As the midterms approach Republicans retreat from all things Obamacare.

Courtesy of The Hill: 

Republicans are retreating from calls to repeal ObamaCare ahead of this year’s midterm elections. 

Less than a year after the GOP gave up on its legislative effort to repeal the law, Democrats are going on offense on this issue, attacking Republicans for their votes as they hope to retake the House majority.

ObamaCare’s favorability in polls has improved since the repeal push last year, with more now favoring the law than not. A Kaiser Family Foundation poll in March found that 50 percent of the public favors the law, while 43 percent holds an unfavorable view. 

GOP strategist Ford O’Connell said the political winds have shifted on the issue, turning ObamaCare into a subject Democrats want to tout and many Republicans want to duck. 

“I don’t think it’s seen as a winning issue,” he said. “It’s also an issue that tends to fire up the Democratic base more so than the Republican base.”

I KNEW this was going to happen eventually.

Now the Democrats can run on improving Obamacare so that it better serves their constituents, while the Republicans have to pretend that they never even heard of the Affordable Care Act.

Sadly for the GOP their past votes are just the kind of ammunition that can be used to blow their campaigns out of the water.

I think this, plus the changing debate on guns, added to the GOP's ties to Donald Trump, signal HUGE victories for the Democrats moving forward.

Okay, it appears that Obamacare is safe. For now.

Courtesy of Vox:

The Affordable Care Act is going to survive. 

The 2010 health care law has slowly but surely moved out of the line of fire. President Trump barely mentioned it in his State of the Union address Tuesday night. At their annual retreat this week in West Virginia, top Republicans signaled that the repeal dream is likely over. 

After Doug Jones won the Alabama special Senate election in December, the bare Republican Senate majority has no viable path left for a more substantial repeal plan; the math in a 51-seat majority is too daunting. Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) remain opposed to taking up repeal. Senate leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has already said that Republicans would probably move on from health care. 

So the party’s long-held promise to repeal Obamacare root and branch appears to be actually, finally dead. Of course, that hasn’t stopped Trump claiming, after his party’s tax overhaul passed in December with a repeal of the law’s individual mandate, that Republicans “have essentially repealed Obamacare.” But he’s wrong about that. 

Repealing the individual mandate is a legitimate blow to the Obamacare marketplaces, but doing so won’t unravel the markets entirely. They will function worse than they did before, and premiums will likely rise. 

But millions of people who receive generous tax subsidies to buy coverage will not feel the brunt of those cost increases. The law’s rules prohibiting health insurers from discriminating against preexisting conditions remain on the books. Finally, and most importantly, Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, which covered upward of 15 million people, remains untouched.

Well there's an island of good news in this sea of insanity at least.

Still, as pointed out in the article, the Affordable Care Act has been badly damaged, and it needs to be repaired and fine tuned.

Neither of those things will happen with a Republican majority in the House and Senate, so we desperately need to turn out the vote in 2018, and then again in 2020.

And whatever we do we cannot allow ourselves to be distracted with bullshit purity tests and Democratic infighting.

We are often our own worst enemies, but right now there are far more dangerous adversaries with which to deal.

Former head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services under Obama, says that Trump is purposefully attempting to bankrupt Obamacare.

Courtesy of The Hill:

Andy Slavitt, who was acting CMS administrator from 2015 to 2017, accused Trump on TwAndy Slavitt, who was acting CMS administrator from 2015 to 2017, accused Trump on Twitter of "purposely raising" health-care premiums as part of his plan to let ObamaCare "implode." 

"I ran this government agency under President Obama," Slavitt wrote. "Make no mistake. Trump is purposely raising people's premiums." Slavitt was reacting to news reports that Oklahoma's health commissioner was blaming the Trump administration for missing a deadline to approve a waiver for the state, which Oklahoma officials say will mean higher premiums for thousands of residents. 

"Three days later, beyond health plan commitment and rate filing deadlines, Oklahoma is forced to withdraw our waiver request due to the failure of departments to provide timely waiver approval," Oklahoma Health Commissioner Terry Cline wrote to administration officials earlier Friday. 

