Tag: obamacare

Supreme Court to Hear Arguments Over Obamacare

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Source: The Washington Spectator via AlterNet

Author: Lou Dubose

Emphasis Mine

N.B.: The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was crafted and passed by the House and Senate, and signed into law by the POTUS.

The amicus briefs filed in the challenge to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to be argued before the Supreme Court on March 4 illuminate the Great American Political-Cultural divide.

Those who filed briefs in defense of Obama’s legislation are recognizable: theAmerican Cancer Society, the American Academy of Pediatrics, et al. There is a different anthropology among those who filed briefs supporting the plaintiffs who are challenging tax subsidies for low-income buyers of health-care insurance policies.

Texas’s Black Americans for Life considers abortion and contraception “a tool by some who wish to target the African-American community.”

Colorado’s Mountain State Legal Foundation is “dedicated to bringing before the courts those issues vital to the defense and preservation of individual liberties, the right to own and use property, and the free enterprise system.”

The American Civil Rights Union is “dedicated to defending all of our constitutional rights, not just those that might be politically correct.”

Senator John Cornyn of Texas is named on the amicus brief filed by 16 Congressional Republicans, an unlikely choice to lead any health-care pleading.

At 26.8 percent (24.81 percent after ACA enrollment), Texas leads the nation in the percentage of residents lacking health-care coverage. It also leads the nation in the number of eligible residents, 1,046,430, who are shut out of Medicaid. Texas, like 25 other Republican-led states, has rejected the Medicaid expansion provided through the ACA.

A Fight over Five Words

King v. Burwell is a fight over five words in the statute: “Exchanges established by the State.”

The ACA creates insurance-market exchanges through which anyone can purchase private health-insurance policies. In an attempt to subvert the law, most states governed by Republicans refused to establish exchanges. But the law also created a federal exchange, where residents who are denied access to state exchanges can purchase insurance. Currently, state and federal exchanges provide subsidies for low-income purchasers of insurance.

According to the plaintiffs, one phrase in a section of the statute describing the subsidies—“Exchanges set up by the State”—restricts the subsidy program to state insurance exchanges, although other language indicates that Congress intended to extend subsidies to all insurance buyers who meet the law’s income qualification.

This lawsuit isn’t what it claims to be.

Contradictions and hypocrisy underlie the intent of the plaintiffs and the politicians supporting them.

Consider the plaintiffs.

David King and three other residents of Virginia, which has no exchange, qualify for subsidies provided through the federal exchange. They are asking the Court to overturn the subsidies, because, on ideological grounds, they object to the ACA’s mandate requiring individual health-care coverage.

Consider the elected officials.

John Cornyn, for example. Or Florida’s Marco Rubio, or Utah’s Jake Garn, or Tennessee Rep. Marsha Blackburn. All signed the anti-subsidy amicus brief filed with the Court, and all represent states whose Republican governments refused to create exchanges. They are petitioning the Supreme Court to hand down a decision that will strip subsidies from low-income residents in the states they represent.

It requires at least four justices to decide to hear a case. The activist and Republican majority on the Roberts Court has decided to hear the appeal of a lawsuit filed and financed by ideologues determined to destroy the Affordable Care Act.

To decide on behalf of the plaintiffs, the justices will have to ignore principles by which they have decided cases requiring them to interpret the meaning of statutes. Yale Law School Professor Abbe Gluck explains in an article published by Scotusblog.

Republican justices, he writes, in particular Antonin Scalia, are “textualists” who have “repeatedly emphasized that textual interpretation is to be sophisticated, ‘holistic’ and ‘contextual,’ not ‘wooden’ or ‘literal,’ to use Justice Scalia’s words.”

Gluck quotes Scalia’s explaining textualism in an opinion handed down in June 2014, in which the justice describes “the fundamental canon of statutory construction that the words of a statute must be read in their context and with a view to their place in the overall statutory scheme.”

Gluck also quotes four of the five Republican justices who published a joint dissent in the 2012 case that upheld critical provisions of the ACA. They address the very subsidies that are now before the Court: “Congress provided a backup scheme; if a State declines to participate in the operation of an exchange, the Federal Government will step in and operate an exchange in that State. That system collapses if the federal subsidies are invalidated.”

