NO SURPRISE HERE.....

States with the highest uninsurance rates are Republican led:

The 10 states with the highest percentage of uninsured adult residents all have one thing in common: They’re led by Republican governors or legislatures.

That data comes from the latest polling from Gallup, which confirms the widening gulf between red states and blue states when it comes to health coverage. This divide existed before health reform went into effect; however, it’s only gotten worse under Obamacare, which has helped the national uninsurance rate plunge to record lows but which has been implemented unevenly across the country.

States that have worked to fully implement Obamacare — which involves agreeing to both accept the law’s optional Medicaid expansion and set up their own insurance marketplaces — have seen the largest drops in their uninsurance rates over the past six months. According to Gallup, the biggest success stories in this area are Arkansas and Kentucky, which have both nearly cut their percentage of uninsured residents in half. In some counties in Kentucky, the uninsurance rate fell from more than 20 percent before Obamacare to just five percent after the law’s provisions took effect.

But the GOP-led states that have resisted Obamacare at all costs aren't experiencing the same gains. Their uninsurance rates are falling at a much slower rate. “The already notable gap between the two groups of states widened through the first quarter to 4.3 points, as states that have implemented these core mechanisms of the Affordable Care Act reduced their uninsured rates three times more than states that did not implement these core mechanisms,” Gallup researchers explain.

To make matters worse, the states that have refused to embrace Obamacare are the same ones that could have benefited from it the most. Those states had higher uninsurance rates to begin with, and they’re home to people who tend to be poorer and sicker than the residents in other states. In that context, it’s not entirely surprising that the 10 states that currently have the highest percentages of uninsured residents — Texas, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Montana, Arizona, Oklahoma, Alaska, and New Mexico — are led by GOP politicians. Although some lawmakers and grassroots activists in those states have pushed for Medicaid expansion, they've ultimately been blocked by Obamacare opponents, and none of those states are fully implementing health reform in 2014.

Thanks to the ongoing political resistance to Obamacare, about six million people have been locked out of health reform altogether, left unable to qualify for either public insurance or federal assistance to purchase private insurance. States’ refusal to expand Medicaid is disproportionately harming low-income people of color, who stand to benefit most from the policy.

Cross-posted from thinkprogress

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IF WE CAN'T REPEAL IT, WE'LL SUE BECAUSE OF IT

TAN DARK DRUNK MAN SET TO SUE OBAMA

House Republicans intend to sue the Obama administration for unilaterally delaying the employer responsibility provision of the Affordable Care Act, Politico reported on Thursday, in effect trying to speed up the implementation of the health care law.

The lawsuit will come after the administration twice delayed the provision — which requires employers with more than 50 employees to pay a fine if they don’t offer affordable quality coverage — citing complaints from firms that claimed they wouldn't be ready to meet its requirement by 2014.

But Republicans did not immediately question the legality of the postponement. Instead, the GOP called on Obama to also delay the individual mandate and vowed to take another vote on the matter.

“Is it fair for the president of the United States to give American businesses an exemption from his health care law’s mandate without giving the same exemption to the rest of America? Hell no, it’s not fair,” Boehner told House Republicans. “We should be thinking about giving the rest of America the same exemption that Obama last week gave businesses.”

House Republicans soon pressed the administration to release its internal communication on the matter and Boehner, in a letter to Obama, even admitted that the employer mandate “cannot be implemented within the current time frame.” The party has referred to the provision as a “jobs killer” and has sought its repeal.

Obama officials initially delayed the provision until 2015 in July of 2103, and announced in February of this year that companies with 50 to 99 employees will have until 2016 to extend insurance to their employees, while larger businesses with 100 or more workers can avoid paying a fine if they offer health care to at least 70 percent of their workers next year, and cover 95 percent of their workers in 2016.

The administration claimed that it was relying on the Treasury Department’s “transition relief” authority, which allows the government to grant relief by section 7805(ca) of the Internal Revenue Code. “The authority has been used to postpone the application of new legislation on a number of prior occasions across Administrations,” Mark J. Mazur, the Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy, wrote in a letter to Rep. Fred Upton and pointed to occasions when the Bush administration cited the authority to delay implementation of laws.

Ninety-six percent of large businesses already provide health care coverage and the law’s employer mandate would only affect an estimated 10,000 businesses or one percent of the U.S. workforce. Ninety-six percent of businesses employer fewer than 50 employees and were not impacted by the delay.

However, even if Boehner wins his legal challenge, which Republicans plan to vote on before leaving for August recess, it is unlikely that the Supreme Court would reach a final decision on his case until June 2016, months after the employer mandate is supposed to go into effect anyway.

“It is disappointing that Speaker Boehner and Congressional Republicans have decided to waste time and taxpayer dollars on a political stunt,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said in a statement. “At a time when Washington should be working to expand economic opportunities for the middle class, Republican leaders in Congress are playing Washington politics rather than working with the President on behalf of hardworking Americans.”

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Roger West

NOT SO GOOD NEWS FOR ACA NAY-SAYERS

Premiums for health care insurance in the Affordable Care Act are lower than the federal government had anticipated, the Congressional Budget Office reported on Monday when it revised its cost estimate for the health care law. The nonpartisan office now believes that the ACA will cost the government $5 billion less than projected in 2014 and $104 billion less for the 2015-2024 period. It also found “no clear evidence” that premiums will surge in 2015, noting that “enrollees in the future will be healthier, on average, than the smaller number of people who are obtaining such coverage in 2014.” The agency estimated that the national average premium for individual silver policy plans would increase by $100 that year.

The CBO attributes the additional savings to government, relative to the CBO’s last assessment from February 2014, to lower-than expected premiums, which in turn lowered the cost for exchange subsidies, and higher-than expected revenues from the excise tax on high-premium insurance plans.

“Despite projecting that slightly more people will receive insurance coverage through exchanges over the 2015–2024 period than they had anticipated previously,” the report says. “CBO and JCT project that costs for exchange subsidies and related spending will be $164 billion (or 14 percent) below the previous projection, mainly because of the downward revision to expected exchange premiums.” The office also predicted that plans offered in the exchanges will provide wider provider networks and higher reimbursement rates to providers as enrollment increases. “That pattern will put upward pressure on exchange premiums over the next couple of years, although CBO and JCT anticipate that the plans’ characteristics will stabilize after 2016,” it found.

