the subsidies, is going to take some time. And I think this is a two-year ramp to get the individual exchanges up to a level where customers are going to feel appropriate signing up. And so our estimates of what we believe … enrollment [will be] are dropping for the first year.”

He didn’t give a number, and insurers rarely disclose projections for specific business lines. But Aetna offered nothing to challenge perceptions that it will approach the Affordable Care Act’s subsidized marketplaces, also known as exchanges, with great deliberation.

Without naming specific states, the company cut from 15 to 14 the number of states in which it might sell exchange plans to individuals. Aetna might even withdraw at the last minute if exchanges aren’t ready or look unprofitable, Bertolini said. Under the ACA’s requirement that everybody buy health insurance or pay penalties, consumers without coverage from employers or government programs such as Medicare are supposed to start shopping for exchange plans on Oct. 1.

“We’re not going to go in for a land grab,” Bertolini said. “Obviously at the end of all this we have an opportunity to pull out in September. And we continue to hold that as an option should the exchanges not develop favorably or they ask for unreasonable rates.”

The caution of No. 3 health insurer Aetna echoes that of No. 1 UnitedHealthcare, which has said it will be “very selective” in selling exchange plans.

Aetna itself is helping hold down exchange enrollment by offering to renew policies of existing customers before the end of this year, thus delaying potential price increases associated with the health law. Rating rules expected to raise premiums for younger, healthier customers kick in Jan. 1, but only for plans starting a new policy year. Approving a one-year renewal before the calendar turns over could delay the price hike for most of 2014 and prove to be more attractive for some clients than buying an exchange policy.

“We are going to offer that opportunity as part of our renewal strategy with accounts,” said Bertolini.

Like other insurers, Aetna is attempting to compete on exchanges with narrower networks of hospitals and doctors who agree to lower prices in return for more new customers. The insurer has signed deals with two-thirds of the care providers it hopes to include, Bertolini said, adding that Aetna’s exchange networks are a fourth to half the size of its regular provider organizations. The narrower the network, the closer Aetna’s costs will be to lower rates paid by Medicare rather than higher commercial reimbursement, he said.

Challenges to opening the health marketplaces include building complex computer systems; persuading insurers to participate; running federally managed exchanges in hostile Republican states; relying on limited budgets to educate largely ignorant consumers; and enrolling young, healthy members to finance the expenses of those with pre-existing illness who will be first in line to join. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says the exchanges will be ready.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 30th, 2013 at 3:50 pm.

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U.S. Pacific Commander: Climate Change Greatest Threat In Region

Admiral Samuel J. Locklear III, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, gave a striking answer when asked about the greatest threat the region faces: climate change.

Locklear spoke to the Boston Globe on the topic after spending two days in the Boston-area talking to scholars and foreign policy experts on the situation in the Pacific. As Locklear told the Globe, the changing climate “is probably the most likely thing that is going to happen . . . that will cripple the security environment, probably more likely than the other scenarios we all often talk about.’’

Among the issues that the Admiral cited as most concerning was the possibility that rising sea-levels result in the disappearance of whole countries, producing influxes of “climate refugees” in neighboring states. The certainty that climate change is a phenomenon to be dealt with has affected the way that the Navy interacts with the various countries in the Indo-Pacific region that will be affected by shifting weather patterns:

“We have interjected into our multilateral dialogue – even with China and India – the imperative to kind of get military capabilities aligned [for] when the effects of climate change start to impact these massive populations,” he said. “If it goes bad, you could have hundreds of thousands or millions of people displaced and then security will start to crumble pretty quickly.’’

The Navy has been at the forefront of attempting to shift U.S. policy on climate change through the influence wielded by the military. Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus in 2009 announced the development of a “Great Green Fleet,” a Carrier Strike Group fueled by energy sources other than oil, as part of a strategy to reduce the Navy’s dependence on foreign oil. While currently more expensive, the Navy’s buying power would be able to bring down biofuel prices as supply catches up with demand. Mabus’ program was nearly shut down by Congress, but was revived by the Senate in November.

Locklear’s belief doesn’t indicate a full shift away from handling conventional state-based threats — such as from North Korea and China — but instead takes a broader look at the intersection between security and climate. The Center for American Progress recently co-published a series of articles on the links between climate change and the Arab Spring, highlighting the ties between rising food prices and civil unrest.

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The Fastest Growing Job In America Pays Less Than $10 Per Hour

They swap out bed pans, tend to wounds, and assist with every facet of day-to-day life — sometimes even living with their patients. They’re home health care aides, and they are a crucial resource in caring for America’s sick, elderly, and disabled — and they do it all for an average wage of $9.70 per hour, less than the mean hourly compensation for lifeguards, food servers, and dry cleaners.

That reality will continue to affect more and more Americans, as growth in this particular portion of the health care industry has been fast — and it’s only going to get faster. Job growth in the American health care sector doubled from January to February, led by strong gains in ambulatory care givers, hospital workers, and home health aides. And as CNN Money points out, an uptick in America’s elderly population — fueled by aging Baby Boomers — will lead to an explosion in demand for such workers’ services.

