PERRspectives: Health Care Archives

Health Care Archives

	Romney Claims Paternity for Detroit, Disowns Orphan in Boston Mitt Romney is now claiming paternity for President Obama's auto industry rescue that saved over a million jobs nationwide. But while he most certainly isn't the father of a reborn Detroit, the successful 2006 health care reform law he signed in Boston has become Mitt Romney's bastard love child. Americans should give credit where credit is due. And on health care, as we'll see below, Mitt Romney deserves a lot. But Barack Obama's efforts to save GM and Chrysler owe... more Posted on May 8, 2012 \| Comments (0)

	Mitt Romney is the Deadbeat Dad of Obamacare Discussing the Affordable Care Act with right-wing radio host Hugh Hewitt in March, Mitt Romney declared, "If I'm the godfather of this thing, then it gives me the right to kill it." But the former Massachusetts governor isn't merely promising to "kill it dead" at the national level. As it turns out, Romney's plan for draconian cuts to Medicaid would strangle the popular and successful program he put in place in Massachusetts, the one he once touted as "a model... more Posted on May 4, 2012 \| Comments (0)

	The Resurrection and Immaculate Deception of Paul Ryan Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan has become the perfect Republican Easter story. Each spring, Ryan reemerges with a new version of his draconian "Roadmap for America's Future." Despite being crucified each time by most Democrats, much of the press and even some members of his own party, Ryan nevertheless rises again, earning more followers (like Mitt Romney) each time. But at the heart of his budget plan - one that guts domestic spending, delivers a massive tax cut windfall to the... more Posted on April 8, 2012 \| Comments (0)

	How the Media Created an Obama Judicial Controversy in 3 Easy Steps "Conservative commentators." "Commerce." "New Deal." Only if you pretend Barack Obama never uttered those three phases this week can you manufacture a controversy in which the President supposedly questioned the authority of the Supreme Court to overturn the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA). But in the hands of his Republican opponents and a lazy and compliant media, President Obama's unremarkable summary of 70 years of Supreme Court Commerce Clause jurisprudence and the decades-long conservative assault on so-called "judicial activism" magically... more Posted on April 6, 2012 \| Comments (0)

	After Threatening Judges, GOP Accuses Obama of Judicial Intimidation On Monday, President Obama unsurprisingly expressed confidence that the Supreme Court would uphold the 2010 Affordable Care Act. Even less remarkable, Obama rightly reminded Americans that "conservative commentators" have for year said "the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint -- that an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law." Nevertheless, Republicans quickly accused the President of "unprecedented" effort to "intimidate the Supreme Court." Of course, this... more Posted on April 4, 2012 \| Comments (0)

	Medicare, Social Security Mandates Dwarf Affordable Care Act As the New York Times suggested last week, the fate of President Obama's Affordable Care Act in general and its mandate that Americans obtain health insurance in particular may hinge on Justice Anthony Kennedy's notion of "liberty." While Solicitor General Donald Verilli posited "a profound connection" between health care and liberty, his opponent Paul Clement argued, "that it's a very funny conception of liberty that forces somebody to purchase an insurance policy whether they want it or not." Of course,... more Posted on April 1, 2012 \| Comments (0)

	Will the Supreme Court End Republicans' Privatization Dream? After another bad day for the Affordable Care Act at the Supreme Court, voices across the political spectrum are already pondering life after death for health care reform. Conservative Ross Douthat and liberal James Carville agree that overturning the ACA will help President Obama get reelected. Meanwhile, statements by Mitch McConnell and Mitt Romney seemed to confirm David Frum and Jonathan Chat's shared conclusion that Republicans will do nothing to help over 30 million American who would be denied access... more Posted on March 28, 2012 \| Comments (0)

	Ryancare and Obamacare Both Require Individual Mandate As the Supreme Court this week begins to consider the fate of the two-year old Affordable Care Act (ACA), ironies abound. For starters, while health care is worst in Republican red states, its improvement will be underwritten by blue state taxpayers. The virtually identical law in Massachusetts has been wildly successful and wildly popular. Meanwhile, Social Security and Medicare already mandate that Americans purchase retirement security and health insurance, required product purchases Republican free-marketeers want private providers to sell instead.... more Posted on March 25, 2012 \| Comments (0)

	Health Care is Worst Where Republicans Poll Best This week, GOP White House frontrunner Mitt Romney marked the two year anniversary of the Affordable Care Act by declaring the reform law the "national nightmare" he "always predicted." But leaving aside for the moment that Romney repeatedly touted his virtually identical Massachusetts law as a model for the nation, there's a much bigger problem with his call for a "free market, federalist approach" in which "each state should be allowed to pursue its own solution." As Ezra Klein exhaustively... more Posted on March 24, 2012 \| Comments (0)

	Introducing the Ryan-Romney Budget If the new House GOP budget unveiled Tuesday by Paul Ryan sounds familiar, it should. And not just because Ryan's "Path to Prosperity" is essentially the same scheme he's been pushing for two years. As it turns out, Mitt Romney is offering the same disastrous recipe for America's future. Both Ryan and Romney would deliver a massive tax cut windfall for the rich, paying for it by gutting the social safety net each pretends to protect. Each would end Medicare... more Posted on March 20, 2012 \| Comments (0)

	GOP Talking Points Don't Apply to Women's Health For a brief moment on Sunday, John McCain made sense. Lamenting the growing backlash against the GOP's crusade to turn back the clock on contraception and reproductive rights, McCain told Meet the Press, "I think we ought to respect the right of women to make choices in their lives and make that clear." If that seems like a shocking statement coming from John McCain, that's because it is. McCain, after all, ran for President in 2008 on a Republican Party... more Posted on March 19, 2012 \| Comments (0)

	GOP, Media Mislead on President Obama's Health Care Promise As the battle over health care raged in the summer of 2009, President Obama made a very specific promise about what would become the Affordable Care Act. "When I say if you have your plan and you like it," Obama explained that June, "or you have a doctor and you like your doctor, that you don't have to change plans, what I'm saying is the government is not going to make you change plans under health reform." Nevertheless, Republicans and... more Posted on March 18, 2012 \| Comments (0)

	Oregon, Massachusetts Gains Bolster Obama Health Care Reform The Affordable Care Act is working. 2.5 million more young adults ages 19 to 26 now have health insurance. The shrinking of the Medicare "donut hole" allowed 3.6 million seniors to save $2.1 billion on their prescription drugs last year. And the ban on insurers refusing to cover pre-existing conditions is saving lives (even among those who opposed so-called "Obamacare"). And even though most of its provisions don't into effect until 2014, the data from Oregon and Massachusetts strongly suggest... more Posted on March 14, 2012 \| Comments (0)

	In Mississippi, the Republican Future is Now Republicans have seen the future and it is in Mississippi. But the GOP's Magnolia State crystal ball has little to do with whether today's primary shows that Mitt Romney's cheesy grit eating sealed his nomination, ends Newt Gingrich's viability as a "credible candidate" or even aborts Rick Santorum's White House dream altogether. Instead, the state's union-busting right to work law, draconian curbs on women's reproductive rights, under-funded education system and shameful Medicaid policies make Mississippi the laboratory for the agenda... more Posted on March 13, 2012 \| Comments (0)

	Republicans Threaten the "Doctor-Patient Relationship" For two decades, Republican opponents of health care reform have turned to a tried if untrue talking point. In 1994, GOP strategist Bill Kristol warned that "the Clinton Plan is damaging to the quality of American medicine and to the relationship between the patient and the doctor." Twelve years later, President George W. Bush proclaimed, "Ours is a party that understands the best health care system is when the doctor-patient relationship is central to decision-making." Then in 2009, GOP spinmeister... more Posted on March 9, 2012 \| Comments (0)

	Expanding Catholic Hospitals Put Reproductive Care, Women's Health at Risk For the last several weeks, all eyes have been focused on the high-profile clash between Catholic bishops (if not their parishioners) and the Obama administration over mandated insurance coverage for contraception at their non-church institutions. But in cities and towns across the country, a second battlefront is jeopardizing access to essential reproductive care for millions of American women. As the New York Times and the New Republic each recently documented, the expansion of Catholic hospitals nationwide is putting women's reproductive... more Posted on March 8, 2012 \| Comments (0)

	Obama's Affordable Care Act to the Rescue for Texas By almost any measure, Texas has one of the worst health care systems in the nation. Its 26 percent uninsured rate - no other state is even close - put its dead last. Overall, health care in the Lone Star State is ranked 44th by America's Health Rankings and 46th by the Commonwealth Fund. Two years ago, it was ranked the 39th healthiest state. Which is why the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is such a boon for Texas. After all,... more Posted on February 28, 2012 \| Comments (0)

	Conservatives Go Both Ways on Rising Health Care Costs For years, conservatives have warned that rapidly rising health care costs require the United States to repeal the Affordable Care Act, gut Medicaid and privatize Medicare. Now, the American Enterprise Institute cheerfully insists, the recent slowdown in that rate of the growth argues for precisely the same Republican policies. But far from happily revealing new "marketplace disciplines on the demand for medical care" in which "consumers are finally getting more involved in managing and paying for their own care," the... more Posted on February 19, 2012 \| Comments (0)

	Closing the Health Insurance Income Gap A new study this week from the Commonwealth Fund confirmed the shocking gap between lower and higher income Americans when it comes to health insurance coverage. While only 12 percent of families making $89,400 a year (or four times the federal poverty rate for a family of four) was uninsured at some point last year, that figure skyrockets to 57 percent for a family at about $29,700. Mercifully, thanks to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), beginning in 2014 that gap... more Posted on February 11, 2012 \| Comments (0)

	Ex-Planned Parenthood Supporter Romney Backs Komen Ban That GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney announced his support for the Susan G. Komen Foundation's aborted effort to end funding for Planned Parenthood comes as no surprise. After all, defunding the group that each year provides health care and reproductive services for hundreds of thousands of American women is now a litmus test for the 2012 Republican hopefuls. But even by Romney's standards, this flip-flop is a gymnastic one. As it turns out, while Senate candidate Romney's wife donated to Planned... more Posted on February 7, 2012 \| Comments (0)

	Romney's Plan Not Very Concerned About the Poor - or the Middle Class One day after branding President Obama "really out of touch with what's happening in America," Mitt Romney marked his Florida primary victory by declaring, "I'm not concerned about the very poor." Of course, back in December Romney announced that "I'm concerned about the poor in this country," adding, "We have to make sure the safety net is strong and able to help those who can't help themselves." If Mitt Romney's statement today seems like a contradiction, at least it's a... more Posted on February 1, 2012 \| Comments (0)

	Newt Gingrich's Big Idea "Where's the beef?" With that sound bite, Walter Mondale deflated the insurgent bid of the "candidate of new ideas" Gary Hart for the 1984 Democratic presidential nomination.* Twenty-eight years later, rising Republican White House hopeful Newt Gingrich may be about to have his own "where's the beef" moment. But the growing criticism from left and right expressed in articles such as "What are Newt Gingrich's Big Ideas?" do an injustice to the man of self-proclaimed "grandiose thoughts." Newt Gingrich does... more Posted on January 23, 2012 \| Comments (0)

	Wyden Snatches Defeat from Jaws of Victory on Medicare Earlier this year, 235 GOP House members and 40 Republican Senators voted for the Paul Ryan budget and its plan to ration Medicare. By ending the traditional government insurance program and leaving the elderly with under-funded vouchers to purchase much more expensive coverage from private insurers, Ryan's Republicans would dramatically shift the cost burden to America's seniors. It's no wonder that the incredibly unpopular scheme put Medicare at the center of the 2012 election for Democrats and President Obama. But... more Posted on December 15, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	Introducing Newt Gingrich's 2-2-2 Plan If nothing else, former House Speaker and new GOP front-runner Newt Gingrich is all about keeping his options open. After all, Newt has gone through three religions and three wives. As it turns out, when it comes to Medicare, Social Security and the tax code, President Gingrich wants Americans to have options as well. In each case, Gingrich is offering voters a choice between the current system and a new one. Call it the 2-2-2 Plan. Of course, whatever you... more Posted on December 8, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	Paul Ryan Wins Politico's Health Care Policymaker of the Year He called for rationing Medicare, replacing it with an underfunded voucher system that would dramatically shift costs to elderly Americans. He proposed repealing the Affordable Care Act, slashing Medicaid by $1.4 trillion over the next decade and turning what's left over to the states as block grants. By 2021, his budget would leave up to 44 million more Americans without health insurance. His budget, one which garnered the votes of 235 House Republicans and 40 GOP Senators, would in turn... more Posted on December 6, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	Romney Lies About Obama 'Taking over 100 Percent' of Health Care By almost any measure, the 2006 universal care law Governor Mitt Romney championed in Massachusetts has been a clear success. A bipartisan bill which Ted Kennedy worked closely with Romney to pass, the law has reduced the ranks of the uninsured from 10 percent to a national low of two percent. Massachusetts residents overwhelmingly favor the popular health care law there by a 3 to 1 margin. But in his desperate quest to win over conservative Republican primary voters, Mitt... more Posted on December 5, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	Romney Pushes Privatization of Medicare, Veterans' Health Suppose you are a candidate for President of the United States. Suppose further that you know that over the past 40 years, the per-beneficiary cost of Medicare rose 40% less than private health insurance. Say you also know that studies consistently show that the Veteran's Administration (VA) health care system provides "the best care anywhere," consistently outperforming its private sector counterparts. And now for today's quiz: what reforms if any would you propose to the Medicare and VA systems that... more Posted on November 13, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	Gingrich Leads Republican Charge to Abolish the CBO "Reality," Stephen Colbert famously told President Bush to his face, "has a well-known liberal bias." That inconvenient truth is at the heart of the expanding Republican war on the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Increasingly frustrated by CBO analyses showing that the 2009 economic stimulus worked as designed, that the Paul Ryan GOP Medicare rationing plan would massively shift costs to seniors, that income inequality is at record levels and, most damning of all, the Affordable Care Act reduces the... more Posted on November 10, 2011 \| Comments (1)

	It's a Trap As the Congressional "super committee" approaches its deadline to deliver $1.5 trillion in debt reduction over the next decade, the best plan may well be doing nothing. That is, absent any action by Congress, the Bush tax cuts extended in December will expire as of January 2013 and so produce roughly $4 trillion over the ensuing 10 years. That's a trillion more than the $3 trillion package of spending cuts and tax increases advocated by committee Democrats and nearly double... more Posted on November 2, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	Republicans Declare Generational War for 2012 In the wake of Monday's Tea Party Republican presidential debate, all eyes have been on Social Security. But while politicians and pundits parsed the candidates' assertions that America's retirement program for the elderly is a "Ponzi scheme" (Rick Perry), akin to a criminal enterprise (Mitt Romney) and a "tremendous fraud" (Michele Bachmann), the real story of the GOP strategy for 2012 remains largely untold. As their policies and pronouncements on Medicare and Social Security make clear, in 2012 Republicans will... more Posted on September 14, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	Rick Perry's Texas-Sized Lies on Health Care Republicans frontrunner Rick Perry raised some eyebrows during Wednesday's GOP presidential debate by blaming the federal government for his state's staggering number of uninsured. As it turns out, those jaws were dropping with good reason. After all, just months ago Perry advocated opting out of the federal Medicaid partnership, a move which would cost up to 2.6 million Texans their health care coverage. And as it turns out, the Texas health care system Governor Perry called the best in the... more Posted on September 8, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	Bachmann Gives Away the GOP Game on Health Care Over the past week, Republican White House hopeful Michele Bachmann unleashed a tidal wave of campaign promises aimed at washing away the American social contract. After pledging to get gas under $2 a gallon, Bachmann announced she would make the U.S. the "king daddy dog" of energy by shutting down the EPA. And while Rep. Bachmann suggested she'd reduce the minimum wage, she promised that President Bachmann "would turn things around within one economic quarter, in part by cutting corporate... more Posted on August 28, 2011 \| Comments (1)

