Gubernatorial candidate Allyson Schwartz led “The Last Word” on MSNBC on Monday night to promote her latest ad, a pro-ACA spot.
“I worked with President Obama on the Affordable Care Act and getting health care coverage to all Americans. It was my legislation that said insurance companies can no longer deny coverage to kids with pre-existing conditions,” Schwartz narrates in the ad.
“Tom Corbett has decided not to take the Medicaid money, as governor, I will take the Medicaid expansion because 500,000 Pennsylvanians need health coverage,” she continues. “That’s exactly the kind of leadership I will bring as your next Governor.”
Throughout the spot, the Congresswoman highlights her connection with the President, including showing signed photographs of the two of them together and footage of Rep. Schwartz and President Obama descending the stairs of Air Force One.
The ad will begin running in Pennsylvania on Tuesday morning.
Ari Melber filled in for Lawrence O’Donnell on the show and interviewed Schwartz after the preview of the ad.
“It’s simply wrong to have a governor who’s refusing to use this tool to give Pennsylvania the health care that they need,” Schwartz said in the interview.
59% of Pennsylvanians support Medicaid expansion according to Public Policy Polling on a map shown during the spot.
Schwartz shared anecdotes of ACA success stories, including a woman she met on the campaign trail named Christine who was just diagnosed with breast cancer but can no longer lose her coverage thanks to the law.
At the end of the interview, Melber also asked if Schwartz would welcome the President to campaign for her. Schwartz answered that she would love to have the President appear with her, both before the primary and ahead of the general election.
The candidate’s embrace of the President is a calculated risk as she trails former Revenue Secretary Tom Wolf with a month to go. President Obama’s approval in the commonwealth has been dropping steadily the last few months yet he’s still popular with Democrats.
Also in the primary, she faces State Treasurer Rob McCord and former DEP Secretary Katie McGinty.
After the major unveiling of the ad, Corbett reelection campaign manager Mike Barley released the following statement.
“Despite cancelled policies, skyrocketing premiums, lost doctors and jobs, Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz has turned her back on Pennsylvania for good,” said Barley. “Congresswoman Schwartz has embraced an extreme liberal agenda in Washington, DC and the disastrous healthcare takeover she helped to write and force upon hardworking Pennsylvanians. Now Congresswoman Schwartz hopes to bring those failed budget-busting Obama policies to Harrisburg, proving just how out of touch she is with the people of Pennsylvania.”
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33 Responses
“…had he gotten a stricter judge”
If ifs and buts were candy and nuts…
Sancho-
Since Bob won the case, I haven’t denied that he would be on the ballot.
I’ve just stated that he wouldn’t be on the ballot had he gotten a stricter judge. Please don’t pretend that every judge would have ruled the same.
Bob will be on the ballot. He’ll get about 20% from the wacko vote, and then disappear back into the obscurity from which he came.
@ DD:
Your reading-retention skills are amiss; mutiliple accounts of the 2-day hearing included reference to affidavits filed to clarify a few signatures but, assuming you read the opinion, the overwhelming majority of signatures were deemed to be OK based simply upon due-diligence analysis [after having heard arguments from both sides].
So stop with the grand-standing and recognize the fact that Guzzardi’s name will be on the ballot, notwithstanding your negative prediction [which, based upon your vast experience, should have taken into account the possibility that some signatures might be rehabbed].
So, you admit that affidavits were required to repair deficit signatures. None of these “corrections” were available when I originally looked at the petitions. So, now you are trying to fault me for not having information that was provided later.
fortunately, you and Bob will be done May 20th.
@ DD:
“I think every date entry without the year should have been thrown out as a defective entry. Is that specific enough for you?”
First of all, your criterion [excluding the year] is not included among those that are invoked by Commonwealth Court and, second, were such a Draconian approach adopted–particularly when people often squeeze-in the date-info on the right-edge–many otherwise-OK signatures would be tossed.
Unfortunately, the petitions are no longer on-line @ the DoS-website, so I was unable to sample others; nevertheless, you’ve demonstrated the capacity to satisfy the pedagogical concept of “reductio ad absurdum.”
Indeed, as I noted a few days ago, your approach contradicts the customary approach adopted by Dems regarding the desire not to disenfranchise voters, essentially attempting to ensure integrity by accommodating minor aberrations [as was done in this case, sometimes invoking affidavits].
If this problem infests your touted databases, as well, one would have to think twice about employing your services.
Sancho-
I think every date entry without the year should have been thrown out as a defective entry. Is that specific enough for you?
Unsanctioned R-
The state party using (VAN/VoteBuilder) charges thousands for the same data, and doesn’t even pro-rate candidates who have primary challenges. They get charged the full price for the election cycle.