The office also concluded that the law’s so-called shock absorbers — reinsurance payments that are distributed to insurers that attract high-cost enrollees — “reduced exchange premiums this year by approximately 10 percent” and will “reduce premiums by smaller amounts in 2015 and 2016.” CBO found additional savings in Medicaid, revising downward government spending per adult enrolled in the program.

Ultimately, 12 million more nonelderly people will have health insurance in 2014 as a result of the law. Twenty-six million more “will be insured each year from 2017 through 2024 than would have been the case without the ACA,” the CBO concluded.

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With the first enrollment period of Obamacare successfully concluded, despite its disastrous roll-out, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is resigning.

Mr. Obama accepted Ms. Sebelius’s resignation this week, and on Friday morning he will nominate Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, to replace her, officials said. 

The departure comes as the Obama administration tries to move beyond its early stumbles in carrying out the law, persuade a still-skeptical public of its lasting benefits, and help Democratic incumbents, who face blistering attack ads after supporting the legislation, survive the midterm elections this fall. […] 

The president is hoping that Ms. Burwell, 48, a Harvard- and Oxford-educated West Virginia native with a background in economic policy, will bring an intense focus and management acumen to the department. The budget office, which she has overseen since April of last year, is deeply involved in developing and carrying out health care policy. 

“The president wants to make sure we have a proven manager and relentless implementer in the job over there, which is why he is going to nominate Sylvia,” said Denis R. McDonough, the White House chief of staff.

Administration officials told The New York Times that the decision was Sebelius's and she wasn't being forced out, that she had been talking with President Obama about her future and about this transition since last month. “What was clear is that she thought that it was time to transition the leadership to somebody else,” McDonough told the paper.

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"COOKING THE BOOKS"

OBAMA "COOKING THE ACA BOOKS"

A tea bagging senator said on Sunday that the lack of details about ObamaCare enrollment numbers suggests the Obama administration has “cooked the books.”

Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyoming, made his comments just hours before the Monday deadline to enroll in the Affordable Care Act and was skeptical of the administration’s most recent enrollment figure of more than 6 million Americans.

“I don't think it means anything,” he told “Fox News Sunday.” “They are cooking the books on this.”

Watch below - as only Maddow can present

VIDEO COURTESY OF MSNBC

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Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

SIX MILLION AND COUNTING

On Thursday, President Obama announced on a call with volunteers that the number of Americans who have enrolled in health insurance plans under Obamacare has hit six million.

With several days left to go before open enrollment ends on March 31, the administration has met its target. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that Obamacare enrollment would hit six million by the end of its enrollment period. Although the CBO initially projected a seven million enrollment figure, that number was revised down after technological issues plagued the insurance marketplaces’ websites this past fall.

Just ten days ago, the Obama administration announced that enrollments had hit five million— meaning that the pace of enrollment has significantly picked up recently, and a million Americans enrolled in less than two weeks. The White House has always anticipated a last-minute surge in enrollment, since previous efforts to enroll Americans in government-run health care programs have demonstrated that people typically wait until the last minute to sign up.

Obamacare enrollment is frequently compared to the Bush administration’s effort to enroll seniors in Medicare Part D. That prescription drug program, widely considered to be a success now that it’s fully implemented, also struggled with initial website glitches. Medicare Part D ended up falling slightly short of its CBO projection, hitting 70 percent of that goal by the end of its enrollment period.

Although open enrollment technically ends in four days, there will be a few more weeks for some Americans to sign up. On Wednesday, the administration announced that the people who have experienced technological difficulties will be allowed to complete their enrollment in April.

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SUPREME SCIENCE DENIERS

Arguments were all going well for the ACA until Justice Kennedy asked the magic question.

Today's Supreme Court arguments about contraception, the ACA and religious liberty began with the ACA in a winning position.

ThinkProgress:

It was clear from the get go that the Court’s liberals understood that their best course involved highlighting the dangerous consequences of a victory for Hobby Lobby. Paul Clement, the de facto Solicitor General of the Republican Party who argued the case on Hobby Lobby’s behalf, barely uttered his first sentence before Justice Sonia Sotomayor cut him off to ask what other medical procedures religious employers could refuse to cover in their employee health plans. Justice Elena Kagan quickly joined the party. If Hobby Lobby can deny birth control coverage, Kagan asked, what about employers who object to vaccinations? Or blood transfusions?

When Clement tried to deflect this list, Kagan came armed with an even bigger what. What of religious employers who object to gender equality, or the minimum wage, or family medical leave, or child labor laws? If the Supreme Court agrees with Hobby Lobby’s brief, which argues that laws burdening a corporation’s purported religious faith must survive the “most demanding test known to constitutional law,” then there would be few laws corporations could not exempt themselves from following.

So far, so good. And then Justice Kennedy dropped the bomb:

Kennedy did something different, he did not weigh in on the question of whether non-abortions can count as abortion — indeed, he seemed to understand the difference between birth control and abortion. Nevertheless, he looked at the government’s requirement to provide birth control coverage and envisioned a future law compelling Hobby Lobby to pay for actual abortions — just as he once gazed upon a requirement to buy health insurance and imagined the government forcing everyone to buy broccoli. In Justice Kennedy’s Courtroom, the government doesn’t have to defend the law it actually passed, it has to defend the worst law Kennedy can imagine them passing — even if that law would never make it through Congress.

Clement pounced on the opening Kennedy gave him the second he took the podium for his rebuttal argument. The government’s position, he claimed, goes straight to abortion and “that cannot be what Congress meant when it passed RFRA.” Kagan’s face grew even more worried.

In order to get through that line of logic, Kennedy would have to deny science and assume that IUDs, as one example, cause abortions. Despite reams of scientific literature to the contrary, it appears that he may be poised to go in that direction. And that will mean that any concerns he might have about employers denying other medical treatments in the name of religious liberty will also fly out of the window, because abortion trumps all else.

What's next? Will taxes be the next "religious liberty" argument? These forced birth advocates worship at the Altar of the Almighty Fetus first, then baptize themselves in fountains of coins. It's enough to make baby Jesus weep.

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Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

HOBBY LOBBY

Want your boss or employer muddling in your healthcare? Watch Rachael Maddow on why you may not have a choice, or do you?

