In the latest episode of the Roosevelt Institute's weekly Bloggingheads series, "Fireside Chats," Senior Fellow Mark Schmitt talks to Scott Lemieux of Lawyers, Guns, and Money and The American Prospect about the machinations behind the Supreme Court's recent health care ruling and what challenges lie ahead for the Affordable Care Act. Mark notes that while Republicans have tried to spin the ruling by claiming that they can use reconciliation to repeal the individual mandate if it's a tax, the truth is that they always could have but never will. Echoing his recent post on this subject, he maintains that they have "less than no reason" to repeal the individual mandate as long as insurance companies are lining their pockets.

Mark thinks the recent revelation of Aetna's $7 million donation to conservative groups is significant given that "overall the health insurance industry basically has staked out with the Republican Party," but insurers were forced to work with Democrats during the health care reform negotiations to get a seat at the table. He explains that the conflict for insurers has always been that "they would love to have as many customers as possible, so if you create a mandate, that's a great thing for them," but it also means that they'll have to put up with more regulation as part of an overall reform package. "If it was all regulation, no mandate, they wouldn't want it; if it was all mandate, no regulation, they'd love it; and then there's two acceptable positions. One is the status quo... pre-2010, and then ACA they were basically fine with."

Now that the Supreme Court has upheld the law, Mark notes that the worst outcome for insurers would be that "only the mandate gets struck," since they would get all of the new regulations and none of the new customers. He says that "now that these companies are fully back at the table with Republicans, the Republicans simply are not going to just repeal the mandate. It's just not an option they have with their cash constituents." As for repealing the entire law, he notes that there is plenty of internal division among Republicans about preserving the more popular provisions, like guaranteed issue and the ability for young adults to stay on their parents' insurance plan until age 26. "I think they're really stuck, and I think we should really just draw the line and say, 'Here it is, we have the Affordable Care Act. It's not going anywhere, nobody's repealing it, now it's time to make it work.'"

For much more, including Mark and Scott's take on how the Supreme Court reached its surprising verdict and why it's been leaking like a sieve ever since, watch the full video below:

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, Roosevelt Institute Senior Fellow Joseph Stiglitz, and others express their belief in the value of government in this highlight reel from the launch conference of the Rediscovering Government Initiative:

The Senate may have brought JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon in for a hearing on the firm's $2 billion loss last week, but there was very little sizzle in his grilling. Instead of the kowtowing that took place, Roosevelt Institute Senior Fellow Rob Johnson told the Real News Network what questions he would have asked had he been in the room:

Question number one: "Why, when he claims what he’s doing is hedging other risk, he actually lost money on the hedge?" And as a follow up, to bring home the larger point: "Isn’t the Volcker rule, which separates all of this proprietary trading from other activities that society guarantees... absolutely necessary?" As Rob explains, this loss may not have been a significant portion of the bank's overall portfolio, but who's to say that the next loss isn't worse, or that a bank loses all of its capital the way Lehman did?

Question number two: "What was productive for society in the credit allocation process in that particular action?... Why does any of this activity have anything to do with making the economy function better, restoring the value or the stability in the housing market, or any of those types of real functions of financial mediation?" It can be easy to lose site of this point in all the talk of "job creators" and "doing God's work," but finance does exist for a purpose, in theory. So beyond maximizing stockholder's stock, what purpose was there for the rest of us?

And one final question: "I would be tempted to ask him why he spent so much money pulling together the entire lobbying force that used to work for Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae," Rob says. Such actions don't belie an interest in transparency, but quite the opposite: an effort to "thwart the public interest" and bury the important truths behind the bank's actions. So what are they hiding over there? If it's up to the Senate, we may never find out.

Chase bank image via Shutterstock.com.

In the latest episode of “Fireside Chats,” Roosevelt Institute Fellow Mike Konczal talks with David Frum, Daily Beast writer and author of the new novel Patriots. In the clip below, they take on why Democrats have had trouble gathering support for stimulus programs during the current recession. “We’ve gone from Speaker Pelosi and the new Obama presidency and the idea of this wave of progressive energy to really trying to fight between the center and the center right,” Konczal notes.

As Konczal explains, “The real New Deal that we think of – the core economic security and managing the business cycle and so on – occurred in ’35,” when the economy was expanding. Meanwhile, “the conservative agenda to roll back the Great Society and the New Deal” unfortunately becomes more feasible in tough economic times like ours. The public becomes more risk averse and prefers austerity policies to big and potentially risky spending programs. Major liberal reforms, however necessary and beneficial they may be, are just very hard to pass during bad economic times.

The current grim economic condition, as well as the increase in media culture and accelerating ethnic change, have caused a transformation of American politics. Watch the full conversation below in which Konczal and Frum discuss this transition, what a Romney budget would look like, and the future of Obamacare.