COVID-19 & Healthcare

Know your anti-choice Democratic candidates in AZ. Part 4.

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This installment will conclude my series on the anti-choice Dems running in legislative primaries. This last one, Sen. Catherine Miranda (LD27), might prove the most difficult to remove due to her incumbency and the strength of her family name. Luckily, her challenger is the hugely impressive and indefatigable campaigner Aaron Marquez. (I’m pretty sure Aaron has gotten more money out of me than any legislative candidate ever has because he’s that good at raising it.) And while it sucks to want a female Democrat to be defeated, Miranda has got to go, we’ll be getting a staunch ally in the Senate with Aaron Marquez:

a marquez

On your campaign website, you mention that as part of your service with the United States Army Reserve, you helped to build women’s centers in Afghanistan. Can you tell us more about this: What services did they provide, and what impact have they had?

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ACA subsidies and statutory semantics headed to SCOTUS

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Image: Supreme Court Upholds Obama's Affordable Care ActThe D.C. Circuit of Court of Appeals opinion in Halbig v. Burwell Here (.pdf) is utter nonsense.

The government filed a petition for an en banc hearing before the entire D.C. Circuit to reconsider the July 22 ruling. Read the petition Here (.pdf). The D.C. Circuit on Friday called for a response from the challengers to the tax subsidies, with the filing on the question of en banc review due within fifteen days, and limited to fifteen pages.  The order is Here (.pdf).

Abbe Gluck, professor of law at Yale Law School, explains just how disingenuous and ridiculous the opinion in Halbig is, and why the D.C. Circuit Court should overturn this clearly erroneous decision by a three judge panel of the Court in a 2-1 decision (by conservative activist judges). The CBO score and the Made-Up Narrative of the ObamaCare Subsidies Case:

Two years ago, I posted on this blog that the CBO scoring of Obamacare was central, in the public eye, and intensely scrutinized by all involved with the statute. CBO never assumed in scoring the bill that subsidies would be unavailable on federal exchanges.

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Know your anti-choice Democratic candidates in Arizona. Part 1.

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Jose Leonardo Suarez (LD4-D) is running for Arizona State House this year. When asked how he differed from the Democratic platform at the Clean Election primary debate, he said that he opposes marriage equality and abortion in most cases. Link to video, which can’t be embedded on this site. Suarez believes life starts at conception … Read more

Happy 49th Birthday, Medicare!

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The Medicare program turns 49 today, despite the best efforts of the GOP since its inception to kill the program. Dr. Richard Propp of the Capital District Alliance for Universal Healthcare has a good editorial on Medicare on the occasion of its 49th birthday. Happy birthday, Medicare:

Happy-Birthday-Medicare-Graphic-182x162Happy 49th birthday, Medicare. What a bargain — what simplicity — and what a benefit, when compared to the cost and availability of health care to those under 65.

True, it doesn’t pay for everything. True, there are deductibles and co-pays. It is also true that while Medicare Advantage plans purport to provide greater benefits than those of traditional Medicare, these plans cost us, the taxpayers, more than traditional Medicare and restrict choice.

And most importantly, it is true that anti-government ultra-conservatives, like U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, try year after year to destroy Medicare as we know it, through proposed phony privatization schemes like vouchers. They prevaricate with myths such as “Medicare is broke” (or is going broke, or will go broke).

The birthday of Medicare on July 30 represents a good time to push back.

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