But due to a loophole in labor protection laws, home health aides often make less than minimum wage, earning about $20,000 per year. And that’s just the full-time workers. Part-time health aides, who make up most of the profession, make even less and don’t receive benefits — leading to a sadly ironic situation in which health workers are often forced to forgo their own health care and turn to government safety net programs:

Under these conditions, it’s no surprise then that about 40% of home aides rely on public assistance, such as Medicaid and food stamps, just to get by.

“What you have is a situation here where the people that we count on to care for our families cannot take care of their own, and that’s got to change,” said Ai-jen Poo, director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance. [...]

A recent study by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research estimates immigrants make up 28% of home health care workers, and of those, one in five are undocumented.

The Census Bureau has found that 53% of home health aides are minorities. By their calculations, it is the single most common job for black women, who alone represent nearly a third of the entire profession.

This is part of the reason workers are undervalued and underpaid, say worker advocates like Eileen Boris, a professor of feminist studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

The fact that the populations who are already disproportionately affected by poverty and poor access to essential services are turning to such low-wage, low-benefit jobs is a sad reflection on both America’s economic recovery and holes in the social safety net. In fact, most of the jobs added to the U.S. economy since the recession ended pay low wages.

Under Obamacare, home health aides will serve as essential foot soldiers in the fight to make America’s health care system more efficient. The Obama Administration has been pushing to revamp labor protections for home health aides, but that effort has not enjoyed much success so far.

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Half of U.S. Small Businesses Think Health Law Bad for Them

PRINCETON, NJ -- Forty-eight percent of U.S. small-business owners say the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA) is going to be bad for their business, compared with 9% who say it is going to be good, and 39% who expect no impact.

These findings are from a Gallup survey of 603 small-business owners, conducted April 1-5.

Similarly, 52% of owners say the ACA is going to reduce the quality of healthcare they and their employees receive. This contrasts with 13% who feel it will improve the quality of care their employees get, and 30% who see no impact.

In a separate question, 55% of small-business owners expect the money they pay for healthcare to increase. Five percent expect their healthcare costs to decline, while 37% say the health law will have no impact on what they pay for healthcare.

Owners Already Responding to Healthcare Law

When asked if they had taken any of five specific actions in response to the ACA, 41% of small-business owners say they have held off on hiring new employees and 38% have pulled back on plans to grow their business. One in five (19%) have reduced their number of employees and essentially the same number (18%) have cut employee hours in response to the healthcare law. One in four owners (24%) have thought about eliminating healthcare coverage for their employees.

Implications

Small-business owners are worried about the way the Affordable Care Act is going to affect their business, with about half believing the law is going to be bad for business, add to their healthcare costs, and simultaneously reduce the quality of care they and their employees receive. This overall impression of the ACA is consistent with owners' tendency to be more Republican than Democratic, higher income, more against big government, more conservative, and less optimistic than Americans overall.

However, more important for the U.S. economy in the short term is what small-business owners say they are already doing in anticipation of the new law's continuing implementation. About four in 10 say they are holding off on hiring and new growth plans. About one in five say they are letting people go or cutting employees' hours. Even after discounting small-business owners' political views, these actions suggest the ACA could be a significant drag on the U.S. economy -- at least in the short term.

Survey Methods

Results for the total dataset are based on telephone interviews with 603 small-business owners, conducted April 1-5, 2013. For results based on the total sample of small-business owners, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points.

Sampling is done on a random-digit-dial basis using Dun & Bradstreet sampling of small businesses having $20 million or less of sales or revenues. The data are weighted to be representative of U.S. small businesses within this size range nationwide.

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

For more details on Gallup's polling methodology, visit http://www.gallup.com/.

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Volcanic Aerosols Tamped Down Recent Surface Warming

The last decade was the hottest on record. And the data make clear the planet is still warming, despite deniers’ disinformation to the contrary. But a new study does explain one reason surface temperatures did not rise quite as much as scientists expected in the past decade – JR.

Eyjafjallajokull volcano

CIRES News Release

In the search for clues as to why Earth did not warm as much as scientists expected between 2000 and 2010, researchers have discovered the answer is hiding in plain sight. The study, led by a scientist from NOAA’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), showed that dozens of volcanoes spewing sulfur dioxide have tempered the warming.

The findings essentially shift the focus away from Asia, including India and China, two countries that are estimated to have increased their industrial sulfur dioxide emissions by about 60 percent from 2000 to 2010 through coal burning, said lead author Ryan Neely, a CIRES scientist working at NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory. Small amounts of sulfur dioxide emissions from Earth’s surface eventually rise 12 to 20 miles into the stratospheric aerosol layer of the atmosphere, where chemical reactions create sulfuric acid and water particles that reflect sunlight back to space, cooling the planet.

Neely said previous observations suggest that increases in stratospheric aerosols since 2000 have counterbalanced as much as 25 percent of the warming scientists attribute to human greenhouse gas emissions. “This new study indicates it is emissions from small to moderate volcanoes that have been slowing the warming of the planet,” said Neely.

A paper on the subject was published online in Geophysical Research Letters, a publication of the American Geophysical Union. Co-authors include Professors Brian Toon and Jeffrey Thayer from CU-Boulder; Susan Solomon, a former NOAA scientist now at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Jean Paul Vernier from NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va.; Christine Alvarez, Karen Rosenlof and John Daniel from NOAA; and Jason English, Michael Mills and Charles Bardeen from the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder.

