COVID-19 & Healthcare

Hiltzik: GOP alternative to ‘ObamaCare’ is ‘an anti-consumer bill of rights’

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Back in January, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) declared “This year, we will rally around an alternative to ObamaCare and pass it on the floor of the House.” I analyzed the proposed GOP alternative at the time. GOP ‘ObamaCare’ alternative is a sick joke:

snidely-whiplashAfter four years, the Republicans are saying they finally have an alternative to their Heritage Foundation/RomneyCare/ObamneyCare health care plan. The outlines of the plan are a rehash of old proposals floated and rejected for years, and restores to insurers the financial advantage they enjoyed over consumers before “ObamaCare.” It would cover far fewer people, limit coverage and allow for exclusions, and result in a tax increase for employer-sponsored health insurance plans.

The Los Angeles Times reports, House GOP will offer Obamacare alternative this year:

House Republicans plan to pass a healthcare reform bill that could replace the Affordable Care Act, Majority Leader Eric Cantor announced Thursday.

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Cantor said the proposal would build off of various alternative health plans that Republicans have offered this year, a Republican aide said, and would allow consumers to buy plans across state lines, reform medical liability and create health savings accounts, among other components.

Read the rest of this earlier post for the analysis.

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Popular Empty Bowls Fundraiser for Interfaith Community Services

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empty-bowlsSaturday, March 22

11:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

Tucson Chinese Cultural Center

1288 W. River Road (east of La Canada)

2014 Empty Bowls Presented by: Dorothy Vanek and Wendell and Rose Tyson

Assist those less fortunate in Pima County and have a great time, too. Join us at the Tucson Chinese Cultural Center on Saturday, March 22, 2014 from 11:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. to select a beautiful handmade pottery bowl and sample signature soups, breads, desserts and other nibbles donated by local restaurants and food partners. Enjoy live music and bid for unique pottery items and more in our silent auction and raffle.

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The “Managerial Republican” is mostly a fantasy

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I will say that Ronald Brownstein’s recent column in the National Journal is a bit better than what we’ve been getting lately from the hordes of DC pundits attempting to analyze Arizona. In particular, I liked this bit at the end:

After Arizona’s tax revenues plummeted with the housing market collapse, Brewer backed a temporary 1-cent sales-tax increase to limit spending cuts. But even so, since 2008, the GOP majority’s commitment to squeezing government has produced the nation’s third-largest reduction in per-student K-12 spending; the largest percentage reduction in per-student support for public higher education; and the biggest public tuition hikes. No other choices capture as starkly the contrasting priorities of a ruling GOP coalition that still receives almost all of its votes from whites (many older, rural, and exurban) and a minority population that now represents the clear majority of students in Arizona’s public schools.

It’s refreshing to see a conservative admit outright that Arizona Republicans have slashed public education funding (instead of doing the Goldwater Institute song and dance about how the schools are really funded quite generously if you look at all these charts and squint) and that the cuts are ideological and not fiscal in purpose.

Brownstein’s main thesis is that Arizona’s politics operate along fault lines of age and race, with the older whites voting overwhelmingly GOP and the Democratic base being younger and browner. I take no issue with that assessment. What I do dispute is this:

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AZ Speaker of the House doesn’t know the difference between emergency contraception and the abortion pill

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Crossposted at DemocraticDiva.com

ICYMI, the March 10 Legislative Update on Phoenix Channel 8’s Horizon featured Speaker of the House Andy Tobin (R) and Senate Majority Whip John McComish (R) pontificating on a number of timely topics, one of which was recent abortion legislation. The whole episode is below and at about 7:30 in you can listen to two men – well, three if you include host Ted Simons – opine on the proper restraining of the female chattel as we audaciously insist on making reproductive decisions for ourselves. Watch Senator McComish defend surprise abortion clinic inspections because he and his barber discussed the matter and his barber’s shop is subject to surprise inspections and, by gum, that’s good enough for abortion clinics and their patients too!

http://www.azpbs.org/arizonahorizon/play.php?vidId=6611

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The Plutocracy is spending millions to deny Americans health care

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Think Progress reports on the startling amount of money already spent this year by the Plutocracy to deny Americans health care. Outside Political Groups Are Spending Record Amounts Of Money To Deny Poor People Health Care:

Obamacare opponents have already run more than 30,000 television ads attacking the health law and Democratic candidates who support it, according to the media tracking group CMAG — a staggering 12-fold increase from four years ago. Many of the ads are being run in states with high uninsurance rates where hundreds of thousands of poor people could benefit from the Affordable Care Act, including Arkansas, Kentucky, and Louisiana.

Nearly half of all ads that have been run about the health law in House and Senate races through March 9 are critical of the ACA. And in a reflection of the post-Citizens United political landscape, spending by outside groups without any official connection to a particular organization or party accounts for almost three-fourths of all the commercials, compared to just 13 percent in 2010.

“We knew there would be heightened public awareness around the implementation of the law, and we thought it was important to go up early with a heavy effort,” said Tim Phillips, president of the Koch brother-funded group Americans for Prosperity (AFP), in an interview with Bloomberg.

Screenshot from 2014-03-16 15:02:38
DonkeyHotey: The Koch Brothers Campaign Carnaval | Flickr – Photo Sharing.

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