The preceding sentence is critically important. The Republican justices know “the system collapses if the federal subsidies are invalidated.”

Lou Dubose is a former Observer editor and co-author of “The Hammer: Tom DeLay, God, Money and the Rise of the Republican Congress.”

 

See:http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/supreme-court-hear-arguments-over-obamacare?akid=12841.123424.cMyi55&rd=1&src=newsletter1032656&t=19

Paul Krugman: 4 Surprising Reasons to be Cheerful at the Close of 2014

Don’t believe the propaganda that good governance can’t deal with big problems

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Source: NY Times via AlterNet

Author: Janet Allon

Emphasis Mine

Paul Krugman is feeling a tad optimistic as the year 2014 winds down. In his Friday column, he writes about “Tidings of Comfort,” if not quite tidings of great joy. The reason? Despite all the miserable messages about a world spinning out of control and a government completely not up to the task of confronting tough problems, “a number of major government policies worked just fine,” he writes. “And the biggest successes involved the most derided policies. You’ll never hear this on Fox News, but 2014 was a year in which the federal government, in particular, showed that it can do some important things very well if it wants to.”

Here are the four areas where Krugman posits the government, and in particular, the Obama administration showed its competency:

1. Ebola

Just a month or so ago we were in a full-blown panic about Ebola coming to this country. And the message of many policiticans was that our public health officials were in no way up to the task of dealing with it using conventional methods.” Instead, they insisted, we needed to ban all travel to and from West Africa,” Krguman writes, “imprison anyone who arrived from the wrong place, and  close the border with Mexico. No, I have no idea why anyone thought that last item made sense.”

This was all wrong. It turned out that the epidemiologists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention actually knew what they were doing, despite some early mistakes. Ebola is still killing people in Africa, but there was no outbreak here, despite what the fearmongers projected. 

2. The Economy

Yes, the recovery has been painfully and unneccessarily slow, in particular it has been ” held back by unprecedented cuts in public spending and employment,” Krugman writes.

But the story you hear all the time portrays economic policy as an unmitigated disaster, with President Obama’s alleged hostility to business holding back investment and job creation. So it comes as something of a shock when  you look at the actual record and discover that growth and job creation have been substantially faster during the Obama recovery than they were during the Bush recovery last decade (even ignoring the crisis at the end), and that while housing is still depressed,  business investment has been quite strong.

What’s more, recent data suggest that the economy is gathering strength —  5 percent growth in the last quarter! Oh, and not that it matters very much, but there are some people who like to claim that economic success should be judged by the performance of the stock market. And stock prices, which hit a low point in March 2009,  accompanied by declarations from prominent Republican economists that Mr. Obama was killing the market economy,  have tripled since then. Maybe economic management hasn’t been that bad, after all.

Whether the gains in the economy help poor Americans still struggling with low wages, staggering inequality and brutal rises in the cost of living, remains to be seen. But at least by some conservative standards, Obama’s stewardship has been on track. Not that you’ll ever see that acknowledged on Fox or by Republicans.

3. Obamacare Krugman cites one of his favorite topics, “the hidden-in-plain-sight triumph of Obamacare,” at the end of its first full year.  Krugman says he is asked, even by liberal friends, whether the program can be made to work. Apparently, they have not gotten the memo. It is working. 

In fact, Year 1 surpassed expectations on every front. Remember claims that more people would lose insurance than gained it? Well, the number of Americans without insurance  fell by around 10 million; members of the elite who have never been uninsured have no idea just how much positive difference that makes to people’s lives. Remember claims that reform would break the budget? In reality,  premiums were far less than predicted, overall health spending is moderating, and  specific cost-control measures are doing very well. And all indications suggest that year two will be marked by further success.

4. Foreign policy This one will be controversial, but Krugman writes that Obama’s foreign policy of containing threats like Putin’s Russia and Islamic State. rather than waging all-out war on them, is “looking pretty good.” The message is that, despite all the right-wing propaganda to the contrary, 2014 shows that the government can be part of the solution, which is not to say that problems have disappeared from the world. Or that Fox News and their flunkies will admit it. 

