February 7, 2014
Uninformed, But Headstrong: Obama Derangement Syndrome Revisited
“Some people are more certain of everything than I am of anything.” – Robert E. Rubin, former Treasury Secretary
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February 3, 2014
Obamacare Anecdote Failure
In their Obamacare opposition, Republicans are now reduced to anecdotes based on misleading or false reporting, and in so doing, they are deceiving themselves. Because millions of Americans have now signed up for health care coverage under Obamacare, that means Republicans are left with their loose evidence and their bad intentions. And in many cases the evidence Republicans present is bad because it has been tainted by their own rhetoric, repeated ad nauseam on Fox News. It’s a self-fulfilling feedback loop. Tell people Obamacare is bad, and the people who listen to you will offer you the “evidence,” even though they never gave the process a good-faith effort.
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January 4, 2014
Hey Republicans, What Happened To Obamacare Repeal?
I’ll tell you what happened. Millions of Americans now have health care coverage because of the Affordable Care Act. Millions more will gain coverage over the coming months and years. If Republican efforts to repeal Obamacare were unsuccessful before anyone was officially covered (and let me tell you, they tried many times), then how will future repeal efforts fair? That is, if there are any future repeal efforts.
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December 18, 2013
The REAL Problem With The Obamacare Website
I’ve figured it out. I’ve cracked the code. Do you want to know the REAL problem with the Obamacare website? It’s the name. It confuses conservatives. For decades conservatives have admonished government health care, calling it all sorts of names and characterizing the people who advocate for true universal health care as un-American.
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December 17, 2013
In A Moment Of Idiocy, Rick Santorum Explains Nationalized Health Care
Rick Santorum is an idiot. There, I said it. I’m not usually so explicit when it comes to critiquing someone’s intelligence, but at least when it comes to the Affordable Care Act, or understanding how a real nationalized health care system works (hence, not Obamacare), Rick Santorum is indeed an idiot.
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November 17, 2013
Medicaid Expansion Success Means Liberals Should Go On A National Health Care Offensive
It’s time for liberals to go on the offensive. It’s time for a new strategy. Instead of defending progress from 50 years ago, we need to carve out our goals to achieve progress over the next 50 years. And when it comes to social policy, the best defense is a strong offense. Social Security faced fierce opposition in its day, and so did Medicare several decades later, but outside the right-wing fringe, these programs are popular and are examples of progress carved out by politicians who went on the offense to achieve social and economic justice.
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November 10, 2013
So President Obama Lied To You About Your Health Care Insurance Plan
So it turns out President Obama, the same president you’ve scoffed at, ridiculed, and displayed contempt for, lied to you about your insurance plan. Obama said, “If you like your plan, you can keep it,” and now that turns out not to be true for you, Mr. Outraged Republican.
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November 2, 2013
Affordable Care Act, Lies, Foes, Reporting, And Red Herrings
This week we learned only 6 people enrolled in an insurance plan on Day 1 of the rollout of HealthCare.gov. We also learned that President Obama stretched the truth or flat-out lied (depending on your political persuasion) when he said, “If you like your plan, you can keep it.”
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October 31, 2013
If You Like Your Health Plan, You Can Keep It, Unless It No Longer Exists, In Which Case…
If you like your health plan, you can keep it. That is a line often repeated by President Obama and his administration since passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010. I think most people knew this was an oversimplification, and you can hardly blame politicians for keeping the word length to a minimum when the public has a greater attention span for Miley Cyrus than they do for more important issues like health care insurance. So yes, this line is not entirely accurate. Below I offer you a better (but still basic) explanation, but if Obama and other administration officials had chosen to explain all the nuance, nobody would have heard it, because they would have changed the channel, flipped over to a new website, or simply fallen asleep. But I trust you won’t do that, right?
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October 27, 2013
Obamacare Website Glitches Reflect Complex Market-Based System
I’m no fan of the Affordable Care Act. Maybe it was the best we could do in 2010 under the weight of Republican double-dealing and quackery, but the ACA is flawed because it tries to exist within the current health care insurance system. And well, the current system isn’t really a system at all. It’s a collection of disparate for-profit health care insurance companies. What the ACA gets right is the patient protections, but what it gets wrong is the method of insurance.
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