The new study relies on long-term measurements of changes in the stratospheric aerosol layer’s “optical depth,” which is a measure of transparency, said Neely.  Since 2000, the optical depth in the stratospheric aerosol layer has increased by about 4 to 7 percent, meaning it is slightly more opaque now than in previous years.

“The biggest implication here is that scientists need to pay more attention to small and moderate volcanic eruptions when trying to understand changes in Earth’s climate,” said Toon of CU-Boulder’s Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences. Overall these eruptions are not going to counter the human caused greenhouse warming, he said.  “Emissions of volcanic gases go up and down, helping to cool or heat the planet, while greenhouse gas emissions from human activity just continue to go up.”

The key to the new results was the combined use of two sophisticated computer models, including the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model, or WACCM, Version 3, developed by NCAR and which is widely used around the world by scientists to study the atmosphere.  The team coupled WACCM with a second model, the Community Aerosol and Radiation Model for Atmosphere, or CARMA, which allows researchers to calculate properties of specific aerosols and which has been under development by a team led by Toon for the past several decades.

Neely said the team used the Janus supercomputer on (the CU) campus to conduct seven computer “runs,” each simulating 10 years of atmospheric activity tied to both coal-burning activities in Asia and to emissions by volcanoes around the world. Each run took about a week of computer time using 192 processors, allowing the team to separate coal-burning pollution in Asia from aerosol contributions from moderate, global volcanic eruptions. The project would have taken a single computer processor roughly 25 years to complete, said Neely.

The scientists said 10-year climate data sets like the one gathered for the new study are not long enough to determine climate change trends. “This paper addresses a question of immediate relevance to our understanding of the human impact on climate,” said Neely. “It should interest those examining the sources of decadal climate variability, the global impact of local pollution and the role of volcanoes.”

While small and moderate volcanoes mask some of the human-caused warming of the planet, larger volcanoes can have a much bigger effect, said Toon. When Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines erupted in 1991, it emitted millions of tons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere that cooled the Earth slightly for the next several years.

The research for the new study was funded in part through a NOAA/ ESRL-CIRES Graduate Fellowship to Neely.  The National Science Foundation and NASA also provided funding for the research project.  The Janus supercomputer is supported by NSF and CU-Boulder and is a joint effort of CU-Boulder, CU Denver and NCAR.

– NOAA’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences

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The Good News About Human Nature: Most People Aren’t Jerks

She was wrong.

A broad breakdown in societal trust has undermined the idea of a common good that can be served by the collective disposition of resources. Voters trust neither government nor most individuals in society to fairly pursue the common good. Instead, they see both government and individuals as fundamentally selfish and out for themselves, not others.

This view of human nature has been a consensus until recently. That consensus can be traced back to the 1957 publication of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, a 1,200 novel that, in essence, advocated the unfettered pursuit of self-interest as the organizing principle for society. Despite the fact that the book became a best-seller, not many critics and intellectuals took it or its thesis seriously at the time. Who could possibly believe that a society based strictly on selfishness could work?

That skepticism was obliterated in the next several decades. One of the key blows was struck by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, whose 1976 book, The Selfish Gene, argued that the gene is the fundamental unit of natural selection and has only one imperative: successfully reproducing itself in competition with other genes. We (and other animals), as bearers of these “selfish” genes, will therefore carry those traits — and only those traits –that help these genes reproduce. Dawkins implied that was all you needed to know to understand human nature, an idea that quickly led to an explosion of selfish gene-based explanations for every aspect of human behavior.

Then, in 1980, Milton Friedman, with his wife, Rose, published Free to Choose, a no-holds-barred polemic in favor of self-interested individuals making “rational”, unregulated decisions and against anything that interfered with this process, especially government action. So, in a powerful conjunction of economics and evolutionary biology, Ayn Rand’s glorification of selfishness gained the imprimatur of serious science. Being selfish was just human nature and should not be fought. Indeed, any attempt to do so was bound to do more harm than good. Thus was the original reaction to Atlas Shrugged turned on its head. Who could possibly believe that a society based on anything other than selfishness could work?

No doubt Ayn Rand would have been delighted with the progress of her big idea in the subsequent decade. Ronald Reagan was elected US president and Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister of the UK, both practicing a politics best summarized as “government is the problem, not the solution” and both preaching an economic gospel that glorified the individual pursuit of wealth above all else. And her disciple, Alan Greenspan, was appointed head of the Federal Reserve in 1987 and remained there for 19 years, treated reverentially by both Democratic and Republican administrations.

Also in the 1980s, the breakdown of the postwar welfare states became undeniable and, by, the end of the decade, the Soviet Union and other “socialist” countries had ignominiously collapsed. Conservatives argued that all this was real world confirmation of Rand’s core idea: those who interfered with human selfishness would reap the whirlwind.

But right at its moment of greatest success, the conservative case on human nature was being fatally undermined. New thinking and research in evolutionary science showed that the “selfishness is all” camp was completely missing the mark on what makes humanity distinctive. It is not competition for individual reproductive success but rather cooperation for group reproductive success, facilitated by our capacities for symbolic thought (language) and transmission of learned information (culture), that has led to our success as a species.

