How the right justifies cutting 1.3 million Americans — including 20,000 veterans — off emergency unemployment insurance The economic case for emergency unemployment insurance is pretty simple. When the long-term unemployment rate is high, offering unemployment benefits to those who have been out of work for six month puts money immediately back into the economy, as there is little-to-no chance […]

“So it appears that, by the end of the month,” New York‘s Jonathan Chait wrote about Healthcare.gov on November 11, “the administration will be facing a new political fiasco or will have delivered a Hanukkah-time miracle.” On December 25th we can say that a miracle has more or less occurred. Healthcare.gov’s performance wasn’t flawless by any metric. But it did […]

You know that Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson has been suspended by A&E from his reality show for saying that homosexuality leads to bestiality. In the same interview he also said black people were happier during segregation. (And what evidence do we have that they weren’t? Except the civil rights movement.) Right wingers are ignoring the comments about Jim Crow […]

Earlier this year GOP national committeeman Dave Agema posted a vile commentary on gays and lesbians authored by a known white supremacist. How did the Republican National Committee punish him for such an egregious example of hate as they were gearing up for a season of outreach? They passed Agema’s resolution denouncing same-sex marriage. Take that! Obviously, Agema learned his […]

Depending on which poll you’re reading, President Obama and the Affordable Care Act are either at an all-time low or climbing out of an all-time low. The cratering of the president’s popularity makes sense after months of a public relations disaster– and that’s what Healthcare.gov’s crappy rollout was. If it were an actual disaster, people would have died. Now that […]

As Republicans saw their dream of Healthcare.gov never becoming functional enough to work fall apart this week, it became clear that they’re about to face a nightmare when it comes to immigration reform. When asked if reform would happen in 2014, Speaker John Boehner told reporters on Thursday, “I’ve learned not to make future promises from this podium.” It was […]

You’ve heard that the Affordable Care Act polls slightly better than Obamacare. But there’s a part of the president’s signature legislative accomplishment that polls even better than either name: Medicaid expansion. In two of the nation’s crucial presidential swing states — Ohio and Pennsylvania — majorities support expanding health coverage to those earning 133 percent of the poverty level. A […]

You’ve probably heard that since Obamacare launched red state Kentucky has reduced its uninsured population by 9%. If Texas did that, 561,141 people would be insured and hell would have frozen over. In 2010, 6,234,900 Texans lacked health insurance and Republicans apparently decided that their biggest problem was that they weren’t producing enough uninsured people to keep that number growing. […]

As someone who desperately wants the Affordable Care Act to work, I’ve been tough on the failure to launch the health care exchanges necessary to make it do so. Maybe I’ve been too tough. My father-in-law — who spent his career building software that often had to map into federal government regulatory schemes — told me last night that this […]

As a perpetual optimist, I’m pretty sure this is the low point for what I consider to be the greatest victory for the middle class since Medicare/Medicaid — the Affordable Care Act. Approval of President Obama and the law are at new lows. Still, as The Washington Post‘s Greg Sargent keeps pointing out, support for repeal is still a minority […]

Republicans will do anything to destroy President Obama. They’ll fall in love with Herman Cain after Donald Trump. They’ll let Darrell Issa run off every cliff and into every tunnel painted on every mountain. They’ll even develop a sudden, deep concern for the uninsured. And now they’re pretty sure they finally have the president beat. Savvy right-wing political operative Rick […]