See: http://www.alternet.org/economy/paul-krugman-4-surprising-reasons-be-cheerful-close-2014?akid=12617.123424.-2lbsH&rd=1&src=newsletter1029336&t=7

The fog that blinded the electorate

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Election rally in PA
Election rally in PA

Source: Peoples World

Author: Rick Nagin

Emphasis Mine

There were local and geographical peculiarities, but when an election was as uniformly one-sided as this one was, deeper explanations are required. In the most general sense it can be said that the electorate does not yet recognize or understand that the enemy they face is right wing extremism; that this is the fundamental source of the insecurity they feel as their living standards and democratic rights are besieged. It is the Republicans, not the Democrats, who have blocked programs to create jobs, raise wages, strengthen unions, who have cut taxes on the rich and shifted the burden to working people, who have slashed funds for education, health care and local government services, who have launched an unprecedented assault on the right to vote, on the rights of women, on equality for gay people, on immigration reform and on defending humanity from a climate catastrophe.

All this begs the question as to why the people were not able perceive the mortal danger from the right. The answer to this, I believe, was the ability of the right to unleash unprecedented resources to roll out a dense fog, as thick as pea soup that covered the South, blanketed the Midwest and reached even into the far recesses of New England, a fog that terrified, blinded and paralyzed the Democrats and had them running for cover. It was the fog of racism.

The demonization of President Barack Obama and, by extension, the Democrats who “voted with him,” has been building for years in the nether world of right wing hate talk radio and Fox News and was unleashed full force in this election. Since it is forbidden to mention racism in polite company, the corporate media referred to the GOP strategy as the “nationalization” of the election. Tom Cotton, GOP candidate for senator in Arkansas, avoided state issues but used Obama’s name 79 times in his televised debate with Democratic incumbent Mark Pryor.

The most notorious use of this tactic, as well as the classic capitulation of the liberal Democrats was in Kentucky where Allison Lundergan Grimes responded to Mitch McConnell’s relentless race baiting by first saying she was a “Clinton” (i.e. not an Obama) Democrat,” then by protesting in a debate that “Obama is not on the ballot” and finally by refusing to say whether she had voted for Obama in the presidential election. How different it would have been if, from the beginning she had confronted the issue head on, denounced McConnell’s shameful racist campaign as an insult to the democratic values of the voters and had driven home that it was only because of the Obama health care reform that millions of Kentuckians now had for the first time their very popular health coverage program. It would have been McConnell, not Grimes, who would have been on the defensive and a powerful anti-fogging agent would have been released

But Grimes and Pryor believed the racist fog was unbeatable and, along with Kay Hagan in North Carolina, had prevailed on the President to delay his planned immigration initiatives until after the election, and, of course, to stay as far away from their states as possible. As reward for their cowardice, they all went down to defeat. There was one example in this election demonstrating that the voters are actually better than Grimes, Hagen and Pryor believed. That was in Pennsylvania where Gov. Tom Corbett was unseated after he and the Republicans admitted their election restrictions were an attempt to suppress minority votes and their massive cuts to public education were also directed at urban African Americans. These actions were blasted by victorious gubernatorial Democratic candidate Tom Wolf, and voter participation by minorities and white allies actually increased.

The lesson of this election is clear. Racism is at the core of right wing ideology. The attacks on “government,” Social Security, Medicare, public education, the minimum wage, public employee unions are directed first and foremost at people of color, as the right seeks to convince the white majority that democratic rights and institutions exist primarily to serve minority populations at the expense of the majority. They hope this will carry them to victory in the 2016 presidential election.

In their arrogant statements after the election McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner made clear their war on President Obama would continue unabated. They think they have a good thing going and plan to keep milking it for all it is worth. It is the responsibility of all progressives, of labor and all its grassroots allies to expose and reject these divisive tactics and build a united democratic movement to defeat right-wing extremism.

See: http://peoplesworld.org/the-fog-that-blinded-the-electorate/

Another Obamacare election? Exit poll says otherwise

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Source: Daily Kos

Author: Joan McCarter

Emphasis Mine

(N.B.: what is called ‘health care law’ is the ACA – Affordable Care Act)

This election skewed Republican, white, and old. But it didn’t skew anti-Obamacare, not by a long shot. Check out the results of exit polling.

Exit poll results on Obamacare--49 say ACA went too far, 25 not far enough, 21 about right.