Video courtesy of MSNBC

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STAFF WRITER

GOP's Plan Of Attack Against Obamacare

A memo circulated among House Republicans this week details the GOP's plan to relentlessly attack the Affordable Care Act over the course of the next several months, the New York Times reported.

The memo contains a number of talking points that echo some of the GOP's most dire warnings about the health care law.

"Because of Obamacare, I Lost My Insurance.” reads one.

“The Exchanges May Not Be Secure, Putting Personal Information at Risk,” reads another.

According to the Times, GOP strategists intend to use the next several months to "gather stories of people affected by the health care law — through social media, letters from constituents, or meetings during visits back home — and use them to open a line of attack, keep it going until it enters the public discourse and forces a response, then quickly pivot to the next topic."

Read the memo here.

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IT'S OBAMA'S FAULT

Ever notice how all things good and bad are President Obama's fault?

According To Media Reports, Obama Is Responsible For At Least 8 ‘Katrinas’

On Friday, the New York Times ran a lengthy piece comparing the troubled roll-out of Obamacare — including a dysfunctional website and the cancellation of some existing individual insurance policies — to President Bush’s botched response to Hurricane Katrina, a tragedy which cost at least 1,833 people their lives. ABC’s Good Morning America featured a similar segment, and both outlets relied on former advisers of George W Bush to bolster their point. But this is just latest in a long line of “Katrinas,” that Barack Obama is responsible for, according to the media. Here is a sampling:

1. BP Oil Spill
“It’s getting baked in a little bit in the media that BP was President Obama’s Katrina.” [NBC News, Brian Williams, 8/29/10]

2. Bank Bailout

“A CHARMING visit with Jay Leno won’t fix it. A 90 percent tax on bankers’ bonuses won’t fix it. Firing Timothy Geithner won’t fix it. Unless and until Barack Obama addresses the full depth of Americans’ anger with his full arsenal of policy smarts and political gifts, his presidency and, worse, our economy will be paralyzed. It would be foolish to dismiss as hyperbole the stark warning delivered by Paulette Altmaier of Cupertino, Calif., in a letter to the editor published by The Times last week: ‘President Obama may not realize it yet, but his Katrina moment has arrived.’” [New York Times, Frank Rich, 3/21/09]

3. Benghazi Consulate Attack And The IRS

“When House Republicans decided to reopen investigations into the White House and State Department response to the attacks on our consulate in Benghazi, Libya, few thought it would inflict any serious damage to the president. Then came an admission from the IRS that it had unfairly singled out conservative groups for scrutiny during the 2012 campaign…This is President Obama’s Katrina moment. If he cannot regain control of the narrative, he will face the same loss of public confidence suffered by President Bush.” [Baltimore Sun, 5/19/13, Todd Eberly]

4. Hurricane Sandy

“I want to show you this report by our own David Lee Miller of a public housing unit in New Jersey, and — I’m sorry, in Brooklyn — devastated. This is Obama’s Katrina. And now the people are seeing that the gas lines and the suffering and the millions without power, the millions without heat, the millions — the ten and thousands that have lost their homes, and the cries for help.” [Fox News, Sean Hannity, 11/5/12]

5. Unemployment

“‘Will The Unemployment Crisis Be Obama’s Katrina?’ There’s a Category 5 storm about to make landfall, and the president and the officials in charge of preparing for the approaching disaster don’t seem to be particularly worried. Sound familiar? Just as Katrina exposed critical weaknesses in the priorities and competence of the Bush administration, the unfolding unemployment disaster is threatening to do the same for the Obama White House.” [Huffington Post, Arianna Huffington, 11/23/09]

6. The Underwear Bomber
“To the list of phrases it may be best for political leaders to avoid after a major security incident, add ‘the system worked’ right after ‘Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.’ Just as the public did not really share President George W. Bush’s assessment of how things were going after Hurricane Katrina, so too was there a good deal of skepticism when President Obama’s homeland security secretary declared faith in a system that failed to stop a guy who tried to blow up a passenger jet on Christmas Day.” [New York Times, 12/29/09]

7. Haiti Earthquake

“‘Haiti: Obama’s Katrina.’ Four years ago the initial medical response to Hurricane Katrina was ill equipped, understaffed, poorly coordinated and delayed. Criticism of the paltry federal efforts was immediate and fierce. Unfortunately, the response to the latest international disaster in Haiti has been no better, compounding the catastrophe.” [Wall Street Journal, 1/25/10]

8. Obamacare

“‘Health Law Rollout’s Stumbles Draw Parallels to Bush’s Hurricane Response.’ President Obama is now threatened by a similar toxic mix. The disastrous rollout of his health care law not only threatens the rest of his agenda but also raises questions about his competence in the same way that the Bush administration’s botched response to Hurricane Katrina undermined any semblance of Republican efficiency.” [New York Times, 11/14/13]

Four years ago, the New York Times derided comparing every Presidential error to Katrina as “a Category 5 cliché.” Melissa Harris Perry, writing in the Nation in 2010, was even harsher: “These metaphors reduce catastrophe to an object lesson, implying that the effects of the disaster have been resolved, that the plot has been resolved and that the continued suffering of our fellow citizens is little more than a literary device.”

For Louisiana Republicans, Hurricane Katrina is Obama’s Katrina — a recent poll found more blame Obama than Bush for the federal response to the 2005 tragedy.

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Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

ACA ENROLLMENT, JUST THE NUMBERS PLEASE

ACA ENROLLMENT NUMBERS

The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that between 40,000 and 50,000 uninsured Americans signed up for health care coverage in the 36 states where the federal government is running the Obamacare exchanges, offering the very first estimate of the administration’s progress in implementing the Affordable Care Act. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is expected to release official figures later this week. That number “will include people who have paid for a health plan and those who simply picked a plan and put it in their online shopping cart,” the Washington Post notes.

But the initial estimate doesn't tell the whole story about how many people are connecting to coverage. Here is what you need to know about the enrollment figures:

1. More than 500,000 have signed up for insurance overall. Avalere Health, a consulting firm tracking sign-ups, estimates that at least 440,000 people have signed up for Medicaid and another 49,000 people enrolled in coverage in 12 states and the District of Columbia that are operating their own exchanges. Significantly, that state number don’t appear to include enrollment from California, Massachusetts, or Oregon. Thus, all told, more than 529,000 have enrolled in coverage.

