Republicans Have Failed As Obamacare Enrollment Spreads Like Wildfire In Red States

Despite the protests of Republicans and red state conservatives, millions of people in Republican controlled states have enrolled in the federal health insurance exchange. The Republican efforts to stop Obamacare at the state level have been a failure.

Saving O-Care From SCOTUS Might Be A Whole Lot Harder Than It Sounds

If conservative justices rule to invalidate tax credits offered through HealthCare.gov, dealing a punishing blow to Obamacare, it isn’t clear that the White House will have the legal and practical leeway to save it.

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Bernie Sanders: Republicans Are Getting Very Nervous About Obamacare’s Success

Sen. Bernie Sanders explained on MSNBC that Republicans are very nervous about the success of Obamacare because the ACA proves their ideology that the government can't help people wrong.

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John Fugelsang’s Epic Smackdown of an Obamacare Liar

John Fugelsang Shows How To Hit Back At... by ewillies

Paul Ryan Gets An Earful From Constituent Who Will Save Hundreds Under Obamacare

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) has been one of the primary architects of the GOP’s ongoing crusade to repeal and replace Obamacare. Most recently, the Budget Chairman has indicated that Republicans will attempt to pass individual reforms to roll back the health law’s provisions piece by piece.

But not all of Ryan’s constituents agree with his position. On Wednesday, the Republican congressman was confronted by one such voter at a town hall in southeast Wisconsin.

“ACA subsidies are a good thing,” Michael Martincic, 64, of Oak Creek told Ryan, criticizing his Party’s repeated attempts to get rid of the health reform law.

Martincic works as a roofer and is currently paying $700 for his health insurance through his union. However, upon browsing Healthcare.gov — “it was so easy to get on the site; the whole thing only took 15 minutes,” Martincic told ThinkProgress afterward — he found that he qualified for subsidies and could be paying as little as $200 for coverage.

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Scott Brown gets an awkward lesson about Obamacare

Who knew Obamacare helped Republicans, too? Certainly not Scott Brown.

Recognize: 58% Of Women Use Birth Control For Reasons Other Than Pregnancy Prevention

Consumer Reports on HealthCare.gov

GOP Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy falsely claimed Consumer Reports warned “Americans not to go to the [HealthCare.gov] website because of the fear of having fraud.”

14 Things You Need To Know About Obamacare

Like most Americans, you've probably heard of "Obamacare," but you're not exactly sure what it is. According to your uncle's Facebook posts, it sounds pretty scary, like maybe it's going to turn America into a Kenyan Soviet Union or something.

Well, good news: Obamacare is probably not going to do that! What a relief, huh? What other mysteries about the new health-care law can we clear up for you? Here are 14 answers, for starters:

1. What is Obamacare, exactly?

"Obamacare" is a nickname for the Affordable Care Act, a controversial law Congress passed and President Obama signed in 2010. To the chagrin of Republican opponents, who are still trying to kill the law, the Supreme Court declared it constitutional in 2012.


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Obamacare Myths

We’ve been batting down bogus claims about the Affordable Care Act for years, since 2009, when legislation was still in the debate stage. But they’ve been increasing in intensity in recent months as we approach Oct. 1, the date the insurance exchanges will be open for business for those buying their own insurance, mainly with the help of federal subsidies.

So, more than three years after our last health-care-whoppers piece (published just before the law was signed in 2010), we’re giving readers a rundown of the top claims.

Some have been around for years, and others are relatively new. Most touch on three topics: jobs, premium costs and medical care. For instance:

■Republicans have made the overblown claim that the law is a job-killer, but experts predict a small impact on mainly low-wage jobs. The Republican National Committee says 8.2 million part-timers can’t find full-time work “partly” due to the law. That’s the total number of part-time workers who want full-time jobs, and there’s no evidence from official jobs figures that the law has had an impact.


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Republicans Getting An Earful About Voting Against Obamacare At Town Halls

Republican Congressman Patrick McHenry got an earful from a constituent Wednesday about repeatedly voting against Obamacare at a town hall in Asheville, North Carolina.

Skip Edwards, 63, got up in a packed school auditorium and told McHenry about his financial difficulties in obtaining health insurance after losing his job during the recession. Both Edwards and his wife were previously denied insurance due to pre-existing conditions, the Asheville Citizen-Times reports.

“It cost us $1,300 bucks a month — extremely expensive,” Edwards said, as quoted by the Citizen-Times. “It taps us out every month. But at our age and health, we’ve got to have it."

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Confused About Health Care Reform?

The Affordable Care Act can be mind-boggling. As deadlines approach, we've made things easier to understand.

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GOP MisTweets #ObamaCare Survey Results

Mistweets? HA! I think LIED is more appropriate.

House Speaker John Boehner, among other Republicans, wrongly tweeted that a recent “study” found “74% of small businesses will fire workers, cut hours under #Obamacare.” Actually, no more than 13 percent of the small businesses surveyed said that.

On July 16, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce released a three-page report summarizing the results of its Small Business Outlook Study for the second quarter of 2013. The report said: “Despite the Administration’s delay of the employer mandate by a year, small businesses expect the requirement to negatively impact their employees. 27% say they will cut hours to reduce full time employees, 24% will reduce hiring, and 23% plan to replace full time employees (30 hours per week or more) with part-time workers to avoid triggering the mandate.”

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Parody video shows why GOP ‘gynaeticians’ shouldn’t dictate women’s health

Gynotician

Republicans prepare for 'Obamacare' showdown, with eye to 2014 elections

Political analysts say the Republican onslaught could prove short-lived. Beginning on October 1, Obama's health reform will help millions of uninsured people buy subsidized health insurance for the first time. Should enough people sign up by the time enrollment ends in March, the law's value as an election issue may run dry.