Yep, even with this big Republican electorate, just 49 percent thought ACA “went too far,” while 46 percent say it either didn’t go far enough, or was about right. It’s going to take a lot of reflection and a lot of post-mortem-ing to figure out everything that went into Tuesday’s election. But if Republicans decide that it was all about their mandate to repeal Obamacare and make that their focus for the next two years, they’ll clearly be overreaching.

But that’s a trap we want them to walk into. Provided, that is, that President Obama and Senate Democrats take Jed’s advice, and fight them on it. That means no compromising on any single Obamacare issue they introduce. No Democratic votes on any part of repeal. A presidential veto of everything. Democrats need to trust the fact that they’ve got opinion on their side, and reinforce that by acting like it.

See: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/11/05/1342265/-Another-Obamacare-election-Exit-poll-says-otherwise

Paul Krugman Divulges the Real Reason Why the ‘Wrong About Everything’ Party Won

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Source: NYtimes, via AlterNet

Author: Paul Krugman

Emphasis Mine

 “Politics determines who has power, not who has the truth,” Paul Krugman says in his Friday column. That is his summing up of the midterm election results this week which delivered a huge win to Republicans. “Still, it’s not often that a party that is so wrong about so much does as well as Republicans did on Tuesday.”

Just to review, the Republicans have been demonstrably wrong on the following issues, Krugman writes.

First, there’s economic policy. According to conservative dogma, which denounces any regulation of the sacred pursuit of profit, the financial crisis of 2008 — brought on by runaway financial institutions — shouldn’t have been possible. But Republicans chose not to rethink their views even slightly.  They invented an imaginary history in which the government was somehow responsible for the irresponsibility of private lenders, while fighting any and all policies that might limit the damage. In 2009, when an ailing economy desperately needed aid, John Boehner, soon to become the speaker of the House, declared: “ It’s time for government to tighten their belts.”

Time has proven all of this wrong. And cutting taxes on the rich to drive economic growth has not worked wither. Just ask Kansas.

Not that any of this real life evidence has gotten any Republicans we know of to admit they were wrong.

Second on Krugman’s list of Republican wrongheadedness is health reform. Everything Republicans said would happen did not happen, including low enrollment, loss of coverage and skyrocketing costs. Reality stubbornly refused to deliver on all these hysterical and disingenuous predictions. More people than ever have insurance and health spending is down.

The biggest lie of them all is climate change. The Republicans are now a party of climate denialists, who claim that it’s all a left-wing hoax concocted by, what, stunt scientists? A mere six years ago this was not so, Krugman points out. “Senator John McCain  proposed a cap-and-trade system similar to Democratic proposals.” Not going to happen anymore. This is devastating, and is likely to push us past the point of no return in terms of the damage that will be wrought on the Earth.

Time for Krugman’s analysis of why voters would give this group such a victory. It’s not pretty, and none too flattering to voters.

Part of the answer is that leading Republicans managed to mask their true positions. Perhaps most notably, Senator Mitch McConnell, the incoming majority leader,  managed to convey the completely false impression that Kentucky could retain its impressive gains in health coverage even if Obamacare were repealed.

But the biggest secret of the Republican triumph surely lies in the discovery that obstructionism bordering on sabotage is a winning political strategy. From Day 1 of the Obama administration, Mr. McConnell and his colleagues have done everything they could to undermine effective policy, in particular blocking every effort to do the obvious thing — boost infrastructure spending — in a time of low interest rates andhigh unemployment.

What was bad for America, proved to be good for Republicans. Voters did not get that it was the dysfunctional legislative process that was failing them, they just punished the sitting president for the failure to deliver prosperity.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

See: http://www.alternet.org/economy/paul-krugman-divulges-real-reason-why-wrong-about-everything-party-won?akid=12451.123424.HgVfQb&rd=1&src=newsletter1026338&t=3

Health Insurance for Millions Threatened; Republicans Celebrate

But what actually had them so pleased is the possibility that millions of Americans will lose their health insurance.