	Rubio Claims Social Security, Medicare "Weakened Us as a People" Earlier this month, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) neatly summed up the Republican platform for 2012, declaring that Americans must "come to grips with the fact that promises have been made that frankly are not going to be kept for many." Yesterday at the Reagan Library, Tea Party darling and GOP rock star Marco Rubio explained why his party wants to break the promises Americans made to each other when it comes to safety net programs like Medicare and... more Posted on August 25, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	GOP Tries to Gut Medicaid as Studies Show Its Success As the debate over health care reform heated up in the fall of 2009, Tennessee Republican Senator Lamar Alexander called Medicaid "a medical ghetto" that "none of us, or any of our families, would ever want to be a part of for our health care." As it turns out, Alexander and his GOP colleagues were as wrong as they were cynical. A breakthrough study by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) reveals that Medicaid recipients have far greater access... more Posted on July 10, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	GOP's Privatization Future is Indiana's Nightmare Present At the heart of the Ryan budget plan backed by 98% of Republicans in Congress are two very bad ideas whose time has never come. Privatization of government services and the devolution of their federal funding to the states promise to dramatically raise costs and slash benefits for millions of Medicare and Medicaid recipients. But in Indiana, the Republican future is now. There, residents are already encountering lost benefits, rising error rates and backlogged private bureaucracies as politically well-connected firms... more Posted on June 28, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	It's Time for Reverse Federalism on Medicaid If ever there was bad idea whose time never came, it is Paul Ryan's plan to slash Medicaid spending and convert what remains into a system of block grants administered by the states. The $300 billion federal-state program providing health care for millions of poor, elderly and disabled Americans faces a triple whammy from the recession, as rising rolls, declining state tax revenues and the end of stimulus funding from Washington imperil benefits and beneficiaries. If states like Mississippi, Arizona... more Posted on June 16, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	Killing Medicare in Pictures "We want to save Medicare," a senior GOP aide put it, "while Democrats would let it die." Sadly for him, it appears that Republicans spouting that talking point are about to be mugged by reality. For starters, recent polling shows the American people are overwhelmingly opposed to the Ryan plan to privatize and ration the government insurance program for 46 million seniors even as Republican presidential primary voters demand fidelity to it. Worse still for the 235 House Republicans and... more Posted on June 12, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	The Republicans' Medicare Bumper Sticker The growing backlash against their plan to end the Medicare guaranteed government insurance program for 46 million Americans is producing near-panic in Republican ranks. With polls showing overwhelming opposition to the Ryan rationing scheme, House GOP leaders begged President Obama to stop the "demagoguery" about their reckless privatization scheme even as Republicans tried and failed to get a New Hampshire TV station to pull an ad declaring the GOP "voted to end Medicare." Meanwhile, The Hill reports, Minnesota Representative and... more Posted on June 5, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	GOP Medicare Killers Now Pretend to Be Saviors After their debacle in the New York special election last week, Republicans promised to improve the marketing of Paul Ryan's plan to privatize and ration Medicare. We now know what that new and improved message will be. As one Republican aide regurgitated the new GOP sound bite, "We want to save Medicare, while Democrats would let it die." Of course, the American people can be forgiven for being more than a little skeptical. After all, the GOP that terrified the... more Posted on May 29, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	Republicans Perform "720" on Ryan Plan to Kill Medicare In figure skating, gymnastics, skateboarding and other sports, performing a720-degree, double-rotation is not for the faint of heart. When it comes to their plan to end the Medicare system of guaranteed insurance for 46 million Americans, Republicans attempting the rare 720 are learning that the hard way. After all, in just two short years, members of the party that for 50 years has tried to kill Medicare have been for, then against, once again for and now against Paul Ryan's... more Posted on May 23, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	Disappearing Emergency Rooms Expose GOP Health Care Farce "People have access to health care in America," George W. Bush declared in 2007, adding, "After all, you just go to an emergency room." But with a new report from the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) showing a steep decline in emergency room capacity nationwide, the ER health care solution championed by President Bush, Mitch McConnell, Tom Delay and other Republican leaders for 50 million uninsured has once again been exposed as a cruel farce. As the New... more Posted on May 18, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	McConnell Demands Dems' Help "Stick It to Seniors" On Friday, Medicare's board of trustees announced that the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010 has added eight years of solvency to the health care program serving 46 million American seniors. That news capped a week of political irony involving Medicare. After freshmen House Republicans complained to President Obama about the backlash over their vote to kill the guaranteed insurance program, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell demanded Democrats join the GOP in passing draconian Medicare reduction as a condition of... more Posted on May 14, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	Meet the New Face of Medicaid If you were wondering what impact the Paul Ryan budget passed last month by all but four House Republicans will have on American health care, the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Urban Institute have your answer. If enacted, the GOP repeal of the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA) combined with the conversion of Medicaid into an underfunded system of block grants to the states would result in up to 44 million Americans losing health insurance. Which means that the new... more Posted on May 11, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	Health Reform Law Brings Insurance to Millions This Year This week, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) admitted that the Republican effort to repeal the 2010 health care law is "dead." But while all eyes are now focused on the lawsuit by 26 states to overturn the law and its individual insurance mandate, hundreds of thousands of Americans are already getting coverage thanks to the Affordable Care Act. While the law's provisions enabling 32 million people to obtain insurance don't kick in until 2014, families and... more Posted on May 5, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	Michele Bachmann and the Great Republican Enchickening on Medicare Appearing on Fox News Sunday, Minnesota Representative and would-be 2012 GOP White House hopeful Michele Bachmann announced she was placing an "asterisk" next to her vote for the Paul Ryan budget plan to end Medicare as we know it. Given her usual hyperbole, such as her warning this week that the federal tax burden now at its lowest level since 1950 is a "disenfranchisement" akin to the Holocaust, Bachmann's fear about "shifting the cost burden to seniors" is unexpected. And... more Posted on May 1, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	Republicans Violate Their "Seniors' Bill of Rights" That didn't take long. As the battle over health care reform reached a fever pitch in the fall of 2009, the Republican National Committee rolled out a "Seniors' Bill of Rights." But with the midterms safely won, the GOP has predictably turned its back on its pledge of "no cuts to Medicare to pay for another program." After all, the House GOP budget passed last week not only and massively shifts costs onto the elderly. As it turns out, the... more Posted on April 19, 2011 \| Comments (2)

	Republicans Were Against Ryan Plan Before They Were For It In a telling moment during the run-up to the midterm elections last fall, Congressman Paul Ryan declared of his proposed Roadmap for America's Future, "My plan is not the Republican Party's platform and was never intended to be." Not, it turned out, until after Election Day. Because while 235 House Republicans with Speaker John Boehner's enthusiastic support voted yesterday to kill Medicare, gut Medicaid and deliver yet another trillion dollar tax cut windfall to the wealthy, before November 2, 2010... more Posted on April 16, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	50 Years Later, Republicans Still Trying to Kill Medicare Today, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) confirmed the obvious about Paul Ryan's plan to end Medicare as we know it. The GOP plan to "voucherize" and inevitably ration Medicare would lead to future seniors paying more - much more - for health insurance. Of course, killing the wildly popular program which helped dramatically reduce poverty among the elderly is no problem for the Republicans. After all, they've been at it for 50 years. When Rep. Ryan first introduced his Roadmap... more Posted on April 6, 2011 \| Comments (1)

	GOP Budget Pits Rich, Elderly Against Everyone Else Last November, the elderly and the rich powered Republicans to victory in the midterm elections. Voters aged 65 and older backed the GOP by a staggering 59% to 38%, while boosting their share of the turnout to 21% from 16% in 2008. Those with family incomes over $200,000 chose Republicans over Democrats by a 30 point margin. Now, the GOP is rewarding seniors and the wealthy for their loyalty. As it turns out, the Ryan budget blueprint presented today delivers... more Posted on April 5, 2011 \| Comments (1)

	GOP Budget Proposal for 2012 to Gut Medicaid On Sunday, House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) previewed his party's 2012 budget proposal due out Tuesday. Needless to say, its target of $4 trillion in deficit reduction over the next decade won't be met by simply letting the Bush tax cuts expire. Instead, Ryan as widely expected will propose the "voucherization" and inevitable rationing of Medicare. But in a less discussed development, Republicans also hope to slash Medicaid funding by $1 trillion over 10 years while sending the... more Posted on April 3, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	RIP: GOP "Repeal and Replace" of Health Care Law A year after President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law, comically dire Republican predictions of an "Armageddon" which will "ruin our country" and mean "a lot of people are going to die" have not come to pass. Of course, that didn't stop Mitt Romney from marking the anniversary by pretending he never supported virtually identical legislation in his own state or prevent Wisconsin Republican Senator Ron Johnson from claiming that his daughter "probably wouldn't have survived" in a... more Posted on March 23, 2011 \| Comments (4)

	One Year Later, Study Shows Health Care Reform Can't Come Soon Enough Just in the time for this week's one year anniversary of the passage of the Affordable Care Act, a new study by the Commonwealth Fund revealed that the new health care reform law's full implementation can't come soon enough. Since the start of the recession, almost 60% of Americans who lost a job and their health insurance- 9 million people - could not afford to regain coverage. Medical costs pushed four million more into bankruptcy. Mercifully, as the analysis also... more Posted on March 20, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	GOP's Paul Ryan Accidentally Endorses Obamacare For Republicans, a funny thing happened on the way to privatizing Medicare. Hoping to transform the wildly popular, low-overhead government program for 46 million American seniors into a voucher system for purchasing private insurance, Paul Ryan and his GOP allies inadvertently made a strong case for the Affordable Care Act for everyone else. A little background helps explain the conservative conundrum. Back in April 2009, 137 House Republicans voted for an alternative budget including a proposal from Ryan which "called... more Posted on March 15, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	Republicans Double-Cross the Elderly Terrified by bogus Republican claims of draconian Democratic cuts to Medicare, elderly voters propelled the GOP to an overwhelming victory last November. Voters 65 and over, the only age group to support John McCain in 2008, boosted their share of the turnout to 21% from 16% two years earlier. Nationwide, Republicans won seniors by a staggering 59% to 38%. But now safely in power, Republicans are betraying the same elderly Americans who put them there. In the House, GOP leaders... more Posted on March 12, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	GOP to America: We're All Mississippians Now Republicans have seen the future and it's in Mississippi. On the same day Wisconsin Republicans turned to unprecedented and possibly illegal maneuvers to strip public workers of collective bargaining rights, the Michigan legislature blessed emergency powers for Governor Rick Snyder to terminate municipal contracts across the state. And while Idaho joined Tennessee in seeking to curb teachers' unions, in Ohio SB5 is moving full steam ahead. Meanwhile, back in Washington, GOP Senators introduced a national "right-to-work" bill designed to make... more Posted on March 10, 2011 \| Comments (3)

	Republicans Push to Legalize Anti-Abortion Terrorism During his 2004 campaign, Oklahoma Republican Senator Tom Coburn declared, "I favor the death penalty for abortionists." Four years later, vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin famously refused to condemn an abortion clinic bomber as a "terrorist." Last week, a GOP mayoral candidate in Jacksonville joked that bombing an abortion clinic "may cross my mind." Now, deadly serious Republican lawmakers in Nebraska and Iowa are pushing legislation that would in essence legalize the murder of abortion providers. Less than two years... more Posted on February 25, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	The Republican Betrayal of the Elderly Begins Perhaps more than any other factor, the overwhelming Republican midterm triumph was fueled by the elderly. Voters 65 and over, the only age group to support John McCain in 2008, boosted their share of the turnout to 21% from 16% two years earlier. Nationwide, Republicans won seniors by a staggering 59% to 38%. But now, their reward is a slap in the face. After all, from trying to repeal health care reform and threatening to shutdown the government to proposals... more Posted on February 20, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	Will GOP Push Ryan's Plan to Ration Medicare? On Tuesday, House Budget Committee Paul Ryan blasted Obama budget chief Jack Lew over entitlement spending, declaring "why did you duck?" But for their part, Republicans have yet to offer their own plan for addressing the fiscal health of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. While Majority Leader Eric Cantor promised "a serious document" addressing entitlement reform by "the beginning of April," Speaker John Boehner did some ducking of his own, announcing he would "let Paul Ryan and the Budget Committee... more Posted on February 17, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	Mitt Romney Rewrites His Book - and History Perpetual presidential candidate Mitt Romney has performed more flips than an X Games champion. The pro-choice Senate candidate (and Planned Parenthood donor) of 1994 did a hard right turn on abortion for the approaching 2008 GOP primaries, prompting adviser Michael Murphy to acknowledge "he's been a pro-life Mormon faking it as a pro-choice friendly." On immigration, disinvestment from Iran, the significance of Osama Bin Laden and even his state of residence, Romney's gymnastic contortions are the stuff of legend. But... more Posted on February 12, 2011 \| Comments (2)

	The Return of the Republican Malpractice Frauds Back in September 2009, Republicans made the unfortunate selection Louisiana Congressman and physician Charles Boustany to deliver the GOP response to President Obama's address on health care. Unfortunate, it turned out, because tort reform champion Boustany himself has been repeatedly - and successfully - sued for medical malpractice. Now, Georgia Congressman and retired obstetrician Phil Gingrey is pushing legislation to severely restrict litigation and cap damage awards after paying a $500,000 settlement himself. As the New York Times described Dr.... more Posted on February 10, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	Republicans Continue to Mock the "Health of the Mother" In a 2008 campaign full of low points, John McCain's deepest descent may have come during his final presidential debate with Barack Obama. Dripping with condescension, McCain used air quotes to mock the concern of abortion rights advocates for the "health of mother." Now two years later, the new Republican majority in Congress is trying to make that caustic disregard for the health and safety of American women the law of the land. By the fall of 2008, McCain's reversal... more Posted on February 5, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	Right-Wing Hoax Highlights GOP Redefinition of Rape As TPM and others reported last week, Planned Parenthood had alerted the FBI that some of its clinics had likely been targeted by right-wing activists claiming to run an interstate sex trafficking ring that involves minors and illegal immigrants. So that the anti-abortion group Live Action and its Andrew Breitbart megaphone Big Government are trumpeting the results of their "sting" comes as no surprise. What is ironic, though, is that some of the abuse of women they claim to decry... more Posted on February 1, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	The Republican Patients' Bill of Wrongs On Wednesday, House Republicans will keep half of their grandstanding promise to "repeal and replace" the 2010 health care reform law. But the easy part ends there. As the Washington Post explains, GOP leaders are still far offering anything to replace the Affordable Care Act they hope to kill in whole or in part. Worse still, their quixotic effort comes after the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office confirmed the GOP's repeal bill would not only lead to higher out of pocket... more Posted on January 19, 2011 \| Comments (2)

	GOP Hypocrites Creating Uncertainty over Debt and Health Care For years, Republicans have deployed the word "uncertainty" to stymie any public policy with which they disagreed. A decade after President Bush declared "scientific uncertainties remain" about global warming, virtually the entire Congressional Republican caucus has proudly joined the deniers' camp. Last month, GOP leaders revved up the uncertainty myth over taxes, falsely claiming that another tax cut windfall for the wealth was needed to "reduce the uncertainty that's affecting employers all across our country." Of course, on two of... more Posted on January 14, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	Small Businesses Adding Coverage Thanks to Health Care Reform In the wake of Saturday's bloodbath in Tucson, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) announced that Wednesday's vote on the GOP bill to repeal health reform would be delayed. (That is altogether fitting, as Rep. Gabrielle Giffords received death threats and saw her office vandalized after her March 2010 vote for the Affordable Care Act.) But while the Republicans have postponed their quixotic effort to undo the law that will enable health insurance for 32 million Americans, evidence in support... more Posted on January 10, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	CBO: GOP Health Care Repeal Adds $230 Billion to Deficit Today is shaping up as a very bad day for the quixotic GOP effort to repeal the 2010 health care reform law. Even as the number two House Republican Eric Cantor was telling the CBS Early Show that the Affordable Care Act is full of "budget gimmickry" that "costs over $1 trillion," the Congressional Budget Office was making a liar out of him. As the new CBO analysis revealed, the GOP's repeal effort wouldn't merely deny health care coverage to... more Posted on January 6, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	Rasmussen Poll, Media Misrepresent Obama Health Care Promise On Monday, The Hill reported on a new Rasmussen poll under the provocative title, "Nearly half of voters don't believe key healthcare promise by Obama." That supposed pledge, as The Hill described it, was that "the law would not require individuals to change their coverage." But absent from this incendiary meme was the real guarantee President Obama repeatedly made that "what I'm saying is the government is not going to make you change plans under health reform." Sadly, as the... more Posted on January 3, 2011 \| Comments (0)