In short, the key to understanding human nature is not the selfish gene, bur rather the “selfless gene”. The selfless gene allowed our ancestors to think and act as a group, thereby outcompeting other chimp-like species—literally leaving them in the dust. Moreover, our cooperative nature allowed us to build ever more complex ways of interacting with one another, which led to further evolution in the traits that facilitate cooperation (referred to as “gene-culture coevolution”). The end result of this dynamic was civilization and, eventually, the global interconnected society we live in today.

This is who we are. We are defined by our sense of fairness, adherence to group norms, willingness to punish those who violate such norms, willingness to share, and willingness to work for the good of the group, along with the high-level cognitive and cultural traits that enable us to be that way. We are not a species of seven billion selfish individuals, uninterested in anything save our own welfare and willing to cheerfully break any rule and hurt any other individual to secure it. Indeed, we think of such people as sociopaths and if their tendencies actually dominated humanity we would still be back on the savannah with the rest of the chimp-like species.

So the former consensus view on human nature is just plain wrong. It’s not the case that societies must rely exclusively on self-interest or die. In fact, societies have only prospered by transcending self-interest and harnessing the group-oriented instincts that make us human. As E.O. Wilson puts it in his new book, The Social Conquest of Earth, “At the higher level of….biological organization, groups compete with groups, favoring cooperative social traits among members of the same group. At the lower level, members of the same group compete with one another in a manner that leads to self-serving behavior. The opposition between the two levels of natural selection has resulted in a chimeric genotype in each person. It renders each of us part saint and part sinner.” (p. 289)

This makes clear that the center-left can only be successful if it sells its program as one that binds people together as a group, with attendant benefits and responsibilities. Otherwise, the “sinner” side of people will dominate over the “saint” side, reinforcing current levels of distrust and encouraging people to simply look out for themselves. Therefore, instead of shying away from appeals to cooperative instincts and the common good as somehow soft-headed, progressives should think of such appeals as the most realistic, theoretically sound way of building support for their initiatives. This is the profound implication of the new theory of human nature.

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The ObamaCare Train Wreck

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Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of Health and Human Services, and Sen. Max Baucus in 2009. (Photo: Tim Sloan, AFP/Getty Images)

From the start, Republicans warned the Affordable Care Act would be a disaster.Now, Democratic Sen. Max Baucus worries the implementation of the law will be a "train wreck."If they persist in trying to blame Republicans, millions of Americans will suffer.

When the Affordable Care Act was passed, opponents (mostly Republicans) warned that it would be a disaster. Few of us on Capitol Hill could have anticipated that we would later be joined by a raft of former Democratic proponents so eager to distance themselves from ObamaCare that they're using even harsher terms. Let's call these politicians the Train Wreck Club.

The name comes from the author of the law, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.). Weeks of reports covered the problems of creating exchanges that would supposedly simplify insurance purchasing and lower costs. Fretting over this disaster, Baucus famously told Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that he worried the implementation of the law was becoming a "train wreck."

Baucus' words were bewildering: No one in the country bears more responsibility for the complexity of this law than him. I wrote him weeks ago to request an explanation, and further, to work together on a solution. But like other members of the Train Wreck Club, Baucus isn't really looking for solutions -- he's looking for scapegoats.

Just look at Baucus' company in the club. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid doubled-down and said he agreed with Baucus' comment. To his mind, the federal government is not spending enough to implement the new law because of Republican opposition. But Reid passed it without a single Republican vote, and along with President Obama, set ObamaCare spending, going so far as to drain $716 billion out of Medicare to pay for it.

They already know more money is not the answer. They are just trying to hide unpleasant realities from their constituents -- blaming others and running from the scene of the fiscal crime. Baucus won't seek reelection. Reid is pinning blame on Republicans.

The Affordable Care Act was pitched as a way to save money and lower premiums. Yet Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), recently admitted that premiums have increased "in part because of ObamaCare," but in part because premiums were steadily increasing anyway. The first part is a stunning admission, but the second part is actually the doozy: Did Congress raid Medicare and jeopardize America's financial solvency just to keep the status quo?

Republicans have stood against this law not only because of its cost, though already costs for the health insurance exchanges are nearly double what was originally proposed. We opposed it because it will harm Americans. This law raises premiums, lowers the quality of care, increases taxes and jeopardizes the insurance Americans were promised they could keep. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), echoed these concerns when he noted that the law would increase premiums for the young.

These aren't problems of poor implementation; they're problems of implementation, period. The last few weeks have yielded a treasure trove of evidence confirming criticism (which the Train Wreck Club now shares) that the Affordable Care Act has (a) not had the results that were promised and (b) that it may in fact have worsened health care in America. To wit:

Daniel Kessler of Stanford estimates that 10 million people -- about two-thirds of the market that is low- or average-risk -- will see higher insurance bills for 2014.One insurer, WellPoint, found that for 11 states, small-group premiums are expected to increase by 13% to 23% on average.The Congressional Budget Office reported in February that "in 2019, an estimated 12 million people who would have had an offer of employment-based coverage under prior law will lose their offer under current law." That estimate means ObamaCare will actually reduce health care coverage for millions of Americans.A recently released study in the New England Journal of Medicine by a group of the nation's top health policy scholars based on Oregon's Medicaid expansion -- one whose first-year results were used by proponents of ObamaCare to expand Medicaid nationwide -- ultimately found that expanding Medicaid had no measurable impact on people's health. It turns out that even the very people who put this law on the books don't like finding out what's in a bill after they have passed it.

