Health Care
Forget what you've heard. Romney would almost certainly cut Medicare by more than Obama has or would. And it might be a *lot* more.
Mitt Romney's Astoundingly Cynical Medicare Strategy
Romney and Ryan defend themselves by attacking Obamacare's Medicare cuts. Just one problem: Romney and Ryan endorsed those cuts, too.
UPDATED: Six Things to Know About Ryan (and Romney)
The Ryan pick confirms that Romney is committed to a radical conservative agenda—depriving millions of health insurance, decimating basic government s
The Steelworker's Wife—and What Might Have Been
The controversial ad about Bain Capital, a former steelworker, and his uninsured wife deserves some of the criticism it's received. The ad implies something its supporters cannot prove and raises one argument that its supporters may not believe. But let's focus, one more time, on the broader policy question about health care, because that’s what should matter when Americans vote in November. In particular, let’s assume that Joe Soptic’s wife could have turned to the Affordable Care Act, the law that Obama signed and that Romney has pledged to repeal.
In (Partial) Defense of a (Supposedly) Indefensible Ad
It's one of those days when the news cycle is moving faster than I can write about it. As of Wednesday afternoon, the chatter online is all about the Romney campaign's unexpected decision to cite his Massachusetts health reforms as proof that he cares about average Americans facing financial hardship. The decision is unexpected because Romney has spent the past two years vowing to repeal the Affordable Care Act, whose scheme for expanding insurance coverage is basically a national version of what Romney did in Massachusetts.
Romney: I Love Socialized Medicine
Conservatives have spent a lot of time accusing President Obama of trying to bring socialized medicine to America. It’s a grossly misleading charge: For better or for worse, the Affordable Care Act relies heavily on private insurance and involves far laxer regulation than most universal coverage schemes. No, if you want to see a system with truly socialistic characteristics, you have to look elsewhere. Israel, for example. And guess who just praised that system?
One More Time: CBO Thinks Obamacare *Reduces* Deficit
The Congressional Budget Office just published a newly updated estimate of the Affordable Care Act and its impact on the budget. The estimate largely tells us what we already knew: The law, when fully implemented, will dramatically reduce the number of Americans without health insurance. It will also reduce the deficit. This last part remains a big deal, if only because so many conservatives—and, yes, so many members of the public—refuse to believe it. Over and over again, you hear people saying that Obamacare will run up the deficit.
Gov. Perry, Your Health Care Lobbyists Are Calling
Rick Perry wants Texas to reject Obamacare’s expansion of Medicaid, even though it’d bring health insurance to several million people. But plenty of Texans disagree. And some of that have a lot of influence. As Jay Hancock reports today at Kaiser Health News, two groups of powerful interests are preparing to pressure Perry if, come next year, the state really does decide to opt out of the Medicaid expansion. One group is the hospitals that, absent the Medicaid expansion, will be bearing the cost of charity care even as they cope with declining revenue from other resources.
Turning Down Medicaid: Even More Stupid Than It Seems
Basic decency ought to be reason enough for all states, even those with Republican governors, to participate in the Affordable Care Act's expansion of Medicaid.
A Texan on Perry's Medicaid Rejection: 'Devastating'
Texas Governor Rick Perry on Monday said that he wants no part of the Affordable Care Act’s expansion of Medicaid. Perry isn’t the first Republican governor to take this position. Five others, including Florida’s Rick Scott and Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal, announced their opposition to the expansion last week.
