Currently the Affordable Care Act (ACA) protects people with pre-existing conditions by outlawing health insurance companies from refusing to sell plans to individuals because of existing health issues. These protections are particularly important for older Americans who obviously are more likely to have a pre-existing condition. Unfortunately, these protections could be compromised by Department of Justice’s (DOJ) decision not to defend the ACA’s in a lawsuit brought by Texas and 19 other states. The basic premise behind the litigation is that because of last year’s tax reform legislation, the individual mandate has been effectively eliminated because people will no longer be taxed for not carrying health insurance. Taken one step further, these 20 states argue that because the individual mandate is so integral to the ACA, that the rest of the legislation should be found unconstitutional (it should be noted the administration is only arguing pre-existing protections and community ratings should be found invalid). Currently around 25 million older Americans (50 to 64) could be denied insurance in the individual market if the protections for people with pre-existing health conditions are eliminated.   

First the DOJ’s  decision is concerning because it runs contrary to its own long standing tradition of generally defending federal law in litigation, even if the current administration is ideologically opposed to the policy. Law professor Nicholas Bagley from the University of Michigan who used to work at the DOJ said, “I am at a loss for words to explain how big of a deal this is. The Justice Department has a durable, long-standing, bipartisan commitment to defending the law when non-frivolous arguments can be made in its defense. This brief torches that commitment.”

In addition, in a letter from Attorney General Jeff Sessions to House Speaker Paul Ryan regarding this litigation, Sessions argues that without the individual mandate, “individuals could wait until they become sick to purchase insurance, thus driving up premiums for everyone else.” Meaning people could go without insurance until they become sick, and because of pre-existing conditions protections insurance companies would be forced to sell sick people policies, thus driving up the costs for everyone else. If I understand this correctly, Congress and the White House repeal the individual mandate, which will likely drive up health insurance premiums, and their solution to this problem is to deny protections for people with pre-existing conditions. 

While a final resolution regarding this litigation is a ways off, currently the ACA has been instrumental in providing improved health care protection and coverage for older Americans. For example, according to the Commonwealth Fund in 2010, 43 percent of individuals between the ages of 50 to 64 who attempted to purchase health care coverage where either rejected, charged higher premiums or had certain health conditions omitted from policies. The ACA combats these problems by not allowing people to be denied for pre-existing conditions, limiting what insurance companies can charge older Americans compared to younger people and regulating individual’s insurance premiums through tax credits. The Commonwealth Fund reports between 2012 to 2016 older Americans between 50 and 64 saw the uninsured rate drop from 13 to 8 percent. Clearly older Americans have seen substantial improvements in health insurance access since the ACA was enacted; eliminating protections for pre-existing conditions will inevitably cause older adults health care costs to increase.

Furthermore, as I have reported in my previous blog, Repealing and Replacing The Affordable Care Act And Its Impact on Medicare, older Americans who don’t have health insurance prior to turning 65 are more likely to require more expensive health care once they enroll in Medicare.  The Justice Department’s decision not to defend pre-existing conditions in litigation will only make older adults less healthy before they enroll in Medicare by potentially limiting access to health insurance.  

Lastly, this litigation flies in the face of public opinion. According to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll, support for pre-existing protections is solid across the political spectrum with support amongst 84 percent of Democrats, 68 percent of Independents and 59 percent of Republicans.

Thankfully, the ACA is still standing and our elected officials in Washington, D.C. have been unable to repeal and replace the ACA. Realizing that a legislative repeal of the ACA might be unworkable, everything has been done to weaken this legislation. The administration has drastically reduced the ACA’s advertising budget, eliminated the cost-sharing subsidies and expanded short-term health plans which don’t offer key ACA protections.

Sadly, the current lawsuit’s end result could potentially strip away basic health care protections for older Americans. What happens if the court sides with the plaintiffs and gets rid of pre-existing conditions protections? Are older Americans expected to go back to a health care system where their plans are more expensive and protections are less stringent? Let’s hope for the sake of all Americans our court system protects safeguards put in place by the ACA for people with pre-existing protections.