"The lack of timely waiver approval will prevent thousands of Oklahomans from realizing the benefits of significantly lower insurance premiums in 2018," the letter added, saying approving the waiver would have helped more than 130,000 Oklahomans and reduced premiums by 30 percent.

I just want to continue pointing out that Trump is doing this kind of shit on purpose.

Because you well know that the Republicans are going to try and push through yet ANOTHER version of their "health care" bill, this one I imagine will simply provide trucks that will drive around dispensing band aids for boo boos, and a bullet in the head for serious injuries or inoperable cancer, and when they are criticized they will say "Well he gotta do something, cause Obamacare is failing."

Yeah it's going to start failing, because they are actively starving it to death.

They are like a kid with a new gerbil who never feeds or waters it, and when it dies complains that his grandmother bought him a defective pet

The multiple ways that the Trump Administration is destroying Obamacare from within.

Courtesy of the Daily Beast:  

The Trump administration said it cut the navigator programs because recipients had not met previous enrollment goals (PDF). But navigators say this deliberately ignores the work they do, from educating people about their health care options to convincing those they do enroll to persuade others to do the same. For them, the dialing-back of the program reeks of a White House trying to gut a law they couldn’t legislatively undo. 

And they have a case. While the funding cuts to the navigator program were draconian, they were also just the latest in a months-long effort to unwind Obamacare. To date: 

• The president has signed executive orders weakening the mandates requiring individuals to purchase insurance. 
• His administration has ended contracts with firms who have provided in-person assistance to states using healthcare.gov. 
• The Department of Health and Human Services has produced videos designed to undermine public support for Obamacare while using funds that were appropriate to help promote the law. 
• HHS has reconfigured its website to make enrollment information harder to access. 
• There has been little apparent effort to engage non-government partners that have worked in the past to reach uninsured populations. 
• And at the end of August, CMS announced that it would slash funds for marketplace outreach by 90 percent. 
• Even more recently, the HHS decided not to participate in pre-enrollment events with a health advocacy groups. 
• Additionally, HHS announced that it will shut down the federal exchange site for 12 hours for all but one Sunday during the open enrollment season.

Trump may feel that he is only damaging Obama's legacy with these actions, but "proving" that the Affordable Care Act is broken and does not function properly.

But there are real Americans lives that will be lost through these actions, and he clearly does not give a shit about any of them.

All this tangerine tinted asshole cares about is getting payback, and he does not care how many people have to suffer of die while he gets it.

Unable to defeat Obamacare in the Senate Donald Trump is just going to starve it to death instead.

Courtesy of Vox:

The Trump administration has let funding for Obamacare’s $63 million in-person outreach program lapse, leading to layoffs and confusion among nonprofits that enroll vulnerable populations in coverage. 

“I have delivered 10 layoff notices to staff members,” says Donna Friedsam, director of Covering Wisconsin. “We don’t have a funding flow anymore.” 

The government had previously announced it would cut the budget for Obamacare’s navigator program by 41 percent. But right now, the program has no funding at all. Last year’s grants ran out on September 1, and the administration still has not awarded next year’s money. 

The sudden funding halt comes at a critical time for the Affordable Care Act. Navigator groups were just beginning to ramp up outreach for the health law’s open enrollment period, which begins November 1. Now, some have done an about-face: They’ve canceled outreach work and appointments with potential enrollees because they have no budget to cover those costs. 

These groups often work with the most vulnerable populations enrolled under the Affordable Care Act. One-third of those who seek in-person help signing up for coverage do not have internet at home, and one in 10 do not speak English. 

You have to add this latest tactic to the ones already in underway to undermine the Affordable Care Act, such as weakening enforcement of the individual mandate, imposing employment requirements for Medicaid recipients, and refuse to do any advertising to bring new clients into the system.

Essentially Trump is working to kill the program through neglect.

However all this really does is to reinforce the need for the Medicare for all program that is now receiving so much support among Democrats.

That is why we need to turn out in huge numbers in 2018 and get as many new Democratic Senators and House members as possible.

There has rarely been a more important reason to get out the vote as we have right now, so if we cannot get our shit together in this midterm than we have nobody to blame for what happens next except for ourselves. 