	This Just In: Red State Health Care Still Dismal This week's release of the 2010 U.S. Census produced gloating from conservatives ecstatic about new Congressional seats in Republican, low-tax states. But as even as they celebrate their added political clout, GOP cheerleaders remain predictably silent about another recent study. The UnitedHealth Foundation's "America's Health Rankings" became just the latest analysis to show that health care is worst in precisely those states where Republicans poll best. The findings from the UnitedHealth Group project revealed that Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut... more Posted on December 23, 2010 \| Comments (0)

	Studies Refute Justice Kennedy on Post-Abortion Syndrome In one of the most condescending and paternalistic Supreme Court opinions in recent memory, Justice Anthony Kennedy in April 2007 upheld a federal late term abortion ban on the grounds that "some women come to regret their choice." 18 months later, an exhaustive study of 20 years of research concluded that there is no evidence to support the mythical "post-abortion syndrome" hyped by anti-abortion forces - and regurgitated by Justice Kennedy in Gonzales v. Carhart. And now, a new analysis... more Posted on December 21, 2010 \| Comments (3)

	Palin Endorses Medicare Rationing Fresh off her pronouncements on the Fed's "quantitative easing" and federal aid to the states, Sarah Palin this week added the deficit and Medicare to her Potemkin façade of policy expertise. A year after she first endorsed converting Medicare into a voucher program, Palin took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal to endorse Congressman Paul Ryan's "Roadmap for America." Which is more than a little ironic for the propagator of the "death panels" myth. As it turns out,... more Posted on December 11, 2010 \| Comments (2)

	GOP Wages War on 59 Million Uninsured Emboldened by their midterm victories, the GOP and its amen corner have stepped up their war against the Affordable Care Act. Yesterday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell promised to file a friend-of-the-court brief in the multistate lawsuit challenging its constitutionality. In Texas, Republicans are threatening to withdraw from Medicaid, a move which would swell the ranks of the Lone Star State's uninsured to a stunning 40%. Meanwhile, Rush Limbaugh added a new attack on the health care reform law, declaring... more Posted on November 10, 2010 \| Comments (0)

	AP Poll, GOP Pledge Back Health Care Changes Almost from the moment President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law, Republicans have campaigned on a rejectionist platform of "repeal and replace." The promise to "repeal the job killing health care law" is one of the pillars of their so-called "Pledge to America" released this week. But as a new AP poll suggests, overconfident GOP defenders of the status quo should take note "that Americans who think the law should have done more outnumber those who think the... more Posted on September 25, 2010 \| Comments (1)

	Employers Accelerate Shift of Health Care Costs to Workers A new study by the Kaiser Family Foundation forecast that family health insurance premiums will rise by only 3% in 2010. Sadly, the good news from the Employer Health Benefits 2010 Annual Survey ends there. Coming on the heels of several reports showing financially-strapped Americans dramatically cutting back on needed medical treatment, the Kaiser survey found that workers' share of the cost of a family policy jumped by a staggering 14 percent, an increase of about $500 a year. As... more Posted on September 3, 2010 \| Comments (1)

	Recession Forcing Americans to Cut Back on Health Care With the first wave of its new provisions set to begin in September, Americans' support for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is gradually growing. And with good reason. A Commonwealth Fund study released last month concluded that the health care reform law will be especially beneficial to women. And now, a new analysis confirms that the economic downturn is driving Americans to dramatically cut back on routine health care, self-rationing made worse by the Bush recession. That finding comes from... more Posted on August 18, 2010 \| Comments (1)

	GOP's Paul Ryan Doubles Down on Medicare Rationing No doubt, Wisconsin Republican Congressman Paul Ryan's dashing good looks make the Washington chattering classes weak at the knees. But his policy proposals make most Americans - including most of his party leadership - sick to their stomachs. After all, the past week highlighted how Ryan's supposedly budget-balancing Roadmap for America's Future would instead produce $4 trillion in red ink. And now, Rep. Ryan is doubling down on his plan to ration Medicare. Hoping to lead the party that tried... more Posted on August 13, 2010 \| Comments (0)

	Perry Calls Texas' 46th-Ranked Health System Best in U.S. Everything, they say, is bigger in the Texas. So it is with the failure of the health care system. Leading the nation with a horrifying 25% of its residents uninsured, Texas ranked 46th in the Commonwealth Fund's 2009 scorecard of state health care performance. Nevertheless, that dismal performance was no barrier to Governor Rick Perry proclaiming that the Lone Star state has the best health care in the country. Perry the full-time fabulist and part-time secessionist made his jaw-dropping claim... more Posted on July 29, 2010 \| Comments (1)

	Insurers and Employers, Not Government, Limiting Choice of Doctors During the heated debate over health care reform, President Obama repeatedly insisted that under his proposal, "you can keep your doctor." But the President was also careful to add the important caveat, "what I'm saying is the government is not going to make you change plans under health reform." Which is exactly right. But by shifting costs to employees or dropping coverage altogether, American employers for years have been limiting workers' ability to choose which doctor - if any -... more Posted on July 18, 2010 \| Comments (0)

	Berwick Pick Highlights GOP's Rationing of Health Care Back in February, Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan defended his "Roadmap for America's Future," which among other things would privatize - and inevitably ration - Medicare. "Rationing happens today!" Ryan revealingly protested, "The question is who will do it? The government? Or you, your doctor and your family?" Of course, he omitted the real culprit, private insurers. Now with President Obama's long overdue recess appointment of the highly respected Donald Berwick to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, Republicans are... more Posted on July 7, 2010 \| Comments (1)

	Michael Steele and the GOP's Inside Poop on Medicare Republican leaders are calling for Michael Steele's head in the wake of his remarks calling the conflict in Afghanistan "a war of Obama's choosing" which is destined to fail. But it's hardly the first time the GOP threatened Steele with the chopping block for bucking the party line. Last year, when the RNC chairman rolled out his "seniors bill of rights" committing the GOP to "no cuts to Medicare", Republicans told their chairman to "quit meddling in policy." Of course,... more Posted on July 4, 2010 \| Comments (1)

	U.S. Health Care Still Badly Lags Competitors The past week has brought a lot of heat if not light to the ongoing battle over health care reform in the United States. On Tuesday, President Obama unveiled a "Patients Bill of Rights" touting new consumer protections. Meanwhile, even as polls show the Affordable Care Act is becoming more popular, House Minority Leader John Boehner pronounced it a failure despite its provisions having not taken effect. But as a new Commonwealth Fund study revealed, the bottom line is unchanged.... more Posted on June 24, 2010 \| Comments (0)

	GOP Uses Rationing Ploy to Block Obama Medicare Nominee Back in February, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) rolled out his Republican "Roadmap for America's Future." When confronted about the certainty that his drastic privatization scheme would inevitably lead to rationing of Medicare, Ryan departed from the GOP health care script to protest, "Rationing happens today!" But now, Senate Republicans are trying to block Donald Berwick, President Obama's highly respected nominee to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, for making precisely the same observation. First, a little background. That health... more Posted on May 25, 2010 \| Comments (0)

	The Great Republican Rollback For years, retail giant Wal-Mart and its smiley face logo have lured American shoppers to its stores with a campaign to "rollback" prices. Now, as Kentucky GOP Senate candidate Rand Paul was just the latest to make clear this week, the Republican Party is waging a rollback campaign of its own. From health care, Social Security and Medicare to civil rights, abortion and the U.S Constitution itself, Republicans are trying to turn back the clock to 1964, or 1933, or... more Posted on May 23, 2010 \| Comments (3)

	GOP's "Second Opinion" on Health Care Same as First Back in March, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced his party's fall campaign to undo health care reform, declaring, "I think the slogan will be 'repeal and replace', 'repeal and replace.'" But a funny thing happened on the way to November. Surveys from Kaiser and Deloitte showed Americans strongly supported individual provisions of the new law, while Republicans' own polling revealed independents hated "repeal and replace." This week, an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showed Americans want to give the new... more Posted on May 14, 2010 \| Comments (0)

	A Perfect Storm for Regulatory Reform For conservative free-market ideologues, April has been the cruelest month, indeed. In a perfect storm washing over Republican foes of government regulation, the last several days alone featured unbridled Wall Street greed, corporate mismanagement of a devastating oil spill, and corruption and criminality in the nation's coal mines. Meanwhile, in another blow to GOP "repeal and replace" orthodoxy, Americans health insurers have already begun to end their cruel practice of rescission years before the mandate enshrined by President Obama's health... more Posted on April 30, 2010 \| Comments (0)

	When Romney Met Kennedy As his somersaulting positions on abortion, immigration, Iran, Osama Bin Laden and myriad other issues showed, watching Mitt Romney's political gymnastics has long been painful. But with the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Romney's contortionist act has reached a new low. Joining the ranks of Republicans demanding the repeal of a federal health care law virtually identical to the one he championed in Massachusetts, the 2012 White House hopeful finds himself "in a box" or the... more Posted on April 3, 2010 \| Comments (2)

	Romney Opposes Himself. Again. If Republicans suffered a devastating defeat this week with the passage of President Obama's health care reform bill, Mitt Romney was the biggest loser of all. While the 2012 White House hopeful declared that "President Obama betrayed his oath to the nation," even conservatives acknowledged that the individual insurance mandate Massachusetts Governor Romney signed into law is virtually identical to the federal one he now decries. And as his long history of acrobatic flip-flops and painful political contortion acts on... more Posted on March 27, 2010 \| Comments (0)

	The Bipartisanship Scorecard After a year of rancorous debate, Congress has given its blessing to the final health care reform bill. As expected, the reconciliation fixes to the $940 billion package received exactly zero Republican votes, passing the House 220 to 207 and 56 to 43 in the Senate. In theory, the born-again deficit virgins of the GOP should also have been happy. After all, the CBO forecasts the final health care bill for less than half the cost of the 2001 and... more Posted on March 26, 2010 \| Comments (0)

	10 Years After Bush's Worst Speech, GOP Offers Only Fear Itself I've long felt that George W. Bush's acceptance speech at the 2000 Republican National Convention was among the most arrogant and reprehensible in the annals of American political oratory. But now that his party's overheated rhetoric on health care has helped foment threats and violence, Bush's address in retrospect was a masterpiece of projection as well. In claiming that the Al Gore's Party of Roosevelt "had their moment" and had nothing to offer but "fear itself," Bush could have been... more Posted on March 25, 2010 \| Comments (3)

	AG's Fight to Preserve States' Dismal Health Care That 14 state attorneys general - 13 of them Republicans - have brought a lawsuit to stop the health care reform legislation signed into law Tuesday by President Obama is a perfect reflection of today's GOP. It not only confirms the Republican Party's longstanding mantra of "judicial activism for me, not thee." The suit, which challenges the individual insurance mandate originally proffered by Republicans, would require the Supreme Court to eviscerate over 200 years of precedent regarding the Commerce Clause... more Posted on March 24, 2010 \| Comments (2)

	You're Welcome! From the beginning, two great, largely unmentioned ironies hung over the contentious health care debate. The first elephant in the room (pun intended) is that health care is worst in those states where Republicans poll best. The second is that it will be blue state taxpayers helping fund the improvement of the dismal health care systems in those reddest (and mostly southern) states. So to raging Red Staters furious about Sunday's landmark legislation, the message from Blue America is a... more Posted on March 22, 2010 \| Comments (2)

	What the Health Care Debate Was Really About After a year - decades, really - the debate over health care reform came down to a climactic vote in the United States House of Representatives. Many people of good faith in both political parties were separated by a genuine - and fundamental - ideological divide. But as their ferocity revealed, for the GOP the conflict all along was more about power than policy. Republicans were afraid not that Democratic health care reforms would fail the American people, but that... more Posted on March 21, 2010 \| Comments (3)

	GOP Leaders Embrace Tea Party Bigotry Rule #1: No one displaying the Confederate flag gets to lecture any American about patriotism. Rule #2: For a Republican Party intent on co-opting the Tea Party protests it helped foster, silence is golden. So while Democrats Tim Ryan (D-OH), Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and Barney Frank (D-MA) rushed to denounce the racist and homophobic slurs of Tea Baggers directed at U.S. Congressmen, the GOP has thus far been silent. The absence of a rebuke for the shouts of the n-word... more Posted on March 21, 2010 \| Comments (0)

	The 10 Republican No's on Health Care When it comes to the health care reform bill, perfect is the enemy of good. But Republicans are the enemy of everything. And on Sunday, every member of the House GOP will likely vote against the final health care reform bill that will bring coverage to 32 million more Americans, end insurance company abuses involving rescission, pre-existing conditions and lifetime caps on payments, all while slashing the federal budget deficit by $1.3 trillion over the next two decades. But in... more Posted on March 20, 2010 \| Comments (3)

	Broun: Health Care for Red States a "War of Yankee Aggression" For many Republicans from Dixie, the old times there are not forgotten. But in equating the health care reform bill to the "Great War of Yankee Aggression," Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) has served up a double irony. For starters, Broun is among the growing legion of Congressional Republicans trying to kill Medicare through privatization. More ironic still, the unhealthiest residents and worst health care systems can be found in pecisely those red southern states where Republicans poll best. To the... more Posted on March 19, 2010 \| Comments (4)

	CBO Highlights Republican Deficit Posturing The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates for the final health care bill are bringing smiles to Democratic faces. Over 10 years, the $940 billion package will cover 32 million more Americans while ending insurance abuses including rescission and the use of pre-existing conditions to deny coverage. But the ersatz deficit hawks of the Republican Party should be happy, too. For less than half the cost of the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts, the CBO forecasts the final health care... more Posted on March 18, 2010 \| Comments (0)

	Republicans Sick and Tired of the Sick and Tired As the health care reform debate heads into its final days, the Republican opposition is turning on the sick themselves. This week, the right-wing echo chamber blasted an 11 year old boy whose mother passed away due to lack of health insurance. And a day after the conservative blogosphere protested that Obama insurance reform case study Natoma Canfield might yet receive charity from the prestigious Cleveland Clinic, furious Tea Party activists in Washington taunted a man suffering from Parkinson's disease.... more Posted on March 17, 2010 \| Comments (2)

	Employers Rapidly Shifting Health Care Costs to Workers As the year-long health care debate approaches its end game in Washington, opponents of reform are being buffeted by a double-whammy of bad news. Last week, a Goldman Sachs analysis documented insurance rates for individuals jumping by up to 50% in some markets. Now, a new survey of large employers found that 56% will hold workers responsible for a greater share of health care costs next year. Coming on the heels of studies showing companies dropping workplace coverage altogether, the... more Posted on March 12, 2010 \| Comments (7)

	Distant Obama Cousin Slams Health Care Plan As Ron Reagan Jr. made clear to Frank Gaffney and Pam Geller, the relatives of political icons don't always echo their views. (Gaffney went so far as tell Reagan, "Your father would be ashamed of you.") Now, as the health care debate nears it climax, the Washington Times has trotted out Dr. Milton Wolf, "Barack Obama's second cousin once removed," to maul the President's health care plan. But while Dr. Wolf's personalized version of conservative talking points is music to... more Posted on March 11, 2010 \| Comments (0)

