Opinion

More Than Obama Legacy at Stake in Obamacare Repeal

Published

8 years ago

January 10, 2017

President Obama returns to sweet home Chicago Tuesday night to say farewell to the nation. It will be an evening of joy, tears and pride in a job well done, despite the harsh headwinds of resistance he faced every day for eight years.

As President Obama enters into his last days in office, surely his greatest legacy is the Affordable Care Act. Twenty million people have received health care coverage under the act, largely from the extension of Medicaid to cover lower-wage workers and their families. Insurance companies have not only been required to deal fairly with those afflicted with ailments, they have also been forced by law to limit what they rake off in administration and profits. This is a big deal.

Lives are being saved; illnesses are being treated. Family finances are being protected. A smaller percentage of Americans go without coverage than ever in the history of the country. This is the most important extension of health coverage since the passage of Medicare under Lyndon Johnson.

Millions more, however, were turned away on the altar of meanness and ideology. So, naturally, the Republican Congress — dedicated to reversing all things Obama — has made repealing the Affordable Health Care Act, or what they call Obamacare, its first order of business. Repeal — plus the defunding of Planned Parenthood’s programs for women’s health — is the centerpiece of the reconciliation bill Republicans plan to push through Congress immediately.

This opposition to the Affordable Care Act is founded in large part on racial delusions. 1Blue-collar white voters, particularly in the Midwestern states that gave Trump the election, were the most skeptical about the law.

As Ronald Brownstein pointed out in the Atlantic, based on data from the Urban Institute, “more non-college-educated whites gained coverage than college-educated whites and minorities combined in all five of the key Rustbelt states that flipped from Obama in 2012 to Trump in 2016: Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.” There were stunning reductions in the number of uninsured blue-collar whites in states that Donald Trump won in November — roughly 50 percent in Ohio, Iowa and Michigan, 60 percent in West Virginia and Kentucky, and 40 percent in Indiana, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

This was largely because these states adopted the ACA extension of Medicaid to cover lower-wage workers. Where Republican governors refused to extend Medicaid, low-wage workers of all races were left out.

Trump has promised that he would not allow people to “die on the streets” with health care repeal. He also promised not to touch entitlements — which would include Medicaid as well as Medicare and Social Security. He named GOP Rep. Tom Price to head the Department of Health and Human Services, however, and Price has detailed and destructive plans for what comes after repeal of ACA.

He would roll back the Medicaid extension, much of the subsidies for others getting insurance in the exchanges, and much of the regulation forcing insurance companies and hospitals to limit price hikes. If he has is way, Price will go after Medicare and Social Security as well. The result will be to strip many of the 20 million — whites and people of color — of the health coverage they now have.

This calamity is utterly unnecessary. ACA, as the president has stated, has flaws and is in need of reform. The best first steps would be to crack down on drug company prices and to create a public option in the exchanges that would help keep insurance companies honest. Neither of these reforms is on the Republican agenda.

Twenty Republican senators come from states that extended Medicaid. For ACA to be repealed, they have to sign onto to punishing lower-wage workers in their states who are covered under Medicaid extension, among others. In fact, many more people are likely to take a hit. Republicans now plan to repeal ACA without a plan to replace it. That is likely to unravel not just the Medicaid extension but also the exchanges and the curbs on insurance companies and health care complexes. People now rightly complain about the cost of our health care. Republicans are about to make that worse.

President Obama has sensibly said that he will support any Republican plan that is in fact better than ACA. Despite Republicans’ posturing, they offer nothing that meets that test.

Donald Trump’s bumptious course as president-elect has made Americans appreciate even more the grace and maturity with which President Obama governed. Now Republicans, in their hurry to eviscerate Obama’s historic accomplishment, are about to make us appreciate it all the more. But unless a handful of Republican senators break ranks, that appreciation will come too late to help the millions that will be placed at risk.

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Activism

BOOK REVIEW: The Afterlife of Malcolm X

Betty Shabazz didn’t like to go to her husband’s speeches, but on that February night in 1965, he asked her to come with their daughters to the Audubon Ballroom in New York. Did Malcolm X sense that something bad would happen on that night? Surely. He was fully aware of the possibility, knowing that he’d been “a marked man” for months because of his very public break with the Nation of Islam.

Published

6 hours ago

May 18, 2025

Oakland Post

Book Cover of the Afterlife of Malcolm X. Courtesy of Simon & Schuster.

By Terri Schlichenmeyer

Author: by Mark Whitaker, c.2025, Simon & Schuster, $30.99, 448 pages

Who will remember you in fifty years’ time?

A handful of friends – at least those who are still around – might recall you. Your offspring, grandkids, and greats, maybe people who stumble upon your tombstone. Think about it: who will remember you in 2075? And then read “The Afterlife of Malcolm X” by Mark Whitaker and learn about a legacy that still resonates a half-century later.

As the news of his murder spread around New York and around the world, his followers and admirers reacted in many ways. His friend, journalist Peter Goldman, was “hardly shocked” because he also knew that Malcolm’s life was in danger, but the arrest of three men accused of the crime didn’t add up. It ultimately became Goldman’s “obsession.”

