Let’s Celebrate Medicare by Expanding It | Common Dreams

Let’s Celebrate Medicare by Expanding It | Common Dreams
"The real celebration of this important milestone would be to improve Medicare and extend it, providing access to health care for all."

Bombshell: Plutocrats Brazenly Collude to Hurt State Economies and Screw Working People | Alternet

Bombshell: Plutocrats Brazenly Collude to Hurt State Economies and Screw Working People | Alternet
"Illinois fatcats discuss plan to sabotage state bond ratings in scheme to destroy pensions."

Fox Claims That Feeding Seniors In Need Is An Effort To Buy Their Vote

www.mediamatters.org/blog/2013/07/30/fox-claims-that-feeding-seniors-in-need-is-an-e/195129
"Fox News continued its campaign to demonize programs that provide necessary food assistance to millions of Americans by attacking the AARP's effort to enroll eligible seniors in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps, baselessly claiming the program was an effort to buy their vote and change "what America really is" and dismissing the fact that many eligible seniors find it difficult to enroll in the food assistance program they need."

Politicians Celebrate Medicare’s 48th Anniversary With Attack Ads

Politicians Celebrate Medicare’s 48th Anniversary With Attack Ads: Though the GOP opposed its creation in 1965 and now support a dramatic restructuring that would substantially privatize Medicare, the National Republican Congressional Committee is out with ads criticizing Democrats for cutting $716 billion from the program.

Under Obamacare, Heavy Smokers Will Get Free Screenings For Lung Cancer

Under Obamacare, Heavy Smokers Will Get Free Screenings For Lung Cancer: An Obamacare provision will allow heavy smokers to get a yearly CT scan without paying any out-of-pocket costs. The free yearly screenings are expected to save 20,000 lives per year.

PERRspectives: After Denying Insurance for 500,000, Jindal and Walker Attack Obamacare

PERRspectives: After Denying Insurance for 500,000, Jindal and Walker Attack Obamacare
"The past week brought two big waves of Obamacare news. In the first, Maryland became just the latest state to announce that its new health care exchange will deliver lower than expected insurance premiums beginning in 2014. In the second, a slew of contenders for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination took the op-ed pages to denounce the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The latter were nothing if not ironic. On the Fox News web site, Florida Senator Marco Rubio demanded that Congress refuse to fund Obamacare, only to then charge that the resulting government showdown would be the President's fault. Meanwhile, Republican Governors and White House rivals Bobby Jindal and Scott Walker called for a "complete repeal" of the "unworkable Obamacare" even as they insist on denying health insurance to half a million people in Louisiana and Wisconsin."

Ready, Get Set, Enroll! Catholic Health Association of the United States

Growing Number Of States Are Reporting Lower Than Expected Health Care Premiums

Growing Number Of States Are Reporting Lower Than Expected Health Care Premiums: Health premiums in Maryland’s exchanges will be “among the lowest of the 12 states that have available proposed or approved rates for comparison,” the state’s exchange —Maryland Health Connection — announced Friday. The news comes just as New York,Oregon, Montana,California, and Louisiana are also reporting lower than expected premiums.

Maryland Touts Low Obamacare Health Insurance Premiums

www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/26/obamacare-premiums-maryland_n_3661017.html
"Health coverage sold on Obamacare's health insurance exchange in Maryland will be among the cheapest in the country, state officials said Friday."

A Blueprint for the GOP's Attempt to Sabotage Obamacare | The Nation

A Blueprint for the GOP's Attempt to Sabotage Obamacare | The Nation
"Here’s a blueprint for the GOP’s sabotage act, which runs the gamut from spreading half-truths to, as John Boehner himself put it, “risk[ing] the full faith and credit of the United States"."

North Carolina Passes the Country's Worst Voter Suppression Law | Common Dreams

North Carolina Passes the Country's Worst Voter Suppression Law | Common Dreams
"A provision making it more difficult to add satellite polling sites for the elderly or voters with disabilities."

GOP Sacrificing Constituents To Sabotage Obamcare

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Rick Snyder Gives Congressional Republicans A Road Map To Killing Your Retirement

www.politicususa.com/2013/07/26/rick-snyder-congressional-republicans-road-map-killing-retirement.html
"If any American has any doubts about what Republicans have planned for Social Security, or retirees expecting promised pension and health benefits they paid into throughout their working lives, take a long, hard look at what Rick Snyder and turnaround specialist Kevyn Orr intend doing to pensioners in Detroit because it foreshadows Republicans in Congress intent for Social Security."

PERRspectives: The Republican Health Care Emergency in One Chart

PERRspectives: The Republican Health Care Emergency in One Chart
"Thanks to GOP rejection of Medicaid expansion, roughly 11.5 million of their constituents will needlessly remain without health coverage."