2. People are enrolling despite an error-ridden website. Some enrollees — particularly the younger and healthier population who does not absolutely need coverage — may be putting off enrollment given HealthCare.gov’s technical glitches or are waiting until the website is fixed to sign up. The administration reports that more visitors are now successfully getting through the enrollment process from beginning to end, but the website is still struggling to process enrollees and deliver accurate and verifiable information to health insurers. “Given all of the web site problems, I think 50,000 sounds pretty good, if this is actual private plan enrollments through the federal marketplace,” Tim Jost, a professor at William & Mary said. “I am surprised it is that high. But I hope it picks up for November and takes off for December. ”

3. The Massachusetts experience predicted low early enrollment. In the first four months of enrollment in Commonwealth Care — the Massachusetts health care exchange for subsidized care — 15,560 of an estimated 80,000 uninsured who qualified for coverage signed up and after the first full year, one-third of the total eligible population — 122,000 people — became insured. The road to nearly universal coverage was gradual, as enrollment didn't fully ramp up until almost a year after the initial rollout. Significantly, early enrollment data also showed a high number of Medicaid enrollees.

4. New public programs slowly ramp up to coverage. “Enrollment in new programs begins slowly and often takes several months to build momentum,”said Avalere CEO Dan Mendelson. Indeed, The Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and President George W. Bush’s Medicare Part D experienced this very same enrollment pattern. As Stan Dorn, a Senior Fellow at the Urban Institute’s Health Policy Center said, “It’s like any other human activity, it takes time to figure out how to do it right. CHIP, a bipartisan Clinton-era initiative that primarily provides health insurance to children in families with incomes too high to qualify for Medicaid, initially fell far short of enrollment goals and more than half of the seniors who signed up for Medicare Part D didn't do so until after the initial enrollment period and enrolled despite the Bush administration’s well-publicized initial glitches in extending coverage to low-income beneficiaries.

5. The government didn't market Obamacare. Given the technical glitches plaguing the site, the administration and outside groups couldn’t deploy a big public campaign urging uninsured people to sign-up for coverage and did not run a heavy media campaign in the 36 states where the federal government is operating the exchanges. As a result, news about reform was saturated by the website’s problems and likely depressed enrollment.

6. People less likely to sign up now for coverage that begins in January. “One would assume that people who are older and in poorer health would be the most persistent, at least initially, in navigating the federal website despite all the glitches and inability to complete the process,” Edwin Park, Vice President for Health Policy at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, said. This may be part of the reason why the insurance risk pools are coming in older than originally predicted. Administration officials say they expect younger people to enroll in coverage closer to the deadline (and when the first bill is due).

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STAFF WRITER

JUST REMEMBER, ITS NOT A LIE IF YOU BELIEVE IT

PAGE ONE:

Since insurers have begun informing beneficiaries that their health care plans do not meet the new federal requirements of Obamacare, and will be either cancelled or significantly altered, the media has profiled countless middle class Americans who claim that the new health care law will force them to pay more for coverage.

Deborah Cavallaro, for instance, a real estate agent from Los Angeles, was enrolled in an individual plan that cost her just $293 per month. Under Obamacare, Cavallaro says she’ll have to pay over $400 for coverage she doesn’t need or want. But a higher premium doesn't tell the whole story: while Cavallaro may spend more each month, she’ll be buying more comprehensive insurance with fewer out-of-pocket costs, better benefits that will cover more and cost her less if she actually falls ill, and much more robust consumer protections.

So before you buy into the sticker shock hysteria, here are four questions you should ask:

What does the old plan actually cover? Most of the policies in the existing individual health care market — which are currently issuing notices — offer low premiums, but also come with skimpy benefits and high out-of-pocket costs. These plans often have low limits for outpatient treatment, hospitalization or don’t offer any benefits for procedures like colonoscopy, chemotherapy or mental health treatment. Insurers market these policies to young and healthy people who don’t use their coverage — and never know the true extent of their benefits. (The market is also fairly mobile, with just 17 percent of individual subscribers purchasing the same plan for two years or longer.)

Under the Affordable Care Act, insurers cover 10 essential categories of benefits, offering far more comprehensive coverage than what’s available in most individual insurance plans.

Did this person go to the exchanges? Insurers informing policy holders that their health care costs will go up, often direct beneficiaries to their other brand products without telling them about competitive options and prices available through the exchanges. Cavallaro, for instance, got a quote from a broker, but did not explore the available options on her own.

Prices are lowest in areas with the most insurer competition. An analysis from the McKinsey Center for U.S. Health System Reform found that “new entrants into the market make up 26 percent of all insurers,” and “tend to price their plans lower than the median premiums in their market.” The average premium in the exchanges is 16 percent lower than previously projected.

Yes, the premium is low, but what are the co-pays and deductibles? This coverage often forces individuals who do use care to meet high deductibles — the amount you pay out-of-pocket before your insurance kicks in — pay high co-pays and co-insurance or limit the number of doctor visits that are allowed. Cavallaro, for instance, must meet a deductible of $5,000 a year and has an out-of-pocket cap of $8,500 a year. The plan covers just two doctors’ visits and each include a $40 co-pay.

As the LA Times’ Michael Hiltzik points out in California, Cavallaro could sign-up for a Silver level plan with a $2,000 deductible, maximum out-of-pocket cost of $6,350, pay $45 for a primary care visit and $65 for a specialty visit — “but all visits would be covered, not just two.”

The health law sets exchange enrollees’ maximum annual out-of-pocket costs at $6,350, and silver plans have deductibles ranging from $1,500 to $5,000.

Does this person qualify for subsidies? Americans between 100 and 400 percent of the federal poverty line ($46,000 for an individual, or about $78,000 for a family of three) qualify for tax credits under the law. Six of the 7 million individuals who are expected to sign up for insurance through the exchange will receive an average tax credit of $5,290 per year.

Cavallaro “qualifies her for a hefty federal premium subsidy,” Hiltzik reports and can purchase a silver plan for $333, $40 more than she’s paying now. A cheaper bronze plan would be in the $200s.