When the House votes soon to repeal this law, I hope the Train Wreck Club will work with Republicans -- unlike when they first passed this bill -- to find solutions that won't leave Americans uninsured, paying more and getting less. We are ready to address the challenges that face real people in the health care marketplace in a way that respects their relationships with their doctors, nurses and other health care providers, and puts our health care system back on track.

If instead they persist in trying to blame Republicans for the coming train wreck, millions of Americans will suffer the predictable consequences.

Mike Pompeo is a congressman from the 4th District of Kansas and sits on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

In addition to its own editorials, USA TODAY publishes diverse opinions from outside writers, including our Board of Contributors.

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Appellate vacancies must be filled by Senate

Now that the 113th Senate has entered its third month, the upper chamber must immediately address the looming judicial cliff, which comprises 17 vacancies in 179 appellate judgeships. Until February 13, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had maintained the June 2012 blockade which he imposed on all circuit nominees of President Barack Obama until after the November elections, ignoring pleas for post-election votes from Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and the nominees’ Republican and Democratic home state senators.

Three actions are necessary so judges can deliver justice. First, the Judiciary Committee must reapprove, and the full Senate confirm, First, Third, Tenth and Federal Circuit nominees William Kayatta, Patty Shwartz, Robert Bacharach and Richard Taranto. All four earned the best ABA rating and awaited floor votes since committee approval last spring. The panel did reapprove Shwartz on February 14 and the last three a week earlier, while the full Senate confirmed Kayatta on February 13 and Bacharach on February 25. Second, the Senate should expeditiously process D.C. Circuit nominees Caitlin Halligan, whom the committee approved on February 14, and Sri Srinivasan and Eleventh Circuit nominee Jill Pryor who received 2012 nomination and January 3 renomination with the first four nominees. The chamber should also promptly review Eighth Circuit nominee Jane Kelly and Tenth Circuit nominee Gregory Alan Phillips whom Obama tapped on January 31 and Federal Circuit nominees Raymond Chen and Todd Hughes who received February 7 nomination. Kelly had a February 27 hearing. Third, Obama must rapidly proffer, and the Senate quickly consider, nominees for the remaining nine vacancies.

Before nominations, Obama has robustly consulted both parties’ senators from states with empty seats. He tapped many exceptional uncontroversial nominees of balanced temperament, who are smart, ethical, industrious and independent. Leahy has swiftly arranged hearings and votes, moving nominees to the floor where most have languished. For instance, in December, the Senate confirmed 13 district judges, even though the chamber could easily have voted on 11 other nominees, including the four circuit possibilities, having panel approval. The Senate recessed without considering those excellent nominees, most of whom the committee reported with minimal opposition, because the GOP would not vote.

Republicans should cooperate better. The major bottleneck has been the floor. McConnell has rarely entered time accords for votes. Most problematic has been GOP refusal to vote on talented noncontroversial nominees, inaction that contravenes Senate traditions. When the Senate eventually voted, it overwhelmingly approved many nominees like John Dowdell, who captured appointment 95-0 in December.

The 17 appellate vacancies are critical because the 12 regional circuits and the Federal Circuit serve as courts of last resort for practically all appeals and resolve vital economic and social issues. Obama should continue cooperating with Leahy and Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who sets floor votes, and their GOP analogues to foster smooth action on the seven current nominees while proposing superb candidates for the ten vacancies lacking nominees.

In June, McConnell invoked the “Thurmond Rule,” blocking appellate nominee votes until the elections. Because Obama won and the Democrats increased their chamber majority over three months ago, Shwartz, Taranto and Halligan deserve speedy up or down Senate votes, which Taranto will finally have today. Shwartz received October 2011 nomination, enjoys strong bipartisan support of New Jersey’s Democratic senators and Republican Governor Chris Christie and has waited on a final vote since March 2012, while two experienced Third Circuit judges indicated last week that they will assume senior status this summer creating new vacancies. Letting Taranto languish concomitantly required that the Federal Circuit function with vacancies in 25 percent of its judgeships. Halligan is highly qualified and has waited more than two years for a yes or no vote, while the D.C. Circuit has vacancies in four of eleven judgeships. The Judiciary Committee has approved Shwartz, Taranto and Halligan, but Democrats and Republicans have yet to agree on final votes for Shwartz and Halligan. If GOP leaders fail to agree on timely final votes, Democrats must pursue cloture, as they did on Halligan Wednesday, and Republicans should join them. Despite Halligan’s prolonged wait and her stellar abilities, only one GOP senator favored cloture.

Because the 17 appellate openings undermine justice, President Obama must swiftly nominate, and senators expeditiously confirm, many fine judges.

Tobias is the Williams Chair in Law at the University of Richmond.

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GOP Files Bills Limiting IRS Oversight Of ObamaCare

House Republicans have introduced separate bills aimed at scaling back the Internal Revenue Service's involvement with implementation of ObamaCare.

Reps. Randy Forbes (R-Va.) and Tom Price (R-Ga.) said their bills are needed in the wake of the IRS's confirmation that it applied extra scrutiny to conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status. Forbes called that a form of "bullying" by the IRS, and said it's a reason why Congress should approve his bill, which would prohibit the hiring of any new IRS officials to implement ObamaCare.

