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

Julie Boonstra Tells the Detroit News Why Her New Healthcare Plan Doesn’t Work for Her: It Requires Her to Read the Policy or Ask Blue Cross a Few Basic Questions In Order to Learn What the Plan Actually Covers and What Her Expense Cap Is.

Oh, dear. I won’t summarize this for you; you really have to read it in full.  (Or maybe just read Glenn Kessler’s article about it posted today.) And to think I had thought Julie Boonstra’s only comprehension problem was with basic math.  Turns out she also has a problem with reading comprehension and with understanding […]

How A CBS Video About An Obamacare Victim Misled Millions – Part 2 (What the ‘Victim’ Revealed in Our Final Interview)

run75441: This portion of a report by Maggie Mahar at The Health Beat Blog is a masterful piece of investigative reporting doing much of the groundwork which CBS should have performed well before going to broadcast or publication. You can begin to see how much of the news concerning the PPACA is being manipulated and […]

Julie Boonstra Says That Because Obama Lied to Her, She’s Entitled to Lie to Others. [UPDATED]

Julie Boonstra is a Michigan mother currently battling leukemia. Her medical coverage has been adversely affected by the onset of Obamacare. She’s had the courage to let people know about her struggle by speaking truth to power in an ad sponsored by Americans for Prosperity’s chapter in her state. Julie tells John that she blames […]

Winston (not Smith) and Myths

by Robert Waldmann Karen Tumulty wrote a good article including one bad sentence on the Republican all the eggs in the Obamacare basket case strategy. “In Winston’s view, it is a myth that the last midterm election was swung by voter outrage about Obama’s health-care proposal, which was then being debated in Congress.”

Julie Boonstra, Americans for Prosperity, and the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Trial

The Tea Party group Americans for Prosperity has now released its factual documentation for its misleading ad featuring Julie Boonstra, a Michigan woman stricken with Leukemia who suggests Obamacare forced her to take on a new plan that is now “unaffordable.” The ad has been widely pilloried ever since Glenn Kessler discovered that her premiums […]

Not even Americans For Prosperity can defeat Glenn Kessler’s love of "both sides"

by Robert Waldmann Not even Americans For Prosperity can defeat Glenn Kessler’s love of “both sides” I mean that he loves the phrase “both sides”. This fact check is pretty much “Opinions on shape of planet differ. Both sides overstate their case.” He is discussing a grotesquely dishonest ad by Americans for Prosperity about an […]

I like this Ed Kilgore post

by Robert Waldmann I like this Ed Kilgore post Ed Kilgore wrote (among other things) “accept the validity of other religions”, ” Erick Erickson’s denials that I’m a Christian at all”, “the confusion of belief with fundamentally secular efforts to advance laissez-faire capitalism, American nationalism (and sometimes militarism), partriarchal family structures, and what God-hater Ayn […]

Political Journalists Should Follow the Lead of Insurance Industry CEOs and Read Angry Bear Regularly. Seriously.

Meanwhile, health insurers warned that Rubio’s legislation [to kill the insurance risk-corridors provision in the ACA] would lead to the government-run health-care system that most alarms conservatives. And there was the awkward fact that the risk corridors were the same mechanism Republicans used in the 2006 prescription-drug legislation. — From Obamacare to the IRS scandal, […]

Republicans and Dana Milbank Solve the Unemployment Problem in Germany, Canada, Taiwan and Australia: Those countries just need to repeal their universal-healthcare laws and tie healthcare insurance to full-time employment at large corporations!

It’s worth appreciating the perverse nature of the [Republicans’] lie on display [in a new web ad against North Carolina Sen. Kay Hagan here. Because Republicans are absolutely wedded to their “Obamacare is a job killer” talking point, the CBO report’s findings are being distorted into proof that the law will inflict job losses on […]