	Tom Delay Insists Jobless Choose Unemployment Back in 2007, former House Majority Leader Tom Delay explained the Republican emergency room health care plan to a British audience. "There's no one denied health care in America," he announced to laughter, "there are 47 million people who don't have health insurance, but no American is denied health care in America." Which makes Tom Delay the perfect choice to make the GOP's case that the jobless choose to be unemployed. Delay's latest jaw-dropper came during his defense of the... more Posted on March 7, 2010 \| Comments (2)

	Romney vs. Pawlenty on the GOP's ER Health Care Plan For years, Republican leaders including President George W. Bush, former House Minority Leader Tom Delay and current Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have insisted that "no American is denied health care in America" because "you just go to an emergency room." But while Mitt Romney reminded Joe Scarborough that the funds Massachusetts used to pay to meet that federal requirement made the Bay State's near-universal health care program possible, his 2012 GOP White House rival Tim Pawlenty wants to eliminate... more Posted on March 4, 2010 \| Comments (0)

	For Hatch's GOP, No Reconciliation with the Truth When it comes to the budget reconciliation process in the Senate, the truth is not setting Republicans free. On Sunday, John McCain vowed to end the use of reconciliation to change Medicare, despite the GOP's repeated deployment of that same tactic for 30 years. Now, Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, who previously warned Democrats that resorting to the 51 vote simple majority to pass health care would trigger a "holy war," ignored his own voting record to declare in the Washington... more Posted on March 2, 2010 \| Comments (2)

	McCain: Prohibit Use of Reconciliation to Change Medicare Republicans desperate to halt health care reform at all costs are turning to a new gambit. To Democrats intent on passing a Senate bill with a 51 vote simple majority via the reconciliation process, Republicans for months have warned the move would trigger a "holy war" (Hatch), a "nuclear war" (Kyl) or even "end the Senate" (Alexander). Now, John McCain hopes to foreclose that option with an amendment that would prohibit the use of reconciliation to change the Medicare program.... more Posted on March 1, 2010 \| Comments (0)

	The Resurrection of Lamar Alexander In May 1996, a sheepish businessman admitted to a hotel bellhop, "There's a guy in the lobby who was running for president two months ago, and now I've forgotten his name." When the bellhop told him the man was the former Tennessee Governor, the businessman quickly remembered, "that's right, Lamar Alexander." Now, 14 years after he hung up his trademark red and black flannel shirt as he exited the 1996 Republican presidential primaries, Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander suddenly matters again.... more Posted on February 28, 2010 \| Comments (2)

	Pawlenty Calls for End to GOP's ER Health Care Plan For years, Republican leaders including President George W. Bush, former House Minority Leader Tom Delay and current Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have insisted that "no American is denied health care in America" because "you just go to an emergency room." Apparently, Minnesota Governor and 2012 White House Republican hopeful Tim Pawlenty didn't read the memo on the GOP's emergency room health care plan. On Monday, the man who calls himself T-Paw told Fox News' Greta Van Susteren (around the... more Posted on February 26, 2010 \| Comments (10)

	At Health Care Summit, GOP Repeats Same "Start Over" Talking Point from July At Thursday's White House health care summit, President Obama pleaded with the participants for "a discussion, and not just us trading talking points." Alas, as Tennessee Republican Lamar Alexander made clear from the get-go, the President was destined for disappointment. In his opening remarks, Alexander insisted Democrats should abandon the bills they've already passed and start from a fresh sheet of paper. But in proclaiming that "This is a car that can't be recalled and fixed and we ought to... more Posted on February 25, 2010 \| Comments (3)

	White House Summit Highlights Republican Malpractice Myths In the run-up to Thursday's White House health care summit, the Washington Post's Ezra Klein documented "the six Republican ideas already in the health-care reform bill." Among these is the GOP's favorite whipping boy, tort reform. But the Senate provision which "encourages states to develop new malpractice systems and suggests that Congress fund the most promising experiments" will never mollify Republicans determined to enact draconian curbs on malpractice awards to, as they say, "end junk lawsuits." As for the "sorry... more Posted on February 25, 2010 \| Comments (2)

	Republicans Trying to Kill Medicare. Again. Back in October, Republicans leaders slammed party chief Michael Steele for his "Seniors' Bill of Rights" which promised "no cuts to Medicare." Not because they weren't issuing dire - and mythical - warnings that Democrats were "sticking it to seniors with cuts to Medicare." No, the GOP brain trust was furious precisely because Steele's was a promise they were already intent on breaking. After all, the same Republican Party which tried to kill Medicare in the 1960's and gut it... more Posted on February 12, 2010 \| Comments (4)

	For Republicans, No Means No If nothing else, Barack Obama is a glutton for punishment. Apparently confident in his ability to manhandle the Republican leadership in the wake of his televised beat-down of the House GOP caucus two weeks ago, Obama has invited McConnell, Boehner and company to the White House for a health care summit. But instead of applying a full-court press on recalcitrant members of his own party to finally pass a Democratic bill the country so badly needs, Obama will waste yet... more Posted on February 8, 2010 \| Comments (1)

	MA Voters Balk at Funding Red State Health Care One day before voters head to the polls, several factors seem to be fueling Republican Scott Brown's surprising lead over Martha Coakley in the Massachusetts Senate race. Voter anger over the economy, Coakley's weak candidacy and Brown's strength among independents who now dominate Bay State politics are just some of the dynamics at work. But when it comes to health care, voters in a state where 97% of residents already have insurance simply may not want to fund coverage for... more Posted on January 18, 2010 \| Comments (0)

	Rush Limbaugh Praises Blue State Health Care Last week, Republican strategist Kevin Madden chastised President Obama for choosing to vacation in a "foreign place" like Hawaii, concluding "it's much different than being in Texas." Rush Limbaugh, it turns out, couldn't disagree more. The right-wing radio host and avid golfer not only visits the islands every year. After his New Year's Eve scare with chest pains, Limbaugh had nothing but praise for the care he received there. And for good reason: while Hawaii ranks second in state health... more Posted on January 3, 2010 \| Comments (5)

	Blue States Balk at Funding Red State Health Care The civil war over health care reform is rapidly becoming a war between the states. To great fanfare, seven state attorneys general - all of them Republicans - have promised legal action to block the Senate health care bill's Medicaid exception for Ben Nelson's Nebraska. But while the media have focused on the right-wing furor over the imbroglio derisively known as the "Nebraska Compromise," "Cash for Cloture" or the "Cornhusker Kickback," a second wave of protest is going largely unnoticed.... more Posted on December 29, 2009 \| Comments (3)

	McConnell and Friends Whitewash GOP Medicare Drug Plan Hypocrisy Only after both chambers of Congress had already voted on the health care reform bills which will cut the deficit, AP on Saturday belatedly looked back at the deeply flawed and unfunded Medicare prescription drug program Republicans jammed through Congress in 2003. 24 hours later, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell appeared on ABC's This Week to add his to the chorus of Republican voices protesting that was then and this is now. As Reagan Treasury official Bruce Bartlett told the AP,... more Posted on December 28, 2009 \| Comments (3)

	Lumps of Coal for Time and the New York Times Judging by two articles which appeared in their publications this holiday week, Time and the New York Times won't be getting a visit from Santa. Time's Amy Sullivan predictably stirred up right-wing rage with her just-in-time for the holidays, "No Churchgoing Christmas for the First Family." Meanwhile, David Herszenhorn described the Senate's "new partisan vitriol" in an account which conveniently omitted noting which party was responsible for it. Helping to resurrecting conservative mythmaking about President Obama's faith, Sullivan alerted readers:... more Posted on December 25, 2009 \| Comments (4)

	Remembering Kennedy - and the Republican Goal - on Health Care Senate passage of the health care bill this morning naturally brought fond remembrances of reform's long time champion, Ted Kennedy. While his successor Paul Kirk announced, "He's having a merry Christmas in heaven," Kennedy's long-time Massachusetts colleague John Kerry concurred, "Ted Kennedy is up there smiling." But back here on earth, it's worth remembering why his Republican opponents waged an all-out war for four decades to block Ted Kennedy's dream of universal health care for the American people from ever... more Posted on December 24, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Bipartisanship's Willing Executioners Republicans win, even when they lose. That appears to be the conventional wisdom after the Democrats' crucial victory in the Senate health care vote this weekend. In its wake, media outlets gave credence to John McCain's assertion that thanks to President Obama, Washington is "more partisan" and "more bitterly divided than it's been." That followed the pronouncement of CNN's supposedly moderate Republican analyst David Gergen, who proclaimed the party line vote "a tragedy" since it did not garner a "super... more Posted on December 22, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	God's Own Party Turns to Him to Block Health Care The first Republican Abraham Lincoln famously proclaimed, "My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side." And as Matthew 4:23-24 tells us, Jesus never refused treatment to those with preexisting conditions, instead "healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people." But as their prayers to God to block health care reform in the run-up to last night's decisive Senate vote show, today's Republicans apparently have... more Posted on December 21, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Six Degrees of John McCain Last week, Politico ran yet another fawning profile of John McCain, declaring him "critic-in-chief." But whether the ersatz Maverick's motivation runs the gamut from "unresolved anger to concern for his right flank as he seeks re-election to genuine dismay about Obama's agenda," McCain has been at or near the center of almost every domestic political news story over the past week. Call it the Six Degrees of John McCain. Or, perhaps more accurately, the First Degree of John McCain. In... more Posted on December 19, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Sheep, Unicorns, Kamikazes and Joe Lieberman When Vermont Republican Senator Jim Jeffords balked at supporting President Bush's wildly irresponsible tax cuts in 2001, the retribution from the White House and its GOP allies in Congress was swift and severe. Ostracized and humiliated, Jeffords became an independent, briefly shifting control of the Senate to Democrats. Assessing that sea change, Connecticut's Joe Lieberman joyously proclaimed: "This is historic. It gives us the opportunity to set the agenda." As it turned out, of course, not so much. With the... more Posted on December 15, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Tea Baggers Ignore U.S. Health Care's Daily "Die-In" On Tuesday, frothing at the mouth Tea Party faithful will protest health care reform legislation by descending on the Senate to holding a "die-in." But while the Tea Baggers will feign dropping dead to dramatize their opposition to health care reform they wrongly believe will leading to rationing, they seem blissfully unconcerned about the thousands of Americans who actually die each year due to lack of insurance. As TPM reported: Tea Party organizer Mark Meckler writes on his site: "The... more Posted on December 14, 2009 \| Comments (7)

	Republicans Warn of Health Care Gulags and Ghettoes For the Republican Party, the only thing worse than lower income Americans not having access to health insurance is having it. That's the conclusion of Texas GOP Senator John Cornyn, who on Sunday deemed the popular Medicaid program that serves 60 million Americans a "health care gulag." That fear-mongering came just days after his Tennessee colleague Lamar Alexander repeatedly branded Medicaid a "medical ghetto." The Democratic health care reform bills passed by the House and under consideration in the Senate... more Posted on December 7, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	2009 Democratic Deficit Cutters vs. 2003 GOP Budget Busters A funny thing has happened on America's way to health care reform. As Republicans promise a "holy war" to block supposed "government-run" health care that would "break the bank", Democrats in the House and the Senate offered reform plans that would cover all almost Americans, plans which pay for themselves. As it turns out, that's a far cry from the GOP's deeply flawed 2003 Medicare prescription drug benefit, an unfunded act of transparent pandering to elderly voters which saddled the... more Posted on November 19, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Red State Reality: Unhealthiest Residents, Worst Health Care Throughout their all-out campaign to stop health care reform, Republican leaders have relied on questionable forecasts from the Lewin Group, a subsidiary of insurer UnitedHealth Group. Now, another study funded by UnitedHealth has some unwelcome news for the GOP braintrust: the red states they represent are the unhealthiest in the nation. Following on the heels of the Commonwealth Fund's 2009 Scorecard of state health care system performance, the United Health Foundation's report is just the latest confirmation that health care... more Posted on November 17, 2009 \| Comments (6)

	GOP Embraces Medicare Official Bush Tried to Fire Politics, especially Republican politics, makes for strange bedfellows. With the AARP by their side, President Bush and his GOP allies in 2003 pushed for their unfunded and deeply flawed Medicare prescription drug plan. Now in their scorched earth campaign to block health care reform backed by the seniors' organization, the right-wing has declared war on the AARP. And the Republican partner swapping doesn't end there. Six years before Republicans hailed chief Medicare actuary Richard Foster this weekend for questioning the... more Posted on November 16, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	House GOP Reverses Role from 2003 Medicare Rx Vote With its talking babies and warnings of government takeovers and terrified seniors, the grandstanding by House Republicans during Saturday's narrow 220-215 passage of the Democratic Affordable Health Care for America Act was entirely predictable. And if that vote count sounds familiar, it should. Six years ago with the AARP by its side, it was the House GOP which eked out a victory for its deeply flawed and unfunded Medicare prescription drug program by an identical margin. But while the roles... more Posted on November 8, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Gingrich and Perry Tout Texas Health Care Mess Everything, they say, is bigger in the Texas. So it is with the failure of the health care system. Leading the nation with a jaw-dropping 25% of its residents uninsured, Texas ranked 46th in the Commonwealth Fund's 2009 scorecard of state health care performance. All of which makes today's op-ed by Newt Gingrich and Governor Rick Perry touting the mess in Texas all the more puzzling. Just two days after the CBO dismissed a House Republican plan that would barely... more Posted on November 6, 2009 \| Comments (5)

	Pat Boone and the Right-Wing War on the AARP Back in 2003, Republican leaders praised the AARP for its support of President Bush's unfunded and deeply flawed Medicare prescription benefit. But now that the 40 million member organization has endorsed the House Democrats' health care reform bill, the GOP is declaring war on its one-time ally. Helping lead the attack is an array of industry-funded front groups and their reactionary has-been spokesmen like Pat Boone. Last week, Republican Congressmen Dave Reichert (R-WA) and Mike Pence (R-IN) implied the nation's... more Posted on November 5, 2009 \| Comments (3)

	The Hatch Truth: GOP Blocking Health Care to Prevent Permanent Democratic Majority A gaffe, Michael Kinsley famously mused, is what results when a politician inadvertently tells the truth. And so it was Monday when Utah Republican Senator Orrin Hatch came clean about his party's scorched-earth opposition to health care reform being championed by President Obama and Congressional Democrats. Hatch acknowledged, as I've long argued, that the GOP is worried not that Obama's health care initiatives might fail, but that they might succeed. As he did in his pivotal effort to block Bill... more Posted on November 2, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	"Emergency Room" McConnell Claims Public Option May Kill You Back in September, a study by Harvard Medical School found that over 44,000 Americans die each year due to lack of health insurance. Now, in a complete reversal of both logic and the truth, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced that it is the availability of a public insurance option which could prove fatal. Of course, McConnell's announcement that the public option "may cost you your life" should come as no surprise. After all, in July he echoed George... more Posted on October 30, 2009 \| Comments (5)

	Broun Joins Palin in Backing GOP Plan to Privatize Medicare Among the more comic story lines of the Republican war on health care reform has been the Party's side-splitting defense of Medicare. After all, the GOP not only tried to block the program in the 1960's, but tried again to gut it thirty years later. But after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell warned Democrats were intent on "sticking it to seniors with cuts to Medicare" and RNC chief Michael Steele called for "no cuts to Medicare to pay for another... more Posted on October 27, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Study Claims U.S. Health Care System Wastes $700 Billion Annually In the wake of its shocking assessment that employer-provided health insurance now covers only 54.6% of the American people, Thomson Reuters released a disturbing assessment of wasteful spending in the U.S. health care system Echoing the estimates of Obama OMB chief Peter Orszag and others, the analysis concluded that the United States wastes up to $700 billion a year - a third of the nation's total $2 trillion health care spending. As Robert Kelley, vice president of healthcare analytics at... more Posted on October 27, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	When Opting Out is Not An Option While the Obama White House, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Congressional Democrats debate among themselves whether a so-called "opt out" public health insurance option will be included in reform legislation, Minnesota Governor and GOP presidential wannabee Tim Pawlenty has already weighed in. Asked if he would "lead a charge" in his state to opt out, Pawlenty replied, "I think so because I don't like government run health care." That's easy for him to say. As it turns out, Minnesota... more Posted on October 26, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Republican Malpractice Myths In recent days, Republican leaders have scored a series of political victories in their eternal quest for tort reform. Last week, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) told Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) that an onerous package of malpractice curbs he championed could save the government an estimated $54 billion over 10 years. That came on the heels of President Obama's latest offer to support limited tort reform as an olive branch to recalcitrant Republicans balking at his health care proposals, including... more Posted on October 23, 2009 \| Comments (5)