Former President Obama's impassioned defense of the Affordable Care Act.

I am going to post Obama's entire Facebook post just to make it easier to read.

I think it is incredibly eloquent.

Here we go:

Our politics are divided. They have been for a long time. And while I know that division makes it difficult to listen to Americans with whom we disagree, that’s what we need to do today. 

I recognize that repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act has become a core tenet of the Republican Party. Still, I hope that our Senators, many of whom I know well, step back and measure what’s really at stake, and consider that the rationale for action, on health care or any other issue, must be something more than simply undoing something that Democrats did. 

We didn’t fight for the Affordable Care Act for more than a year in the public square for any personal or political gain – we fought for it because we knew it would save lives, prevent financial misery, and ultimately set this country we love on a better, healthier course. 

Nor did we fight for it alone. Thousands upon thousands of Americans, including Republicans, threw themselves into that collective effort, not for political reasons, but for intensely personal ones – a sick child, a parent lost to cancer, the memory of medical bills that threatened to derail their dreams. 

And you made a difference. For the first time, more than ninety percent of Americans know the security of health insurance. Health care costs, while still rising, have been rising at the slowest pace in fifty years. Women can’t be charged more for their insurance, young adults can stay on their parents’ plan until they turn 26, contraceptive care and preventive care are now free. Paying more, or being denied insurance altogether due to a preexisting condition – we made that a thing of the past. 

We did these things together. So many of you made that change possible. 

At the same time, I was careful to say again and again that while the Affordable Care Act represented a significant step forward for America, it was not perfect, nor could it be the end of our efforts – and that if Republicans could put together a plan that is demonstrably better than the improvements we made to our health care system, that covers as many people at less cost, I would gladly and publicly support it. 

That remains true. So I still hope that there are enough Republicans in Congress who remember that public service is not about sport or notching a political win, that there’s a reason we all chose to serve in the first place, and that hopefully, it’s to make people’s lives better, not worse. 

But right now, after eight years, the legislation rushed through the House and the Senate without public hearings or debate would do the opposite. It would raise costs, reduce coverage, roll back protections, and ruin Medicaid as we know it. That’s not my opinion, but rather the conclusion of all objective analyses, from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which found that 23 million Americans would lose insurance, to America’s doctors, nurses, and hospitals on the front lines of our health care system. 

The Senate bill, unveiled today, is not a health care bill. It’s a massive transfer of wealth from middle-class and poor families to the richest people in America. It hands enormous tax cuts to the rich and to the drug and insurance industries, paid for by cutting health care for everybody else. Those with private insurance will experience higher premiums and higher deductibles, with lower tax credits to help working families cover the costs, even as their plans might no longer cover pregnancy, mental health care, or expensive prescriptions. Discrimination based on pre-existing conditions could become the norm again. Millions of families will lose coverage entirely. 

Simply put, if there’s a chance you might get sick, get old, or start a family – this bill will do you harm. And small tweaks over the course of the next couple weeks, under the guise of making these bills easier to stomach, cannot change the fundamental meanness at the core of this legislation. 

I hope our Senators ask themselves – what will happen to the Americans grappling with opioid addiction who suddenly lose their coverage? What will happen to pregnant mothers, children with disabilities, poor adults and seniors who need long-term care once they can no longer count on Medicaid? What will happen if you have a medical emergency when insurance companies are once again allowed to exclude the benefits you need, send you unlimited bills, or set unaffordable deductibles? What impossible choices will working parents be forced to make if their child’s cancer treatment costs them more than their life savings? 

To put the American people through that pain – while giving billionaires and corporations a massive tax cut in return – that’s tough to fathom. But it’s what’s at stake right now. So it remains my fervent hope that we step back and try to deliver on what the American people need. 

That might take some time and compromise between Democrats and Republicans. But I believe that’s what people want to see. I believe it would demonstrate the kind of leadership that appeals to Americans across party lines. And I believe that it’s possible – if you are willing to make a difference again. If you’re willing to call your members of Congress. If you are willing to visit their offices. If you are willing to speak out, let them and the country know, in very real terms, what this means for you and your family. 

