Puerto Rico faces a humanitarian crisis as Trump rants about the NFL

Puerto Rico is facing wide-scale humanitarian disaster following a brutal hurricane, but President Trump doesn’t seem to paying the situation much attention. Instead, he’s turned his focus to other issues — namely, Black athletes protesting police violence.

Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico last week, killing at least 15 people and devastating the U.S. territory. The storm uprooted buildings and laid waste to the island’s infrastructure. The worst ...

Indiana judge blocks anti-choice law in Indiana, marking a win for Planned Parenthood

A federal judge has issued a permanent injunction against an Indiana law that would have prohibited abortions sought specifically because the fetus had been potentially diagnosed with Down syndrome or other disabilities. The law also would have required that aborted fetuses be buried or cremated and that abortion providers notify patients that seeking an abortion because the fetus may be disabled was against the law in the state.

The restrictions were signed into law in March 2016 b...

The latest Trumpcare bill has a nasty surprise for people with preexisting conditions

Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA), the leading sponsors of a massive overhaul of America’s health care system that Senate Republicans hope to pass this week, released a significant revision of their bill Sunday night.

In an apparent attempt to buy undecided Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s (R-AK) vote, the latest version of the bill includes additional funding for Alaska. It also includes some unusual provisions that seem designed to give the impression that the b...

Even Ted Cruz not ready to support latest Obamcare repeal

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said on Sunday that he’s yet in support of the Graham-Cassidy bill to repeal the the Affordable Care Act because his concerns about health care premiums have not yet been addressed.

Cruz’s comments were made during a discussion with Texas Tribune CEO Evan Smith before an audience at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin. The discussion included fellow Republican Texas Senator and Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, who said he’s voting in favor of Graham-Cassidy.  ...

Despite evidence to contrary, Cory Gardner says Obamacare repeal is not about his donors

Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) went on CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday and tried to defend his position on the Graham-Cassidy bill, the latest GOP health bill before the Senate, saying he’s voting yes for patients who see high-cost coverage rather than the Republican donors who have a stake in repealing current health law.

Asked by host John Dickerson about admissions by Republican senators that the revived effort to repeal and replace Obamacare was spurred by politic...

Senator Susan Collins all but says she’ll vote against latest Trumpcare bill

Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) told CNN’s Jake Tapper on State of The Union on Sunday that “it’s very difficult” to envision a scenario where she would vote for the latest Obamacare repeal bill, dubbed “Graham-Cassidy.” She said she will definitively decide Monday, after the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) releases its preliminary estimates on the bill.

But Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) — one of the bill’s drafters — said ...

Trump gets his facts about health care wrong in Saturday morning tweetstorm

President Trump criticized Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and misrepresented the latest attempt by Republicans in the Senate to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act on Twitter Saturday morning.

Trump claimed, in a tweetstorm mostly about health care, that premiums in Arizona and Alaska had skyrocketed, 116 and 200 plus percent, respectively.

Arizona had a 116% increase in ObamaCare premiums last year, with deductibles very high. Chuck Schumer sold John McC...

Don’t get too excited about McCain. The September 30 ‘deadline’ for Trumpcare is just a hoax.

Republicans in Congress are trying to push their latest effort to attempt to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, spearheaded by Sens. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA), through the Senate before September 30 without proper hearings or a score from the Congressional Budget Office. It can only be debated on the Senate floor for 90 seconds.

The goal is to pass the bill via reconciliation, which means it needs only a simple majority to pass and avoids any chance of a...

The White House didn’t do its homework on Trumpcare, so we did it for them

A White House official said they “really aren’t sure” what the impact of the latest Republican effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act would be, as Politico reported Friday—but a number of analyses have found the bill would hurt every state and leave 32 million people without insurance by 2026.

The bill, spearheaded by Sens. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA), would block grant health care funding to the states. The plan would also repeal a number of taxes ma...

Trumpcare’s ‘Alaska Bribe’ has a big constitutional problem

In one of the more surreal chapters in the ongoing Trumpcare saga, the Independent Journal Review’s Haley Byrd reports that some of Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s (R-AK) Republican colleagues hope to entice her into supporting their latest effort to repeal Obamacare by letting Alaska keep much of Obamacare.

Under the reported deal — alternatively nicknamed the “Alaska Bribe,” the “Alaska Purchase,” the “Polar Purchase,” and the “Sno...