On March 5, 2009, President Obama hosted a White House Forum on Health Care Reform. That day, the audience heard a very bold promise not from Obama, but from Karen Ignani, the president and CEO of America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP). The top lobbyist for the nation's health insurance companies pledged: "We want to work […]

"When I say if you have your plan and you like it," President Obama explained about the Affordable Care Act during a June 2009 press conference, "what I'm saying is the government is not going to make you change plans under health reform." Employers and insurers, unfortunately, are another matter. After all, the share of […]

To be sure, the launch of the Affordable Care Act's new insurance marketplaces has been plagued by a variety of problems. But in its Friday segment titled "Medicaid enrollment spike a threat to Obamacare structure?" CBS News highlighted an issue that isn't a problem at all. While several states have been very successful in their […]

The Affordable Care Act, Republicans and their right-wing water carriers warn, is the worst thing to happen to America since slavery and the Fugitive Slave Act. But for Congressional Republicans in general and Paul Ryan in particular, Obamacare also happens to be the love that dare not speak its name. After all, Ryan's dangerous and […]

During a June 23, 2009 press conference, President Obama made a very specific promise about what would become the Affordable Care Act the following March. "When I say if you have your plan and you like it," Obama explained, "what I'm saying is the government is not going to make you change plans under health […]

President Obama held a public event on Monday to address the serious problems plaguing the federal online health care exchange serving the 34 states which refused to create their own. Echoing former Speaker Nancy Pelosi's pronouncement that the web site difficulties are "unacceptable," Obama insisted, "There's no excuse for these problems" hampering the launch of […]

On April 7, 2009--less than three months after Barack Obama first took the oath of office--the Daily Show's Jon Stewart perfectly summed up the red-hot, right-wing rage that hasn't cooled since. "I think," Stewart explained to frothing at the mouth Tea Party supporters, "you might be confusing tyranny with losing." Nevertheless, just days later thousands […]

While Stephen Colbert was roasting Cardinal Timothy Dolan at Thursday's Al Smith Dinner in New York, the organization Dolan heads was quietly confessing that it got burned by the Republican Party's hostage-taking of the federal government and U.S. debt ceiling. In the opening paragraph its press release, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (UCCSB) "welcomed […]

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has not had a very good week. Just days after the glitch-filled roll-out of the Affordable Care Act's online health insurance exchanges, Sebelius got grilled by Jon Stewart of the Daily Show. So it should come as no surprise that CNBC resident right-wing water carrier Lawrence Kudlow called […]

Wednesday's Wall Street Journal provides the perfect encapsulation of the conservative crusade against the Affordable Care Act. On the opinion pages, columnist James Taranto mocked the story of new Obamacare enrollee Brendan Mahoney. But where news is actually reported, the WSJ's Arian Campo-Flores explained "Why Kentucky's Health Exchange Worked Better Than Many Others." But the […]