On Wednesday afternoon, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) shared a touching campaign video detailing how his daughter Annika’s leukemia diagnosis made the need to protect people with pre-existing conditions personal for him.
“Politicians argue a lot about health care, but for me, it’s personal,” Rohrabacher says, while standing next to his daughter. “When my daughter Annika was 8 years old, she was afflicted with leukemia. It was devastating to my family, bu...
health care
Former UN chief Ban Ki-moon: US health care system is ‘politically wrong, morally wrong’
Failing to provide health care to 29.3 million people is “unethical” and “politically wrong, morally wrong,” said former United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in an interview with the Guardian.
The U.S. is the only wealthy country without universal coverage — and Ban faults “powerful” interest groups within the pharmaceutical, hospitals, and doctors sector.
“Here, the political interest groups are so, so powerful,” Ban said. “Even president, Congress,...
GOP senate candidate vows to protect people with pre-existing conditions while doing the opposite
Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley, who is currently running for Senate against Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), put out an ad Monday afternoon touting his commitment to protecting people with pre-existing conditions, despite currently working as part of a lawsuit that aims to end protections for pre-existing conditions.
“We’ve got two perfect little boys. Just ask their mama,” Hawley says in the ad, which his campaign shared on Twitter Monday. “Earlier this ...
Two federal judges rule insurance companies must cover transgender health procedures
Two different federal courts granted rulings last week in favor of allowing transgender people to access the medically necessary care prescribed to them by their doctors.
The rulings confirm the Affordable Care Act’s protections on the basis of sex extend to transgender people.
In Wisconsin, two University of Wisconsin employees challenged an exclusion to the Uniform Benefits established by the state’s Government Insurance Board. The exclusion prohibited coverage ...
Absurd GOP attack ads claim candidates who back Medicare for All want to take away your health care
Faced with tough November races, several Republicans who supported GOP-led proposals to roll back Americans’ health coverage are now attacking their Democratic opponents for supposedly threatening Americans’ health care access by supporting a “Medicare for all” system — which would extend the existing Medicare program’s protections to cover everyone.
Republican Reps. Andy Barr (KY-6), Dave Brat (VA-7), and Kevin Yoder (KS-3) all voted for the Trum...
How ‘Medicare for All’ became a rallying cry in California’s most conservative districts
ORANGE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA — “We have to make America mentshlekhkeyt again,” Rabbi Arnold Rachlisl declared with a grin at Sabbath service at University Synagogue in Irvine, California.
The rabbi was clearly proud of his joke. Mentshlekhkeyt means “humanity” or “human decency” in Yiddish, he explained to the crowd gathered at the synagogue.
Many in the congregation Friday evening had not been aware that the campaign event for Katie Porter would begin with a Shabbat ser...
How AI changed organ donation in the US
There used to be only three ways off of a kidney transplant waiting list. The first was to find a healthy person from within one’s own pool of friends and family, who perfectly matched both the recipient’s blood and tissue types, and possessed...
These 15 House incumbents scrubbed ‘repeal Obamacare’ from their re-election sites
With their party majority in extreme peril in November’s midterm elections, House Republicans are facing a dilemma. While they ran on a pledge to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act, support for Obamacare now far exceeds support for the GOP-controlled Congress. Several incumbents have employed a bold strategy: hide the evidence of their position.
ThinkProgress examined the campaign websites of dozens of Republican incumbents in races deemed competitive by ...
Here’s what you need to know about the lawsuit trying to end Obamacare
In a lawsuit that’s been labeled “absurd” and “ludicrous” by legal experts, conservative and liberal alike, Texas and 19 other conservative states are suing to eliminate the Affordable Care Act (ACA) once and for all, as past Republican efforts failed to do so.
On Wednesday, Federal Judge Reed O’Connor, a wildcard who’s ruled against Obamacare multiple times, will hear oral arguments in a lawsuit brought forward in February. O’Connor is expected t...
Republicans who opposed pre-existing condition protections backtrack as midterms near
Ten Republican senators introduced new legislation on Thursday that aims to protect people with pre-existing conditions should an anti-Obamacare lawsuit succeeded in court. But a closer look reveals that the bill doesn’t completely safeguard people’s coverage as current health laws does. Instead, it’s likely an attempt to fend off criticism ahead of the midterm elections.
The new legislation was introduced just two weeks before court hearings begin on the case of ...