After all, this debate has always been about something bigger than politics. It’s about the character of our country – who we are, and who we aspire to be. And that’s always worth fighting for.

"It's about the character of our country."

Do you remember when our President believed THAT to be important? 

The entire post is passionate, factual, and inspirational.

THIS is who our country deserves to have leading it.

And hopefully someday we will once again have somebody of his caliber leading it again.

The next time somebody tells you that Obamacare is failing, read them this list of ten ways that Republicans worked to make it fail.

1. CO-OPs short-changed from the start 

Let’s start by considering the ACA’s Consumer Operated and Oriented Plans, or CO-OPs. Early drafts of the ACA called for $10 billion in federal grants for the CO-OP program. But insurance lobbyists and conservative lawmakers insisted on $6 billion in loans instead of $10 billion in grants, restrictions limiting CO-OPs to the individual and small-group market (and not the more stable and profitable large-group market), and limitations stating that the federal loan money could not be used for marketing. 

The ACA passed in 2010 and the CO-OPs were to be up and running in the fall of 2013, in time for the first open enrollment period. But during 2011 budget negotiations, $2.2 billion was cut from the CO-OP funding. And then during the “fiscal cliff” negotiations at the end of 2012, another $1.4 billion in CO-OP loan funding was eliminated. 

Those Republican led changes undermined and ultimately killed most of the original 23 co-ops.

Just as the GOP planned.  

2. Day One legal challenges 

On March 23, 2010, the same day the ACA was signed into law, attorneys general from 14 states began the process of challenging the ACA’s individual mandate via the court system. A total of 26 states eventually joined in the lawsuit, which went all the way to the Supreme Court. 

3. Refusal to take ACA’s Medicaid expansion 

The Trump Administration's incompetence is destroying Obamacare's stability, while having no real plan to replace it.

Here let me wave this pamphlet around so it looks like we are actually trying to do something.

Courtesy of LA Times: 

Health insurers across the country are making plans to dramatically raise Obamacare premiums or exit marketplaces amid growing exasperation with the Trump administration’s erratic management, inconsistent guidance and seeming lack of understanding of basic healthcare issues.

The growing frustration with the Trump administration’s management — reflected in letters to state regulators and in interviews with more than two dozen senior industry and government officials nationwide — undercuts a key White House claim that Obamacare insurance marketplaces are collapsing on their own. 

Instead, according to many officials, it is the Trump administration that is driving much of the current instability by refusing to commit to steps to keep markets running, such as funding aid for low-income consumers or enforcing penalties for people who go without insurance.

“All this uncertainty is not helpful,” warned Blue Shield of California Chief Executive Paul Markovich, who said health plans were being forced to make plans to raise premiums to account for the turmoil, jeopardizing Americans’ coverage.

So essentially this will force health insurance prices to rise, which the Republicans will try to blame on the Democratic health plan, while in fact it is THEIR mismanagement that is the source of the problem. 

The Republicans are also not interested in actually replacing the Affordable Care Act with their own health care plan because then they own all of the problems that will ultimately result from it. 

And sadly their constituents are nowhere near smart enough to figure this out anytime soon.

That is why it is important to remind these knuckle draggers that the Democrats had plans in place to make the ACA work well for everybody, and to keep insurance prices affordable. 

Every problem that has arisen since its implementation was NOT due to the actual bill, but instead to GOP obstructionism.

The Affordable Care Act is now more popular than it has every been before.

Courtesy of Gallup: 

Fifty-five percent of Americans now support the Affordable Care Act (ACA), a major turnaround from five months ago when 42% approved and 53% disapproved. This is the first time a majority of Americans have approved of the healthcare law, also known as Obamacare, since Gallup first asked about it in this format in November 2012.

Well THAT is certainly going to complicate things for the Republicans are supposedly working to take this away from the American people. 

Personally I hope they keep threatening to take it away as it will be a great campaign slogan for Democrats in 2018.

Just because the Republicans failed to repeal Obamacare does not mean they are finished trying to screw it up.