As candidates campaign for Congressional seats across the United States this summer, anti-Israel and in some cases overtly anti-Semitic views have manifested themselves among outliers in both parties.
 

• Ilhan Omar (D), a Minnesota state legislator who hails originally from Somalia, is campaigning for the seat being vacated by Rep. Keith Ellison (D), who is running for state attorney general. Some of her past tweets on Israel have drawn criticism as her profile has risen. In 2012, for example, she tweeted, “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evils of Israel.”

 

• In Illinois, American Nazi Party member Arthur Jones won a Republican primary in a Chicago-area district currently represented in Congress by Rep. Dan Lipinski (D). Jones is a Holocaust denier and a sympathizer of the Ku Klux Klan. "This idea that 'six million Jews,' were killed by the National Socialist government of Germany, in World War II, is the biggest, blackest, lie in history,” Jones wrote on his campaign website.

 

• Rashida Tlaib (D), a Palestinian American running unopposed in Michigan and thus slated to become the first female Muslim to serve in Congress, recently criticized Israel during Hamas rocket attacks. “My roots as a Palestinian American are strong and important. I believe every human being deserves to live with dignity,” she tweeted. She keynoted an anti-Israel conference in Chicago in April and supported convicted Palestinian terrorist Rasmea Odeh in her bid to evade deportation from the U.S.

 

• John Fitzgerald (R) is running against Rep. Mark DeSaulnier (D) in California. Fitzgerald recently appeared on a neo-Nazi radio show, saying, “Everything we’ve been told about the Holocaust is a lie. My entire campaign is about exposing this lie.” He also peddles in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, asserting that nine percent of U.S. government officials are dual citizens of Israel.

 

• Perhaps the most famous candidate to throw pointed jabs at Israel this year is New York’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who defeated Rep. Joe Crowley in a Democratic primary. She derided Israel’s defensive operations on the Gaza border as a “massacre…To me it would be completely unacceptable if that happened on our shores,” adding “What people are starting to see at least in the occupation of Palestine is just an increasing crisis of humanitarian condition.” Ocasio-Cortez has emerged as the face of Democratic Socialism, an ideology she has endorsed.

 

• Paul Nehlen (R), who describes himself as “pro-White,” is running to fill the Wisconsin seat of retiring House Speaker Paul Ryan (R). Like Fitzgerald, he has also touted the anti-Semitic dual loyalty theory. “There is one nation where this condition presents particularly egregious pain: Israel,” said Nehlen, who has said that all of his critics are Jewish.

 
These candidacies showcase familiar tropes on the left and right, respectively. Though right-wing groups are generally anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim as well, their opposition to integration and their ongoing embrace of Holocaust denial and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories are intensely threatening to Jews. On the left, the demonization of Israel and the double standards applied to it have increased the stigmatization and marginalization of the Jewish state.  This trend has fueled momentum for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and for harassment of Jewish students on university campuses.
 
Not all of these candidates, or others who share their views, will prevail in November. But the lesson for now is that anti-Israel and anti-Semitic exponents continue to find a voice in the public discourse and landing spaces in our political system. How mainstream officials and institutions in both parties react to these outliers and their ideas will shape the future of U.S. policy with respect to pluralism and Middle East policy.

European Days of Jewish Culture

Constantly spearheading exciting projects which bring to life Judaism’s rich cultural heritage and educate the public on its integral role in the development of European civilization, The European Association for the Preservation and Promotion of Jewish Culture and Heritage (AEPJ) is now supported by B’nai B’rith Europe and 13 other organizations that have assumed the mantle of preservation in the aftermath of the tragic destruction resulting from World War II. Its visually impressive website is an enticement to hop a plane to get a look at the actual sites that are partially represented by photos depicting highlights of the 33 cultural routes mapped throughout the continent. Located in countries including Austria, Italy, Poland, Spain and Turkey, they were developed to provide an insider’s view of synagogues and other architectural treasures, some recently restored, and sites of historic interest as well as special exhibits and fine arts collections on view in local museums and archives. Assisted in the realization of its mission by important leaders and arts professionals, the AEPJ continues to revise its horizons.

