Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Republicans Think They Can Pull It Off with the ACA and the Budget

On September 7, I pointed out Republicans are preparing Another Assault on the PPACA/ACA in 2017. Republican senators Lindsey Graham S.C. and Bill Cassidy LA are making a last stand in an effort to repeal and replace the ACA by “proposing legislation doing away with many of the subsidies and mandates of the 2010 law. […]

Another Assault on the PPACA Coming in 2017

The Present If you thought it was over, it is not. Now that Schumer/Pelosi have removed the debt limit issue in front of Republicans with a Trump agreement, one more impediment to assaulting healthcare has been cleared away. John, I have cancer and have healthcare, McCain has come out to support a bill proposed by […]

Reports of Obamacare’s death are greatly exaggerated: All counties to be covered for 2018

Reports of Obamacare’s death are greatly exaggerated: All counties to be covered for 2018 Obamacare has now obtained an insurer for every county in the country, defying Republican claims that the program is collapsing. As reported by The Hill, “At one point or another over the past year, more than 80 counties have been at […]

Extreme Contempt

Extreme Contempt Donald Trump has engaged in so many outrageous statements and conduct that it has become very difficult to remember which of  those were really the most outrageous, the most morally contemptible, the ones that should have led his supporters to have abandoned but they did not, the ones that merited above all others […]

First Vote to Amend and Repeal Rejected

The first vote in the Senate to amend the PPACA was rejected. “Senators voted 57-43 late Tuesday to reject the plan in the first vote on an amendment to the bill. Those voting “no” included nine defecting Republicans. The vote underscored problems Republicans will have in winning enough votes to recast Obama’s statute. The rejected […]

What Will It Take for Republicans to Be Able to Revise the ACA

The first section of issues McConnell and Republicans must overcome requires 60 votes due to the Parliamentarian ruling the provisions of the BCHA violate the Byrd Rule; consequently, the Reconciliation procedure requiring only 51 votes can not be used to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or waive the Byrd rule. The second set of […]

How Keynesian Policy Led Economic Growth In the New Deal Era: Three Simple Graphs

(Dan here…lifted and reposted) by Mike Kimel How Keynesian Policy Led Economic Growth In the New Deal Era: Three Simple Graphs November 22, 2011 In this post, I will show that during the New Deal era, changes in the real economic growth rate can be explained almost entirely by the earlier changes in federal government’s […]

Still Not a Win and Just a Delay

The biggest lie coming out of the Senate today: “’One of the major problems with Obamacare was that it was written on a strict party-line basis and driven through Congress without a single Republican vote,’ McCain said. He added that Congress must now ‘hold hearings, receive input from members of both parties, and heed the […]