For weeks, Medicare Advantage insurer UnitedHealthcare has been a poster child for conservative grievances against the Affordable Care Act. The company, which covers 2.9 million of the 14 million elderly or disabled American enrolled in the private insurance program, announced it was dropping over 10,000 physicians from its network nationwide due to "substantial funding pressure […]

Over the past couple of days, Jonathan Chait's "12 Years a Slave and the Obama Era" seems to have struck a nerve among the conservative commentariat. In it, Chait responded to the Obama caricature of the National Review's Quin HIllyer depicting the President with "chin jutting out, countenance haughty, voice dripping with disdain for conservatives... […]

The refusal of Republican-led states to accept the Affordable Care Act's expansion of Medicaid will rank among the greatest self-inflicted wounds in the recent history of American public policy. But in the red states where the GOP calls the shots, that act of pure political spite will produce not one crisis but three. For starters, […]

In 2010, the GOP steamrolled to its House majority by scaring the bejesus out of seniors about $716 billion in Obamacare cuts to Medicare. Three years later, House and Senate Republicans are repeating their tried and untrue talking point. Untrue, that is, not just because the savings from private Medicare Advantage insurers and providers do […]

Karl Marx famously said that historical events occur twice, first as tragedy and then as farce. So it would seem with the reaction of American conservatives to Evangelii Gaudium, the new 85-page apostolic exhortation issued by Pope Francis. Just days after Sarah Palin fretted that some of the Pope's statements "sound kind of liberal," Rush […]

The Republican National Committee's proclamation honoring Rosa Park's "role in ending racism" is continuing to receive the scorn and derision it richly deserves. As it turns out, the GOP's attempt to literally whitewash American history is hardly its first. Consider, for example, the RNC's response to President Obama's 2010 nomination of now Supreme Court Justice […]

What better way to celebrate Thanksgiving than with a heat-warming story on good, old fashioned American capitalism. Texas teacher and Obamacare opponent Thomas Ritter, who wrote President Obama and accused him of liking to "make fun of tea-baggers," is selling the letter he received in response for $24,000. Given right-wing apoplexy over Obama's repetition of […]

Even without the occasional shotgun blast in the face, this Thanksgiving at the Cheney home could offer some real fireworks. Former Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife Lynne declared themselves "pained" at the very public split between their daughters over the issue of marriage equality. But while Mary Cheney is helping Freedom Indiana fight […]

Despite the massive--and tightly scripted--Republican effort to dominate the media reporting about the troubled launch of the Affordable Care Act, slowly but surely success stories are beginning to appear in the headlines. Just this week, articles detailed the growing Obamacare enrollment momentum--and lives changed for the better--in Kentucky, California and other states. Meanwhile, the pressure […]

Last week, Americans learned about the GOP playbook laying out the strategies, tactics and talking points the Republican faithful should use to demagogue the Affordable Care Act. A quick glance at Monday's headlines from the Chicago Tribune ("Employers could drop health care"), the Wall Street Journal ("Companies Prepare to Pass More Health Costs to Workers") […]