"Under current law, the authority to implement the president's healthcare tax rests with the very people who used their government positions to act as political operatives working to influence the electoral process," Forbes said. "I'm introducing legislation today to prevent the IRS from being handed their newest bludgeon to target businesses and individuals that do not come in line with their political philosophy or policy positions.

"The IRS would be better to police its own than to police the millions of Americans who believe this healthcare law to be bad for their families and bad for our businesses," he added.

Forbes' Prevent IRS Overreach Act, H.R. 1993, would prevent the IRS from hiring what many expect to be thousands of new IRS agents tasked with implementing the law. Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) said Wednesday that he was working on similar legislation.

The IRS is involved in large part because of the law's requirement that most people buy health insurance, and the possibility of fines for failing to meet this mandate. Last year, the Supreme Court ruled that the law is constitutional, and that these fines for failing to buy health insurance are allowable when viewed as a tax.

Price introduced his own Keep the IRS Off Your Health Care Act for the same reason as Forbes — to keep what he said is an intrusive IRS out of the business of regulating healthcare. Price's bill, H.R. 1990, would prohibit the IRS from implementing or enforcing any piece of the law.

"The same agency that just committed an appalling violation of the American people's trust is going to be at the forefront of enforcing the health care law, including the individual mandate which will require every citizen to prove to this agency that they've purchased government-dictated health care coverage," Price said.

"When it comes to an individual's personal health care decisions, no American should be required to answer to the IRS — an agency that just forfeited its claim to a reputation of impartiality," he added. "It has always been an untenable and unacceptable scenario, and we ought to take this common sense step to take the IRS out of healthcare."

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President Obama to Award Medal of Honor

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

On April 11, President Barack Obama will award Chaplain (Captain) Emil J. Kapaun, U.S. Army, the Medal of Honor for conspicuous gallantry.

Chaplain Kapaun will receive the Medal of Honor posthumously for his extraordinary heroism while serving with the 3d Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division during combat operations against an armed enemy at Unsan, Korea and as a prisoner of war from November 1-2, 1950.

When Chinese Communist Forces viciously attacked friendly elements, Chaplain Kapaun calmly walked through withering enemy fire in order to provide comfort and medical aid to his comrades.  When they found themselves surrounded by the enemy, the able-bodied men were ordered to evacuate.  Chaplain Kapaun, fully aware of his certain capture, elected to stay behind with the wounded.  As hand-to-hand combat ensued, he continued to make rounds.  As enemy forces approached the American position, Chaplain Kapaun noticed an injured Chinese officer amongst the wounded and convinced him to negotiate the safe surrender of the American forces.  Shortly after his capture, Chaplain Kapaun bravely pushed aside an enemy soldier preparing to execute a comrade, thus saving a life and inspiring all those present to remain and fight the enemy until captured. 

Chaplain Kapaun’s nephew, Ray Kapaun, and family will join the President at the White House to commemorate his example of selfless service and sacrifice.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

THE MEDAL OF HONOR:

The Medal of Honor is awarded to a member of the Armed Forces who distinguishes themselves conspicuously by gallantry above and beyond the call of duty while:

engaged in an action against an enemy of the United States;engaged in military operations involving conflict with an opposing foreign force; orserving with friendly foreign forces engaged in an armed conflict against an opposing armed force in which the United States is not a belligerent party.

The meritorious conduct must involve great personal bravery or self-sacrifice so conspicuous as to clearly distinguish the individual above his or her comrades and must have involved risk of life. There must be incontestable proof of the performance of the meritorious conduct, and each recommendation for the award must be considered on the standard of extraordinary merit.

Serving communities since 1994, AmeriCorps volunteers touch the lives of millions. We honor this tradition as we celebrate AmeriCorps Week.

This week the White House is highlighting one initiative a day which demonstrates the Obama Administration’s continued commitment to open and accessible government -- the first in the series focuses on progress made improving the administration of the FOIA.

On Monday, March 11, First Lady Michelle Obama will be answering questions on Twitter

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Federal Appeals Court Shuts Down Suspicionless Searches Of Laptops At The Border

Given enough time, law enforcement can break through the password that blocks access to a laptop. They can also access password-encrypted files and potentially even read the files a user deleted from their computer. As a recent opinion from the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit puts it, “[i]t is as if a search of a person’s suitcase could reveal not only what the bag contained on the current trip, but everything it had ever carried.”

In light of the sweeping and unpredictable nature of laptop and similar searches, the court’s opinion places an important new restriction on government searches of electronic devices as the border. As a general rule, “the long-standing right of the sovereign to protect itself by stopping and examining persons and property crossing into this country” justifies nearly any search of a person crossing into the United States from another country. So if you are secreting contraband away in your luggage, you are out of luck. As the Ninth Circuit’s opinion explains, however, searches of electronic devices are far greater intrusions into a traveler’s privacy, and thus must be justified by a greater degree of suspicion before they can occur:

The amount of private information carried by international travelers was traditionally circumscribed by the size of the traveler’s luggage or automobile. That is no longer the case. Electronic devices are capable of storing warehouses full of information. The average 400-gigabyte laptop hard drive can store over 200 million pages—the equivalent of five floors of a typical academic library. Even a car full of packed suitcases with sensitive documents cannot hold a candle to the sheer, and ever-increasing, capacity of digital storage.

