My daughter turned 26 this past fall and is no longer covered by my health insurance. She had the misfortune of graduating from college with a Masters in bassoon performance right in the middle of the Great Recession. Though she has an advance degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music, finding a full-time position with an orchestra or symphony has […]

“It can’t be true…I personally do not believe that.” My home town of Dexter has been in the national news a bit lately. It started when Congressman Tim “the Original Tea Partier” Walberg invited a resident of our Stars Hollow-like village, Julie Boonstra, to be his guest at President Obama’s State of the Union address as a “victim of Obamacare”. […]

Hey, Republicans, are you listening?

The percentage of Michigan residents covered by health insurance through their job has dropped from 78.1 percent in 2000 to 62.9 percent in 2011 according to a new report out by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. That’s the second highest decline in the entire country, second only to South Carolina.

The study was done to get baseline information prior to the implementation of many of the core components of the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) so that we’ll have something to compare to as the ACA is rolled out.

Some of the key findings and more after the jump.

Sorry, face. This nose has GOT to go…

Tea party types in Michigan, facing the stinging blow of the U.S. Supreme Court upholding the constitution, are now working on a self-defeating effort to make sure that Michigan doesn’t create a health insurance exchange for Michiganders to shop for affordable health insurance. This comical effort apparently disregards the fact that, if they are successful, the federal government will create one FOR us, limiting our state legislators’ ability to have any say or control in the matter.

This is from an email I received yesterday from the Tea Party of West Michigan (all typos and grammatical errors are theirs, not mine – like the grammatically incorrect tagline at the top of every page on their website: “Influence policy, effect elections, protect the Constitution”)…

[Email and more after the jump.]

A fool and his money…

How does this make sense? Aetna Insurance company inadvertently revealed that it has donated $10 million to two groups, the US Chamber of Commerce and the American Action Network in 2011.

Both groups are actively fighting the Affordable Care Act (aka “Obamacare”.) But the insurance industry LOVES the ACA? Why? Because the individual mandate part of it ensures them a giant pool of money.

Oops.

This something the Republicans do NOT want you to know

A report from the trustees of the Medicare system this week has created a major kerfuffle in the mediasphere. While Democrats point to the fact that there has been no change in the insolvency date of Medicare from last year’s report, Republicans are spinning it to suggest that President Obama is a failure because he didn’t miraculously solve all the problems in the system in a single year.

Here’s something the Republicans do NOT want you to know, however: Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, taxpayers will save over $200 Billion through 2016.

It’s true (pdf).

I hate when that happens

Mitt Romney is traveling around the country telling Americans what a complete disaster Obamacare is, the health insurance reform modeled after his own Romneycare back in Massachusetts. He calls it “an unfolding disaster for the American economy, a budget-busting entitlement, and a dramatic new federal intrusion into our lives.”

Meanwhile, back Massachusetts, health insurance rates in the program are actually dropping.

In a rather stunning rebuke this week, the Obama adminstration, through the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight (CCIIO) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services denied an effort by the Republican Snyder administration in Michigan to thwart part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). The federal government has denied a request by the […]

There have now been FIVE federal court rulings on the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Of this, only two of them have gone against the ruling and one of them was only against part of it (the federal mandate). So, how has the media discussed these rulings? Here’s the answer in graphical from House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi: Steve Benen at […]

Remember Andy Harris? He’s the freshman Congressman from Maryland that complained bitterly during an orientation meeting about having to wait for his government-subsidized health insurance. A conservative Maryland physician elected to Congress on an anti-Obamacare platform surprised fellow freshmen at a Monday orientation session by demanding to know why his government-subsidized health care plan takes a month to kick in. […]

Yesterday I posted the results of an analysis I did of all 242 Republicans in the US House of Representatives. I looked at the bills & resolutions each of these men and women had sponsored and cosponsored. What I found was that, on average, 46% of the bills any individual sponsored or co-sponsored was related to the partial or complete […]