Tag: Affordable Care Act
Obama Hijacks the Show but Colbert Report Pulls No Punches
If you missed it, watch the revamped segment Colbert calls, “The Word,” but which Obama called, “The Decree.” The president out-deadpans the deadpanner himself.
Nearly Half a Million People Sign up for Obamacare in Second Enrollment Period’s First Week
462,125
Number of Americans who have purchased private insurance through exchanges operated under the Affordable Care Act during the first week of the second enrollment period, Nov. 15 to Nov. 21, 2014, according to the Health and Humans Services Department. Over 1 million people contacted call services for information about buying insurance. The number represents a blow to Republicans who are working tirelessly to prevent working-class, self-employed and other Americans from obtaining health-insurance coverage.
More Than 3 Million Would Have Health Insurance Now, If Only
3 million
Low-income people around the country would have had access to Medicare as a cornerstone of the Affordable Care Act if the Supreme Court had not ruled in 2012 that expansion of Medicaid must be optional for states, according to The Upshot.
SCOTUS Ruling in Favor of GOP Lawsuit Would Revoke Health Insurance of Millions of Americans
The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to hear a lawsuit on the Affordable Care Act, King v. Burwell, brought by Republicans seeking to revoke the health-insurance of 7.3 million Americans whose premiums are paid by government subsidies under the ACA. The lawsuit is based on a snippet of poorly constructed language in the law that suggests subsidies can only be granted to people who live in states that operate their own insurance exchanges.
After the law passed, Republican governors in more than 30 states opted not to build exchanges, thus requiring the federal government to step in and build the websites. Opting out was a cynical political tactic that put the governors’ desire to hobble the president’s reform law over the interests of millions of their uninsured constituents. Now, if the Supreme Court rules in Republicans’ favor on King v. Burwell, the vast majority of people whose subsidized insurance is at risk are residents of states where Republican governors forced the feds to step in and build exchanges.
What a neat trick.
Conservatives Who Fear an Epidemic Crossing the Border Should Stop Blocking America’s First Line of Defense: Access to Healthcare
Via: The Advisory Board Company
In July, Rep. Phil Gingrey, a Georgia tea partyist, claimed in a letter to his constituents that amid the “crisis at our southern border,” there are “reports of illegal migrants carrying deadly diseases such as … Ebola virus.” Even the widely discredited fact-checker Politifact labeled Gingrey’s dire assertion a “Pants on Fire” lie. Gingrey, who also happens to be a physician, should know better — and probably does.
The world has been one chicken sneeze away from a global pandemic for decades, even centuries.
Despite having been labeled a lie, Gingrey’s assertion set the right-wing propaganda machine in movtion. Fox News ran with a story headlined, “Ebola Outbreak Fuels Concerns over Health Risks along US-Mexico Border.” Breitbart.com, the website started by the late racist and notorious news-faker Andrew Breitbart, warned that “experts” claim “Ebola Could Cross Unsecured Border.” The birther site World Net Daily asked, “Could Ebola Sneak Across U.S. Border?” The lawsuit-happy Clinton-haters at Judicial Watch expanded the threat level beyond Ebola, warning that, “Illegal Alien Minors Spreading TB, Dengue, Swine Flu.”
The threat of an epidemic in the United States is not unrealistic, nor is it new. The world has been one chicken sneeze away from a global pandemic for decades, even centuries. If the worst were to occur — if the GOP’s fears were realized — it would hit the United States where it is most vulnerable, in its first line of defense: Its healthcare system.