Courtesy of Yahoo News:  

Republicans may have failed to overthrow Obamacare this week, but there are plenty of ways they can chip away at it. 

The Trump administration has already begun using its regulatory authority to water down less prominent aspects of the 2010 healthcare law. 

Earlier this week, newly confirmed Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price stalled the rollout of mandatory Medicare payment reform programs for heart attack treatment, bypass surgery and joint replacements finalized by the Obama administration in December. 

The delays offer a glimpse at how President Donald Trump can use his administrative power to undercut aspects of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), including the insurance exchanges and Medicaid expansion that Republicans had sought to overturn. 

The Republicans' failure to repeal Obamacare, at least for now, means it remains federal law. Price's power resides in how to interpret that law, and which programs to emphasize and fund.

Bastards!

However Trump and the Republicans are not going to be able to do this in the shadows.

People are paying attention.

Courtesy of HuffPo: 

The Department of Health and Human Services inspector general has launched an investigation into the Trump administration’s decision to pull ads encouraging people to sign up for the Affordable Care Act during the enrollment period. By shutting down such outreach, the action could be seen as a stealth way to starve the health plan without legislative authority, critics say. 

President Donald Trump’s administration said the ads were a waste of money, but Democrats have characterized the action as sabotage. 

In response to a request to investigate the actions from Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the inspector general said his office is conducting a “fact-finding” review, the Hill reported. 

The office will examine exactly what was done and when by the administration, and its effect on enrollment in the health plan, according to a letter written to the senators Thursday. Dwindling numbers of consumers enrolled in any insurance undermines an affordable risk pool.

And this is what needs to be done right down the line.

Senate and House Democrats need to identify and attempt to stall the various forms of sabotage to the Affordable Care Act while the media reports on what the Republicans are doing and the effects it is having on the already insured and those seeking insurance.

Americans also should be reminded on a daily basis that virtually ALL of the problems that ACA is currently having are related to GOP sabotage from the very beginning of its implementation.

From Republican governors refusing to expand Medicaid or allow the health care exchanges in their states, to the constant flood of disinformation that comes from their mouths, the GOP has created the very problems that they now blame on Obama and the Democrats.

The facts are that the Republicans NEVER wanted to help the American people get affordable health care, and the only way Obamacare will be preserved and improved is with more Democrats in office working to make that happen.

In the wake of Trump's vow to repeal Obamacare, California flirts with single payer system.

Courtesy of LA Times:

With President Trump now vowing to put forward a replacement for the Affordable Care Act in March, some California politicians and healthcare advocates are once again promoting the idea of a state-run “single-payer” system that operates like Medicare. 

Backers say the uncertainty surrounding Trump’s promise to repeal Obamacare presents California with a chance to rethink how healthcare is delivered to its 39 million residents. 

“Why wouldn’t we take this as an opportunity to create what we want in California?” Dr. Mitch Katz, head of L.A. County’s health department, said at a conference in December. He mentioned a single-payer system as a possible solution. 

Other suggestions for how California can capitalize on the threat to Obamacare include creating a public option, a state-run health plan to sell on the state’s insurance exchange, and mimicking how Massachusetts provided universal healthcare.

And it is not as if California does not have reason for concern.
Courtesy of Vox: 

Republican replacement plans for Obamacare would lead to significant declines in the number of Americans with health insurance coverage, according to an analysis presented Saturday at the National Governors Association and obtained by Vox.The analysis includes graphs on what the Republican plan to overhaul Obamacare’s tax credits, generally making them less generous, would do. They are based on the recent 19-page proposal that Republican leadership released about their plan to repeal and replace Obamacare. 

The report estimates what would happen in a hypothetical state with 300,000 people in the individual market that has also expanded Medicaid. In the individual market, enrollment would fall 30 percent and 90,000 people would become uninsured.

California has almost 39 million people, that means multiple millions would potentially lose their coverage.

By the way yesterday Trump said that "Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated."

TRUMP: “Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated.” https://t.co/LFr422VHbq

— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) February 27, 2017

Actually EVERYBODY knew. Except Donald Trump apparently.

And if he listened to those who knew this (The Democrats.) he might understand that the best thing he could do would be to leave the Affordable Care Act in place and work to improve it.

