Obamacare

John McCain lies about ‘ObamaCare’

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ObamacareJohn McCain has largely built his entire campaign, at least from his television ads, around GOP opposition to the Affordable Care Act aka “ObamaCare.” In his ads, McCain claims that ObamaCare has “devastated” Arizona.

What exactly does he mean by “devastated”? I have been unable to find a single report or fact check from the fawning Arizona McMedia into McCain’s claim. Has any reporter even asked him to explain? Or are they all too busy kissing his wrinkled old ass?

Arizona’s job growth has been lackluster since the Bush Great Recession, but has had a slight uptick in the past couple of years. Do you know why that is?

It is due largely to growth in the health services field as a result of  Obamacare. IN December. the Phoenix Business Journal reported, Which Arizona business sectors will do the most hiring in 2016:

In Arizona, the state’s Department of Administration projected that 63,100 jobs will be created in 2016. That seems a bit of a conservative projection, however, since through November 2015, the state had added 65,000. The DOA had projected only 56,000 new jobs in all of 2015.

By the end of next year, DOA expects the number of health care and services workers will increase by nearly 30,000 over the employment base in 2014.

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Eddie Munster’s Monstrous Plan for America

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EddieMunsterTom Toles is the Washington Post‘s cartoonist, but he also writes a column. Today’s column caught my eye: Paul Ryan: Eddie from the Munsters wants to grow up to be a real monster.

Bwahahaha! I have been using Eddie Munster for Paul Ryan for years. More on Toles’ column below, but first, a word from the professor.

The GOP’s alleged boy genius, Ayn Rand fanboy Paul Ryan, “the zombie-eyed granny starver from the state of Wisconsin, ” is an intellectual fraud and The Flimflam Man. Recently Paul Krugman reiterated:

Paul Ryan is not, repeat not, a serious, honest man of principle who has tainted his brand by supporting Donald Trump. He has been an obvious fraud all along, at least to anyone who can do budget arithmetic . . . Yet he poses as an icon of fiscal probity. That is, he is, in his own way, every bit as much a fraud as The Donald.

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GOP fail on ObamaCare replacement

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EddieMunsterThe GOP’s alleged boy genius, Ayn Rand fanboy and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan is The Most Overrated Intellect In Washington. As Paul Krugman said years ago, Ryan is The Flimflam Man.

Having nearly seven years in which to come up with an alternative to the Affordable Care Act aka “ObamaCare,” this is what boy genius comes up with? The Beltway media should revoke his “very serious person” card and stop speaking to him.

Update: It was seven years ago this month that House Republican leaders began promising to unveil a GOP health-care-reform plan, and for seven years, the party has done nothing except offer vague soundbites and vote several dozen times to repeal the Affordable Care Act, replacing it with nothing. (h/t Steve Benen).

Nancy LeTourneau at the Political Animal Blog writes, Speaker Paul Ryan Goes “Post-Truth” on a Health Care Plan:

To the extent that Republicans have become “post policy,” Speaker Paul Ryan seems to be leading the charge to return them to being “post truth.” In other words, he is attempting to revive the old system of pretending to present policy proposals that help Americans, but really just benefit the 1%ers. Nowhere is that more obvious than with his unveiling today of a GOP plan to replace Obamacare.

There is nothing new in this plan. It contains all of the old standbys Republicans have been talking about for a while now: refundable tax credits, health savings accounts, high risk pools, block-granting Medicaid, a voucher program to replace Medicare, etc. Oh, and as Kevin Drum notes, while we’re at it, lets raise the eligibility age for Medicare to 67. But there are two pretty big things that were not included in this “plan”:

1. No budget information on costs

2. No projections on what it would mean for the 20 million people who have gained insurance under Obamacare.

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John McCain’s bogus ad attacking Ann Kirkpatrick for voting for ‘ObamaCare’

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McCain buttonArizona’s angry old man John McCain is sounding like a broken record again, in a television ad (http://bit.ly/1svTrIg) criticizing Congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick, the presumptive Democratic nominee, for her 2010 vote in favor of Obamacare. McCain hits Kirkpatrick over Obamacare in TV ad.

McCain’s ad comes at the same time the Huffington Post reported  on the latest coverage figures, by way of the CDC, with which the “McMedia” in Arizona should familiarize itself.

More than 7 million previously uninsured Americans gained health coverage in 2015, the second full year of the Obamacare coverage expansion, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

During the fourth quarter of last year, just 9.1 percent of U.S. residents, or 28.6 million people, had no health coverage, the National Health Interview Survey found. That’s a decline of 2.4 percentage points and 7.4 million people from a year before.

The additional 7.4 million insured builds on the 8.8 million previously uninsured people who got covered in 2014, the first year of the Affordable Care Act’s full benefits.

The full report from the CDC is online here (pdf).

When was the last time more than 90% of Americans had health insurance? As Sarah Kliff at Vox.com explains, 2015 was the first year 90 percent of Americans had health insurance. Thanks, Obama. And Thank you, Ann Kirkpatrick.

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Supreme Court issues orders on immigration executive orders, ObamaCare individual mandate, and abortion restrictions

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Back in January I posted that The Mass Deportation Party wants the US Supreme Court to delay ruling on the Obama administration’s executive orders on immigration:

ImmigrantsThe 26 “red states” that brought the legal challenge to the Obama administration’s executive orders on immigration do not want the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on the appeal this term in the middle of an election year. They would rather use the case for political propaganda purposes during the election.

So the 26 “red states” are asking the Court (1) not to rule on the Obama administration’s appeal, or (2) to expand the scope of the appeal to address the underlying constitutional issues (which has not been addressed by the trial court nor the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals). This would be extraordinary for the Court to depart from the regular order of legal procedure.

The GOP desperately does not want the Court to rule on this appeal until after a new president takes office in January 2017 — leaving hundreds of thousands of immigrants who qualify for the Obama administration’s DACA and DAPA programs in legal limbo and uncertainty, because the Mass Deportation Party does not care about their situation.  They are hoping that a Republican will be elected in 2016 who will reverse Obama’s executive orders, rendering this appeal moot, and putting those individuals in the DACA and DAPA programs in jeopardy.

The U.S. Supreme Court today issued its orders list from last Friday’s conference, and granted the Obama administration’s request to hear this appeal from the 5th Circuit this term. There will be a decision on the administration’s executive orders before the end of June.

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