Kelly Smalley lost her health insurance over a year ago when her son turned 19 years old.
In order to qualify for Medicaid in Oklahoma, people need to be a parent or guardian to someone no older than 18, have a government-recognized disability, or be over 65 years old in addition to earning below the federal poverty level. Smalley, who’s a 47-year-old single mom, is still responsible for her son; he was born with spina bifida and is routinely in and out of the hospital. She al...
health care
Senate GOP campaign committee smears Democratic 2020 candidates with false billboards
The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), the campaign arm of the Senate Republicans, has launched a series of billboards attacking several Democratic candidates over their supposed support for Medicare for All.
Not all of the Democrats who are being targeted actually support Medicare for All, and some have explicitly opposed the idea.
One such billboard, appearing alongside Interstate 10 in Tolleson, Arizona, suggests that Democratic candidate Mark Kelly — a retir...
Fox News town hall audience cheers Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All pitch
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, pitched his vision for the future of health care countrywide at a Fox News town hall Monday night and was met with cheers from the audience.
After Sanders explained why he would rather have the federal government provideing health insurance than private companies, Fox News anchor Bret Baier decided to pose the question to the audience. The audience, Baier said, included a lot of Democrats, Republican...
Bernie Sanders releases new Medicare for All bill, includes win for disability rights activists
Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) released a new version of his Medicare for All bill on Wednesday, keeping true to form by championing one of the most ambitious health policies in the country. So far, the proposal has the support of more than a dozen Democrats, including fellow 2020 candidates Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (NY), Kamala Harris (CA), Elizabeth Warren (MA), and Cory Booker (NJ).
The Sanders bill expands the traditional Medicare program, by covering...
Health care and insurance industries are spending a lot of money to defeat Medicare for All
Medicare for All has attracted widespread support in the Democratic Party. But the ambitious overhaul of the nation’s health care system faces a major threat: big spending by health care and insurance interests determined to preserve the status quo.
A ThinkProgress analysis found that those industries, part of a coalition called the Partnership for America’s Health Care Future, donated nearly $1.2 million in the 2017-2018 election cycle to Democratic members of four key House commit...
Donald Trump’s ‘party of health care’ has spent a decade failing to repeal and replace Obamacare
After a bruising midterm election in which widespread insecurity over the future of health care helped pace extraordinary gains for Democrats, allowing them to retake the House of Representatives, President Donald Trump has decided to re-up this failed strategy.
This week, the White House let it be known that the administration would not defend the Affordable Care Act in a case that could end in the wholesale invalidation of the Obama-era health care reform law. Such a result would ...
Arkansas asks Trump administration to appeal judge’s decision to block Medicaid work rules
Arkansas officials remain fully committed to the state’s Medicaid work requirements despite being dealt a heavy blow from a federal judge who blocked the first-ever policy. Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) said during a press conference Thursday that he asked the Trump administration to appeal the federal judge’s decision.
“I believe there should be consequences if people do not exercise responsibility,” he told reporters.
On Wednesday, a federal judge blocked ...
Federal judge blocks Arkansas and Kentucky Medicaid work requirements
A federal judge struck down work requirements in Arkansas and Kentucky on Wednesday, temporarily blocking one of the Trump administration’s most consequential health policies.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ruled that the federal government did not properly justify the need for the work requirements given the number of people who would lose health coverage.
This is the second time Boasberg blocked Kentucky’s Medicaid work requirements. In June 2018, he said...
What will happen if the Trump administration wins the lawsuit to repeal Obamacare?
Nearly every U.S. resident would be impacted in some way if the Trump administration gets its way and the entire Affordable Care Act (ACA) is invalidated in court.
Susan Lyon of California, for example, is deeply concerned for her husband and business partner who has Parkinson’s disease. Without the ACA, she suspects her insurance would charge a lot more because of her husband’s pre-existing condition. She purchases health insurance through the ACA’s Small Business Healt...
Remember when Republicans vowed to be the party to protect pre-existing condition coverage?
After the president and Republicans repeatedly promised to protect people with pre-existing conditions, the Trump administration on Monday evening said it supports a federal judge’s ruling that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is unconstitutional, adding that it will seek to repeal the sweeping health care law in its entirety.
The Justice Department filed a brief letter in the conservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit telling the court that it agrees with Judge Reed O’C...