During town hall Tennessee teacher uses her Christian faith to explain why she opposes the repeal of Obamacare.

Seriously urge everyone to watch this entire question from a woman at GOP #Obamacare townhall in Tennessee: pic.twitter.com/8mBGE1z6Rj

— MJ Lee (@mj_lee) February 10, 2017

Courtesy of Slate:

“As a Christian, my whole philosophy in life is to pull up the unfortunate. So the individual mandate, that’s what it does. The healthy people pull up the sick,” Bohon said at the event at Middle Tennessee State University. Her concern? If Republicans repeal the ACA and offer coverage to people with chronic illnesses and pre-existing conditions coverage via so-called high-risk pools—as several GOP proposals would do—they’ll have less coverage. “We are effectively punishing our sickest people,” Bohon said, adding that Medicaid should be expanded so we can “make everybody have insurance.” These comments inspired much of the room to all but explode with applause. 

Black initially answered Bohon by arguing there are millions of people who still chose to not buy health insurance even as others were able to obtain coverage thanks to the ACA. “You don’t want to hurt one group of people to help another,” the Congresswoman said.

This didn’t come close to the heart and meaning of Bohon’s question, and the teacher spoke up again. “How many of those people were in states where they played a political game with people’s lives?” she asked, seemingly referring to the places, including Tennessee, that declined the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion. Black refused to answer, saying she would “pass.”

THAT is exactly what we need to see more of at these town halls. 

We don't need to scare them with threats of violence, we need to confront them with facts in a public arena where they cannot hide or deflect with double speak.

I love the fact that this educated woman was able to use their own religious talking points to shame them.

That was highly effective and I would like to see more Christians doing the same.

Literally one of the first things Donald Trump is doing as president is undermining the Affordable Care Act.

Courtesy of Reuters:  

President Donald Trump directed government agencies on Friday to freeze regulations and take steps to weaken Obamacare, using his first hours in the White House to make good on a campaign promise to start dismantling his predecessor's healthcare law. 

Heading into the Oval Office shortly after the conclusion of his inaugural parade, Trump signed an order on the Affordable Care Act that urged government departments to "waive, defer, grant exemptions from, or delay the implementation" of provisions that imposed fiscal burdens on states, companies or individuals. 

It also called for efforts to give states greater flexibility in implementing healthcare programs while developing "a free and open market in interstate commerce for the offering of healthcare services and health insurance."

This of course is just the first salvo in what will surely be an unrelenting attack and repeal of Obamacare.

While this fist order only allows agencies to waive, defer, grant ­exemptions from or delay ACA rules, it also opens the door for insurance companies to start tailoring back on the coverage they provide, which would likely target women first, and then of course eventually include those with a preexisting condition.

It will also undermine the mandate, without which this law simply cannot survive.

And this is BEFORE the Congress starts to really tear the law apart, after which we will either all be on our own or forced to choose an incredibly poor plan that the Republican's insurance company donors helped to write for them.

Which means that Trump may be facing backlash from folks like these coal country folks who never really believed he would take away their health insurance.

At some point the number of former Trump supporters showing up in street protests may outnumber the liberals and HIllary supporters.

Colorado Congressman sneaks out back rather than face constituents angry about his support to repeal Obamacare.

While more than 100 people were waiting to meet with him, Mike Coffman sneaks out early from his own community event. #9News pic.twitter.com/NAZlXTKgQm

— Nelson Garcia (@9NewsEducation) January 14, 2017

Courtesy of Think Progress: 

Congressman Mike Coffman (R-CO) tweeted Friday that he was excited to return home to Colorado this weekend, but things didn’t go very well when he got there. 

On Saturday, his open meeting to chat with constituents at the Aurora Central Library was overwhelmed by voters particularly concerned about the fate of their health care if the Affordable Care Act (ACA, also known as Obamacare) is repealed — a plan Coffman supports — without a replacement put in place. Rather than meet with most of them or even address them, he left the event via a back door and escaped in a waiting vehicle.

Gee taking away people's health care and then sneaking out the back.

