“Old World” diseases had a devastating effect on the native inhabitants of the new world. There were no accurate counts at the time, but it is estimated that between 80 and 95% of native americans died from Smallpox alone. In absolute terms, this was more deaths than caused by all wars and even the Black […]
© Clay Bennett I still think Ebola is more of a psychological plague than a medical one.
I keep hearing people freaking out about Ebola. Please stop. Right now, Ebola is more of a psychological plague than a medical one. And you are helping spread the psychological plague. And most of the things people say about Ebola are myths that have been debunked. Let’s get some perspective: Virtually all of the deaths […]
As we all know, politicians and pundits are screaming about ISIS and Ebola, saying that the US has a sacred obligation to do “whatever it takes” to save American lives. That includes committing ground forces to yet another war, building a triple fence around all our borders, surveillance everywhere, travel bans, you name it. All […]
Robin Evans, a Republican warehouse worker who recently signed up for Medicaid when Kentucky finally implemented the ACA’s Medicaid expansion, loves her new health coverage. “I’m tickled to death with it. It’s helped me out a bunch.” But she hates Obama, and says she prefers Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, who wants to repeal Obamacare, saying […]
Florida is one of the states that refused to expand Medicare coverage for poor people. Instead, last March the Republican-controlled state government created an alternative to Obamacare called Florida Health Choices, and appropriated over $2.5 million to start it up and launch its website. So, how did that work out for them? So far, six […]
A week or so ago, the Chicago Cubs had a bit of a disaster. Four and a half innings into the game it started raining — hard — but they didn’t have enough grounds crew to cover the field with tarps quickly enough. The attempt to cover the field was so pitiful the audience booed. […]
One of my favorite political blogs, Eclectablog, points out an interesting statistic: When Bill Clinton left office and George W Bush was sworn in, the number of people without health insurance in the US stood at 38.4 million (a number which would have been zero if the Clintons had succeeded in passing single-payer health insurance). […]
Paul Krugman points out that Republicans made at least six dire predictions of how Obama’s health care reform was going to fail miserably: They claimed that not enough people would enroll, which would cause an “epic fail“. In fact, they went as far as to tell people to not enroll in health insurance, which shows […]
The number of health insurance companies joining the healthcare exchanges is increasing. A number of companies who didn’t participate in the exchanges during the first enrollment period last year have changed their minds. This is partly because the first year’s enrollment in the exchanges exceeded expectations. In New Hampshire, the number of Obamacare insurers is […]
It is almost enough to make you feel sorry for Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the Senate minority leader. Almost, but not quite. On one side, the Republican politician and former Kentucky senator who gave McConnell his first job in politics, says that McConnell has betrayed the people of Kentucky by mounting a crusade to repeal Obamacare. […]
The Congressional Budget Office has issued an updated accounting report on the Affordable Care Act, and there is good news. We already know some of the good news — more people will be covered by Obamacare than expected. But I just want to remind people how significant that is — the whole point of health […]
© Jen Sorensen What is going to happen as people realize that all the lies they have been fed about Obamacare aren’t true? Indeed, the only complaints about the ACA that are actually true is that a single payer system would have been far simpler, easier to implement, and cost less. But of course the […]
Stephen Colbert is on a roll lamenting the fact that Obamacare exceeded the enrollment expectations by its March 31 deadline: Note that 7.1 million people enrolling exceeds the original projections for the ACA, before all the problems with healthcare.gov and the (premature) reports from conservative sources that enrollment numbers would not reach even the lowered […]
Abortion Bush Campaign Finance Cheney Climate Clinton Congress Conservatives Corporations Corruption Deficits Democrats Drugs Economy Education Election Elections Energy Environment Fox News Gays Guns Health Immigration Lies McCain Media Middle East Obama Palin Protests Racism Religion Republicans Romney Spying Supreme Court Taxes Tea Party Terrorism Terrorists Torture Trump Unemployment War