The nature of the contents of electronic devices differs from that of luggage as well. Laptop computers, iPads and the like are simultaneously offices and personal diaries. They contain the most intimate details of our lives: financial records, confidential business documents, medical records and private emails. This type of material implicates the Fourth Amendment’s specific guarantee of the people’s right to be secure in their “papers.” The express listing of papers “reflects the Founders’ deep concern with safeguarding the privacy of thoughts and ideas—what we might call freedom of conscience—from invasion by the government.” These records are expected to be kept private and this expectation is “one that society is prepared to recognize as ‘reasonable.’”

The upshot of this opinion is that border agents cannot randomly select a person and comb through their laptop for incriminating data, nor can they conduct a comprehensive search of every iPad that enters the United States. Rather, before conducting a complete search of an electronic device, they must have “reasonable suspicion” that the search will uncover evidence of a crime.

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Obamacare: 3 Years In, It Faces Steep Challenges

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President Obama signs the health care bill into law at the White House on March 23, 2010. (Photo: Charles Dharapak, AP)

Just over a third of Americans, 35%, have a favorable opinion of the health lawUncertainty about the law has risen as time has passedFour in 10 Americans don't believe the law is still in place

WASHINGTON -- The Affordable Care Act is sure to survive the latest vote by the House of Representatives Thursday to repeal it — since the Senate doesn't plan to take it up and President Obama would veto a repeal bill if it somehow reached his desk — but the administration's signature legislative achievement still faces serious perils ahead.

Americans have a dimmer view of the health care law now than they did when Obama triumphantly signed it three years ago, according to monthly tracking polls by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The public's divided view and relentless Republican attacks have made it easier for governors and state legislators to balk at cooperating with the law. It is designed to provide coverage for millions of Americans who haven't qualified for Medicaid in the past and don't get insurance through their employers.

That could have a cascading effect: Resistance by the states will make it harder for the law to work as promised when Medicaid expands next year and the health-insurance marketplaces where the uninsured can shop for plans open this fall.

That could fortify the arguments of those who warned the law was a mistake from the start and threaten fundamental provisions of it down the road.

"For most of the Obama administration, the thought was the bill was passed and it's over," says Robert Blendon, a Harvard professor and influential analyst who supports the law. The president understandably turned his attention to the fragile economy, and the most far-reaching expansions of coverage were delayed until 2014 — leaving the door open for opponents to warn of calamity ahead. "By the time they returned to it," Blendon says of White House officials, "opinions were really embedded."

Just over a third of Americans, 35%, have a favorable opinion of the health law, according to the Kaiser survey taken last month, down from 46% who had a positive view when it was signed in 2010. Now 40% have an unfavorable opinion — precisely the same as three years ago — and nearly one in four, 24%, say they don't have an opinion.

The poll of 1,203 adults, taken April 15-20, has a margin of error of +/–3 percentage points.

Uncertainty about the law has risen as time has passed, and confusion about what it does and how it works is especially high among those it is designed to help. In fact, four in 10 Americans don't believe the law is still in place, saying inaccurately that it's been overturned by the Supreme Court or repealed by Congress.

As you know, a health care bill was signed into law in March 2010. What's its current status? Poll taken April 15-20 of 1,203 adults. Margin of error +/- 3 percentage points.

"People haven't really seen the benefits of it, and it's had hundreds of millions of dollars in ads attacking it," says Neera Tanden, who helped shape the law as Obama adviser and now heads the liberal Center for American Progress. "One party was definitely consistently criticizing it, and Democrats have not been sufficiently defending it. So it's been a lopsided argument."

The White House is scrambling to bolster support for and knowledge about the law, in part to encourage younger and healthier Americans who lack health insurance to shop for a plan when the exchanges open Oct. 1. Officials are trying to spotlight popular policies that already have gone into effect, including provisions that provide free preventive care for seniors and allow young adults to stay on their parents' insurance plans.

They also are trying to reassure skeptical employers about the law and its provisions. In a Gallup Poll last month, owners of small businesses predicted by 5-1, 48%-9%, that the Affordable Care Act was going to be bad rather than good for their businesses. About four in 10 said they had held off plans to hire new workers and pulled back on plans to grow their businesses because of the law and its mandates.

"The law is here to stay," Obama declared at an East Room event last week — not an assertion presidents typically feel compelled to make. He noted that not only did Congress pass the law in 2010 (albeit without a single Republican vote) but also the Supreme Court upheld it last year. Then voters "went to the polls and decided to keep going in this direction" by re-electing him last November.

"With something as personal as health care, I realize there are people who are anxious, people who are nervous, making sure that we get this done right," the president said. "I'm here to tell you, I am 110% committed to getting it done right. It's not an easy undertaking, but if it were easy, it would have already been done a long time ago. Undoubtedly, there will be some mistakes and hiccups as the thing get started up, but we're learning already from them."

REMEMBERING TOWN HALLS

Among those most anxious and nervous about possible "mistakes and hiccups" ahead are Democratic members of Congress who voted for the law.

Opposition to Obamacare fueled the rise of the Tea Party and the Republican takeover of the House in the 2010 congressional elections. "Those of us who remember 2009 and the town-hall meetings, we want to be fully prepared now," says Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., recalling raucous meetings with constituents who saw the health care plan as an expensive and dangerous government overreach. "People are concerned that we do some better messaging before the August recess."