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Source: American Prospect

Author: Paul Waldman

If they’re wondering why Americans think their party is cruel and unfeeling, well here you go. And will the news media tell these people’s stories? When news broke this morning of the decision by a three-judge panel from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in Halbig v. Burwell, which states that because of a part of one sentence in the Affordable Care Act that was basically a typo, millions of Americans should lose the federal subsidies that allowed them to buy health insurance, I’m pretty sure a similar scene played out all around Washington. As word spread through the offices of conservative think-tanks, advocacy groups, and members of Congress, people gathered around TVs or computer screens, quickly taking in the decision. And there were smiles, laughter, maybe even a few high-fives and fist-pumps.

Not long after, a second appeals court handed down an opposite ruling on the same question. (If you feel like you don’t understand the issue, the rulings, and the implications, I’d recommend Ian Millhiser’s explanation.) We won’t know for some time whether the Supreme Court will hear these cases and. if it does, it’s hard to predict what the justices will decide. But back to those conservatives: What they were so excited about was, in a narrow sense, that they had seemingly won a victory over the villainous Barack Obama and his freedom-destroying Affordable Care Act. But what actually had them so pleased is the possibility that millions of Americans will lose their health insurance.

Am I being unfair? Well here’s a challenge. Let’s see if anybody can point me to a single prominent conservative—member of Congress, movement figure, media figure—whose response to that decision is not just what they’re all saying (some variant of “This just shows what a terrible law Obamacare is”) but also something like, “Of course, we don’t want anyone to lose their health coverage, so if this decision is upheld we should pass a law correcting the drafting error that gave rise to this case and making sure those millions of Americans can keep getting the subsidies that make it possible for them to buy private insurance.”  If they really cared about those millions of Americans and their fate, they’d want to do something about it, now that the lawsuit they filed threatens to take away that health coverage. So what are they going to do? The answer is, nothing. There will be precisely zero conservatives who propose to actually help those people. And if you ask the lawsuit’s supporters what should happen to them, none will have anything resembling a practical suggestion. At best, they’ll say that the millions who would lose their insurance if the decision stands were snookered by that con man Obama into thinking they could have affordable health coverage, so it’s really all his fault.

The next time Republicans are wondering why so many people think their party is cruel and uncaring and will gladly crush the lives of ordinary people if it means gaining some momentary partisan advantage, they might think back to this case. They might remind themselves that the problem isn’t that Americans just don’t fully comprehend the majesty of Republican philosophy. It’s that they see it quite well.

And while we’re at it, here’s a question for the news media. Remember when people got those letters from their insurance companies saying their old plans would be cancelled, and you went into a frenzy of ill-informed and misleading coverage telling their alleged tales of woe? I know, you feel bad for not doing any follow-ups showing how most of them ended up with coverage that was more comprehensive, less expensive, or both. But here’s your chance for redemption! How about you do an equal number of stories—oh, who am I kidding?—how about you do half as many stories telling the tales of people who got coverage because of the subsidies, and would lose it if the Halbig decision stands?

You wouldn’t have to work too hard to find them—after all, almost nine out of every ten people who bought insurance on the exchange got a subsidy, and their premiums were reduced by an average of 76 percent. If you’re in Washington, just go to Virginia, which used the federal exchange, and you can find plenty of people who would lose their coverage if Halbig stands; if you’re in New York, hop across the river to New Jersey. Those stories are out there waiting to be told, and showing how things like court decisions affect regular people is part of your job, not just when it makes the administration look bad, but even if it supports their position. Right?

Emphasis Mine

See:http://prospect.org/article/health-insurance-millions-threatened-republicans-celebrate

Turns Out, Republicans Love Obamacare!?!

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WeLoveObamacare2Source: Think Progress

Author: Igor Volsky

Conservative groups have invested millions of dollars in opposing the Affordable Care Act, but they appear to have had little success in turning Americans against the law. In fact, according to a new poll from the Commonwealth Fund, individuals and families who enroll in Obamacare — including the overwhelming majority of Republicans — are satisfied with the product:

Overall, 73 percent of people who bought health plans and 87 percent of those who signed up for Medicaid said they were somewhat or very satisfied with their new health insurance. Seventy-four percent of newly insured Republicans liked their plans. Even 77 percent of people who had insurance before — including members of the much-publicized group whose plans got canceled last year — were happy with their new coverage.