Sen. Al Franken On The 80/20 Rule And Publicizing The Affordable Care Act

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POLL: Most Americans Want To Give Obamacare Time To Work, Not Repeal It

POLL: Most Americans Want To Give Obamacare Time To Work, Not Repeal It: A new poll from the National Journal finds that the majority of Americans don’t want to repeal Obamacare. In fact, they want to give the law time to work. The Journal’s survey finds that, given the option to “wait and see” how the law takes effect in addition to options for repealing it or expanding [...]/p

39th time not the charm for GOP in repealing Obamacare

HHS: Obamacare premiums coming in lower than expected

www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/18/1224747/-HHS-Obamacare-premiums-coming-in-lower-than-nbsp-expected
"The new report shows that so far, proposed premiums in the health insurance exchanges are coming in lower than expected in HHS's and CBO's projections. So far, data is available for 11 states, and in those state the lowest cost "silver" plan, essentially the median plan, is 18 percent cheaper than HHS predicted. That cost is averaged at $321 for that plan, compared with a current cost of $450 a month for comparable plans."

President Obama highlights middle class savings under Obamacare

www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/18/1224703/-President-Obama-highlights-middle-class-savings-under-nbsp-Obamacare
"About 8.5 million people are going to get a check from their insurance company this summer. Yes, you read that right: Health insurance companies are actually sending money to subscribers. That's because of a provision in the Affordable Care Act that insurance companies hate more than just about any other: the medical loss ratio. That just means that there is a cap on how much of your premium dollars the insurance companies can spend on administrative costs and keep as profits. Under Obamacare, 80 percent of your payment has to go to your care."

Most Media Coverage Ignores Premium Drop, Focuses On GOP Effort To Undermine Obamacare

Most Media Coverage Ignores Premium Drop, Focuses On GOP Effort To Undermine Obamacare: Early on Wednesday, as House Republicans prepared to vote for a delay of the Affordable Care Act’s employer and individual mandates, New York state officials announced that health care premiums in the new exchange will plummet by at least 50 percent as a result of the law. For reform advocates, the story represented a reprieve [...]/p

Prices Drop as the Affordable Care Act is Implemented | Economic Policy Institute

Prices Drop as the Affordable Care Act is Implemented | Economic Policy Institute
"The health insurance premiums announced today for the new health insurance exchanges for New York were far lower than their current individual health insurance market. This is great news for the thousands of New Yorkers who will see their premiums fall, and for the many more thousands who will be able to find affordable coverage when they couldn’t before."

The Other Health Care Reform Law Of Obama’s Presidency Is A Runaway Success

The Other Health Care Reform Law Of Obama’s Presidency Is A Runaway Success: It’s not talked about too often, but Barack Obama actually signed two health care reform bills in his first term. Obamacare may get all the media attention — but the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, passed as part of the stimulus bill in 2009, also took important steps to fix [...]/p

Thanks To Obamacare, New Yorkers’ Health Insurance Premiums Will Plunge 50 Percent

Thanks To Obamacare, New Yorkers’ Health Insurance Premiums Will Plunge 50 Percent: Health care premiums on the individual market will tumble by at least 50 percent as a result of the Affordable Care Act, the New York Times reported on Wednesday. The state joins Oregon, Montana, California, and Louisiana in reporting lower than expected rates in the law’s new health care marketplaces. Economists expected the law to [...]/p

Improving Children’s Health Care Research Could Benefit Adults, Too

Improving Children’s Health Care Research Could Benefit Adults, Too: The majority of medical research and investment currently centers on adults’ diseases — but that often comes at the expense of children’s health, according to an essay by Dr. Matthew Davis in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Pediatrics. Working to change that could not only help safeguard kids’ health, but could actually [...]/p

‘Death By Zip Code’: Health Disparities Between Rich And Poor Areas Are Only Getting Worse

‘Death By Zip Code’: Health Disparities Between Rich And Poor Areas Are Only Getting Worse: On Tuesday, a new report revealed that Americans are in “mediocre” health, and the United States has significantly worse health outcomes than other wealthy countries. But in addition to the gap between the U.S. and other developed nations, the new research also documented the widening gulf between different areas of this country — and the [...]/p

David Gregory Falsely Claims All American Workers Will See Medicare Tax Increase

David Gregory Falsely Claims All American Workers Will See Medicare Tax Increase
"As we've already discussed around here, David Gregory was never too fond of the idea of some fact checking being done so that viewers would know how many whoppers he was allowing his guests to get away with. On this Sunday's Meet the Press, forget the guests -- it was Gregory himself who needed the fact checker."