She and other congressional Democrats met last week with Ron Pollack, head of Families USA, a leading backer of the law. "People are very much wanting to make sure the implementation goes as smoothly as possible," Pollack says. "In 2009 and 2010, congressional Democrats played rope-a-dope and they got hurt." This time, he advised, they should be prepared to detail the law's benefits and rebut any "false claims" about it.

Amy Brighton from Medina, Ohio, demonstrates against the health care law outside of the Supreme Court in Washington on March 27, 2012. (Photo: Charles Dharapak, AP)

Meanwhile, Republicans relish the idea of brandishing Obamacare as a political weapon in the midterms. House Speaker John Boehner says the House brought up overall repeal of the law for the third time since it was enacted simply to give Republican freshmen a chance to stand against it. "We've got 70 new members who have not had an opportunity to vote on the president's health care law," he told reporters beforehand.

Boehner's office says it is the 37th vote in the House on repealing, curtailing or defunding all or part of the Affordable Care Act.

This time, the repeal passed 229-195.

Republicans have failed to repeal the law in its entirety, but seven bills revising particular provisions have been enacted. The GOP also has denied funding requests by the Department of Health and Human Services to help implement the law, including the campaign to boost participation in the insurance exchanges. That's particularly important because if only people with chronic conditions and higher medical bills sign up, premiums would soar and the underpinnings of the system would be undercut.

While the law mandates that most of the uninsured get insurance, the annual penalty for failing to do so is low enough ($95 in 2014, rising to $695 in 2016) that some people simply will choose to pay it.

News reports that HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has been raising private money for the effort sparked objections and demands for information this week from Republican lawmakers. Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander, the top Republican on the Senate Health committee, says he will formally request an investigation by the congressional General Accounting Office this week, comparing her actions to the Iran-contra scandal in the Reagan administration.

Since March, Sebelius has made fundraising calls on behalf of Enroll America to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and H&R Block, according to her spokesman, Jason Young. Enroll America, a non-profit organization created to encourage the uninsured Americans to sign up for the exchanges, is headed by Anne Filipic, a former aide to Obama and Sebelius who worked in the White House before resigning to lead the group.

Sebelius also made more public appeals to charitable groups, insurers, pharmaceutical companies and others to help the enrollment effort.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius testifies on Capitol Hill on April 12. (Photo: J. Scott Applewhite, AP)

Young says Sebelius' fundraising efforts were permitted under provisions that date to 1976 in the Public Health Service Act, which allows the HHS secretary to encourage support for non-profit groups that promote public health. He said her predecessors made similar appeals when other new federal programs were launched, including the Medicare prescription drug benefit during the Bush administration and the children's health insurance program during the Clinton years.

Alexander is not persuaded. "I don't see how that's different from what Oliver North did at the end of the Reagan administration to raise money privately and use it to support the contra rebels" in Nicaragua, he said in an interview. "A joint select committee of Congress that was bipartisan said the principle problem with Iran-contra is that the Reagan administration was using private funds and private entities to do something that Congress had refused to do."

He said that Sebelius may be violating the Constitution and the Anti-deficiency Act, which prohibits federal employees from spending money beyond that authorized by law.

26 STATES: YOU DO IT

The Affordable Care Act envisioned most states establishing and running their own insurance exchanges. But only 17 states and the District of Columbia are moving ahead with plans to do that; another seven are setting up "partnership exchanges" with the federal government.

But 26 states, including six of the 10 most populous ones, are leaving the job entirely to the federal government. The administration says one-third of the prime target group nationwide — healthy 18- to 34-year-olds who don't have insurance — live in California, Florida and Texas. Of that trio of states, only California is setting up a state exchange.

The other major part of the Affordable Care Act to cover the uninsured, expanding Medicaid to include more low-income Americans, is opposed by at least 20 governors, according to the Kaiser foundation. The Supreme Court ruling last year upheld the law's controversial individual mandate but gave states the option of choosing not to participate in the Medicaid expansion. In the states that don't, the uninsured who are too poor to afford to buy coverage in the exchanges, even with a federal subsidy, are out of luck.

Democratic pollster Mark Mellman says the public still could be won over to embrace the law. "It's slightly more unpopular than popular, but it's not radioactive," he says, despite a concerted and well-funded campaign against it.

In the end, views of the law will depend on whether it works as promised, Republican pollster Bill McInturff agrees. "If in fact this is a good and affordable product that works, it will work," he says. "If what starts to happen is small employers start dumping people into the exchanges and they lose good private coverage; if healthy people would rather pay the penalty than sign up — then it's going to immediately turn into a problem with demands to change it."

Over the next year, the health care law is likely to succeed in some states and fail in others, analyst Blendon says.

"Best case: the governor and the legislature support it, they have a state exchange, and what I call the civic leadership is all behind it — the business people, the unions, the religious leaders. Then the problem is just technically, how do we get this set up and how do we get people to understand" how it works?

At the other extreme are states that are declining to participate in the Medicaid expansion and to put the force of the state government and local leadership behind the new marketplaces. "If you don't offer Medicaid and you don't have a lot of support for the federally run exchange, it will be incredibly easy for the one-third of people younger and healthier not to enroll," he cautions. "At least in 20 states, it's set up to fail."

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