The study also found that the percentage of uninsured has dropped, from 20 percent to 15 percent, after the first open enrollment period, with 9.5 million fewer people now uninsured. Latinos, the most likely of any racial group to lack health insurance, are seeing the biggest gains in coverage. “The percent uninsured fell from 36 percent in July–September 2013 to 23 percent in April–June 2014,” Commonwealth reports.

Moreover, states that expanded their Medicaid programs experienced the biggest drop in uninsurance rates for low-income citizens. In the 25 states and the District of Columbia that implemented coverage expansion for poorer residents, the average uninsured rate for people living below the poverty level fell to 17 percent from 28 percent. The 26 states that have rejected Medicaid expansion continue to see the uninsured rate among low income individuals hover at 36 percent.

The number of uninsured young adults dropped the most, the survey found, from 28 percent to 18 percent.

Commonwealth Fund conducted the survey from a July-to-September 2013 period, before Americans began enrolling in the Affordable Care Act, and then again from April-to-June 2014, following the end of open enrollment.

Update

Significantly, the survey also found that more than half of adults — 58 percent — “with new insurance said they were better off now than they were before.”

Emphasis Mine

See:http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/07/10/3458577/even-republicans-are-satisfied-with-the-new-obamacare-coverage-poll-finds/

Bad News For Republicans: Obamacare Still NOT A Job Killer As 217,000 Jobs Added In May, Healthcare Adds The Most

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Source: Addicting Info

Author: Stephan D. Foster, Jr.

On March 31, 2014, the Obamacare open enrollment deadline passed. Over 8 million Americans successfully enrolled and gained health insurance coverage. Over six million more gained coverage through Medicaid expansion. Despite Republican claims that the sky would fall and send the US job market into a death spiral, it did not fall and it still hasn’t.

For the fourth consecutive month, the economy added more than 200,000 jobs, and healthcare led the way in creating those jobs. According to a report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 217,000 jobs were added in May. Healthcare was responsible for approximately 55,000 of those jobs. And that’s not the only good news.

The jobs report is even sweeter because it means the United States has finally recovered all of the jobs lost when the economy crashed during the Bush Administration in 2008. It also marks the first time that the economy has added 200,000 jobs for four straight months since 1999-2000, when another Democrat, Bill Clinton, occupied the White House. Additionally, the unemployment rate still stands at 6.3 percent, which is a six year low since the rate peaked at 10 percent in 2009 just after Obama took office.

Even though Republicans have crusaded against President Obama’s signature healthcare law all these years by claiming it to be a job killer, the evidence clearly shows that they’re totally wrong. In fact, Obamacare actually creates jobs. The job creation power of Obamacare even goes beyond the healthcare sector. Implementing a healthcare system that will handle an influx of millions of people demands the growth of many fields, including many outside of healthcare. Not just doctors, nurses, and physician assistants, but also jobs in payroll services, computer programming, attorneys, medical bill coders, consultants, customer service, human resources, occupational therapy, and educators. A system that is expected to help way more than 14 million Americans simply cannot do its job unless more workers are hired to fill the increased need.

This isn’t the only bad news the GOP has received about Obamacare in recent months. A recent poll indicates that uninsured rates have fallen across the board throughout the nation, especially among African-Americans and Hispanics. Furthermore, a separate poll reveals that Americans now support Obamacare and a report from the Congressional Budget Office predicts that the law will save an additional $104 billion in costs. It looks like conservatives are all out of doomsday claims about Obamacare.

Obamacare has not only strengthened America’s healthcare system, it has strengthened the economy as well. Hundreds of thousands of jobs are being added every month now and millions of people are gaining access to health insurance. That’s a victory for President Obama on two fronts of domestic policy: the economy and healthcare. It’s fantastic news for Democrats and terrible news for Republicans as the country heads toward the 2014 midterm election in November. Just make sure to remember which party brought you a better healthcare system and an improved economy and which one openly attempted to sabotage both.

 

Emphasis Mine

 

See: http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/06/06/bad-news-for-republicans-obamacare-still-not-a-job-killer-as-217000-jobs-added-in-may-healthcare-adds-the-most/

New Polls Show Democrats Are Doing Better In Races Across The Country, Including The South

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Source: Addicting info

Author: Alan J. Mostravick

“Even just a couple of months ago, the word around the campfire was that this November was going to suck and suck hard for Democrats. Polls showed them hobbling into election season with poor jobs numbers, a flawed and failing Obamacare and a congressional delegation unable to draw their Republican counterparts into any type of consensus.