How One Oklahoma Hospital Is Driving Down The Cost Of Health Care By Thousands Of Dollars

How One Oklahoma Hospital Is Driving Down The Cost Of Health Care By Thousands Of Dollars: In Oklahoma City, one surgical center is successfully reducing the price tag for their procedures by thousands of dollars — and encouraging nearby hospitals to follow suit. What’s the secret? The two doctors who started the Surgery Center of Oklahoma, Dr. Keith Smith and Dr. Steven Lantier, are committed to charging fair prices, and they [...]/p

GOP Demands Adoption of Ryan Budget as Debt Ceiling Ransom

GOP Demands Adoption of Ryan Budget as Debt Ceiling Ransom
"despite plummeting annual federal budget deficits, a stabilization of the debt as a percentage of the U.S. economy and his own admission that default would produce "a financial disaster, not only for our country but for the worldwide economy," Speaker John Boehner and his House GOP allies are once again planning to hold the once-routine debt ceiling increase hostage. Their price this time? Enacting large parts of the Ryan GOP budget repeatedly rejected by the Senate, the President--and the voters."

Sequester Impact: 1 In 7 Seniors Struggle With Hunger

Sequester Impact: 1 In 7 Seniors Struggle With Hunger
"Patricia Hoeft, director of senior center nutrition, the Mid-East Area Agency on Aging (Missouri): “How do I decide which 300 seniors aren’t going to eat that day"?"

Republicans Trying to Be as Unpopular as Humanly Possible | Alternet

Republicans Trying to Be as Unpopular as Humanly Possible | Alternet
"Privatizing Medicare and taking Paul Ryan's cues are recipe for being hated."

Koch Brothers To Pour Millions Into Obamacare Misinformation Campaign

Koch Brothers To Pour Millions Into Obamacare Misinformation Campaign: Americans for Prosperity — a conservative group funded by the Koch brothers — is spending millions on ads that aim to turn Americans against the Affordable Care Act, just as government officials prepare to enroll the uninsured in the law’s new health care exchanges beginning on October 1. The campaign will eschew attacks on President [...]/p

Paul Ryan Reveals That Everything He Said About Medicare in 2012 Was A Total Lie

http://www.politicususa.com/2013/07/08/house-gop-threaten-hold-medicare-hostage-exchange-raising-debt-ceiling.html
"Republicans are now holding Medicare hostage, and this should be an ah-ha moment for the media and the fact-checkers."

Stupid Linings Playbook: Boehner & Ryan Cook Up A Plan That Hands Dems the 2014 Election

www.politicususa.com/2013/07/07/boehner-ryan-cook-debt-ceiling-plan-hands-democrats-2014-election.html
"House Republicans may think they are safe, but how safe will they be if they vote to privatize Medicare and Social Security before their reelection campaigns kick off? If House Republicans stay on this course, they will also force Republican Senate candidates to say whether they support privatizing Medicare and Social Security."

GOP May Hold Debt Ceiling Hostage To Enact Paul Ryan’s Budget

GOP May Hold Debt Ceiling Hostage To Enact Paul Ryan’s Budget: House Republicans will hold the national debt ceiling increase hostage until President Obama agrees to mandatory spending cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, the National Journal reports, and will seek to use the leverage of default to force Democrats to enact the policies in Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) budget.

Time to Celebrate! Pete Peterson’s “Fix the Debt” Flunkies Blow Their July 4 Deadline for Austerity

Time to Celebrate! Pete Peterson’s “Fix the Debt” Flunkies Blow Their July 4 Deadline for Austerity
"many Fix the Debt CEOs pontificate about the need for "entitlement reform" and cuts to Medicare and Social Security while underfunding their company pension plans (and of course enjoying gold-plated retirement packages themselves)."

REPORT: Broadcast And Cable News' One-Sided Social Security Debate

www.mediamatters.org/research/2013/07/05/report-broadcast-and-cable-news-one-sided-socia/194732
"Throughout the first half of 2013, broadcast and cable nightly news overwhelmingly discussed Social Security in an unbalanced and negative light by repeatedly insisting that the program is insolvent, must be cut, or poses a risk to long-term fiscal security."

If States Keep Resisting Medicaid Expansion, Two-Thirds Of Eligible Americans Won’t Get Coverage

If States Keep Resisting Medicaid Expansion, Two-Thirds Of Eligible Americans Won’t Get Coverage: Nearly two out of three low-income Americans who are eligible for Medicaid coverage under Obamacare may not actually get those health benefits next year, according to a new analysis from the Associated Press. Those people are likely to miss out because states across the country are still refusing to expand the public insurance program. Since [...]/p