However, generating useful reports from the raw $20 is not trivial. For several months, the $20 raw file had the OLD/WRONG state legislative districts in the data. I manually updated the precinct data to reflect the correct redistricting.
I don’t know what the R’s charge for their system.
Diano is only right about 50% of the time on here. I’ll give him that.
@ DD:
Again, you attack [“The petitions were bad, and the judge let them through anyway.”] without documenting your wild assertion; all the data are available on-line, so knock-yourself-out.
If you choose not to do so, then you are again validating the charge that you’re simply an opinionated blow-hard.
David, maybe one day you’ll have a case before that willfully ignorant (or is she just stupid) judge and you can wow her with your legal acumen.
For the record, I don’t think you’re stupid. You’ve gotta be brilliant to get people to fork over hundreds for a $20 voter file.
Andrew,
Most of the time I’m dealing with people who are stupid or willfully ignorant.
As for Joseph, he’s either inane or a prank character by one of my friends. It’s still entertaining.
Joseph doesn’t seem to understand the idea of pooling resources, when it doesn’t benefit his own selfishness. I don’t drive past his house. Why should he let my taxes pave his street? I guess that isn’t communism, but every nickel he doesn’t want to pay, is.
He should go to a meeting with actual communists so they can explain the differences to him.
Sancho and Unsanctioned R-
If I was wrong so often, you’d be able to do better than repeating a single unrealized prediction 50 times. And, I still feel the judge ruled incorrectly. My mistake was assuming the judge understood how to follow the law and strike bad signatures. The petitions were bad, and the judge let them through anyway.
It’s not like Bob is going to win, or rally the masses as you’ve suggested. His campaign will be a giant flop, and he’ll lose in a landslide.
@David Diano:
You really are just a little pig faced commie scumbag. My wife had a hysterectomy last year and we changed our insurance plans to get rid of maternity care coverage, and technically, we have different plans. The coverage for the mammograms went up to being yearly coverage instead of a five year coverage rate. Your vulgar attitude is exactly why (in a microcosmic example) that this country is on the verge of civil war. I’ll keep my family treasure, thank you, but maybe you should stick that nice, big, fat, hammer and sickle down you throat and gut out your jugular veins. Or even better, have O’Stalin or one of your fellow comrades, like say, your brother who my increased insurance rates are now subsidizing, stick it up your ass to the point of sneezing it. If you start up a fund raiser to pay for your plane ticket to North Korea, I will pay for the whole thing and laugh off to the bank as you rot in a gulag.
Someone send Andrew a memo that Guzzardi is still on the ballot. DD told him that he was sure the judge would kick him off. Wrong again and again and again.
BTW, how is everyone spending the $2,500 they saved on health insurance this year?
David Diano:
Up against an avalanche of idiocy, you performed admirably. Your persistent and rational arguments looked great beside the clown show of Pol Pot, etc. comparisons. This is why we win every time. Thank you.
@ DD:
True to form, you have failed to document your claim concerning the impact of ObamaDon’tCare, you have failed to recognize the damage to your credibility due to your having drawn false [grandiose] conclusions from your superficial analysis of Guzzardi’s petitions, and you have failed to refute the prediction that the R’s will probably assume control over the Senate.
Sancho-
““Pretty much every one of the people the GOP (or FoxNews) trots out as a example of Obamacare-gone-wrong turns out to be a phony story once investigated.”
Plenty of news stories all over the place about these people being debunked. Try reading a news site other than FoxNews.
“You can keep your doctor”
“You can keep your plan”
“The average family’s premiums will decrease $2,500”
My daughter was diagnosed with lupus when she was 19. She could not buy health insurance that wasn’t at least $3,000/month, complete with clauses that cancelled the insurance if she required hospitalization. So she went through life with this painful, disorienting and incurable disease and no professional care she couldn’t pay cash for.
Despite Corbett’s hateful refusal to expand Medicaid for the ACA in PA, my daughter was finally able to enroll. She now has a plan that she can afford, that covers her lupus, and she is finally getting the care she desperately needs.
So for those of you spouting idiotic outrage about “marxists” and “commies,” the ACA is saving my daughters’ life. Whose lives have you saved?
@ DD:
Please document: “Pretty much every one of the people the GOP (or FoxNews) trots out as a example of Obamacare-gone-wrong turns out to be a phony story once investigated.”
Regarding my petition-analysis, your admittedly-limited sampling was indeed problematic while mine was validated [in all four challenged counties]…as the CC demonstrated…and it is recognized as a common-pitfall in biostatistical logic to attempt to buttress an argument by citing “a retroactive analysis of a subset of the population.”