	Senate GOP: Delay, Define and Derail Health Care Reform For months, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has led the Republican campaign of fear-mongering "reform that that denies, delays, or rations health care." Now unable to filibuster Democratic legislation on their own, Roll Call reports that McConnell's minions are unveiling a new scorched-earth strategy to "to delay, define and derail" reform. Of course, in their latest misrepresentations of the program's benefits and costs, the GOP is merely repackaging Bill Kristol's July war cry to defeat health care reform: "kill it... more Posted on October 19, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Studies Confirm Americans Are Self-Rationing Health Care Among the most pernicious and blatantly false Republican talking points designed to obstruct health care reform is the fear-mongering claim that Democratic proposals will lead to "rationing." Of course, with almost 50 million uninsured and another 25 million underinsured, Mitch McConnell's dystopian future of a system which "denies, delays, or rations health care" is already today's nightmare for millions of Americans. But as it turns out, recent studies show that the market failure that is the crumbling U.S. health care... more Posted on October 12, 2009 \| Comments (4)

	Will Red States Opt Out of Blue State Generosity? Just in time for the debate over the merits of a state-by-state "opt out" of a national public health insurance option, the Commonwealth Fund has released its 2009 state health care scorecard. As in 2007, the data reveals the critical condition of red state health care. All of which could present Republican governors and legislatures with a dilemma: will they refuse to offer lower cost insurance coverage for their residents by rejecting a system funded in part by blue state... more Posted on October 9, 2009 \| Comments (4)

	15 Years Too Late, Bob Dole Backs Health Care Reform When it comes to his role in health care issues, most Americans probably associate former Kansas Senator Bob Dole with Viagra. Yet this week, the 1996 GOP presidential candidate stood up (so to speak) for the cause of health care reform, issuing a joint statement with Democrat Tom Daschle urging "the joint leadership to get together for America's sake." But while Dole castigated his own Republican Party for "putting up a 'no' sign and saying, 'we're not open for business,'"... more Posted on October 8, 2009 \| Comments (3)

	Carper's State Run Health Plans a Bridge to Nowhere As Democrats in the House are nearing a consensus on health care reform, Delaware's Tom Carper has introduced a potential compromise in the search of common ground in the Senate. Hoping to bridge the chasm between the watered down Baucus bill and the persistently popular public option, Carper has called for the creation of health insurance plans instead run by state governments. But by sacrificing national economies of scale and failing to address the wide disparities in state health care... more Posted on October 7, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Republican Leaders Remind Steele GOP Hates Medicare As Politico reported Monday, Republicans leaders took RNC chairman Michael Steele to the woodshed for his high profile role in the health care debate. Furious that Steele's so-called "seniors' bill of rights" committed the GOP to "no cuts to Medicare," the Congressional Republicans told their chairman to "quit meddling in policy." Of course, given the GOP's 50-year war on Medicare, their fury should come as no surprise. Beyond his almost daily, run of the mill buffoonery, the leading lights among... more Posted on October 5, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Washington Post Aids GOP in Medicare Role Reversal Story That the elderly of all groups of Americans most strongly oppose President Obama on health care reform shows the success of Republican fear-mongering over supposed Medicare cuts and "death panels". And on Monday, the Washington Post did the GOP a great service in a piece titled, "On Medicare Spending, a Role Reversal." While exploring the impact of projected savings in the program that serves 46 million Americans, the Post left unchallenged the Republicans' laughable claim to be the new protectors... more Posted on September 28, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	What's (Still) the Matter with Oklahoma? As previously detailed here, the state of Oklahoma has become the poster child for the often comic and always tragic contradictions of the Republican war on health care reform. A 2007 study by the Commonwealth Fund ranked Oklahoma dead last in state health care performance. Yet in 2008, the Sooner State remained among the most Republican in the nation, giving John McCain a whopping 31% win over Barack Obama. Meanwhile in Washington, its congressional delegation of John Sullivan, James Inhofe... more Posted on September 21, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Bi-Curious Baucus In his Washington Post column Sunday, David Broder provided some insight into the bi-curious political disposition of the Montana Senator Max Baucus. As he contemplated entering politics in the 1970's, Baucus apparently asked veteran New Dealer James Rowe, "Do you think I should run as a Republican or a Democrat?" So it should come as no surprise that thirty years later, the confused Baucus produced a Senate Finance Committee health care bill roundly criticized by both parties. But overlooked in... more Posted on September 20, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Baucus Bill Latest Proof of Krugman's Law With his seriously compromised and deeply flawed legislation, Senator Max Baucus has achieved rare bipartisan consensus on health care: virtually everyone from both parties hates his bill. But with his feeble acknowledgement that despite all of his kowtowing to his GOP colleagues on the Senate Finance Committee "no Republican has offered his or her support at this moment," Baucus once again confirmed "Krugman's Law." That is, no amount of appeasement is sufficient for Republicans to ever back Democratic proposals on... more Posted on September 16, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Employers to Raise Health Care Costs, Cut Coverage Even as the watered down health care reform legislation from the Senate Finance Committee is finally being delivered to growing concerns, a new study is shining a spotlight on questions the Baucus bill fails to address. Following an analysis from PriceWaterhouseCoopers earlier this year, the survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation confirms American employers are planning to raise health care premiums, slash benefits and, increasingly, drop coverage for their workers. The Kaiser report is just the latest symptom of the... more Posted on September 15, 2009 \| Comments (5)

	10 Lessons for Tea Baggers Back in April, the Daily Show's Jon Stewart offered some sound advice for frothing at the mouth Tea Baggers, "I think you might be confusing tyranny with losing." Now five months after their Tax Day outburst, thousands of vein-popping Obama opponents descended Saturday on Washington for Tea Party II. But while Glenn Beck's furious followers alternately slandered the President as a "fascist," a "communist" and worse, they remained unencumbered by either the thought process - or the truth. Here, then,... more Posted on September 14, 2009 \| Comments (12)

	The Bad Medicine of the Republican Doctors When the GOP trotted out the hapless Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA) to deliver the response to President Obama, the former cardiologist became just the latest Republican physician deployed to halt health care reform. As it turns out, the repentant Birther was an unfortunate choice to carry the GOP banner of tort reform, given his own history of malpractice suits. Of course, as his colleagues Tom Price, Tom Coburn and Bill Frist all show, when it comes to the politics of... more Posted on September 10, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	10 Missing Republican Talking Points on Health Care As President Obama's make-or-break health care speech to Congress approaches, the focus of media tea leaf readers is on what specifically he will say. Will the President overcome his marketing failures to date and commit his political capital to a reform plan? Will he draw a line in the sand on the public option, viewed by most of his allies as essential to reining in costs and crucial to making insurance mandates possible? But perhaps just as telling as what... more Posted on September 9, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Health Care Fight: No Echoes of Bush Social Security Debacle On Monday, the AP portrayed President Obama's struggle to pass health care reform as the second coming of George W. Bush's unpopular and ultimately disastrous attempt to privatize Social Security. But while man each left the bill crafting to Congress and faced a growing backlash from frightened American seniors, the parallels end there. Democratic health care proposals, including the public option centerpiece, have maintained broad popular support while voters never trusted Bush or his party when it came to Social... more Posted on September 7, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	RNC's Steele Backs - and Opposes - Medicare Cuts If nothing else the GOP is an irony producing machine. The same Republican Party which fought to block Medicare in the 1960's and tried to gut it in the 1990's is now pretending to be the defender of the popular government-run health care program for America's seniors. RNC chairman Michael Steele is just the latest to deploy the elderly as human shields in the GOP battle to halt Democratic health care reform at all costs. But by both opposing and... more Posted on September 1, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Bill Bradley's Airball on Health Care Compromise In a New York Times op-ed Sunday, former New Jersey Senator and legendary New York Knicks forward Bill Bradley looked back to the future of health care reform. Citing his own role in the deal with Ronald Reagan that produced the 1986 overhaul of the tax code, Bradley optimistically insisted, "a grand bipartisan compromise is still possible with health care." But in declaring, "The bipartisan trade-off in a viable health care bill is obvious: Combine universal coverage with malpractice tort... more Posted on August 31, 2009 \| Comments (3)

	Canadians Warned to Get Health Insurance for U.S. Travel Traffic in Vancouver, as I learned the hard way during a recent trip to British Columbia, is a nightmare. The crisis has become so severe that the city is now home to North America's only commercial radio station dedicated 24/7 to traffic reports. But judging from the ads on AM 730, the only thing Canadians seem to fear more than complete gridlock in Vancouver during the 2010 Winter Olympics is having a medical emergency while traveling in the United States.... more Posted on August 28, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	GOP: Health Care Needs More Senate Votes Than Social Security, Medicare Once upon a time - a time before the 2006 midterm elections consigned the GOP to minority status in Congress, a bill generally required 51 votes in the Senate to become law. But not content to rest on their record for filibusters in the 110th term, roadblock Republicans now insist even 60 votes aren't enough. But while Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Mike Enzi (R-WY) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) demand "75 to 80" votes to pass health care reform, it's worth remembering... more Posted on August 21, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	The 5 Symptoms of Incurable Republican Schizophrenia The Mayo Clinic, the world famous institution cited by all sides in the contentious health care debate, defines schizophrenia as a serious brain disorder "in which reality is interpreted abnormally" resulting in "hallucinations, delusions, and disordered thinking and behavior." Apparently, that affliction is now running rampant among supporters of the Republican Party. As recent polling about conservative beliefs regarding Medicare, taxes, supposed "death panels," President Obama's citizenship and more shows, the crisis of Republican schizophrenia has reached epidemic proportions. Here,... more Posted on August 20, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	America Wins When Democrats Go It Alone Back in January, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman presciently warned President Obama about the GOP's bad faith in negotiating the stimulus bill, announcing, "Look, Republicans are not going to come on board." Now Krugman's paper is reporting the White House may finally be learning its lesson and planning to "go it alone" on health care reform. Which is just as well. If the history of the past 30 years teaches us anything, it's that bipartisanship is a one-way street... more Posted on August 19, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	CBS News Slams AARP, Promotes Right-Wing ASA Instead As its 2003 support for President Bush's overpriced, unfunded and deeply flawed Medicare prescription benefit showed, the AARP can make some strange political bedfellows. Buti in a segment Monday slamming the 40 million member organization over its role in the current health care reform debate, CBS News made some strange bedfellows of it own. Its content-free coverage of disgruntled AARP members not only helped propagate Republican fear-mongering about mythical cuts to Medicare benefits. As it turns out, CBS essentially aired... more Posted on August 18, 2009 \| Comments (3)

	Obama Falling Victim to Krugman's Law. Again. Following President Obama's lead, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Sunday announced that a public option is "not the essential element" of the administration's health insurance reform push. Sadly, that development seems to signal that, as with the stimulus package, Obama has again fallen into a trap of his own making. In his quixotic quest for bipartisanship, the President is offering major concessions that will nonetheless earn him zero support from his "unreasoning, unappeasable" Republican opposition. Call it... more Posted on August 16, 2009 \| Comments (4)

	Right-Wing Rage: Recurring Symptom of a Preexisting Condition There's nothing new under the sun, especially when it comes to the frothing at the mouth right-wing rage over health care reform. But thanks to the 24/7 media's transformation of politics into just another form of entertainment, delusional Birthers, deceitful Deathers, raging Teabaggers and town hall intimidators are dominating press coverage of the debate. And it's all a recurring symptom, Rick Perlstein argues in the Washington Post, of a nation in which "crazy is a preexisting condition." In his instant... more Posted on August 15, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Health Scare: When Politics is Entertainment "When politics is just another form of entertainment," I lamented in a presentation on the 2008 campaign last year, "the first thing that suffers is the truth." And so it is with the incendiary health care debate and so much else of what now passes for political discourse in the United States. Bolstered by flame-throwing right-wing media and complicit Republican leaders, the demonstrably false "death panels" myth refuses to die. New polling shows that the town hall festivals of fury... more Posted on August 14, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Smoking Grassley on Health Care Reform After his predictable experience with unified Republican obstructionism on the stimulus bill, President Obama must be high if he thinks there's a glimmer of hope for bipartisan cooperation on health care reform. Not because Sarah Palin is doubling-down on her "death panels" lie or Newt Gingrich is now fear-mongering over end-of-life care for the elderly he staunchly advocated just months ago. No, Obama's latest bad trip is thanks to Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley. One week after meeting with the President... more Posted on August 13, 2009 \| Comments (8)

	Tom Delay and Fred Thompson, Death Panelists Slowly but surely, the mainstream media and even some Republican politicians are starting to roll back the GOP's vicious lies and fear-mongering over what Sarah Palin deemed Obama's "death panels." Ironically, many of the same conservatives who demanded the federal government should make the end-of-life decision for Terri Schiavo are labeling optional Medicare-funded consultations "euthanasia." As it turns out, the Republican luminaries Fred Thompson and Tom Delay would deny other Americans both the right and the support to make the... more Posted on August 11, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	What's the Matter with Oklahoma? As the ever more combustible health care debate rages across America, the state of Oklahoma has become the poster child for the conflict and its contradictions. A 2007 study by the Commonwealth Fund ranked Oklahoma dead last in state health care performance. Yet in 2008, the Sooner State remained among the most Republican in the nation, giving John McCain a whopping 31% win over Barack Obama. Meanwhile in Washington, its congressional delegation of James Inhofe, Tom Coburn and John Sullivan... more Posted on August 9, 2009 \| Comments (12)

	Town Halls, Teabaggers, Obama Birthers and Nixonland Once in a rare while, a book captures the spirit of its age. So it is with Nixonland, Rick Perlstein's stunning chronicle of the rise and fall of Tricky Dick. But his story of the "fracturing of America" isn't simply the harrowing tale of how Nixon, "a serial collector of resentments," fanned the flames of racism, anti-communism and the budding culture war to take power in his time. As the hateful rhetoric and dangerous tactics of furious Birthers, raging Teabaggers... more Posted on August 8, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Bush Domestic Spying Ally Cornyn Now Fears Obama Data Collection If nothing else, Republican Senator John Cornyn is an irony producing machine. During the Terri Schiavo affair, the former Texas Supreme Court Justice was at the forefront of the GOP campaign to intimidate and threaten judges. Now after his fierce defense of President Bush's regime of illegal NSA domestic surveillance, Cornyn is comically warning that the Obama administration has launched a sinister "data collection program" to promote health care reform. Back in December 2005, Cornyn dismissed the New York Times'... more Posted on August 5, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	GOP Returns to 2000 Dade County Recount Playbook Every football coach will tell you: if a play works, keep running it until the defense stops you. And so it is with the health care debate. Facing overwhelming public support for health care reform, right-wing groups have deployed mobs to disrupt events and "rattle" Democratic politicians in Austin, Philadelphia, Cincinnati and across the country. As the bitter 2000 recount battle in Dade County, Florida showed, that model of intimidation and manufactured outrage has a proven track record of success... more Posted on August 4, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	GOP Turns to Scare Tactics, Double-Talk on Medicare In his latest fear-mongering on health care reform, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell warned that Democrats are intent on "sticking it to seniors with cuts to Medicare." Of course, McConnell's statement isn't merely false, it is comically so. After all, even as the program marked its 44th anniversary this week, his Republican colleagues like Roy Blunt (R-MO) and Tom Price (R-GA) continued the GOP's decades-long war against "government's intrusion into medicine through Medicare." More laughable still, Mitch McConnell was among... more Posted on July 31, 2009 \| Comments (3)

