One of Trump’s health reform picks says he actually wants to improve Obamacare

April 1, 2019 Affordable Care Act, Donald Trump, health, News, obamacare, politics

It’s pretty obvious that the Trump administration has no real plan for what to do next should the federal courts overturn the Affordable Care Act (ACA) — just look at who the president put in charge of the replacement plan.

Last week, President Donald Trump said a team of GOP senators will craft legislation that will replace the ACA, including Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL). But on Monday, Scott said he’s actually more interested in improving the current health law.

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Health care and insurance industries are spending a lot of money to defeat Medicare for All

April 1, 2019 health, health care, Medicare, News, politics

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

March 31, 2019 Donald Trump, health care, News, obamacare, politics

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 ...

How Stacey Abrams got more people to care about a 6-week abortion ban

March 29, 2019 health, News, politics

This year, there has been an unprecedented surge in state lawmakers trying to ban abortions before most people even know they’re pregnant — but no state has gotten as much national attention as Georgia. Activists credit Stacey Abrams as a big reason why.

Georgia’s House Bill 481 would ban abortion at six weeks. It’s surprised many people that the state, which has 10 abortion clinics in Atlanta alone, would revert from a 20-week ban to a near-total ban, devast...

Trump just gave a huge gift to an alleged billion dollar Medicare fraudster

March 28, 2019 Donald Trump, News, obamacare, politics

Monday night, the Trump administration informed a federal appeals court that it would no longer defend the Affordable Care Act after a judge in Texas declared that the entire law must be struck down. The judge, Reed O’Connor, is a former Republican Senate staffer with a history of striking down policies opposed by conservatives. O’Connor’s opinion is widely viewed as ridiculous, even by conservative legal scholars and health policy experts.

Yet, while O’Conno...

2020 Democrat Amy Klobuchar to White House: This is what an infrastructure plan should look like

March 28, 2019 Donald Trump, News, politics

Recurring plans to hold an “Infrastructure Week” have amounted to naught during the Trump administration, and have become something of a running joke even as the nation’s road and bridges continue to crumble and fall into disrepair.

Democratic presidential contender Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) unveiled a comprehensive plan on Thursday to show them how it’s done.

The Minnesota senator introduced a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan — her first majo...

Justice Breyer warns of the ‘greatest judicial power grab since Marbury v. Madison’

March 27, 2019 News, politics

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority on Wednesday appeared likely to execute what Justice Stephen Breyer described as the “greatest judicial power grab” since its 1803 decision holding that federal courts have the power to declare laws unconstitutional.

Breyer’s warning referred to Kisor v. Wilkie, a case for which the court heard oral arguments last week. Chief Justice John Roberts suggested in some of his questions during that session that he ...

House Democrats adopt Green New Deal jobs talking point as they reveal new climate bill

March 27, 2019 climate, News, politics

Less than 24 hours after the Green New Deal resolution faced a setback in the Senate, House Democrats appeared to have broadly adopted one of the proposal’s leading talking points as they pitched separate climate legislation.

“This is about jobs, about good, paying green jobs,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said Wednesday, introducing the Climate Action Now Act, also known as House Resolution 9.

The new resolution urges the United States to remain in the...

Remember when Republicans vowed to be the party to protect pre-existing condition coverage?

March 26, 2019 Affordable Care Act, health, health care, medicaid, News, obamacare, politics, Republicans

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...

Republicans push phony attack on Green New Deal’s cost, ignore ‘tens of trillions’ in benefits

March 26, 2019 climate, Fact Check, News, politics

Opponents of serious climate action are routinely using a nonsensical $93 trillion dollar cost projection to attack the Green New Deal — an effort to mobilize the U.S. economy to shift away from fossil fuels as fast as technologically possible to preserve the livable climate that has made modern civilization possible — even though the figure has been roundly debunked by fact checkers.

The reality is that the price of what are called “core” clean energy techno...