When, on May 2, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released their report that the unemployment rate had fallen another .4 points to a 6 year low 6.3 percent, the argument that Obama and the Democrats were bad for the economy began to ring hollow. Just imagine how much better that figure could have been and sooner had it not been for the completely obstructionist Boehner-led House of Representatives.

For months after the botched website launch, conservative pundits and lawmakers reveled in what they predicted would be the abject failure of the President’s signature healthcare reform law. First, there was no way the program was going to reach it’s necessary 7 million enrollees. But the chorus of criticism didn’t stop when Obamcare managed to sign up an estimated 10 million individuals through the program and expanded state medicaid programs. With a creative bit of goalpost movement, they then gleefully doubted those who signed up would actually pay their premiums. The insurance companies have debunked that silliness by reporting upwards of 85-90 percent of premiums. Another conservative talking point hoisted by its own petard.

As far as working with the ‘Party of No’? The Republicans have shown absolutely no proof that they intend to play nice across the aisle and work for the good of the country. So, perhaps what needs to happen is a big win for Democrats in the upcoming elections. And now we have several polls (even by notoriously conservative-leaning firms) that show this could no be a distinct possibility.

Both Fox News and the Rasmussen Reports have many Democrats in a statistical dead heat or even leading in their mid-term races, even in the rabidly Republican south. This is good news for many candidates but it is particularly good for southern Democratic Senate candidates Mark Pryor (AR), Allison Lundergan-Grimes (KY) and Michelle Nunn (GA), whose eventual victories will keep the Democratic majority in the Senate and will, in one instance, unseat a particularly vitriolic minority leader.

Many Democratic consultants are urging candidates to run on, (rather than run away from), issues like Obamacare and the economy. With the recent and continual good news on those fronts, that is cogent advice that should be heeded. With a big enough win in the elections, perhaps the Republicans in the House will understand that the country is tired of the petty politics of #Bengazi, Repeal and Replace, and the other obstructionist tactics currently being employed by that party.”

Emphasis Mine

See:http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/05/16/democrats-polling-well/

The Uninsurance Rate Is Dropping Among People Who Need Health Care the Most

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Thinkprogress via RSN

Author: Tara Culp-Ressler

The uninsurance rate continues to drop to record lows, according to polling from Gallup — and it’s declining the fastest among the communities who have historically lacked adequate access to health care. The data suggests that Obamacare is effectively expanding coverage to the people who need it the most.

Among U.S. adults, the uninsurance rate declined to 13.4 percent in April, hitting the lowest rate since Gallup began tracking the monthly data in 2008. The sharp decline in the number of people without insurance coincided with Obamacare’s first open enrollment period between October and April:

Although the uninsurance rate fell across all demographic groups, the researchers noted that it dropped particularly significantly among non-white and lower-income Americans. Those are the groups that were expected to benefit the most from the provisions in the Affordable Care Act, since they’ve traditionally suffered from higher rates of uninsurance. Compared to the fourth quarter of 2013, the uninsurance rate among black adults fell by 7.1 percentage points, the biggest drop among any group. Among Hispanics, the rate is down 5.5 points. And among Americans with an annual household income of less than $36,000, the rate also dropped by 5.5 points.

But the recent gains aren’t being dispersed equally across states. More than 20 GOP-led states continue to resist Obamacare’s optional Medicaid expansion, a move that’s denying health care from millions of the working poor. Refusing to expand Medicaid disproportionately harms low-income people of color. Furthermore, the states resisting Medicaid already had higher uninsurance rates to begin with, and are home to people who tend to be poorer and sicker than the residents in other states.

Unsurprisingly, previous research conducted by Gallup has found that the uninsurance rate is falling the fastest in the states that have embraced Obamacare, including its expansion of Medicaid. Meanwhile, the red states that have refused to lift a finger to further health reform have effectively ensured that residents there don’t know as much about their options under the law.

 

emphasis Mine

see:readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/23511-the-uninsurance-rate-is-dropping-among-people-who-need-health-care-the-most