For the past 19 years, AEPJ has spearheaded the annual “European Days of Jewish Culture” devoted each year to a tradition or broad concept intended to inspire a wide range of creativity, innovation and inclusion throughout the continent. Encompassing folklore and private diaries to biblical legends and Kabbalah, “Storytelling” has been designated as this year’s theme, with Sept. 2 representing the official date but in most places the celebration will commence prior to that day, and extend beyond, with cultural events including concerts, dance programs, screenings, dramatic productions, lectures and discussions produced by local arts ensembles, museums, libraries and academic institutions. For the first time, AEPJ has partnered with the National Library of Israel in the creation of a resource guide and a special touring museum show, among other initiatives.

“To Kill A Mockingbird” Coming to Broadway

After a few glitches with the estate of author Harper Lee, Oscar-winning screenwriter, playwright and movie director Aaron Sorkin is going ahead with his plans to bring his dramatic adaptation of her beloved novel, first published in 1960, “To Kill a Mockingbird” to Broadway’s Shubert Theater, slated to premiere on Nov. 1. Of course many remember the 1962 film adaptation starring Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, a role for which he won an Academy Award.  

Sorkin, whose successful first play “A Few Good Men” later became an even more celebrated film, is often credited with the creation of iconic television shows — “Sports Night,” with its glib repartee, hidden literary references, and complicated characters, and especially the much praised “The West Wing,” the continuing saga of the idealistic, yet flawed President Bartlett and his equally committed close-knit staff — whose content is sometimes said to reflect the Jewish concern for social justice. One of the show’s two Jewish characters, Toby Ziegler, the White House communications director and the Brooklyn-born son of a Russian Jewish mobster, was among its most memorable.

Trusting Sorkin, who like Lee, had a father who practiced law, the late Southern writer had given her permission to him to write the play, but her estate had judged his treatment of “Mockingbird” to be too far afield from the original book.  Little has been revealed about the changes that were contested, but Sorkin has noted that its protagonist, the dignified attorney Atticus Finch, who bravely defends an African-American man on trial for rape in the Jim Crow South, undergoes a transformation, to ultimately realize and act on his ethical decision, a change from Lee’s reverent, albeit one-dimensional portrayal. Sorkin’s intent in endowing Atticus with more human qualities will provide contemporary audiences with opportunity for empathy.

​Cheryl Kempler is an art and music specialist who works in the B'nai B'rith International Curatorial Office and writes about history and Jewish culture for B’nai B’rith Magazine. To view some of her additional content, click here.

This week, United States sanctions that were lifted after the signing of the 2015 agreement on Iran’s nuclear program began to be reimposed following the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the deal, whose other signatories were Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China and the European Union. With saber-rattling renewed between Tehran and Washington —  but economic stress in Iran prompting some Iranians, if not yet their leadership, to consider President Trump’s offer to negotiate with “no preconditions” — a review of the original deal’s terms and pitfalls is in order.

The 2015 agreement required Iran to give up and limit or suspend a substantial part of its nuclear material and activity: Iran was obligated to eliminate roughly 97 percent of its uranium stockpile, dismantle and put under seal two-thirds of its centrifuges, cap uranium enrichment at levels considerably below weapons grade and remove the core of its plutonium reactor. The deal also required Iran to accept extensive monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and it required Iran to pledge never to obtain a nuclear weapon.

But, of course, the deal was very far from air-tight:

