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...
ThinkProgress
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 ...
At Trump rallies, the new ‘lock her up’ is ‘AOC sucks’
If a person were to get all of their political information from Fox News — take, for example, the president of the United States — that person could very well believe that the most potent threat to America’s delicate democracy is not the rise in white supremacist violence within its borders nor the alleged electoral interference from without. Enemy number one has been anointed, and it’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Fox News’ fixation with Ocasio-Cortez is undeni...
Trump claims the GOP is the ‘party of health care,’ but his health care plans are losing in court
After vowing to strike down Obamacare and implement a replacement that will enshrine the GOP as the “party of health care,” President Donald Trump is off to a rocky start this week. In quick succession, he was dealt two major health care blows in the courts.
On Thursday, a federal judge blocked so-called “association health plans” (AHPs) — an avenue that Trump has long touted as a method of providing “tremendous health care at very small cost.”
U...
How Stacey Abrams got more people to care about a 6-week abortion ban
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
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
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...
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 ...
Trump wishes immigrants were greeted by machine guns at the border
In a wide-ranging 45-minute live interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity Wednesday night, President Donald Trump defended the $25 to $35 billion dollars he hopes to spend on a wall for the southern border. He bemoaned, however, that it would be far more effective if armed soldiers could just point machine guns at immigrants as they tried to enter the country.
“You go to a lot of the generals, they will tell you, this is a national emergency,” Trump claimed, arguing t...
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...