	The Perpetual Republican War on Medicare Even as Republicans wage their new war against the latest efforts at health care reform, they are still fighting the last one. 44 years after the passage of Medicare, Republicans leaders like Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) are attacking Democratic proposals by blasting the popular health system for America's elderly. Sadly for the GOP, Medicare's proven success in reducing poverty among the elderly and its strong support from beneficiaries belies Price's claim that "nothing has had a greater negative effect on... more Posted on July 30, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Obama Fails Marketing 101 on Health Care Reform Seven years ago, President Bush's chief of staff Andy Card famously explained the administration's post-Labor Day campaign for war with Iraq, "'From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August." As cynical and deceitful as the ensuing six month marketing effort was, President Bush at least knew what he was selling. Sadly, when it comes to health care reform, Barack Obama hasn't even defined the product yet. Obama's failure to date in marketing 101 - know... more Posted on July 29, 2009 \| Comments (5)

	CBO Slams GOP Claim on Public Option and Employer Coverage To be sure, the preliminary analyses from Congressional Budget Office (CBO) have not always bolstered the Obama administration's case for health care reform. But on one vital issue - the impact of the so-called "public option" on employer-provided health care in the U.S.- the CBO numbers backed the administration's case and decimated another Republican talking point. Even as a bipartisan group of Senate Finance Committee members reportedly reached a deal that would remove the public option from its version of... more Posted on July 28, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Family Health Insurance Premiums to Reach $22,000 by 2019 Whatever you think of the merits of President Obama's claim that the current American health care system is "unsustainable," the assertion is indisputable when it comes to the trajectory of insurance premiums. In a new analysis, the Center for American Progress forecasts the cost of the average family insurance policy to skyrocket from $13,000 today to over $22,000 by 2019. Pointing to the estimate from the actuaries at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services forecast that per capita medical... more Posted on July 25, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	The Republican 10 Point Plan for Health Care After Rep. Roy Blunt, leader of the supposed House GOP Health Care Solutions Group, suggested Thursday that Republicans won't offer a health care plan of their own, Minority Leader John Boehner insisted one was still in the works. Of course, the Republican plan as in 1993 is to stop health care reform at all costs to prevent an enduring Democratic majority. Bill Kristol, who told Republicans 16 years ago that there was "no crisis" justifying health care reform then, now... more Posted on July 24, 2009 \| Comments (6)

	Jindal Parrots Rove's 100 Million Health Care Ploy After going to ground following his calamitous prime-time response to President Obama's address to Congress in February, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has stepped back onto the national stage to insert himself in the health care debate. But while his Wall Street Journal op-ed claims to show "how to make health care reform bipartisan," Jindal's simply took a page from Karl Rove's playbook. That includes regurgitating Rove's charge that a public option will lead 100 million Americans to change health plans,... more Posted on July 22, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	McConnell, Bush and Delay: No One Goes Without Health Care Despite 50 million uninsured, another 25 million underinsured, a steep drop-off in employer-provided coverage, costs forecast to rise by 9% in 2010, 1 in 5 Americans delaying needed treatment and medical bills involved in over 60% of personal bankruptcies, Mitch McConnell pretends to fear reform which "denies, delays, or rations health care." As it turns out, the Senate Minority Leader like fellow Republican George W. Bush and Tom Delay believes no one goes without health care in America; they just... more Posted on July 20, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	ABC's Tapper Slams Obama on Health Care Choice Fresh off revelations he offered disgraced South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford kid glove treatment in exchange for an exclusive interview, ABC's Jake Tapper has once again committed journalistic malpractice. The President's pledge to Americans that under his health care proposals "you can keep your doctor, you can keep your plan" isn't literally true, Tapper insists, because employers could still change or drop coverage altogether for their workers. Of course, Tapper ignores that employer-provided health care is already disappearing at an... more Posted on July 17, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Health Care Denied, Delayed and Rationed As the debate over health care reform heats up, Republicans in Congress are predictably regurgitating the talking points penned by GOP spinmeister Frank Luntz to once again block progress. Perhaps none of the GOP fearmongers has been more prolific than Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Time and again, McConnell has warned that President Obama's proposal "denies, delays, or rations health care." Of course, health care that is denied, delayed and rationed is exactly the crisis Americans face today. McConnell was... more Posted on June 20, 2009 \| Comments (3)

	John Ensign Praises Club Gitmo, Slams U.S. Health Care Nothing, it would seem, pleases the Republican mind more than regurgitating demonstrably false and shockingly mean-spirited talking points. So Nevada Republican Senator John Ensign must been ecstatic to score a twofer last week. In a single sentence, Ensign not only faithfully reproduced the GOP's "Club Gitmo" talking point, but resuscitated the old Republican claim that there is no health care crisis. Ensign's back-handed jab at the American health care system came even as he was insisting the Guantanamo Bay detention... more Posted on May 19, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	The GOP War on Doctors, Patients and Health Care Reform Back in 1993, Bill Kristol mobilized Republicans to block the Clinton health care plan with an infamous two- word talking point, "no crisis." Now 16 years later, GOP pollster and master of double-speak Frank Luntz is offering conservatives a new lexicon for scuttling President Obama's health care initiatives. While feigning support for "reform," Luntz insists, Republicans should oppose Obama by warning of threats to the "doctor-patient relationship." Of course, the President is threatening no such thing. And as it turns... more Posted on May 8, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	One Psychiatrist, Two Psychologists and Torture This was not a proud week for the American mental health profession. On Thursday, ABC News documented the essential role of two $1,000 a day psychologists contracted by the CIA to architect its detainee waterboarding program. And on Friday, Harvard-trained psychiatrist turned right-wing water carrier Charles Krauthammer rationalized the Bush torture regime for his readers in the Washington Post. In the same article in which ABC briefly acknowledged its role in propagating former CIA agent John Kiriakou's misinformation about the... more Posted on May 2, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	The Wisdom of Politico: Right Angry with President It Opposed It's not for nothing that Politico is (or should be) known as the ESPN of politics, highlighting the contest but not the content of American democracy. One day after President Obama as promised signed an executive order reversing the draconian Bush restrictions on stem cell research, Politico focused on the grievances and disappointment of hard line social conservatives. Of course, while neglecting to mention that overwhelming majorities of the American people and their representatives in Congress backed President Obama on... more Posted on March 10, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	The Distracted President: Bush, Stem Cells and 9/11 Within minutes of President Obama's reversal of George W. Bush's strict limits on federal support for embryonic stem cell research, the Republican noise machine was reliably regurgitating its "distracted president" talking point. But while House Minority Whip Eric Cantor's sound bite was faithfully repeated by Time's Mark Halperin, apparently lost in the phony debate which followed was history's most recent - and tragic - example of presidential distraction. That is, while George W. Bush was single-mindedly focused on stem cells... more Posted on March 9, 2009 \| Comments (3)

	Republicans, Science and Manufacturing Uncertainty On Monday, President Obama as promised reversed George W. Bush's draconian restrictions on federal support for stem cell research in the United States. But just as important as that key step was its larger message that this White House rejects the politicization of science which has dominated Republican strategy for a generation. And at the heart of that cynical subservience to business interests and social conservatives alike has been one of the Republican Party's most destructive tactics, manufacturing uncertainty. After... more Posted on March 9, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Majorities in Congress, U.S. Back Obama on Stem Cell Research On Monday, President Obama will reportedly reverse George W. Bush's draconian restrictions on federal funding for stem cell research. But while coverage in press outlets including CBS, Politico and the New York Times has focused on a "controversy" that is "certain to draw criticism from anti-abortion and religious groups," lost in the consensus media narrative is the overwhelming support for the research both in Congress and among the American people overall. To be sure, embryonic stem cell research has enjoyed... more Posted on March 8, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Kristol Calls for a Repeat of 1990's GOP Obstructionism When it comes to blocking President Obama's economic stimulus plan, what is old is new for the conservative movement. Fearing a permanent Democratic majority if Bill Clinton succeeded in passing his health care reform package, Bill Kristol in 1993 famously rallied Republicans with a memo urging his party to halt it at all costs. With Congressional Republicans and right-wing talking heads alike now circling the wagons, history is apparently repeating itself. Afraid not that Obama's plan might fail, but that... more Posted on February 4, 2009 \| Comments (3)

	Obama Reverses Bush Course on Reproductive Rights When it comes to Americans' reproductive rights, it's amazing what a difference one week - and one new president - makes. On Sunday, President Bush offered a final parting gift to anti-abortion extremists in the form of "National Sanctity of Human Life Day." But by Thursday, President Barack Obama marked the 36th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade by declaring "I remain committed to protecting a woman's right to choose." And on Friday, Obama will reverse... more Posted on January 23, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Red States Show Highest Teen Birth Rates Just days after Bristol Palin officially became the poster child for her mother's failed abstinence-only sex education policy, a new report from the CDC revealed that in 2006 Alaska experienced the nation's fastest growing teen birth rate. While Mississippi suddenly surpassed Texas to earn the dubious leadership distinction, it comes as no surprise that the 10 worst performing states all voted for George W. Bush in 2004. Overall, teen birth rate jumped in 26 states, combining to reverse a 15-year... more Posted on January 8, 2009 \| Comments (5)

	Study Shows Teens Unfaithful to Virginity Pledges What do Americans who took virginity pledges have in common with those who voted for George W. Bush for President? For one, many people in both groups later denied they did any such thing. And to be sure, they got screwed just the same. Those are just two of the findings from a new study by the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Looking at previous data regarding premarital sexual behavior, the analysis focuses "on teens who had similar values... more Posted on December 29, 2008 \| Comments (2)

	Bush's Final Double Standard on Religious Discrimination In the last throes of his failed presidency, George W. Bush has been nothing if not consistent with his flurry of midnight regulations. Whether the topic is mining on public lands, mountain-top removal, endangered species, clean water or power plant emissions, Bush will try to saddle Barack Obama with last-minute rule changes invariably favoring business interests over health or environmental concerns. But in one area, President Bush is cementing a glaring if predictable double-standard. While faith-based charities receiving federal funds... more Posted on December 13, 2008 \| Comments (3)

	New Study Refutes Justice Kennedy on Post-Abortion Syndrome In one of the most condescending and baseless Supreme Court opinions in recent memory, Justice Anthony Kennedy in April 2007 upheld a federal late term abortion ban on the grounds that "some women come to regret their choice." Now 18 months later, an exhaustive study of 20 years of research concluded that there is no evidence to support the mythical "post-abortion syndrome" hyped by anti-abortion forces - and regurgitated by Justice Kennedy in Gonzales v. Carhart. The new research from... more Posted on December 4, 2008 \| Comments (14)

	Sweeping Bush Rule to Limit Abortion, Birth Control Access During a discussion of abortion in the final presidential debate, Republican John McCain shocked millions of Americans with his sneering remarks and derisive air quotes when it came to the "health of the mother." Now as he prepares to leave office, President George W. Bush is making that condescension towards American women the law of the land. His eleventh hour so-called "right of conscience" regulation would allow health care workers of all stripes to refuse to provide abortion services, artificial... more Posted on December 2, 2008 \| Comments (0)

	History Repeating as GOP Looks to Block Health Care Reform When it comes to blocking Barack Obama's health care plan, what is old is new for the conservative movement. Fearing a permanent Democratic majority if Bill Clinton succeeded in passing his health care reform package, Bill Kristol in 1993 famously authored a memo urging Republicans to halt it at all costs. Now in the wake of the GOP's latest blowout at the ballot box, its water carriers in right-wing think-tanks and media are calling for history to repeat itself. In... more Posted on November 24, 2008 \| Comments (5)

	Palin, GOP Platform Ignore McCain on Same-Sex Marriage Ban Bloggers left and right took notice Monday of Sarah Palin's seeming split with running mate John McCain over the Federal Marriage Amendment. But overlooked in Palin's announcement that she supports a constitutional ban on same sex marriage is that hers - and not McCain's - is the official position of the Republican Party platform. In her interview with CBN, Palin parted company with McCain over the need for enshrining a prohibition on marriage for gay Americans in the United States... more Posted on October 21, 2008 \| Comments (1)

	McCain Caves on Draconian GOP Abortion Platform In an interview with CBS' Katie Couric Wednesday, Cindy McCain seemed surprised to learn that her husband John wants to see Roe v. Wade overturned. But as it turns out, the surprises hardly end there for the McCains when it comes to abortion and the 2008 Republican platform. By rejecting John McCain's limited proposed exemptions for cases involving rape, incest and the life of the mother, the GOP's hard-line abortion banning plank echoes not its presidential nominee, but his running... more Posted on September 7, 2008 \| Comments (0)

	McCain Camp Joins Bush and Delay: There Are No Uninsured As I've noted previously, what passes for John McCain's health care plan is virtually identical to the stillborn scheme from George W. Bush. Now, the McCain campaign has joined President Bush and indicted former House Majority Leader Tom Delay in offering a novel solution - denial - to the problem of America's 46 million uninsured. As it turns out, they simply don't exist. That's the word from the architect of John McCain's health care proposals, John Goodman. No one in... more Posted on August 28, 2008 \| Comments (2)

	Nasty, Brutish and Short: New Study on Life in America In 2007, Americans learned that they had relinquished their 200-year hold on the title of world's tallest people. Now a devastating new report shows that across a growing range of indicators of health, wealth and education, Americans simply aren't measuring up. The "Measure of America" study by the American Human Development Project (funded by Oxfam America, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Conrad Hilton Foundation) documents a laggard United States trailing other leading advanced economies. Reflecting growing income inequality and the... more Posted on July 17, 2008 \| Comments (3)

	McCain AWOL as Senate Overrides Bush Medicare Veto President Bush this week played a game of chicken on Medicare - and lost. Congress easily overrode Bush's veto of legislation designed to prevent an 11% cut in physicians' compensation under the health care program for elderly Americans. And speaking of chicken, John McCain was nowhere to be found. On June 26, Congressional Republicans led by Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell blocked action by Democrats to avert the looming July cut in fees to doctors serving Medicare patients. While Barack... more Posted on July 17, 2008 \| Comments (3)

	CBS Shows GOP "Emergency Room" Health Care Plan in Action In a disturbing report on Wednesday, CBS News offered Americans a glimpse of their health care future under President Bush, John McCain and their Republican allies. Detailing two cases of patients dying untreated and unnoticed in New York and Los Angeles emergency rooms, the story shows the exceptions that may increasingly become the rule. Call it the Republicans' "Emergency Room" health care plan. During a July 2007 visit to Cleveland, President Bush unveiled his emergency room cure for the ills... more Posted on July 3, 2008 \| Comments (1)

	McCain's AIDS Mentor Coburn Blocks Senate PEPFAR Bill A year after he admitted "you've stumped me" when asked whether contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV, John McCain once again finds himself in the AIDS spotlight. On Wednesday, Americans learned that arch-conservative Tom Coburn (R-OK) is blocking Senate action on a proposed tripling of President Bush's global AIDS program. That would be the same Tom Coburn John McCain extolled in March 2007 as "the guy I really respect" when it comes to policy for AIDS and contraceptives. As... more Posted on June 13, 2008 \| Comments (1)

	Triple Whammy for State Health Insurance Mandates Over the past several days, a flurry of stories has raised red flags about the prospects for state-based health care mandates. On Saturday, the AP reported that soaring costs are buffeting the pioneering insurance mandate program in Massachusetts. Just days earlier, the New York Times described a Massachusetts primary care system now swamped with new enrollees seeking treatment. And complicating matters further, the deepening recession is hitting state budgets hard, producing a financial crisis almost certain to halt the expansion... more Posted on April 13, 2008 \| Comments (3)