PAGE TWO - FACT:

Let's take a look at the Northern territory; in British Columbia (Canada) a single person pays $66.50 a month for comprehensive health care, with no co-pays, no deductibles, no lifetime caps, and no payments for a doctor's visit. The only things not covered are dental and prescriptions, which many employers and individuals cover with supplemental insurance.

If you want to really learn about single-payer health insurance, got to PNHP. This site has a plethora of facts on the topic - an organization of over 18,000 physicians who support the concept. There is a reason readers why America ranks so low [37th] in the world with regards to healthcare.

According to the World Health organization, the U.S. health system spends a higher portion of its gross domestic product than any other country but ranks 37 out of 191 countries according to its performance, the report finds. The United Kingdom, which spends just six percent of GDP on health services, ranks 18th . Several small countries – San Marino, Andorra, Malta and Singapore are rated close behind second- placed Italy.

Five factors that went into WHO's calculation:

Health level, as defined by a measure of life expectancy, which shows how healthy a country's population is. This factor gets a 25 percent weight. 

Responsiveness, which includes factors such as speed of health services, privacy protections, choice of doctors and quality of amenities. This factor gets a 12.5 percent weight. 

Financial fairness, which measures how progressive or regressive the financing of a country's health care system is — that is, whether or not the financial burdens are borne by those who are economically better off. This factor receives a 25 percent weight. 

Health distribution, which measures how equally a nation's health care resources are allocated among the population. This factor receives a 25 percent weight. 

Responsiveness distribution, which measures how equally a nation's health care responsiveness (which we defined above) is spread through society. This factor gets a 12.5 percent weight.

John Boehner said that the health care law signed by President Barack Obama -- and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court -- imperiled the nation’s health care system saying:

"Gov. Romney understands that Obamacare will bankrupt our country and ruin the best health care delivery system in the world," Boehner said, during the July 1, 2012, edition of CBS’ Face the Nation.

While some US techniques may be far better advanced from a scientific perspective, the actual Healthcare system prior to Obamacare, fell way short of what "lesser" nations provide. For any tin foil hat society member to suggest and claim that the United States had "the best health care delivery system in the world" prior to the ACA - is too glib to accurately characterize - and in reality, its much more a nuanced delusional fallacy from the "know-nothings"!

Portions of blog from thinkprogress.

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Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

GOP MONKEY COURT

GOP MONKEY COURT 

“I will not yield to this monkey court or whatever it is,” Pallone said in response to Republican interruptions. “Why are we going down this path?” he asked. “Because you are trying to scare people so they don’t apply and so therefore the legislation gets delayed or the Affordable Care Act gets defunded or it’s repealed. That’s all it is, hoping people won’t apply.”

MONKEY COURT




Rather than focusing on the real problems plaguing HealthCare.gov, House Republicans sought to portray the website as an insecure portal that will endanger the privacy of American’s medical information during a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing focusing on the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. The accusations led one Democratic lawmaker to label the hearing “a monkey court.”

In heated exchanges, Reps. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Joe Barton (R-TX) pressed the contractors responsible for writing the code behind HealthCare.gov about why some of their employees had access to “the database servers storing the enrolling information,” and questioned source code informing users that they “have no reasonable expectation of privacy regarding any communication or data transiting stored on this information system.”

“How in the world can this be HIPAA compliant when HIPAA is designed to protect the patient’s privacy and this explicitly says in order to continue you have to accept this condition that you have no privacy — no reasonable expectation of privacy?” Barton asked Cheryl Campbell, senior vice president of CGI, one of the firms that wrote the website. He was referring to The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, the law that guarantees “federal protections for individually identifiable health information held by covered entities and their business associates and gives patients an array of rights with respect to that information.”

Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) pushed back against the implications, arguing that “HIPAA only applies when there’s health information is being provided,” not the biographical enrollment information that’s being entered by programmers. “HIPAA doesn’t apply. There is no health information in the process. You’re asked about your address, your date of birth. you are not asked health information,” he said.

As Washington & Lee Law Professor Timothy S. Jost explained in an email, “HIPAA only applies to health care providers, clearinghouses (and this is a narrowly defined term) health plans, and their business associates.” “Even so, access is available to data without consent for health care operations, which this would be.” Deven McGraw, of the Health Privacy Project at the Center for Democracy & Technology, agreed, adding, “It does not violate HIPAA – it’s not even covered by HIPAA.”

Jost adds that “even if the rule applies to the information and to the exchange, sharing information with a contractor would be a routine operation, and HIPAA allows disclosure of information without consent for operations. Surely a health plan that contracted with a company to build its software would not be violating HIPAA as long as the computer company also observed HIPAA protections. The exchange is subject to the Privacy Act, but the

It should be noted that all of the contractors at the hearing indicated that they had received HIPAA training and were HIPAA compliant.

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Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

REMEMBER WHEN......

BUSH'S BITTER PILL WAS TOUGH TO SWALLOW

........Millions of Americans tried to enroll in health care benefits during the first days of a new government health care program. They were to rely on indispensable government website that had been touted and “pitched as a high-tech way” to sort through available coverage options. They’re encountering countless glitches and technical errors: the website freezes, displays incorrect plan information and sends insurers erroneous reports.

Administration officials — clearly caught off guard by the surge of technical difficulties — respond to “tens of thousands of complaints” from angry beneficiaries and promise to “fix every problem as quickly possible.”

Doesn't this sounds like the familiar story of the last few days of the Obama administration’s roll-out of the exchanges? But, actually, the above quotes, and the scenarios, are taken from the Bush administration’s efforts to implement the Medicare prescription drug benefit in 2005 and 2006.

Not only was Bush’s roll-out “anything but smooth,” but administration officials had “some trouble getting the [online] tool up and running” and had to delay its debut for weeks. What’s more, computer glitches caused low-income beneficiaries to go without needed medications and sent pharmacies the wrong drug information. Before it was all resolved, Dr. Mark McClellan, Bush’s head of the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), appeared at hearings before the House Committee On Energy And Commerce, laying out the flaws in the law’s implementation and detailing how the administration would address them.

