VIRGINIA’S new governor, Ralph Northam, did in five months what his predecessor, Terry McAuliffe, couldn't manage in four years. He convinced a usually obdurate Republican legislature to bring this blue-trending state fully under the Affordable Care Act—even as the Trump administration continues efforts to kill it.
On June 7...
Democracy in America
The Trump administration joins a lawsuit to shred Obamacare
TO REPUBLICANS, the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, is the zombie that endures countless hits to keep rising from its knees and haunt America’s health-care industry. The signature legislative achievement of Barack Obama’s presidency, which brought health coverage to 20m Americans, faced dozens of House repeal votes d...
Why people vote against their economic interests
A COMPLAINT often made of Donald Trump’s presidency is that many of the voters who delivered him to the Oval Office will suffer from his policies. They include the tax cut, with its benefits heavily skewed towards the rich. The complaint builds on the growing frustration of partisans of both parties that many people who seem to be...
The parties’ preferred primary candidates prevail
MARY TAYLOR has been John Kasich’s lieutenant-governor since he was elected governor of Ohio in 2010. She backed all of his policies loyally, including the expansion of Medicaid and health insurance for the poor, and did not criticise Mr Kasich’s “Never Trump” campaign during his presidential candidacy. Yet when she campaigned to ...
Ralph Northam pushes for Medicaid expansion in Virginia
RALPH NORTHAM, Virginia’s new Democratic governor, soundly beat his Republican rival, Ed Gillespie, by harnessing antipathy for Donald Trump. Virginia was the only Southern state that the president lost to Hillary Clinton in 2016. But Mr Northam's landslide win in November was also due to his promise to bring 300,000 uninsured Vir...
The Museum of the Bible opens in Washington, DC
WHEN plans for the Museum of the Bible, which opens to the public in Washington, DC on November 18th, were first unveiled many predicted it would be a big, glossy advertisement for fundamentalist Christianity. The museum was founded and part-funded by Steve Green, a prominent evangelical and president of Hobby Lobby, a chain...
The Alexander-Murray bill does not solve all Obamacare’s problems
ON OCTOBER 25th the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its score of the Bipartisan Health Care Stabilisation Act, the cross-party effort by two senators, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Patty Murray of Washington, to shore up troubled health-insurance markets. The main goal of this bill is to restore, for two years,...
Donald Trump’s health-care orders will hurt middle-class, self-employed Americans
THE strange thing about Donald Trump’s new executive actions on health care is the identity of those who will suffer their consequences. On October 12th Mr Trump kicked off a deregulatory process to permit widespread formation of so-called Association Health Plans (AHPs), insurance policies run by groups of small firms. Then...
Sam Brownback, governor of Kansas, heads for the exit
GOVERNORS of Kansas tend to love their job and rarely leave it early. Kathleen Sebelius, a Democrat, dithered before agreeing to leave the governor’s mansion after Barack Obama asked her to lead the introduction of the Affordable Care Act as Secretary of Health and Human Services. The current Republican governor, Sam Brown...
The Trump administration still has the power to wreak havoc on Obamacare
REPUBLICANS’ latest efforts to overhaul the Affordable Care Act, Barack Obama’s health care law, failed in the Senate on the night of July 27th. Three of their Senators—Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowksi of Alaska and John McCain of Arizona—joined all 48 Democrats to vote down “skinny” repeal (see article). ...