Malcolm’s co-writer for The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Alex Haley, quietly finished the book he started with Malcolm, and a small upstart publishing house snatched it up. A diverse group of magazines got in line to run articles about Malcolm X’s life, finally sensing that White America “’needed his voice even more than Blacks did.’”

But though Malcolm X was gone, he continued to leave an impact.

He didn’t live long enough to see the official founding of the Black Panther Party, but he was influential on its beginning. He never knew of the first Kwanzaa, or the triumphs of a convert named Muhammad Ali.

Malcolm left his mark on music. He influenced at least three major athletes.

He was a “touchstone” for a president …

While it’s true that “The Afterlife of Malcolm X” is an eye-opening book, one that works as a great companion to the autobiography, it’s also a fact that it’s somewhat scattered. Is it a look at Malcolm’s life, his legacy, or is it a “murder mystery”?

Turns out, it’s all three, but the storylines are not smooth. There are twists and tangents and that may take some getting used-to. Just when you’re immersed, even absorbed in this book, to the point where you forget about your surroundings, author Mark Whitaker abruptly moves to a different part of the story. It may be jarring.

And yet, it’s a big part of this book, and it’s essential for readers to know the investigation’s outcome and what we know today. It doesn’t change Malcolm X’s legacy, but it adds another frame around it.

If you’ve read the autobiography, if you haven’t thought about Malcolm X in a while, or if you think you know all there is to know, then you owe it to yourself to find “The Afterlife of Malcolm X.”

For you, this is a book you won’t easily forget.

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Asm. McKinnor Pushes Bill to Protect California Workers from High Heat, Other Climate Hazards

“Extreme heat is on the rise, with year-over-year, record-breaking temperatures that threaten the health and safety of California workers, from warehouse workers who lack adequate cooling, to janitors cleaning buildings after the air conditioning has been turned off, to line chefs cooking in unventilated kitchens,” McKinnor said at the rally.

Published

7 hours ago

May 18, 2025

Oakland Post

Asm. Tina McKinnor (D-Inglewood) stands with members of California Labor for Climate Justice (CLCJ) during a rally at the State Capitol, where she spoke about her bill, AB 694. CBM photo by Antonio Ray Harvey.

By Antonio‌ ‌Ray‌ ‌Harvey‌, ‌California‌ ‌Black‌ ‌Media‌

On May 6, employees from industries across the private and public sectors — including utility, domestic, janitorial, healthcare, oil and gas, and farm workers — joined educators and others in Sacramento to push lawmakers to strengthen the state’s health and safety enforcement systems.

The rally at the State Capitol was organized by a statewide coalition of 15 worker unions called California Labor for Climate Jobs (CLCJ).

Organizers say their campaign to pressure legislators and state officials to not abandon their responsibility to protect workers is urgent as climate hazards rise and federal government efforts to pull back on oversight and enforcement increase.

“Approximately 19 million workers in the state are here together to have a say in what happens next,” said Norman Rogers, vice president of United Steelworkers Local 675. “In seven of the last eight years, California has recorded record-high temperatures while workers from our state’s fields to our commercial kitchens, from our warehouses to our schools continue to work in dangerously high-heat conditions.”

Cal/OSHA provides protection and improves the health and safety of working men and women in the state. The agency also enforces public safety measures to protect passengers riding on elevators, amusement rides, tramways, and more.

According to a 2023 report by the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), workplace hazards are responsible for killing approximately 140,000 workers each year, including 5,283 from traumatic injuries.

Hazardous working conditions have caused an estimated 135,000 deaths from occupational diseases. That’s about 385 workers dying each day, according to the report.

Assemblymember Tina McKinnor (D-Inglewood) spoke at the rally to discuss legislation she authored, Assembly Bill (AB) 694, which proposes a pathway to jobs for Cal/OSHA to ensure stronger public safety enforcement.

According to CLCJ, Cal/OSHA is experiencing an understaffing crisis that is evident in the agency’s 43% vacancy rate.

McKinnor, a member of the California Legislative Black Caucus (CLBC), said the bill aims to fully staff the state agency with enforcement agents who have expertise in working in California’s most dangerous work environments.

The Assembly Committee on Higher Education voted 9-0 to advance AB 694 on April 29. It is now headed to the Committee on Appropriations for consideration.

McKinnor continued, “We must urgently shore up our health and safety systems, so we can enforce California heat standards and safeguard worker health.”

CLCJ released the California Worker Climate Bill of Rights last fall, urging state legislators to propose policy solutions to protect workers from climate hazards such as extreme heat, fires, smoke, and floods.

Norman Rogers, Second Vice President of United Steelworkers Local 675 in Carson, said oil refinery operations around the state pose “the most hazards.

“AB 694 seeks to recreate Cal/OSHA to hire union oil and gas workers leveraging the knowledge, health and safety training, and process safety training used daily to ensure safe, compliant refinery operations,” Rogers added.