As the House Energy and Commerce Committee holds its first hearing on the implementation of the Affordable Care Act this morning, it’s worth noting that some of the very same Teahadists who are lashing out against Obamacare - arguing that the botched roll-out is proof that the government cannot implement effectively and should repeal the law entirely - gave the Bush administration a free get out trouble pass and urged Americans not to pre-judge such a complicated process. At least four of these Teahadists are still on the committee had argued that early implementation hurdles should not taint the entirety of reform:

REP. JOE BARTON (R-TX): “This is a huge undertaking and there are going to be glitches. My goal is the same as yours: Get rid of the glitches. The committee will work closely with yourself and Dr. Mark McClellan at CMS to get problems noticed and solved.” [Barton Statement via Archive.org, 2/15/2006] 

REP. TIM MURPHY (R-PA): “Any time something is new, there is going to be some glitches. All of us, when our children were new, well, we knew as parents we didn’t exactly know everything we were doing and we had a foul-up or two, but we persevered and our children turned out well. No matter what one does in life, when it is something new in learning the ropes of it, it is going to take a little adjustment.” [Murphy Floor Speech via Congressional Record, 4/6/2006] 

REP. MICHAEL BURGESS (R-TX): “We can’t undo the past, but certainly they can make the argument that we are having this hearing a month late and perhaps we are, but the reality is the prescription drug benefit is 40 years late and seniors who signed up for Medicare those first days back in 1965 when they were 65 years of age are now 106 years of age waiting for that prescription drug benefit, so I hope it doesn't take us that long to get this right and I don’t believe that it will. And I do believe that fundamentally it is a good plan.” [“Medicare Part D: Implementation of the New Drug Benefit,” 3/1/2006] 

REP. PHIL GINGREY (R-GA): “I delivered 5,200 babies, but this may be the best delivery that I have ever been a part of, Mr. Speaker, and that is delivering, as I say, on a promise made by former Congresses and other Presidents over the 45-year history of the Medicare program, which was introduced in 1965 with no prescription drug benefit. And what we have done here is add part D, the ‘D’ for ‘drug’ or, if you want, the ‘delivery’ that we have finally provided to our American seniors.” [Gingrey Floor Speech via Congressional Record, 4/6/06]

Ultimately, the Bush administration fixed the law’s technical glitches, but more than half of the beneficiaries who ended up signing up for insurance didn’t do so until after the first of the year. Significantly, they signed up for coverage despite the Bush administration’s well-publicized initial glitches in extending coverage to low-income beneficiaries. Whereas only 21 percent of seniors had a favorable impression of the law and 66 percent didn't know what was in it in April of 2005, by November of 2006, “half of the seniors polled said the program was working well or that just minor changes were needed.”


Often is the case - that RWNJ's fail to recognize that American history existed prior to 2009.

The party who; wanted to stop the ACA in its tracks, lie about it, derail it, and defund it, are now frothing at the mouth and outraged at the ACA computer issues . Please make up my mind teabaggers, are you for it or against it?

I am reminded of the old adage in politics that says, "it is easier to throw a hand grenade than catch one". The ever so sad corollary says, "you can raise more money by throwing mud than fixing problems".

Right wing shill heads will implode, how dare anybody bash the "Welfare for Big Pharma Act," and compare it to the ACA? Its always acceptable if a "conservative" fucks up, but it's either a felony or a firing if someone else did.

It never ceases to amaze this blogger, the hypocrisy of the Right Wing Nut Job.

RELATED:

Despite bungling Bush's Medicare drug rollout, GOP still attacks Obamacare 'navigators'

How Democrats Saved Bush's Medicare Drug Program

Drug Addled

Bush Defends Medicare Drug Plan

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

GOP SCRAPS THE BOTTOM OF THE BARRELL SEEKING OBAMACARE WEBSITE ADVICE

HOUSE GOP SEEKING ADVICE FROM JOHN MCAFEE - YES THAT JOHN MCAFEE

Is this fact or fiction? Is this a Saturday Night Live Skit?

Absolutely not! Seeing that Aaron Hernandez and George Zimmerman were both unavailable, according to emails obtained by CNBC, House Committee on Energy and Commerce reportedly wanted to speak with John McAfee, the technology pioneer who last year fled a murder investigation in Belize, as part of their investigation into the flawed Obamacare website. That's right, GOP logic, why not use a crack-head LSD dropping murder suspect to oversee the national healthcare website system woes.

You just can't make this up!

The Hill reports:

Sean Hayes, who serves as counsel for the committee, apparently reached out to Francois Garcia, an attorney for McAfee last week. 

“Given the failures of Healthcare.gov, and Mr. McAfee’s expertise, I was hoping he might be able to discuss his views with staff on the hill,” Hayes wrote, according to the CNBC emails. “It would be an informal discussion: we would take notes but these would not be for attribution, it would mainly guide our oversight and review of the program.” 

Hayes said the panel would ask McAfee about potential vulnerabilities in the website that could lead to the compromise of personal information or identity theft.
The committee aide later wrote McAfee to say that an in-person meeting was too logistically difficult, although he left open the possibility of a phone consultation.
Soliciting McAfee to testify could raise eyebrows after the tech pioneer — who made millions off his eponymous anti-virus software

McAfee was wanted by Belize police as a person of interest in the slaying of fellow American Gregory Viant Faull. 52 year-old Faull was on the Caribbean island where both men lived. McAfee went on the run. After a bizarre turn of events, he fled his Belize compound, crossing into Guatemala illegally and then sought refuge in the United States.

When I saw Rachel Maddow starting her show last night, I was wondering why McAffee was the 'keynote" speaker if you will for the show, how does this paranoid schizophrenic tie into current news. Well, as masterful as she is, Maddow tells the story on how low the GOP will go, right wing fringe meets paranoid schizophrenic.

Video courtesy of MSNBC

McAfee told CNBC that he did not think it was at all odd that lawmakers would ask him for help with the website.

"I promise you this cannot be fixed without at least scrapping the front-end processing, which is more than half of the systems," he insisted. "Seriously, if it were me and I were running this and I had been asleep in a hospital for two years and woke up to this mess, I would say OK, throw it out and start over. But start over in the right way."

MCAFFE TELLS ALL [Caution Language]




Quoting Fox News, reported at the time when McAfee was wanted by police:

John McAfee, the estranged founder of the antivirus firm that bears his name, is wanted by the Belize police in connection with a murder, FoxNews.com has confirmed. 