	John McCain's Health Care Crisis John McCain is facing a major health care crisis. Not so much his own, though questions abound about the Republican presidential nominee's bouts with skin cancer. No, as the Boston Globe details, it is the feeble McCain health care plan itself which is terminally flawed. Which isn't to say McCain's age and medical history aren't a concern of his campaign. While the McCain camp has repeatedly delayed releasing his medical records, the New York Daily News is reporting that McCain... more Posted on April 6, 2008 \| Comments (1)

	U.S. Health Care in Red and Blue A new study released last week revealed a Republican Party ever more out of touch with the mushrooming crisis of the American health care system. Predictably, 68% of Republicans believe the U.S. has the best health system in the world, compared to only three in 10 Democrats. Ironically, those findings come just as new studies show a growing "income gap" in Americans' life expectancy and the painful impact of rising health care costs on Americans' stagnant wages. Most ironic, the... more Posted on March 24, 2008 \| Comments (2)

	Bush's AIDS Politics On his five nation swing through Africa, President Bush once again revealed the two inescapable truths of his AIDS diplomacy. First, as I noted last May, Bush never hesitates to use AIDS funding to provide air cover in his failing struggle to sway global opinion. And second, even thousands of miles from home, George W. Bush will kowtow to the religious right back in the United States. Greeted in Africa by banners proclaiming "Thank you for helping fight malaria and... more Posted on February 18, 2008 \| Comments (2)

	Bush a Block Off the Old S-CHIP On Saturday, President Bush scored a triple victory when he quietly signed a bill extending the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) through March 2009. First, the President teed up "socialized medicine" as the definitive 2008 GOP talking point in response to any new health care initiatives coming from the Democratic Party. Second, he added another win for the GOP campaign of obstructionism, blocking Democratic successes at any cost in the hope of painting Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi as... more Posted on December 29, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	Reagan Debunked Huckabee's AIDS Bigotry - in 1987 Like all of the 2008 Republican White House hopefuls, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee is quick to claim the mantle of Ronald Reagan. But when it came to the AIDS crisis, President Ronald Reagan was positively enlightened compared to the extremist Senate candidate Huckabee years later. As it turns out, everything Mike Huckabee argued in response to the AIDS epidemic in 1992 - quarantining victims, blaming gay Americans, decrying federal funding to fight the disease - Ronald Reagan himself debunked... more Posted on December 9, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	Employer-Provided Health Coverage Continues to Decline While the debate over the health care crisis in America remains focused on the expansion of S-CHIP and the competing proposals of the 2008 presidential candidates, a new study revealed the continuing and steady decline of employer-based health coverage in the United States. Once the lynchpin of the U.S. health care system, workplace health insurance now covers only 59.7% of Americans, down from 64.2% in 2000. And making matters worse, surging health care costs, insurance premiums and employees' own contributions... more Posted on November 8, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Laura Bush: Policy Maker, Not Stereotype On Sunday, First Lady Laura Bush revealed a new side of her persona to the American people: policymaker. Describing herself "involved for a long time in policy," Mrs. Bush decried the Stepfordesque stereotype she claimed is applied to her. But given her past public statements and policy roles to date, Americans should be forgiven for chuckling in response. The still popular First Lady made her comments during an attempt to defend the indefensible, her husband's veto of the expansion of... more Posted on October 30, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	Bush to Stay "Relevant" with Holsinger Recess Appointment? ThinkProgress speculates this morning that President Bush will give a recess appointment to James Holsinger, his bizarre and wildly homophobic nominee for Surgeon General. For the White House, Holsinger's quackery and desire to "cure gays" not only makes him a very attractive successor to the disagreeable Richard Carmona. More importantly, a recess appointment in the face of overwhelming opposition from the Senate Health Committee helps President Bush "ensure that I am relevant." It's just another part of George W. Bush's... more Posted on October 29, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	Supreme Irony: Frost Attacks Continue as Ex-Viacom Chief Wins Tuition Case While Republican politicians, conservative commentators and the right-wing blogosphere continued their jihad against the private school scholarship of 12 year old S-CHIP beneficiary Graeme Frost, the Supreme Court Wednesday quietly handed the son of multimillionaire former Viacom CEO Tom Freston private school tuition courtesy of New York taxpayers. Frost, as you'll recall, is the Maryland child who delivered the Democratic response on September 29th to President Bush's veto of the bill expanding the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP). Frost,... more Posted on October 11, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Bush's Hat Trick with S-CHIP Veto As White House press secretary Dana Perino promised Tuesday, President Bush on Wednesday "quietly" and "without ceremony" vetoed the expansion of the State Childrens Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP). Making good on his threat to block the additional $35 billion in funding over five years to boost the number of children covered under S-CHIP from 6.6 million to 10 million, Bush achieved three objectives - the proverbial hat trick - in one stroke of his veto pen. First, the President teed... more Posted on October 3, 2007 \| Comments (0)

	CBS News Resurrects Bill Frist In the age of Katie Couric, CBS Evening News has become synonymous with journalism as puffery and the interview as hagiography. But on Wednesday, Couric and correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta reached a new low in a fawning profile of former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. In just a few minutes, CBS helped abet the conversion of the Schiavo misdiagnosing, AIDS myth propagating, feline dissecting, partisan hatchet man into a noble crusader for children's health. As I wrote earlier this month,... more Posted on September 27, 2007 \| Comments (0)

	New Jersey Fights Bush Over S-CHIP Cutbacks In August, the Bush administration fired a shot across the bow of those advocating the expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP). Last week, New Jersey Governor John Corzine fired back. First, a little background. Last month, the House and Senate overwhelmingly passed separate packages adding an additional 3.3 million children to the 6.6 million already insured under the program covering low income families. The White House, hoping to block the expansion of the popular S-CHIP program, retaliated... more Posted on September 17, 2007 \| Comments (0)

	The Last Abortion Clinic in Mississippi In November 2005, Perrspectives reviewed the PBS Frontline documentary, The Last Abortion Clinic. The segment detailed the relentless, draconian and largely successful efforts by anti-choice forces to restrict women's reproductive rights in Mississippi. Now two years later in the wake of the Gonzales v. Carhart decision upholding the so-called partial birth abortion ban, NBC News has an update on the desperate struggle of the last abortion clinic in Mississippi. As PBS made clear, anti-choice extremists have made abortions virtually unobtainable... more Posted on September 9, 2007 \| Comments (0)

	Save the Children Endorses Bad Medicine with Dr. Bill Frist The non-governmental organization Save the Children has rightly earned a reputation for bringing the best practices in sustainable development and family health care to developing nations around the world. But in selecting Dr. Bill Frist as its front-man for its new "Survive to 5" campaign against childhood mortality, Save the Children has chosen the wrong prescription. The global Survive to 5 initiative is a laudable and natural extension to Save the Children's historic commitment to battling infant mortality. Preventable diseases,... more Posted on September 7, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Hillary Clinton's Health Care Inoculation Strategy When it comes to health care, Hillary Clinton of all the presidential candidates faces a special burden. As her rivals left and right unveil their health care plans, Senator Clinton is moving cautiously, as if seeking a vaccine to protect her from a recurrence of her 1990's experience. Call it Hillary's Inoculation Strategy: go slow, go small, and go with your enemies. No doubt, Hillary Clinton faces a daunting challenge over health care in the 2008 race. Her leadership of... more Posted on August 25, 2007 \| Comments (8)

	Bush Repeats His Texas War on Children's Health Insurance In Washington this week, the White House renewed George W. Bush's war against children's health care that dates back to his days as Governor of Texas. Just two weeks after the House and Senate each approved major expansions of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP), the Bush administration announced draconian new eligibility rules that would trim thousands of low income children from the rolls. But unlike his Texas two-step when he claimed credit for a program he fought tooth... more Posted on August 23, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Studies: Americans Shorter, Living Shorter Lives New statistics released this week show that Americans are once again coming up in short when it comes to the health of nations. Just weeks after researchers found that Americans had relinquished their crown as the world's tallest people to the Dutch, a new study revealed that life expectancy in the U.S. had plummeted to 42nd worldwide. The data, compiled by the Census Bureau and the National Center for Health Statistics, shows a precipitous drop in the U.S. ranking from... more Posted on August 12, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Giuliani Recycles Bush Health Care Plan While the field of 2008 GOP White House hopefuls continues to distance itself from President Bush, Rudy Giuliani today endorsed the moribund Bush health care plan lock, stock and barrel. And speaking on the eve of the President's looming veto of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) expansion, Giuliani made it clear he shares the same blighted market-driven philosophy as Bush. In New Hampshire today, Giuliani like Bush made a $15,000 family health care tax deduction to purchase private... more Posted on July 31, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Suppressing Votes - and Science Two stories this weekend presented different faces on the unwavering - and perhaps criminal - zeal of the Bush White House to acquire and maintain power. On Friday, PBS Now reported how a massive Republican "vote caging" scheme targeted minority (read Democratic) voters in key 2004 battleground states. And today, the Washington Post revealed that Bush HHS appointee William R. Steiger blocked the release of Surgeon General Richard Carmona's 2006 global health report for purely political reasons. Suppressing votes and... more Posted on July 29, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	S-CHIP On Bush's Shoulder With his vocal opposition to the expansion of the S-CHIP program to provide health care coverage for more of America's children, President Bush is returning to the same tried and true formula he first pioneered in Texas. That is, Bush initially fought the legislation on ideological grounds before caving to popular pressure and grudgingly accepting some version of the bill. Then, as with the Texas S-CHIP program, the Texas Patients Bill of Right and the 2003 Medicare prescription drug benefit,... more Posted on July 19, 2007 \| Comments (5)

	Plan B and a Surge - in the U.S. In Washington this week, former Bush Surgeon General Richard Carmona described what happens when radical conservative politics and ideology replace science at the basis for public health policy. But one story this week - the booming over-the-counter sales of the Plan B emergency contraceptive - shows the benefits to Americans' health when those right-wing barriers are removed. On Friday, the Washington Post reported that sales of Plan B are forecast to double to $80 million in 2007. That increase was... more Posted on July 14, 2007 \| Comments (0)

	Politics and Crime at the FDA On the same day that former Surgeon General Richard Carmona told Congress about the politicization of his office by the White House, a bizarre story from China served as a reminder of other past Bush wrong-doing at the FDA. The Beijing government punished the former head of the Chinese Food and Drug Administration for approving bogus medicine in exchange for cash. Which sounds like President Bush's former FDA chief, Dr. Lester Crawford. As you may recall, Crawford mysteriously resigned in... more Posted on July 10, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	SiCKO Required Reading: U.S. Health Care by the Numbers Michael Moore's controversial film SiCKO opens nationwide this weekend. Hailed by critics and widely praised across much of the political spectrum, Moore's look at the failing American health care system is already generating the predictable smear campaign from the insurance industry, the pharmaceutical lobby and their allies on the right. But before the inevitable discussions about the accuracy of the film's portrayal of the U.S. health care system and the plight of insured middle class American come to dominate the... more Posted on June 29, 2007 \| Comments (41)

	Health Care the Latest Red State Failure A new study released this week revealed that Americans' health care varies dramatically from state to state. It should come as no surprise that in general Southern states ranked at the bottom in almost every category. After all, whether the issue is health, education, working conditions, or virtually any indicator of social pathology, things are worst in precisely those states that voted for George W. Bush. The Commonwealth Fund report, "Aiming Higher: Results from a State Scorecard on Health System... more Posted on June 17, 2007 \| Comments (70)

	How to Make the Stem Cell Bill Veto-Proof Just two days after the third anniversary of the death of Ronald Reagan, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill easing restrictions on stem cell research favored by his family. But with President Bush promising to once again veto what he called "a recycled old bill," Democrats will need a new strategy to win one for the Gipper. As I wrote back in April, all the stem cell bill needs is a name change - and a little help... more Posted on June 8, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	Bush's AIDS PR Scam On Wednesday, President Bush once again turned to AIDS for air cover in the battle for global opinion. Facing the prospect of universal condemnation by the international community for a wildly unpopular American policy, President Bush tried to change the topic and buy some global goodwill by announcing massive new U.S. AIDS funding. This time, Bush is trying to deflect criticism of American global warming policy in advance of next week's G8 summit. In 2003, of course, his problem was... more Posted on May 31, 2007 \| Comments (11)

	The GOP War on the Doctor-Patient Relationship From the moment he entered the White House, President Bush proclaimed the "doctor-patient relationship" the centerpiece of his policies when it comes to Americans' health care. Just not, as it turns out, for American women. As today's Supreme Court decision upholding the 2003 Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act shows, President Bush and his Republican allies don't care much at all about the doctor-patient relationship when it comes to women's reproductive health and safety. A quick look back shows that "protecting... more Posted on April 18, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Marketing the Partial Birth Abortion Ban On its face, today's Supreme Court decision in Gonzales v. Carhart is a victory for abortion foes seeking to ban one rarely used but seemingly horrific procedure. But in the bigger picture, the Court's validation of the 2003 Partial Birth Abortion Act is a landscape-changing triumph for conservatives' slippery slope campaign to chip away at the reproductive and privacy rights of American women. That's because anti-abortion forces never really cared about intact dilation and extraction, a rare practice used in... more Posted on April 18, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Partial Responsibility: Democrats & the Court's Abortion Ruling In a calamitous setback for the reproductive rights of American women, the Supreme Court upheld the 2003 Partial Birth Abortion Act. In its 5-4 ruling, the Court handed Republican conservatives a major victory in their "slippery slope" campaign against choice. Sadly, the history shows that many Congressional Democrats were complicit in today's disastrous outcome. As I wrote back in 2004, significant numbers of Democrats in the House and Senate wavered when it came to protecting the health and safety of... more Posted on April 18, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	How to Override the Bush Stem Cell Veto With Harry Reid's stem cell research bill headed to a Senate vote this week, Congressional Democrats and President Bush are on the brink of yet another confrontation. But while the White House is promising to repeat its 2006 veto, the ending can be different this time. All the Reid legislation needs is a name change - and a little help from Ronald Reagan. The failure to override President Bush's veto in 2006 shows that broad bipartisan backing in Congress, aggressive... more Posted on April 10, 2007 \| Comments (4)

	Tommy Thompson and the Bush Kiss of Death On Wednesday, former Wisconsin Governor and Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson joined the increasingly crowded field in the 2008 Republican presidential race. But thanks to his enabling role in President Bush's Medicare prescription fiasco, Thompson's White House prospects were already dim even before last week's announcement. Like Michigan's John Engler and New Jersey's Christie Todd Whitman before him, Thompson is yet another new wave Republican Governor of the 1990's whose rising star was snuffed out by the reverse... more Posted on April 8, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	SOTU Preview: 10 Things to Watch Tuesday's State of the Union Address should offer Americans compelling viewing. After the GOP's electoral disaster in November and the resounding thud that greeted the "surge" in Iraq, the 2007 SOTU can be said to officially mark the last throes of the Bush presidency. In anticipation of tomorrow night's presidential flight of fantasy, here are 10 things to look for in the 2007 State of the Union: 1. An Unhealthy Vision As his Saturday radio address made clear, President Bush... more Posted on January 22, 2007 \| Comments (3)

	Bush Flip-Flops on Plan B In a welcome change of course, the Bush administration ended its stonewalling of over-the-counter sales of the Plan B emergency contraceptive. After five years of outright deception and promises broken, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gave Barr Pharmaceuticals its blessing to proceed with OTC sales to women 18 and older. As Perrspectives reported two weeks ago ("Plan B's Tangled Web"), President Bush's looming flip-flop became apparent during the confirmation hearings of acting FDA chief Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach. After... more Posted on August 24, 2006 \| Comments (1)

	Plan B's Tangled Web President Bush's cynical efforts to block over the counter sales of the emergency contraceptive Plan B have taken on almost comic proportions in recent days. But kowtowing to the radical right on Plan B has come at a steep price for Mike Leavitt, George Allen and other Republicans in the administration and Congress. The Senate confirmation hearings of acting FDA chief Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach offered a new chapter in the President's rearguard action to keep Plan B off drug... more Posted on August 10, 2006 \| Comments (1)