• It has sunset clauses, with many of its key provisions expiring in only 10, 15 or 20 years (the ban on constructing advanced centrifuges will begin to expire in 2023, most other nuclear restrictions lift between 2026 and 2031, and IAEA access to key nuclear facilities ends in the five years beginning 2036) 
• It does not provide for “anywhere, anytime” inspections — at suspect sites not specified in the agreement, inspectors can be forced to wait up to 24 days for access
• It leaves in place (and legitimizes) substantial Iranian nuclear infrastructure, with a still-modest potential “breakout time” to weapons-grade uranium production
• It doesn’t resolve the problems of Iranian advanced weapons development, terrorism, regional destabilization (particularly but not only in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen) and annihilationist threats against Israel; in fact, the U.N. ban on Iranian arms imports and exports will lift in 2021, and the U.N. ban on assistance to Iran’s ballistic-missile program will end in 2024
• It provided for the release of as much as $150 billion that could then be funneled to Iran’s military and terrorist proxies
• It led to an immediate surge of new foreign investment in Iran with more revenue — well over $100 billion — as well as legitimacy for the Iranian regime
• It disrupted the painstakingly built international (including U.N. and EU) sanctions against Iran
• Not least, it left American partners, including key Arab states, feeling vulnerable, with some potentially inclined to enter into a nuclear arms race with Iran.

 
While the IAEA has reported finding no evidence of major Iranian noncompliance with the deal thus far, Tehran has a long record of able deception and of violating commitments — as reconfirmed in the extensive intelligence material recently made public by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, refuting Iran’s claim that its supreme leader forbade outright any pursuit of nuclear weaponry.  

One significant and underreported reality about the U.S. pullout from the deal is that it reflected, and solidified, growing Arab-Israeli alignment focused on containing the Iranian threat. This, if nothing else, is a silver lining to the Iranian problem, and the U.S. is a critical partner in encouraging Arab-Israeli reconciliation and cooperation.
At the same time, does the potential unraveling of the nuclear deal help or hurt the most extreme elements in Iran? It isn’t easy to say. The hardline Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, which maintains significant power in Iran’s economy, finds ways to benefit from especially difficult times, and the nuclear deal was associated with the relative “moderates” in Iran. At the same time, economic strain in Iran builds pressure against the regime — as seen in the most recent popular protests calling for an end to corruption and an end to the foreign adventurism that has made Iran the world’s leading state-sponsor of terror. 

Global observers continue to assess the initial U.S. nuclear talks this year with North Korea. How are those negotiations influencing, and also being influenced by, the Iran experience? Iran has told North Korea that it can’t trust the U.S. to stay in a deal — though American firmness on Iran had at least set a high bar for the North Korean process. On the other hand, North Korea, unlike Iran, is already known to have nuclear weaponry. Will Iran be tempted to follow Pyongyang’s lead in engaging in new talks, or, prioritizing its saving of face, will it refuse to renegotiate the deal of 2015?

In the meantime, primary focus has been on the response by European allies to the U.S. withdrawal. While the Europeans became politically and economically wedded to the deal — and have already now been reeling over separate disagreements with the U.S. over the Paris climate accord, free trade agreements, tariffs, and NATO and other coalitions — European government officials have started acknowledging that it will be difficult to maintain the deal without American participation, since European companies will not want to lose access to the U.S. market by violating Washington’s reimposed sanctions on Iran.

If, in fact, Europe is unable to preserve the economic incentives needed to keep the Iranians themselves in the nuclear agreement, and it collapses, the question is: what happens next? Russia and China would likely veto attempts to reinstate U.N. sanctions. Iran, perhaps just short of provoking outright war, will almost surely make a point of ramping up nuclear activity. Iran will also continue to want to extract a price from Israel for the U.S. pullout —just as it and its proxies such as Hezbollah are already keen to undermine Arab-Israeli partnership and to recoup popular credibility among Arabs, lost in the bloody sectarian war in Syria, by again attacking Israel. And Israel, for its part, has made clear that it will act against the build-up of Iranian military positions in Syria to match those it established in Lebanon along the border with Israel. Russia has reportedly signaled that it will help maintain distance between the Iranians and Israel’s boundaries, although both Russia and Iran have served as critical allies preserving the rule of Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

Only time will tell whether a more dependable, comprehensive and lasting resolution of Iranian nuclear and other destabilizing activities will be achieved. However, to achieve it, common purpose will be needed. If such commonality can be reached by many Arabs and Israelis, it should be between the U.S. and Europe, as well as India, Japan and others who are being pressed to wean themselves off of Iranian oil. No less, commonality can and must be reached between Republicans and Democrats, who long shared a bipartisan recognition that the Iranian threat is an existential one for indispensable allies of the United States.