Category Archives: Policy Issues

GOP Obamacare sabotage works. Incredible: Tuesday’s GOP response to the State of the Union featured “Bette in Spokane” whose insurance costs went way up under Obamacare.  It turns out though that Bette was the victim of GOP sabotage.  She took Republican advice and did NOT shop for a plan on the Exchange and got ripped off.  As this article points out:  “Even though the exchange could have gotten her a better deal, it was a better political outcome for Republicans that she didn’t avail herself of that option. And precisely because she didn’t, she was turned into a poster woman … Continue reading this post →

This is an article from 2009:  Health insurance costs rise far more than inflation – Sep. 15, 2009. The reason I post it is because it highlights the skyrocketing cost of healthcare BEFORE OBAMACARE WAS EVEN PASSED. Many opponents of Obamacare point to the still rising cost of healthcare and blame it on Obamacare (in fact costs have flattened for the first time in decades since Obamacare was passed, though it’s too early to know if it’s a trend).  The point is that the main reason Obama and Democrats moved mountains to pass such a transformitive law was because skyrocketing … Continue reading this post →

The Tortuous History of Conservatives and the Individual Mandate – Forbes. This Forbes.com article provides a history of the “individual mandate:, the component of Obamacare that requires each American purchase health insurance.  As the article recounts, the individual mandate was originally a Republican idea design to achieve near-universal health care coverage while maintaining a private health care system.  In the early 90’s, House Republicans pushed the individual mandate as the alternative to Hillarycare, which would have implemented a Medicare-style single-payer (i.e. government sponsored) approach to universal health care. It is ironic that the individual mandate, which is now opposed by … Continue reading this post →