Tag Archives: health care

Surprise, Surprise: Obamacare Works for a Small-Business Owner

This was in The New York Times earlier this week: Rachel Bryant, a small-business owner who lives just outside Winston-Salem [N.C], felt unlucky when she received a notice from Blue Cross saying that her plan was being canceled and that the … Continue reading

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Is Obamacare a Train Wreck?

In today’s NYT is an article on the initial failure of the Obamacare website’s functioning (healthcare.gov) that nevertheless contains a ray of hope: Administration officials have said there is plenty of time to resolve the [portal] problems before the mid-December … Continue reading

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It’s Always Been John Boehner’s Call (No Country for Old Men)

I think one of the great scenes in No Country for Old Men has a lot of political salience right now. John Boehner is the man pretending events are not of his making; Obama is the woman saying, “The coin don’t have … Continue reading

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Obamacare’s Exchanges are a Good Thing

This woman’s story is illustrative of why:

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Obamacare: You Fund It, You Own It

It’s entertaining to watch the Tea Party right send the Republican Party over the cliff, as in this ad pressing Mitch McConnell to defund Obamacare: __________ The Republican leadership clearly recognizes that it cannot defund Obamacare without a stand-off with … Continue reading

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Contemptible Republicans vs. Obamacare

__________ At National Journal, Norm Ornstein offers some brilliant analysis of attempts by the Republican leadership to sabotage the implementation of Obamacare: What is going on now to sabotage Obamacare is […] sharply beneath any reasonable standards of elected officials … Continue reading

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Getting People to Sign Up for Obamacare in October

Here’s one way Oregon is trying to doing it: catchy and gentle persuasion. I like it. Carrots are better than sticks. But after October, maybe recycle this into the rotation at the Baby Channel? __________ Conservatives, I presume, will probably … Continue reading

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Thanks, McDonald’s: Obesity is Killing America’s Economic Competitiveness by Ballooning Health Care Costs

So says Jim Clifton, CEO of Gallup and author of The Coming Jobs War. In an interview at Gallup’s Management Journal, he tags obesity and fruitless late-life interventions as the two chief reasons that Americans spend so much more than … Continue reading

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Let the 30-Year-Old Die!: The Christianist Party Shouts for Crucifixion

This is a must-see. It’s the Republican audience’s reaction to a debate question directed last night to Ron Paul by Wolf Blitzer. The gist of the question was the following: Should society let an employed 30-year-old experiencing a catastrophic health crisis, but lacking insurance, die? … Continue reading

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Tea Partier Sharon Angle wants to abolish the Department of Education, end Social Security and Medicare, and get the United States out of the United Nations

And she’s just won the Republican primary in Nevada. Harry Reid’s camp has to be smiling about this:

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Health Care Reform’s Victory: David Frum Blames Rush Limbaugh

This today at conservative David Frum’s website: Talk radio thrives on confrontation and recrimination. When Rush Limbaugh said that he wanted President Obama to fail, he was intelligently explaining his own interests. What he omitted to say – but what … Continue reading

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Health Care Reform 101 with MIT Economist Jonathan Gruber

MIT economist Jonathan Gruber is an expert on the economics of health care and his explanation of the dynamics underlying the debates surrounding health care reform is exceptionally clarifying. After listening to Jonathan Gruber you understand just how improbable and … Continue reading

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Health Care Reform: The Republican Party’s Waterloo

Here’s what health care reform means: stabilizing for millions of Americans one of the verities of human existence (illness), and without ballooning deficits. This is how the Democrats are about to drive the Republican Party into irrelevancy, by delivering the goods. And I … Continue reading

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Kill Obama = Kill Health Care Reform?

The latest lovely image of Barack Obama, stepping into a coffin, the word “KILL” in large red letters alongside a caricature of his face, courtesy of some sick racist at a “Code Red” Tea Party protest in Washington, March 16, 2010:

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Yes we can! Nancy Pelosi is bullish on health care reform’s passage

If what Greg Sargent is reporting today is true, American politics is on the verge of a seismic shift: In her most expansive case yet for health reform, Nancy Pelosi argued in a small roundtable with bloggers today that passing … Continue reading

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Why Liberals Need to Support the Health Care Bill

One writer to Josh Marshall’s website takes on those who would make the pure the enemy of the good: If I feel abandoned, it’s not by Obama and the Democratic party, it’s by those on the left advocating to kill the … Continue reading

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Al Franken Shows Himself Not to Be a Potted Plant, Shocking Joe Lieberman with an Interruption!

In this surprising exchange with Joe Lieberman, Al Franken disrupts the Senate’s clubby atmosphere, and gets dazed incomprehension and expressions of confusion in return. Notice that John McCain, coming to Lieberman’s defense, gets more emotional about Joe’s treatment than he’s ever … Continue reading

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Have the First Nine Months of the Obama Administration Been Good for Republicans?

Not according to Andrew Sullivan. Sullivan thinks things are getting worse for the Republican Party, not better: Anyone not suckered by the usual Beltway hooey . . . could see that the Republicans were drowning, not waving. Their success in … Continue reading

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Phew!

The Congressional Budget Office numbers on the Democratic health care bill look surprisingly good, and this means that the momentum for health care reform will be picking up. This today in the New York Times: In all, it said, the proportion of nonelderly … Continue reading

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Health Care Insurance Reform Quote of the Day

Robert Wright, a guest blogger for Andrew Sullivan this week, makes a great point about health care and rationing: What more is there to say about Sarah Palin’s now-famous claim that President Obama’s health-care plan features “death panels” that will … Continue reading

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