McAfee, whose very name is synonymous with security, is a prime suspect in the murder of American expatriate Gregory Faull, a well-liked builder from Florida who was shot Saturday night at his home in San Pedro Town on the island of Ambergris Caye, according to a series of exposes on tech blog Gizmodo. Vienne Robinson, assistant superintendent of the San Pedro police department in Belize, told FoxNews.com that police are actively searching for McAfee. 

McAfee’s life has turned in recent years from cyber security to drugs, guns, prostitution and violence, explained Jeff Wise, a freelance reporter who broke the story for Gizmodo.

“He will tell you he moved to Belize for the good life, for the country, to rescue the Belizean people from poverty,” Wise told FoxNews.com. In reality, McAfee became embroiled in bath salts and the quest for the ultimate high, he said. 

Wise visited McAfee in the Western Caribbean nation twice, once in 2010 and again this past April. 

“It really scared the hell out of me,” Wise said. He wasn’t alone. A woman who went to visit McAfee to co-develop an herbal medicine ended up running from the country in terror, “fleeing for her life,” Wise said. 

Although a one-time drug user, the computer expert had cleaned up his act. …
“McAfee had been a hard-core drug addict in his 30s and 40s. He had a heart attack right around the time he sold his company for $100 million,” Wise told FoxNews.com. He moved to Belize and apparently pursued several lines of business, from creating a new form of herbal medicine to helping save the country from poverty. 

He also became deeply involved with bath salts, Wise said, a dangerous drug notorious for its psychotic effects. 

“Around the time his herbal drug plan collapsed, he started to get really heavily into this kind of synthetic, hallucinogenic hyper-aphrodisiac,” Wise told FoxNews.com. “Everyone was scared of McAfee. He was walking around the beach carrying a gun.”

Why post Fox's McAfee story you ask, because I want my readers to see how Fox puts the lipstick on this pig.

Is this the "family values that the GOP is always speaking of? Maybe the GOP could see if they could resurrect Jeffery Dahmer from the dead to oversee the USDA. Hey, Sarah Palin, any comments about House Republicans "palling around" with murder suspects?

Ethics, who the hell needs ethics?

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

"NEVER TRUST A LIBERAL OVER THREE", HANNITY'S DEN OF DISHONESTY

ANN COULTER BOASTING OF GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN SUCCESS

In hindsight, hate hag Ann Coulter believes the government shutdown turned out very well and that the tin foil hat society played it beautifully, telling Sean Hannity she’s “proud” of teahadists like Ted Cruz who took a stand on Obamacare. They both agreed that “everything run by the government will get more expensive and worse over time,” though Coulter slightly disagreed with Hannity about tactics going forward.

Coulter blasted the health care law, suggesting it was some diabolical plan - “designed to fail so they can move it to a single-payer system,” and said that now it’s very clear how effective the shutdown was. The hate hag said that the, “The shutdown was so magnificent, run beautifully, I’m so proud of these Republicans.”

Hannity admitted he was bothered by Republicans like John McCain who sold out the rest of their party instead of holding the ranks. Coultergeist even lamented how some of “our media” was too busy going after Cruz, and argued the liberal media wouldn't be this critical if a House Democratic majority attempted what the Republicans did.

COULTERGEIST ON HANNITY




Its amazing how many bullshit mountain hate hags there are, from Coulter to Malkin, from Loesch to Palin - the one trait that these women all exhibit is the lack of integrity to tell the truth.

Keep in mind readers, Ann Coulter once paid for a tutor to teach her creationism - you know, the theory that says evolution is wrong and that the earth is only thousands of years old. Let me say this again: Coulter paid for someone to educate her about a subject that 99% of scientists disagree with. Herein lies the problem, facts and science colliding with the deniers of facts and science.

FACT: Single Payer: Is more efficient, cost less , has less waste, has less fraud and less middle men taking profit and more quality care being delivered. Of course the tin foil hat society doesn't like centralized government, which is why Obamacare's expansion of state medicaid services is a good alternative. Single payer healthcare is ideal - that is if the focus is truly about keeping people healthy, and not about the almighty dollar.

Let's face it readers, if you're a liberal, you want Ann Coulter at the helm of the mother ship, because with scholars like her, we know the GOP is in good hands - a recipe for disaster she is - for her brand.

Coulter's version of "beautiful", is like winning for Charlie Sheen; in the aftermath of the GOP 24 billion dollar domestic terrorist plot, where eight in ten Americans say that they disapproved of the shutdown - would only Coulter suggest that this was a successful strategic plan.

Coulter again nails the synopsis of the event - that the government shutdown went perfectly - yes, if you ignore the fact or realization that none of the GOP's key terror demands were met when the shutdown ended, and that the tin foil hat societies poll numbers tanked severely as a result, and that millions of Americans needlessly suffered due to lost income and lack of essential government services during the stunt, and that the national economy took a hit. Yes, other than that, the Teahadists schematic to shutdown the country was indeed a thing of beauty.

Dishonest and delusional hate hags like Coulter, often find a safe haven in Hannity's den of dishonesty.

By the way, who did Hannity have on after Coulter? Why, it's Dick Cheney of course, the heartless hubris pimp who is now touring and pushing his latest book on his self professed and alleged heart. Quite the stable of lying bloodsuckers in Sean's bullpen these days.

Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, and Dick Cheney,  you are all today's worst persons in the world.

NFTOS

Editor-In Chief

Roger West

CRUZ IS READY FOR ROUND TWO

On Sunday, This Week’s Jonathan Karl asked Sen. Ted Cruz (RWNJ) a direct question about upcoming budget negotiations, saying, “Will you rule out pushing to the brink of another shutdown by saying you would block funding for the government unless Obamacare is defunded? Will you do that again?”

Cruz didn't reject the idea that he would cause another shutdown, saying, “I would do anything and I will continue to do anything I can to stop the train wreck that is Obamacare. What I will do is continue standing the American people, because it isn't working, it’s costing people jobs, and it’s taking away their health care.”

Cruz and Sen. Mike Lee (RWNJ) were originally responsible for getting 14 of their colleagues to sign on to demanding the defunding of Obamacare in return for keeping the government open and, later, raising the debt ceiling. While some conservatives are still with Cruz in continuing to push for fights over defunding the law, other Republicans are calling for the party to move on. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) called it “a losing strategy.”

