Mother Jones has sifted through the 50 states and cobbled together a list of state governors who have effectively chosen to deny the poorest of their constituencies health care coverage and the opportunity to attain basic medical care through their refusal to accept Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion provision. They represent the who’s who of Republican governors whose states occupy the core of stalwart opposition to the Affordable Care Act.
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February 21, 2013
Meet the Governors denying uninsured health care coverage
October 17, 2012
Armchair Debating Mitt Romney
The 2nd presidential debate last night was nothing if not exciting and tension filled. The Obama we knew from 2008 was back with fervor while Romney fought back hard to maintain his momentum and success from the first debate. There were several moments of clear disagreement or misunderstanding of the facts between the two candidates. Romney pressed the president on oil and gas permitting, the actual events surrounding the attack in Benghazi, budget deficits and immigration. The President, while much improved this time around, was unable to fully push back. So to play a bit of armchair debating and employ a healthy dose of 20/20 hindsight let’s revisit a few of these issues from last night.
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October 4, 2012
And the Winner is……
The much anticipated, long pundit-ted first presidential debate of the 2012 election season finally broke over us all, energizing some and surprising others. The big 3 cable networks’ analysts set to work immediately after scoring the performance of both candidates. So who did win? Depending on your preferred method of spin that answer could well be up for grabs. But for this writer, (let me quickly admit I am a registered Democrat) I have to give the night to
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September 17, 2012
Daily Scoop: Romney Dismisses 47% of US Voters as Gov. Dependents [video]
Secretly recorded fundraiser video captures Mitt Romney characterizing 47% of voters as dependent on the government who feel they themselves are victims who believe they are entitled to such things as basic health care.
On that 47%…. The Washington Post explains this misconception that a virtual majority pay no taxes.
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August 8, 2012
Daily Scoop Xtra: Romney Spokeswoman admits Romneycare (aka Obamacare) benefits
by Steve Kornacki (Salon.com)
Mitt Romney’s campaign press secretary, Andrea Saul, has kicked up a bit of a storm with her response to a new ad from a pro-Obama super PAC.
The spot, which was unveiled Wednesday, features a man who lost his job when Bain Capital shuttered the Kansas City steel plant he worked at in 2001. “When Mitt Romney and Bain closed the plant,” he says in the ad, “I lost my health care and my family lost their health care. And a short time after that my wife became ill.” Some vital context is missing, and the Romney campaign is on solid ground in crying foul.
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August 2, 2012
Daily Scoop Xtra: Another ‘They didn’t built it’ Ad shows business helped by government
The Romney campaign is up with a new billboard touting another small business owner upset with President Obama’s out-of-context remark that businesses don’t succeed on their own but rather with help from federal government programs.
But like so many of the small businesses that the Romney campaign has trotted out in recent weeks, Tanya L. Burns & Associates, an insurance brokerage firm in Florida, is yet another beneficiary of federal spending. And not just any spending: Burns’ firm has helped clients reduce their health insurance premiums thanks to the Affordable Care Act, which Mitt Romney has pledged to repeal.
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August 2, 2012
The Daily Scoop: Paul Ryan’s Budget Challenged to Show how it’ll Lower Health Care Costs
Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) proposals to control health care spending by slashing the federal government’s contribution to Medicare and Medicaid and shifting that spending on to future retirees or the states, has dominated Washington’s conversation about entitlement reform.
But on Thursday morning, a group of health care economists and former Obama administration officials laid out an alternative approach that could achieve health savings by encouraging providers to deliver care more efficiently.
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August 1, 2012
The Daily Scoop: Studies reveal Romney-GOP plans place burdens on poor & Seniors
Romney tax plan would shift burden to poor
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Mitt Romney’s tax plan would provide large tax cuts to the very wealthy, while increasing the tax burden on the lower and middle classes, according to a study released Wednesday.
The report — produced by researchers at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center — illustrates just how difficult it would be to recoup government revenue lost under Romney’s plan.
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s tax plan calls for 20% cuts to today’s Bush-era income tax rates. He would also eliminate the Alternative Minimum Tax.
Those tax cuts would lead to a sharp decline in government revenue. Yet Romney insists he will make up the difference in-part by limiting deductions, exemptions and credits currently available to top-level income earners.
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July 13, 2012
The Daily Scoop: Unpopular Mandate
An interesting article tracing the evolution of the Republican Party’s love-hate relationship with the individual mandate from their 20 years supporting it to their paradigm shift as it became part of the Democrats’ health care reform.
On March 23, 2010, the day that President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law, fourteen state attorneys general filed suit against the law’s requirement that most Americans purchase health insurance, on the ground that it was unconstitutional. It was hard to find a law professor in the country who took them seriously. “The argument about constitutionality is, if not frivolous, close to it,” Sanford Levinson, a University of Texas law-school professor, told the McClatchy newspapers.
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July 12, 2012
The Daily Scoop: ACA “Largest Tax Increase in History”
A new ad attacks Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., on the health care law and claims to have “the facts.” But then it trots out a series of well-worn distortions.
The ad is from an outside spending group called American Commitment, which said on its website that it supports “free markets, economic growth, constitutionally limited government, property rights, and individual freedom.” It’s a 501(c)4, so it doesn’t have to disclose its donors. (For more details about American Commitment’s connections and spending, check out this report from the Washington Post.)
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