	Wrist Slap for Bush Medicare Fraud Scully The Washington Post reported today former Bush Medicare and Medicaid administrator Thomas Scully agreed to pay back $10,000 for personal job-hunting trips he had charged to the government during his tenure. But while the Post piece provided a breezy overview of Scully's ethical indiscretions during his time at HHS, it completely omitted any mention of what should be his enduring legacy: threatening truth-telling subordinates with dismissal during the selling of President Bush's Medicare prescription plan. To fully appreciate Scully's sinister... more Posted on July 11, 2006 \| Comments (1)

	Bush Stem Cell Veto Threat is Dems' Opportunity In an interview with the Denver Post editorial board, Karl Rove signaled that President Bush would use the first veto of his presidency to block Congressional stem cell legislation. For Democrats, that veto threat could be just what the doctor ordered. In a nutshell, Bush's 2006 base-baiting, red meat strategy could well backfire when it comes to stem cell research. In May 2005, 50 Republicans joined a united Democratic block in passing the bi-partisan Castle-Degette bill by 238-194. (The House... more Posted on July 10, 2006 \| Comments (1)

	Bush's Amazing Gracelessness In the Bible, Jesus cured the blind. In a bizarre White House Rose Garden press conference yesterday, President Bush chose to taunt them instead. During a rambling session with reporters following his Baghdad pop-in, Bush chided Los Angeles Times reporter Peter Wallsten for wearing sunglasses during the press conference: THE PRESIDENT: Are you going to ask that question with shades on? WALLSTEN: I can take them off. THE PRESIDENT: I'm interested in the shade look, seriously. WALLSTEN: All right, I'll... more Posted on June 15, 2006 \| Comments (0)

	Laura Bush and the ABC's of AIDS On Friday, President Bush sent the only remaining popular member of his White House team to address the UN General Assembly meeting on HIV/AIDS. Just days after a UN study reported progress in slowing the spread of AIDS, a smiling First Lady Laura Bush demonstrated why her husband's United States may still be the biggest barrier to defeating the global scourge. A sure sign of the lack of seriousness of the Bush administration was the make up of the American... more Posted on June 3, 2006 \| Comments (4)

	Reagan and Bush in the Age of AIDS PBS this week aired "The Age of AIDS," perhaps the most powerful and devastating documentary on American television in years. The two part, four-hour special featured interviews and history from six continents and over a dozen countries detailing the path, the politics and the pain of 25 years of the AIDS pandemic. Perhaps the most disturbing thread running through "The Age of AIDS" is the myopic complicity of the American radical right in the needless death and suffering of thousands... more Posted on June 1, 2006 \| Comments (1)

	The Health of Nations: British, Canadians Healthier Than Americans Americans may share a common mother tongue with their Canadian and British friends, but when it comes to health care, they're speaking different languages. Their national health systems, emphasizing preventive care, appear to provide much better outcomes at dramatically lower cost than the ad hoc market-driven approach in the U.S. That's the clear message from two recent studies showing that the people of Canada and the UK are far healthier than Americans. A Harvard Medical School study in the upcoming... more Posted on May 31, 2006 \| Comments (3)

	Bush to Disabled: "You Look Mighty Comfortable" It's been a banner week for the verbal incontinence of George W. Bush. Just days after telling a German reporter that the highlight of his presidency was "when I caught a 7.5 pound perch in my lake," President Bush made a bizarre remark certain to charm disability advocates everywhere. Pitching his troubled Medicare prescription plan in Florida, President Bush said to a man in a wheelchair, "You look mighty comfortable." Just another example of "compassionate conservativism" in action. Hopefully, the... more Posted on May 10, 2006 \| Comments (1)

	Bitter Pills for Crawford, Limbaugh It was a mixed week for the Avenging Angel, punisher of conservative miscreants. Two evil doers of the right, Lester Crawford and Rush Limbaugh, found themselves in trouble this week for doing bad things with prescription pills. Sadly, only one faces the prospect of true justice. Dr. Crawford, the former head of the Bush FDA, faces a criminal inquiry for financial misdeeds and lying to Congress. Last fall, Crawford, a vet by training and a friend of big Pharma, reneged... more Posted on April 30, 2006 \| Comments (0)

	Health Care Monopolies and the Massachusetts Model Last week, Massachusetts Governor and 2008 GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney signed legislation mandating that all residents of the Commonwealth acquire health insurance. But while many analysts are lauding the Romney blueprint, a new American Medical Association report on the entrenchment of health insurance monopolies shows one of the many pitfalls of the Massachusetts model. On its face, the Massachusetts law seems like an innovative approach to providing health care coverage for all. Akin to auto insurance, all residents must... more Posted on April 18, 2006 \| Comments (0)

	The Top 10 State of the Union Highlights Faced with negative polls and a pessimistic American nation, President Bush's just completed 2006 State of the Union Address naturally focused on the theme of "the Hopeful Society." But like the stillborn "Ownership Society" vision before it, Bush's 2006 SOTU will be remembered not for its policy program, but for its partisan political purposes. The top 10 highlights: 1. Demonize the Democrats The President continued Karl Rove's 2006 electoral strategy to once again run on national security and brand the... more Posted on January 31, 2006 \| Comments (6)

	Ford Joins GM on the Brink The American manufacturing sector took another body blow today as Ford announced massive layoffs beginning in 2007. As many as 30,000 employees at 14 Ford plants in North America, up to 21% of the company's hourly workforce of 82,000, could be impacted by 2012. The announcement by the #2 American automaker comes within weeks of similar devastating cuts at General Motors. As at GM, the United Auto Workers agreed to dramatic reductions in health care benefits at Ford, shifting expenses... more Posted on January 23, 2006 \| Comments (0)

	Unhealthy Trends for 2006 If the closing weeks of 2005 are any indication, 2006 is rapidly shaping up as the year of the health care coverage crisis in the United States. Middle class Americans will join the 46 million uninsured in feeling the pain as companies trim benefits and shift costs to their employees under the guise of so-called consumer-driven health care. Judging from the results to date, the experience won't be a pleasant one. The looming crisis is much larger than just the... more Posted on December 30, 2005 \| Comments (0)

	Bush League Economy Nothing, apparently not even the growing opposition to the war in Iraq, frustrates President Bush and the Republican Party more than Americans' consistently negative view of the economy. Despite 215,000 new jobs in November, stout 4.3% Q3 GDP growth and a whopping 4.7% gain in productivity, only 37% of Americans approve of Bush's handling of the economy. As one Wall Street analyst moaned on the RNC blog, "No matter what happens, no matter what data are released, no matter which... more Posted on December 8, 2005 \| Comments (2)

	GM and the War on Labor You can learn a lot about the state of class warfare in America just by reviewing the reaction to General Motors' recent announcement that it will lay off 30,000 workers and shutter a dozen plants in North America. While E.J Dionne at the Washington Post offered a thoughtful piece on the political responses to the impact of globalization and spiraling health care costs on manufacturing giants such as GM, Rich Lowry of the conservative National Review does what the right... more Posted on November 29, 2005 \| Comments (2)

	Medicare's Prescription for Failure Last week saw the launch of the enrollment period for the new Medicare prescription drug plan. Judging by the initial reception by beneficiaries, Congress and the market alike, the Medicare drug benefit is off to a rocky start. That should come as a surprise to no one for a program that was designed to fail. All over the country, overwhelmed seniors wrestled with over 40 competing plans featuring conflicting formulary lists and dramatic geographic variations in premiums. Beneficiaries' confusion was... more Posted on November 23, 2005 \| Comments (4)

	Blowback: Bush, Plame and the Politics of Payback Washington is on pins and needles as all await word from CIA leak special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald. Reuters reports that Fitzgerald may convene the grand jury as early as Tuesday to seek indictments. What began as an investigation into the outing of a covert CIA operative has grown to encompass perjury and obstruction of justice, and perhaps even cast doubt on the candor of the administration's rationale for the Iraq war. Meanwhile, the atmosphere in the Bush White House is... more Posted on October 23, 2005 \| Comments (9)

	Medicaid's Fort Sumter When South Carolina makes the headlines, it's rarely good news for the United States or the American people. In 1828, South Carolina was the hotbed of the Nullification movement. In 1860, South Carolina's secession led the way to the Confederacy and in April the following year, fired the shots at Fort Sumter that started the Civil War. And over the past several years, South Carolina has been at the forefront of the movement to preserve the Confederate flag and heritage.... more Posted on August 16, 2005 \| Comments (4)

	Stem Selling: The Ronald Reagan Life Legacy Act The momentum of politics and science is now with the Democrats in the battle to drive stem cell research in the United States. This week's announcement by South Korean researchers successfully producing healthy stem cells from the DNA of damaged tissue brought home the danger of the United States losing its leadership in the biotech sector. And new bi-partisan legislation in the House co-sponsored by Mike Castle (R-DE) and Diana DeGette (D-CO) shows that increasing numbers of Congressional Republicans will... more Posted on May 24, 2005 \| Comments (1)

	When Markets Attack Yesterday, AOL hero turned villain Steve Case announced his next new thing. Launching a company called Revolution with $500 million of his money, Case has the outsized goal of transforming the health care system for American consumers. But while the health care market may succeed in making Steve Case richer still, it will almost certainly continue to fail millions of Americans. Marrying his unique combination of consumer zealotry and business opportunism with an apparent growing awareness of his own mortality,... more Posted on April 5, 2005 \| Comments (1)

	To Err is Texan Three critical points have been almost entirely absent from the media's discussion of the Terri Schiavo affair. I've written about two and others in the blogosphere have done a great job addressing the third: 1. Moral Arguments Favoring the End of Life Support A thorough discussion of the very strong moral arguments in favor of honoring Terri Schiavo's end-of-life request to her husband has been completely missing in the media. For my take, see: "Schiavo, Mill and the Culture of... more Posted on March 21, 2005 \| Comments (0)

	Schiavo, Mill and the Culture of Living President Bush often likes to speak of a �culture of life�, a catch phrase that neatly frames his opposition to reproductive choice and stem cell research. The tragic case of Terri Schiavo, now featuring dangerously irresponsible and unprecedented Congressional intervention, is only latest chapter in his conservative playbook. It is high time to end the melodrama of Republican political opportunism and regain control of this debate. Progressives must do this not because we�re �right� or because our position in this... more Posted on March 20, 2005 \| Comments (4)

	A Banner Day for Republican Fraud Q: What do the new Bush Medicare budget forecast and ex-Talon News reporter Jeff Gannon have in common? A: They are both frauds exposed on the same day. Medicon Today, the Bush administration revealed that its 10 year forecast for Medicare, including the supposed prescription drug benefit, will be $1.2 trillion. That's $1.2 trillion between 2006 and 2015, not the $400 billion sold to Congress in December of 2003 or the $534 billion figure updated only two months later and... more Posted on February 9, 2005 \| Comments (2)

	Bush, Race and the State of the Union During the February 3rd segment of the Abrams Report on MSNBC, part of the discussion focused on President Bush's surprising and vocal support for DNA evidence funding during the State of the Union address. Abrams and his guests seemed mystified as to why President Bush, a man who presided over more executions than any other contemporaneous governor, would have a "born-again" revelation as to the importance of DNA evidence in securing defendants' rights. As with virtually everything else with this... more Posted on February 4, 2005 \| Comments (0)

	2004 State of the Union Flashback With President Bush's 2005 State of the Union approaching, my 2004 SOTU-eve critique of Bush's so-called Ownership Society still stands. State of Disunion Even with his shaky State of the Union address and dipping approval ratings, President Bush unfortunately remains in a strong position for the 2004 election. Saddam is captured, GDP is surging, and his reelection war chest has a staggering $100 million in the bank. And while his Democratic foes battle each other in primary contests across the... more Posted on January 31, 2005 \| Comments (0)

	The Bush Top 10 Flip Flop List Four years ago, George W. Bush accepted the Republican nomination for President, and famously set the moral tone - and expectations for his presidency: "So when I put my hand on the Bible, I will swear to not only uphold the laws of our land, I will swear to uphold the honor and dignity of the office to which I have been elected, so help me God." It has not, of course, worked out that way. As we pointed out... more Posted on October 1, 2004 \| Comments (0)

	The Trial of John Edwards Within minutes of Senator John Edwards� selection by John Kerry as his running mate, the Republicans started their predictable onslaught of attacks on his national security experience and high-profile career as a trial lawyer. An instantaneously updated GOP web site called Edwards �a disingenuous, unaccomplished liberal and friend to personal injury trial lawyers.� Trent Lott (whose wistful, public nostalgia for the days of Jim Crow cost him the Senate majority leadership) called him �a suing lawyer � that�s S-U-I-N-G lawyer.�... more Posted on July 8, 2004 \| Comments (0)

	Slippery Slope Here we go again. Once again, the anti-choice movement, with support from congressional conservatives and President Bush, is pushing legislation that chips away at women�s reproductive rights. Once again, squeamish Democrats in the House and Senate are going along for the ride. And once again, they are playing directly into their opponents� hands, helping to bring about the gradual undermining of abortion rights... Continue reading "Slippery Slope"...... more Posted on February 25, 2004 \| Comments (0)

	The Opt Out Society, Part VI: The Democrats' New American Bargain in Action In 2004, Democrats must answer the GOP assault on national unity with a program based on reciprocity, responsibility and opportunity that calls on the best in Americans and their government. On national security, Democrats must not only pass the threshold of credibility, they must demonstrate clear leadership compared to the GOP. There is no better way to do this, substantively and symbolically, than through national service. While the volunteer army currently seems sufficient to fight foes abroad such as Afghanistan... more Posted on February 9, 2004 \| Comments (0)

	The Opt Out Society, Part V: A New American Bargain Democrats need a new, revitalized public philosophy and politics not only to achieve victory in 2004, but also to have any hope of attaining majority status in the next decade. In contrast to a conservative Opt Out ideology increasingly at odds with the best American civic traditions, Democrats should seek to usher in the "Reciprocity Society." Characterized by shared national identity and values, commitment to common goals and public institutions, national service, mutual responsibility, and universal opportunity, the Reciprocity Society... more Posted on February 9, 2004 \| Comments (0)

	The Opt Out Society, Part IV: Identity Politics and the Threat from the Left Unfortunately, Democrats cannot credibly speak of a politics of national unity and common American interest unless they make a clear break with the identity politics, multi-culturalism, and group privileges of the party's left. Democrats during the Clinton reign in the 1990's made great progress overcoming two of the three barriers to the party gaining majority status: being trusted on national defense and to provide economic growth. On cultural issues, however, the Clinton program of "100,000 cops" and welfare reform (not... more Posted on February 9, 2004 \| Comments (0)

	The Opt Out Society, Part III: Branding the Opt Out Society Democrats in 2004 would do well to emulate two successful approaches of their opponents in branding the GOP and its Opt Out philosophy. In 1994 with Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America" and again with the 2000 Bush campaign, the Republicans succeeded in both labeling the Democrats as outside the mainstream while effectively positioning their own program in easily understood, hard hitting and, at least superficially, universally appealing sound bites. The result was and continues to be GOP domination of the... more Posted on February 9, 2004 \| Comments (0)

	The Opt Out Society, Part II: On Your Own The impact of the Opt Out Society can be seen across the policies the Bush administration has pursued since coming to office. These are consistently defined by three characteristics. First is market idolatry; all public policy issues are framed in terms of market choice, competition, and privatization. From school vouchers to a market for pollution credits, any outcome that results is by definition the right one, since it was freely decided by the market. Second, the politics of the Opt... more Posted on February 9, 2004 \| Comments (0)

	The Opt Out Society, Part I: Introduction There's an old saying that says, "don't bring a knife to a gun fight." Another old saw goes "know your enemy." Truer words were never spoken as Democrats approach the 2004 elections. President Bush, fresh off his victory in Iraq, the staged performance on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, and the capture of Saddam, has maintained strong approval ratings. But while the president wraps himself in the flag and the banner of unity in the American war against terror, the... more Posted on February 9, 2004 \| Comments (0)