Yep sounds like a Republican politician to me.

Raw Story has more on the incident here.

A list of everything, and everyone that Donald Trump has attacked since the election. Do you notice what's missing?

A List: Everything and everyone Donald Trump has attacked on Twitter since the election pic.twitter.com/YthwCyTdXw

— David Mack (@davidmackau) January 14, 2017

Let me give you a hint, it starts with an "R."

Ah, now I get it.

Paul Ryan lies right to the face of a former Republican cancer survivor.

Courtesy of Think Progress:

At Thursday’s event, which was sponsored by CNN and moderated by Jake Tapper, Jeff Jeans introduced himself as a lifelong Republican who once worked on the Reagan and Bush campaigns. “Just like you, I hated the Affordable Care Act,” he told Ryan. 

But then, at 49 years old, Jeans was diagnosed with a curable type of cancer. His doctors gave him just six weeks to live if he didn’t pursue treatment. 

“Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, I’m standing here today alive,” he said. “I rely on the Affordable Care Act to be able to purchase my own insurance. Why would you repeal the Affordable Care Act without a replacement?”

In response Ryan literally lied to this man by telling him that the Republicans would never do that, even while the Republicans are actively working to do that. 

The Republicans do NOT have a plan for replacing Obamacare, and they know it.

If they take away the protections in the Affordable Care Act people like Jeff Jeans will be kicked off their health care plans by greedy insurance companies and they will surely die without adequate coverage.

I would urge every single family who loses a loved one due to the Republican lies, to blame them in their obituaries, and to send them a copy of the bill for the end of life care no longer covered by insurance.

Heartless POS!

President Obama is calling on Congress to add the public option to the Affordable Care Act.

Courtesy of The Hill: 

President Obama is calling on Congress to add a “public option” to ObamaCare to improve his signature health law. 

The pitch from Obama comes after he abandoned pursuit of a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers during the long legislative battle over healthcare because of opposition from some Democrats in Congress. 

“Public programs like Medicare often deliver care more cost-effectively by curtailing administrative overhead and securing better prices from providers,” Obama writes in the Journal of the American Medical Association. 

“The public plan did not make it into the final legislation. Now, based on experience with the ACA, I think Congress should revisit a public plan to compete alongside private insurers in areas of the country where competition is limited,” writes the president. 

The new embrace from the president also comes amid what appears to be a concerted push by the Democratic Party to rally around the public option.

I have to take issue with that last paragraph.

This is not a "new embrace" for the President. On the contrary. 

You see Obamacare was ALWAYS about laying the groundwork for a public option. Always.

That was something that even America's national moron Sarah Palin recognized way back in 2014.

Now the Bernie Sanders supporters are going to start beating their chests and calling this a victory for their side, but it is anything but.

In fact forcing the President to talk about this publicly before the election is not a good thing at all.

You see sometimes in politics a little subterfuge is the best way to get policies through, rather than simply attempting to ram it through with aggressive tactics, public shaming, and energizing your base.

That is why I cringed so hard when Bernie was talking about pushing the ACA aside in favor of his version of a public option. Simply put that was NEVER going to happen.

On the other hand Hillary Clinton has been in the circle of trust since the very beginnings of Obamacare, and she knows what's up. And she knows what is supposed to happen next.

In fact I wrote about it myself way back in 2012: 

When the Affordable Care Act was passed WITHOUT the public option, I know a lot of people were really upset. Myself included. 

But then I read somewhere, and I wish I could remember where, that this was just the first step of Obama's ultimate plan, and that once the bill had passed it would be tweaked, and tweaked until the programs offered had finally forced most of the health care insurers out of business, and then we would, for all intents and purposes, move to the single payer health care system that the progressives had long been hoping for.

I still can't find that article, and I looked for it so I could add it to this post.

But I do remember that it was written by one of the folks who worked on the ACA, and in it he assured the readers that the public option was not dead, that it was part of the plan, but that we would have to remain patient.

I believe that President Obama coming out publicly now, was NOT part of that plan. He wanted the tweaks and improvements to occur without garnering too much public attention.