I do not doubt Corbett is a flawed-candidate, as has been consistently pled via multiple comments here on PoliticsPA [and to anyone else who would listen] during the past year-plus; nevertheless, the point [which you pointedly ignored] was focused on national trends that have been validated not only by Fox, but also by multiple pollsters [except those cited by the NY-Times…think “538”]!
[ref. “FiveThirtyEight Senate Forecast: GOP Is Slight Favorite in Race for Senate Control”]
Thanks, please keep us posted on how rates and deductibles may change for your family in 2015.
Just Curious-
He’s 49 and zero deductible (now) for in-network. (I don’t know his previous deductible, but it wasn’t less than zero). I do know that the new plan doubled his number of days of coverage for post-surgery, in-home nursing care (which he could have used in 2013). So, his new plan is tremendously better for his health needs, and at a lower cost.
Another friend of mine, who runs a small Internet sales business, mentioned she was able to get insurance and her husband for less than she was previously paying for just herself. Her husband was previously high-risk or uninsurable.
Pretty much every one of the people the GOP (or FoxNews) trots out as a example of Obamacare-gone-wrong turns out to be a phony story once investigated.
That’s not to say that some people might not be paying a bit more here and there. But, for the most part, people are getting affordable insurance, and better coverage, especially people who previous couldn’t get coverage.
From an article in Politico:
—- My favorite ACA success story is of an Ohio Republican woman profiled in Time. Republicans could say she was forced to cancel her coverage and is now paying more. But the real story is that her canceled coverage did not pay for the life-saving cancer care her husband needed. Overcoming “a lot of talk that this is a bad law,” she enrolled through HealthCare.gov and is paying a little more now for health coverage that is actually covering her husband’s cancer care. She went from “I don’t want anything to do with it [Obamacare]” to saying it is “a godsend.” —–
Sancho-
Your “disinterested” analysis? You are part of his campaign. The sampling wasn’t that microscopic, and your analysis (incorrectly) claimed the judge would allow at least one of the bad signatures I identified. The judge made a series of bad calls, in your favor. Congratulations.
As for “rebelling in November”, PA going to be rebelling against Corbett and his failed policies in a big way (hopefully with big coattails down the ticket). Bob will be a forgotten footnote from the primary.
@ DD:
You may revel in promoting obfuscation, but you really should recognize that your one-size-fits-all paradigm is anti-American; you demonstrate you sport a tin-ear when spoonfed examples of how elitists have dictated top-heavy standards to those they view as the hoi-polloi.
Furthermore, your superficial claims against Guzzardi’s painstakingly-acquired petitions [admittedly based on a microscopic-sampling] could not be expected to compete credibly with my [documented, extensive] disinterested analysis.
So recognize that the wide swath of Americans who have persistently hated ObamaDon’tCare will rebel in November against your brand of statism, and gird-your-loins against the Congressional reaction on 1/1/2015 [and the POTUS-level initiatives starting 1/20/2017].
David,
How old is your brother?
What was his deductible before and after?
Joseph-
Are you so delusional as to think that your previous health care insurance didn’t cover maternity care, mammograms, etc? The point of insurance is that everybody chips in (pools their resources) and whoever needs the care gets it affordably.
While your wife might not be getting pregnant (at least by you), she might need a mammogram at some point. How dare she expect her husband to help chip in for that? If you think that your (supposed) extra $233 is going for people with v@ginas, then you are indicating that you would rather your premium stay the same and your wife’s went up $466?
How about all the woman (and the virile men) paying insurance to cover you for erectile dysfunction? Or how about prostate problems (like cancer)? Should the women be paying for that? Since you don’t plan on having kids, how about you just get castrated and avoid any more expensive male health care problems? If you set up a KickStart fund to get castrated, I’m sure it will collect more than enough.
As for your healthcare plan going up, I call bullsh*t. Name the new plan you were “forced” to take. Rates are published. My brother switched to the Platinum Plan and is still paying less. So, you are full of cr@p that you have a high quality plan and are paying that much more.
Thank you Dr. Sklaroff for reminding us of one of the many times DD has been shown demonstrably incorrect. Why should his arguments about Obamacare be any different? He will actually tell unsatisfied individuals that they are really satisfied if they just weren’t so dumb. If you’re going to be that arrogant, you should have a better track record.