"The fear is that the law will start to work and people will like it. They'll like having insurance, a safety net if you lose your job. Then Republicans are stuck with it," Ornstein said.

One Republican ploy is to target the law's individual mandate, which requires most Americans to have insurance in 2014, or pay a penalty. It is the only lever the government has to require the participation, but it is also unpopular with voters. Republicans have sought to stoke discontent since the administration delayed a separate requirement that larger employers provide insurance coverage for workers.

"They'll start to feel impacts that are completely in contrast to what they were told when the bill was passed. That's what we're seeing in internal polling from districts that will determine control of the House - Obamacare becoming more unpopular," said Daniel Scarpinato, press secretary for the National Republican Congressional Committee.

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Answers

Shameful that gazillionaires who don't have to worry about health care spend their resources trying to prevent the rest of us from having access. There needs to be laws put in place prohibiting misinformation campaigns such as this being broadcast over the public airwaves. I am so sick of ignorant/greedy Republican's.  I wish we could split the country and let them go live amongst themselves and eat eachother rather than have all of us dragged down with them.

From "American's United for Change"

Last week, the Koch brother-funded illegal nonprofit, Americans for Prosperity, launched an indefensible million dollar ad campaign intended to spread misinformation about the Affordable Care Act, better known as “Obamacare.”

Their first campaign ad, titled “Questions”, was released early last week and was packed with lies and deceit designed to scare Americans about the much needed and long-awaited health reform.

I would list all of the deceitful claims here, but I will let our trusty doctor, the trusty pediatrician, Dr. Sanjeev Sriram, eviscerate every Koch-produced lie one by one in a response video titled “Answers” from the National Physicians Alliance and Americans United for Change (BELOW), shattering very false narrative with informative truth and facts regarding “Obamacare”. It’s imperative that every American sees this video, lest we allow these corporatist billionaires to capture the public narrative and scare Americans into not embracing a program that will be beneficial to their health, not to mention their bank accounts.

While the Koch brothers are counting on their shameless campaign in order to spread misinformation about this important reform that will improve access and quality of care for tens of millions of Americans, it is up to every informed American to spread the facts about Pres. Obama’s signature achievement.

Women's Preventive Services Now Covered Under Obamacare Starting Today

Today is an important day for women. Today legislation goes into effect that will phase in guaranteed coverage for a wide range of preventative health services with no cost sharing such as co-pays, cost sharing, deductables or co-insurance.

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What the Court Decision Means for You and Your Health Care

1. No more caps on coverage. The insurance companies can no longer cap your coverage, either annually or over your lifetime – a big deal should you ever develop an illness that requires big bucks to address. Prior to this reform, insurance companies routinely employed “lifetime caps” of 1 to 3 million dollars. Which means if you spent more than that over your lifetime, you’d lose your coverage and be forced to pay every bill yourself, a virtual guarantee that you’d be bankrupt shortly thereafter.

2. No more getting turned down for coverage based on pre-existing medical conditions. Starting in 2014, if you have an illness like cancer or diabetes, insurance companies can no longer refuse to insure you – or turn you away by charging so much in premiums that there’s no way you can afford to pay. Children are an exception: Children already can’t be turned down because of pre-existing conditions.

3. No more booting kids off parents’ policies at 21. Dependent children up to 26 years old can remain covered under their parents’ policy. Keeping kids on a parental policy is normally cheaper than insuring kids individually.

4. Payments for preventive health care. Until health care reform, preventive care coverage – like annual physicals, for example – could be subject to deductibles and co-pays. Now it’s free: no co-pay, no out of pocket (although there’s still some doubt this is actually happening).

5. State insurance marketplaces: Starting in 2014, states will operate insurance marketplaces that are designed to lower prices by increasing competition. Those who pay for their own insurance, like the many self-employed Americans, should find lower-priced plans thanks to the increased competition afforded by these marketplaces.

6. Coverage for low-income Americans: The law expanded Medicaid to all non-Medicare eligible individuals under age 65 (children, pregnant women, parents, and adults without dependent children) with incomes up to 133% of the federal poverty level.

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In Health Care, Give the People What They Want: Medicare for All

by Robert Scheer

The nutty thing about the health care debate that will play a prominent role in the next election is that most Americans want pretty much the same outcome: to control costs without sacrificing quality. And that’s not what either major-party candidate is offering. Few think that Obamacare, a Romneycare descendant that contains the same kind of individual mandate the then-governor of Massachusetts signed into law, will get us to that desired goal. Nor would Mitt Romney, who has been reborn as a celebrant of the old, pre-Obama system with a few nips and tucks.Taken on November 3, 2011 in Franklin Mcpherson Square, Washington, DC. (Photo: Flickr/Glyn Lowe Photoworks)

As the nation awaits a Supreme Court ruling on the constitutionality of the Obama health care approach, a new Associated Press-GfK poll suggests that the vast majority of Americans want Congress to come up with a better plan. They know that the current system is unsustainable. Only a third of those polled favored the law President Barack Obama signed, but according to the AP, “whatever people think of the law, they don’t want a Supreme Court ruling against it to be the last word on health care reform.” The article continued, “More than three-fourths of Americans want their political leaders to undertake a new effort, rather than leave the health care system alone if the court rules against the law, according to the poll.”

That sentiment underscores the opportunity missed by Obama, who limited his ambition to what Big Pharma and the insurance giants would accept as “reform” in a system that they had so successfully exploited. Obamacare is a faux reform born of opportunism, as was Romney’s original version: Play ball with those who have profited most from the run-up of medical costs and expect them to make it more affordable.

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A second chance for Dems to make the case for health care

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