A proposed single-payer health care system in New York state is economically viable and could insure a million people currently without coverage, according to a study from RAND Corp. released Wednesday.
The analysis, which looks at the New York Health Act, was commissioned by the New York State Health Foundation. It makes a number of charitable assumptions about the institution and implementation of the single-payer system, but ultimately concludes the plan would be a cost-effective...
ThinkProgress
Susan Collins backs move to limit transparency for Trump Supreme Court nominee
Sen. Susan Collins of Maine — a Republican who has positioned herself as a moderate but who has voted for virtually all of Donald Trump’s far-right judicial nominees — said last month that she would not back a Supreme Court nominee who “demonstrated hostility to Roe v. Wade,” the 1973 ruling that enshrined abortion rights. But it does not appear that she is very interested in finding out what Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh actually thinks about...
Trump has no clue how people buy groceries
During a speech at a rally in Florida on Tuesday, President Trump indicated he thinks a photo ID card is needed to make purchases at grocery stores.
While making a case for a nationwide voter ID law, Trump said, “you know, if you go out and you want to buy groceries, you need a picture on a card — you need ID.”
But as most Americans are well aware, an ID card is not usually needed to buy groceries. Customers can use cash. And in many cases, even if they use...
The nation’s current political polarization will be no match for its shifting demographics
Like a soothsayer peering into a crystal ball to forecast things yet to occur, demographer William “Bill” Frey scrutinizes national census trends to divine that soon — well within the reach of most Americans alive today — the U.S. population will have no racial majority group.
“This milestone signals the beginning of a transformation from the mostly white baby boom culture that dominated the nation during the last half of the twentieth century to the more globalize...
Think tank in the ‘king of the red states’ assumes power in Trump’s Washington
The Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), a conservative think tank and advocacy group, emerged as a political force in the Lone Star State more than a decade ago. While its influence was largely contained to Texas for many years, TPPF has found an eager audience in the White House and is now flexing its muscle on the national stage.
Founded almost 30 years ago, TPPF is a Koch-funded research and advocacy group that touts itself as a defender of liberty and free enterprise. By no m...
Koch-backed study finds ‘Medicare for All’ would save U.S. government trillions
A single-payer Medicare for All system would reduce the amount the U.S. government spends on health care by more than $2 trillion, a Koch brothers-funded study released Monday found.
Research by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University — a libertarian think tank backed by the Koch brothers — projected that the Medicare for All plan championed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) would cost the government $32.6 trillion over 10 years. The highly critical report found that ...
Trump’s push to make city cops into stooges for ICE suffers strange, messy courtroom defeat
Cities and states can refuse to answer questions from federal immigration officials, a federal judge ruled Friday in a decision that boosts resistance to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and President Donald Trump’s crusade against immigrants — and illustrates the contortionist flexibility of the law.
The ruling is another setback for the Trump-Sessions war on undocumented migrants that was central to the president’s campaign message. The City of Chicago’s 2012...
When is tech in the health sector extremely dangerous? Too many times.
The pharmaceutical industry has recently come under intense scrutiny for driving the opioid epidemic, insurance companies and hospitals are faulted for rising health care costs, and even the insurance “middlemen” (pharmacy benefit managers) recently got called out by President Donald Trump for their role in high drug prices. But a new documentary premiering Friday on Netflix asks audiences to pay attention to a health sector they otherwise wouldn’t: the medical device industry.
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Trump’s poor grasp of health care policy was on full display in Iowa
During a roundtable event on workforce development in Iowa on Thursday, President Trump touted association health care plans.
“[Secretary of Labor] Alex Acosta has come up with incredible health care plans through the Department of Labor, association plans, where you associate, where you have groups, and you go out and get tremendous health care at a very small cost,” Trump said. “It is across state lines. You can compete all over the country, they compete, they wa...
Energy Department broke the law with health care tweet
The Department of Energy misused taxpayer funds last summer when promoting an anti-Obamacare op-ed written by Energy Secretary Rick Perry through its official Twitter account, a government watchdog has found.
According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the agency violated the law when tweeting about Perry’s column criticizing the Affordable Care Act because it did not demonstrate how the department’s funding was directed towards informing the public about he...