@David Diano
You are so typical of being the Bolshevik style useful idiot that just can’t put down his little communist manifesto. My wife and I are no longer going to/ and are now incapable of having children, yet, because of the wonder law called “Obamacare”, our healthcare plans which were top notch, high quality, and very satisfying, were changed to your espoused “better” plans. Our healthcare costs have gone up $233, each, since this past month as I am now forced to pay for maternity care, pap smears, and mamograms; THIS IS ONLY FOR ME! I’M A MAN AND DON’T NEED TO BE PAYING FOR THESE THINGS!! But then again, comrade O’Stalin and his KGB (the IRS) decided that whether I like it or not, I’m going to be paying for those things, and they wield the barrel of gun to impose the regulations. If my insurance gets cancelled, I will be FORCED (through the end of a muzzle of a gun held by the IRS) on to an exchange, or I am committing Felony Tax Evasion. O’Stalin also waived the largest and most important key provisions of his signature law until after the elections, but then again, 50% of the country is to stupid to pay attention to these things, are ignorant of actual history, and are dooming this country to becoming a Soviet style dictatorship. Thanks a bunch, USEFUL IDIOT!
http://www.mediaite.com/online/democratic-rep-warns-that-obamacares-worst-about-to-hit-the-fan/
Joseph,
Actually, many of them were bad plans (despite people liking them) because they provided poor (or even fraudulent) coverage. Some plans were completely worthless if you actually got sick and needed care.
My brother b*tched and moaned about losing his old plan under Blue Cross. Then he found out his new plan (still under Blue Cross) covered more, and was over $100 less a month in premiums.
One of the achievements of the health insurance reform was to standardize what was covered so that you had a complete package. Many of the old plans had more holes than Swiss cheese, and were rip offs.
Let’s not forget, 50% of Americans are too stupid, ignorant or uneducated to accept the scientific fact that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old. I wouldn’t expect them to realize they had sh*tty health coverage.
You have confused Stalinism with consumer fraud protection.
@Sophie:
Stop telling lies about libertarians by calling them FASCISTS and NAZIS, and I will stop telling the truth about “progressives”.
Yes, Obama is no different than Pol Pot. That’s a rational argument for sure.
Unless I missed a /sarcasm tag there somewhere.
@David Diano:
The Marxist/Leninist garbage you spout off is very frightening. “Cancelled” plans were merely bad plans replaced by better ones.” They weren’t “bad” plans if people who had them liked them. These new “better” plans are much more expensive and were FORCED upon these people in order to suck money out of their pockets to subsidize some filthy illegal alien. Determining that people’s healthcare plans are “bad” and then forcefully changing them against peoples’ wills is like Stalinism. It is currently wrapped up in black skin and that is all the little peasants here in this state and country can see. This country has not matured on racial issues, because if it did mature and the citizenry actually knew history, Obama would be looked at as no different than a Pol Pot, Nikita Kruschev, or Mao Zedong. A doctor can’t cure our country’s ignorance, and you are an example of that; nothing more than a useful idiot.
Sancho-
I didn’t make a “snap judgement”. I made a prediction, based upon a random sampling of petitions, extrapolated. The petitions were crappy and the judge approved entries that many other judges wouldn’t. It’s called the luck of the draw and you guys just barely skated by. You got lucky. Your smugness is disproportionate.
As for Wolf, how “violently” do you disagree with his ideology? 2nd Amendment, Cliven Bundy disagree?
Despite your many flaws in perception, you seem have correctly assessed some of Schwartz’s weaknesses. (Every once in a while, a blind squirrel finds a nut.)
@ DD:
Although your snap-judgment regarding Guzzardi’s petitions was not recognized by Commonwealth Court, for reasons I extensively documented in multiple postings @ PoliticsPA, I concur with your assessment; this is not a game-changer, based on a disinterested assessment of the two of them [disregarding the two “Mc”-candidates].
It is generally assumed that Wolf’s feel-good presentation conveys intellect and sensitivity [even if one violently disagrees with his ideology, as do I]; this ad does nothing to neutralize what has proven successful in that regard, let alone to trump any prior point made by any of the three candidates.
Frankly, i’m surprised she has waited so long to launch although, as noted on another posting, i’ve been disappointed as a constituent that she has NEVER [ever] held an open-forum event; this conveys a sense of insularity/defensiveness that contrasts with the projection of boldness that seems to have proven successful for Wolf.
itson-
It is a good ad. It’s not a game changer.
Corbett’s campaign manager appears deliberately ignorant of the truth that premiums are down, and that doctors and jobs haven’t been lost. “Cancelled” plans were merely bad plans replaced by better ones. People weren’t denied insurance coverage. Quite the opposite.
Team Corbett seems allergic to the truth. I don’t think a doctor’s going to be able to help.
This was a good move on her behalf.8 million people signed up,obama is still well liked in pa,this ad will be a game changer.