In other word THIS statement is designed to appease the Sanders supporters who are threatening to take their balls and go home. It was not a politically strategic move designed to actually get that public option added to the ACA.

In fact now that it has been said so publicly it is much less likely that it will to come to pass.

You see Hillary understands that the best way to improve access to good affordable health care right now is to do a little horse trading and to use a little diplomacy with politicians from across the aisle who are ready to deal and recognize that their constituents sent them to Washington to get things done.

These are things that Hillary Clinton is extremely adept at doing. She was even complimented by Republicans while she was in the Senate for these very skills.

She also understands the power of keeping things close to the chest.

Unlike Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton and President Obama do not show their cards before they are ready to win the pot. They know that their opponents are constantly looking for anything that they can use to justify throwing up more obstacles and sabotaging progress.

In simpler terms, Hillary Clinton and President Obama are playing chess, while the Republicans are playing checkers.

However it appears for all intents and purposes as it Bernie Sanders is playing Connect Four.

And that is why he was not the right choice to move forward with President Obama's agenda.

Yes President Obama is officially one of the most consequential presidents in American history. Isn't that what I have been saying all along?

Courtesy of Vox: 

This Wednesday marks the sixth anniversary of the Affordable Care Act, which President Obama signed into law on March 23, 2010. Together with a companion bill passed a week later, the law represented the biggest reform to the American health care system since the creation of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965. 

Its anniversary, then, serves as a crucial reminder that, love him or hate him, Barack Obama is one of the most consequential presidents in American history — and that he will be a particularly towering figure in the history of American progressivism. 

He signed into law a comprehensive national health insurance bill, a goal that had eluded progressive presidents for a century. He got surprisingly tough reforms to Wall Street passed as well, not to mention a stimulus package that both blunted the recession and transformed education and energy policy. 

He's put in place the toughest climate rules in American history and signed a major international climate accord. He opened the US to Cuba for the first time in more than half a century, and reached a peaceful settlement to the nuclear standoff with Iran. 

You can celebrate or bemoan these accomplishments. Liberals hail them as moves toward a social democratic welfare state and a foreign policy more skeptical of military intervention; conservatives critique Obama's efforts to expand regulation and the government's reach, and accuse him of abdicating America's role as world hegemon. 

But no one can deny that the changes Obama has wrought are enormous in scale.

The article goes on to lay out the President's many accomplishments in some detail, and of course does not fail to mention his missteps, but overall it is the portrait of a President who, while he didn't accomplish everything that we wanted, accomplished far more than we had any right to expect.

And now seeing the folks battling to take his place, especially on the GOP side, one is made painfully aware of what we are losing in 2017, and how underappreciated we was while doing so much on our behalf.

Young Republican thanks President Obama for saving his life.

"The Affordable Care Act saved my life" —Brent, a Republican who just introduced @POTUS in Milwaukee https://t.co/ixLt8d1vOF

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) March 3, 2016

Here is the letter that Mr. Brown wrote to President Obama:  

To My President, 

I sincerely hope that this reaches you, as far too often praise is hard to come by. Apologies to people who deserve it perhaps even less so. 

I did not vote for you. Either time. I have voted Republican for the entirety of my life. 

I proudly wore pins and planted banners displaying my Republican loyalty. I was very vocal in my opposition to you–particularly the ACA. 

Before I briefly explain my story allow me to first say this: I am so very sorry. I understand written content cannot convey emotions very well–but my level of conviction has me in tears as I write this. I was so very wrong. So very very wrong. 

You saved my life. I want that to sink into your ears and mind. My President, you saved my life, and I am eternally grateful. 

I have a ‘pre-existing condition’ and so could never purchase health insurance. Only after the ACA came into being could I be covered. Put simply to not take up too much of your time if you are in fact taking the time to read this: I would not be alive without access to care I received due to your law. 

So thank you from a dumb young man who thought he knew it all and who said things about you that he now regrets. 

Thank you for serving me even when I didn’t vote for you. Thank you for being my President. 

Honored to have lived under your leadership and guidance, 

Brent Nathan Brown

And remember this is the presidency that the current crop of GOP candidates say was such a failure.