COVID-19 & Healthcare

D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals grants en banc hearing in Halbig v. Burwell

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Image: Supreme Court Upholds Obama's Affordable Care ActI posted about the Affordable Care Act subsidies cases earlier this year, in which the Libertarian lawyers of the Volokh Conspiracy blog at the Washington Post have pursued a “strict textualism” argument not supported at law or in well-established canons of statutory construction to undermine “ObamaCare.” The GOP’s war on healthcare.

These Libertarian lawyers convinced two conservative activist judges of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on a three judge panel in Halbig v. Burwell to accept their purely political attempt to undermine “ObamaCare.”

The Obama administration petitioned the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals for a full en banc rehearing, somenthing that is rarely granted.

Today the D.C.. Circuit Court of Appeals granted the en banc request, which has the effect of voiding the earlier decision of the three judge panel.

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Tea Party candidate for AZ House Jill Norgaard’s position on abortion is more radical than Cathi Herrod’s

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Crossposted on DemocraticDiva.com

Jill Norgaard LD18

Arizona LD18, which encompasses Ahwatukee and parts of Chandler and Tempe, is where I used to live for over a decade and is believed to be a somewhat competitive district. Democrat Rae Waters got elected to the House there in 2008 and Democrats continue to express optimism that they’ll be able to turn the district in the near future. The Republicans who get elected there have tended to be very right wing but smart enough to avoid “legitimate rape” gaffes and occasionally vote against their caucus on something high profile, such as this year’s Medicaid vote. Guys like Bob Robson and Jeff Dial are not actual centrists (as their total voting records amply demonstrate) but they feign it well enough to pass muster since pleasantness is so often mistaken for moderation here.

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What GOP ‘trickle down’ economics wrought in Arizona

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circling-the-drainI was surprised to see this report in the Arizona Republic(an), the mouthpiece of the GOP establishment in Arizona. This report is a damning indictment of the legacy of Governor Jan Brewer and the Tea-Publican dominated Arizona Legislature, and its faith based supply-side “trickle down” GOP economics.

Arizona, like the state of Kansas, has been the meth lab of democracy for a far-right conservative agenda. The economies of our states are now circling the drain. If Arizonans want a better future, you must end this reign of error — throw out the Tea-Publicans. 5 measures of Arizona’s economy as fall season arrives:

Here are five measures of the state’s economy heading into the fall:

1. Jobs remain scarce

Before the Great Recession, Arizona’s unemployment rate stood at 4 percent and the state was awash in growth. Five years after the downturn technically ended, Arizona has restored less than 60 percent of its recession job losses. The state has a 7 percent unemployment rate. Both of which are well behind the national average.

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‘ObamaCare’ success story: ‘The Medicare Miracle’

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Margot Sanger-Katz reports for The Upshot at the New York Times that the Affordable Care Act aka “ObamaCare” is bending the cost curve even more than projected, extending the life of the program. Per Capita Medicare Spending Is Actually Falling:

Image: Supreme Court Upholds Obama's Affordable Care ActMedicare spending isn’t just lower than experts predicted a few years ago. On a per-person basis, Medicare spending is actually falling.

If the pattern continues, as the Congressional Budget Office forecasts, it will be a rarity in the Medicare program’s history. Spending per Medicare patient has almost always grown more rapidly than the economy as a whole, often by a wide margin.

Health economists call that difference “excess cost growth.”

Lately, though, some have taken to using the unwieldy phrase “negative excess cost growth.”

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More good news for ‘ObamaCare’ – Democrats should go on the attack

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More good news for the Affordable Care Act aka “ObamaCare”: it is “bending the cost curve” on the expense of Medicare even more than originally forecast, which is reducing the federal deficit. the New York Times reported this past week, Medicare: Not Such a Budget-Buster Anymore:

Screenshot from 2014-08-31 12:40:51

You’re looking at the biggest story involving the federal budget and a crucial one for the future of the American economy. [use the article link for this interactive chart.] Every year for the last six years in a row, the Congressional Budget Office has reduced its estimate for how much the federal government will need to spend on Medicare in coming years. The latest reduction came in a report from the budget office on Wednesday morning.

The changes are big. The difference between the current estimate for Medicare’s 2019 budget and the estimate for the 2019 budget four years ago is about $95 billion. That sum is greater than the government is expected to spend that year on unemployment insurance, welfare and Amtrak — combined. It’s equal to about one-fifth of the expected Pentagon budget in 2019. Widely discussed policy changes, like raising the estate tax, would generate just a tiny fraction of the budget savings relative to the recent changes in Medicare’s spending estimates.

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