As the final votes are tallied and Democrats continue to notch midterm election victories this week, Republican incumbents were toppled in New Jersey and California by opponents who built campaigns focused on affordable and accessible health care.
Former Obama administration official Andy Kim was officially declared the winner in New Jersey’s 3rd district Wednesday, ousting Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-NJ). MacArthur was one of the left’s biggest health care foes, and earned th...
health care
Getting Obamacare plans to cover abortion is hard. Trump is trying to make it even harder.
The Trump administration wants insurers to send Obamacare enrollees two separate, monthly bills if the plan covers abortion services, per a new proposed regulation that creates more administrative burden for patients and companies alike.
It wouldn’t matter if the patient never had an abortion. The administration would require insurance companies to send two different invoices to patients who purchase Obamacare plans: one for the standard monthly fee for the insurance policy an...
West Virginia and Alabama voters approve dangerous anti-choice ballot initiatives
Voters in Alabama and West Virginia approved ballot initiatives on Tuesday that will update the state constitutions to declare that abortion rights are not guaranteed, a move that will severely curtail reproductive rights in the states. In Oregon, voters blocked a similar ballot initiative that would have prevented taxpayer dollars from covering abortions for Medicaid beneficiaries and public employees.
Pro-choice and anti-choice advocates in all three states campaigned for weeks pr...
Democrats winning the popular vote won’t be enough to save Americans’ health care from Republicans
The 2010 election was a historic disaster for the Democratic Party. Republican House candidates won the national popular vote by 6.8 percentage points and took a commanding majority as a result. It marked the end of President Obama’s legislative agenda and the beginning of an era when Republicans demanded massive concessions just to keep the government open.
Now imagine that 2018 is the mirror image of 2010 — that is, that Democrats win the popular vote by the exact same...
Meet the state Senate candidate who’s trying to convince Tennessee’s 1 percent to support Medicaid
WILLIAMSON COUNTY, TENNESSEE — Kristen Grimm has just realized she forgot to clean out her minivan. She gushes her apologies as she pulls open the driver’s side door, revealing a passenger seat littered with palm cards and newspapers. Her backseat, filled with yard signs, an extra coat, and a change of shoes is also not rider-ready.
But her dismay about the messy car doesn’t — or rather, it can’t — last long before she’s on to the next thing: A phone call from a fr...
The US now has more than 56.7 million freelance workers—and they vote
Freelancers are on the rise. And they’re rising up.
A new report from Freelancers Union and Upwork estimates that there are now 56.7 million Americans freelancers, an increase of 3.7 million in the past five years.
“The s...
Republican Attorney General reportedly let his Senate campaign consultants direct his state office
Missouri Attorney General and Republican U.S. Senate candidate Josh Hawley allowed “out-of-state political consultants” to give “direct guidance and tasks to his taxpayer-funded staff,” according to a report by The Kansas City Star.
Among other things, The Star reports that Hawley’s political consultants helped oversee the attorney general office’s rollout of “Missouri’s lawsuit against opioid manufacturers, which Hawley announced in June 20...
“Do you abuse more than one drug at a time?”: Wisconsin to drug screen people on Medicaid
In addition to imposing 80 hours of work per month, Wisconsin will require that Medicaid recipients complete a drug screening questionnaire to keep their health coverage.
While the Trump administration rejected Wisconsin’s bid to drug test Medicaid recipients, the Department of Health Services (DHS) told ThinkProgress on Friday that the state will ask them the same questions they already ask people on cash assistance as a condition of eligibility. The “D...
Transgender women celebrate monumental health care court victory
It was the first case outcome of its kind: a total of $780,000 in damages for two transgender women who were denied medically necessary health care because of their gender identity. It was also likely the first time a court found that facial feminization surgery was medically necessary.
The women now hope that if eight jurors in Wisconsin could be convinced that transgender people deserve access to health care related to their identities, others might be inspired to fight for what t...