For the first time since its passage of draconian curbs on the state's abortion clinics, Texas stripped the medical license of a physician for failing to obtain admitting hospital admitting privileges. With a third of the state's clinics already shuttered due to the TRAP law which went into effect on November 1, 2013, access to […]
Category: Health Care
And now for today's math quiz. Let's say you decide to work 2 percent fewer hours this year. At the end of the year, your total compensation is 1 percent lower. Does that mean you got a pay cut? If you answered "yes," you might want to reread the question. Or, you might be Marc […]
During the 2012 presidential campaign, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus made a startling statement. The President, Priebus charged, "stole $700 billion from Medicare to fund ObamaCare," adding, "If any person in this entire debate has blood on their hands in regard to Medicare, it's Barack Obama." That was a pretty remarkable claim for the […]
Despite their trumpeting of its latest budget report, it's no secret that Republicans hate the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO). In 2011, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) denounced the CBO's forecast that the Affordable Care Act will reduce--not increase--the U.S. national debt, calling its projections "budget gimmickry." That November, momentary GOP presidential frontrunner Newt […]
Along with his fellow GOP Senators Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Richard Burr (R-NC), Utah's Orrin Hatch this week unveiled a new Republican plan to replace Obamacare. Due to its lack of a health insurance mandate, less generous tax credits to purchase coverage and stricter eligibility for Medicaid, the Hatch plan yet to be scored by […]
There is little question that President Obama will address the Affordable Care Act in his 2014 State of the Union address. Given its troubled rollout and the neverending Republican effort to sabotage his signature domestic policy achievement, silence on Obamacare isn't an option. Nor should it be. After all, with as many 13.5 million Americans […]
This week, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew warned Congressional leaders that the federal government will hit its debt ceiling in late February. But just days after House Speaker John Boehner declared Uncle Sam "shouldn't even get close" to the edge of its borrowing limit, his spokesman Michael Steel warned a "'clean' debt-limit increase simply won't pass […]
A federal judge in Kansas City issued a preliminary injunction on Thursday blocking Missouri's draconian restrictions on Obamacare "navigators." Following a similar decision which ruled that Republican legislation in Tennessee was far too broad, Judge Ortrie B. Smith declared that "that the State of Missouri was illegally obstructing the activities of insurance counselors appointed by […]
Republicans need to make up their minds. They simultaneously claim that Obamacare will "destroy the private-insurance market" and will give insurers a massive "bailout" at taxpayer expense. Both statements can't be true. (Judging the recent statements of the insurers' CEO's--and their skyrocketing stocks prices-- it is increasingly clear that neither is true.) Nevertheless, GOP leaders […]
The first numbers on the body count from the Republican sabotage of the Affordable Care Act are just now coming in. Last week, an analysis from Harvard's Theda Skocpol revealed that states that both set up their own health care exchanges and embraced the ACA's expansion of Medicaid are racing toward their enrollment goals, while […]