While the shutdown cost the economy $24 billion and brinkmanship over the debt ceiling could still lead to another downgrade of U.S. credit, Republicans have little to show for it.

NFTOS

STAFF WRITER

Randolph And Mortimer Duke On Steroids

RANDOLPH AD MORTIMER DUKE OF STEROIDS [KOCH WHORES]

Conservative advocates funded by the billionaire industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch have launched a massive campaign pressuring states to deny health care coverage to lower income Americans through the Medicaid expansion contained in the Affordable Care Act.

The effort, orchestrated by the group Americans for Prosperity, is targeting lawmakers in Virginia tasked with deciding whether the state should accept federal dollars to provide insurance to individuals and families below 133 percent of the federal poverty line ($31,321 in income for a family of four). Volunteers with the organization are distributing flyers through door-to-door canvassing, attending committee hearings, and according to one lawmakers who has become a target of the campaign, intimidating constituents.

As many as 400,000 Virginians could qualify for coverage if the state expands the Medicaid program, but AFP is warning Virginians that the system “will cost Virginia taxpayers billions,” require “future tax hikes and budget cuts to vital services like schools, police and fire departments,” undermine the “doctor-patient relationship,” increase wait times and even endanger lives. “Medicaid patients are almost twice as likely to die during surgery than individuals with private insurance,” the group writes on its website.

Under the Affordable Care Act, the federal government will pick up 100 percent of the cost of growing the program from 2014 to 2016 and states would contribute 10 percent thereafter. Analysis from the Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis in Richmond finds that “net savings from Medicaid expansion would average about $135 million per year in the upcoming budget cycle” since expanding Medicaid “would allow the state to use federal funds instead of state dollars for these programs that already provide care to the uninsured in Virginia.”

Seventy-six percent of Virginia doctors treat new Medicaid patients, and the “share of doctors accepting new Medicaid patients is nearly the same as the share who are accepting new patients with private insurance or Medicare,” the Institute reports. While Medicaid beneficiaries tend to be less healthy than the general uninsured population, people who do enroll in the program “are 25 percent more likely to report that their health is ‘good’ or ‘excellent.’”

The GOP’s refusal to fully implement the Affordable Care Act will leave more than half of the nation’s uninsured working poor, approximately 8 million people, without access to health insurance. The 26 GOP-controlled states not participating in the law’s Medicaid expansion are home to a disproportionate share of low-income Americans who aren't poor enough to qualify for the existing Medicaid program and make too much to be eligible for subsidies in the ACA’s insurance marketplaces.

Americans for Prosperity has spent millions “in states around the country, including Arkansas, Florida, Ohio, Louisiana, Michigan and Pennsylvania, to run the kind of aggressive campaign that it is now waging here in Virginia, where much will depend on the governor’s race,” the New York Times notes. Democrat Terry McAuliffe favors expansion, while his Republican opponent, Ken Cuccinelli, does not. The Virginia panel weighing in on the matter will decide the question after the Nov. 5 election.

Randolph and Mortimer Duke had nothing on the Koch brothers.

There is a genetic fault within them that has erased any possibility for compassion or even just thinking about other people. They are totally focused on their self-interests.

What else can be the reason for their behavior, why else do they spend millions just to inflict strife on other people? Clearly this has little affect the Koch whores directly, but there seems to be a sadistic bent to them. There are two other brothers in Koch tree as well, and there have been internecine fighting between them -- they all seem to carry the same traits, greedy diabolical asshats.

The Koch brothers care about a lot of things. But the welfare of the poor isn't among them. Using their money to alter the political landscape is foremost on the list. To the extent that they are remembered if at all, these Koch whores will go down as two of the sadists troglodytes that America has ever produced... all those hundreds of millions of dollars spent for no other purpose other than to hurt people and make their lives more difficult... what a sad, pathetic, tragic waste of both money and human flesh.

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

16 DAYS AND 24 BILLION DOLLARS LATER AND WHAT DOES THE GOP HAVE? EPISTEMIC CLOSURE

GOP DEMANDS VERSUS WHAT THEY GOT

RNC note to self: When trying to milk stall tactics, make sure the cow is present, not the bull.

With the government shutdown at a temporary shutdown itself, Rachel Maddow thought it would be beneficial to show exactly what the Teahadists demands were - the entire time for ending the national crisis. Maddow went through the whole list of everything the domestic terrorists said it wanted in exchange for keeping the government open and concluded that they got precisely nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada. She said even the Democrats got something they wanted out of this, but the American Taliban, the ones who came up with the “ransom note” in the first note, got absolutely none of what they wanted.

Maddow explained how “the domestic terrorists thought for sure the Democrats would cave” on Obamacare, and the fact that they didn’t, threw them for a loop, and so they had “no idea what to do next.”

She went down the list of all their “obtuse specific demands” about Obamacare and a list of other issues, from birth control to Paul Ryan‘s tax code on their “constantly-changing list of demands.” And “of their entire list,” Maddow said, “they are going to get nothing. Nothing.”

She added, “It may be true that nobody won, but someone definitely lost here.”


WHAT DID THE TERRORISTS GET Video Courtesy of MSNBC

Pain for no gain, if these last two weeks have proven anything, it’s that House GOPers haven’t yet mastered the art of using their majority.

The conventional wisdom is that these domestic terrorists learn from this fiasco - learn not put their country through this again. But many of their members say the lesson they learned is that President Barack Obama is not willing to negotiate, and repealing the Obamacare is the objective at all costs. The majority of these RWNJ's are gearing up for another fight in a few weeks. Government funding runs dry again Jan. 15, the debt ceiling will be reached Feb. 7 and a budget conference has to report findings by Dec. 13.

Here’s the list of 18 Senators who voted against reopening the government:

Coburn, Tom - (R – OK)
Cornyn, John - (R – TX)
Crapo, Mike - (R – ID)
Cruz, Ted - (R – TX)
Enzi, Michael B. - (R – WY)
Grassley, Chuck - (R – IA)
Heller, Dean - (R – NV)
Johnson, Ron - (R – WI)
Lee, Mike - (R – UT)
Paul, Rand - (R – KY)
Risch, James E. - (R – ID)
Roberts, Pat - (R – KS)
Rubio, Marco - (R – FL)
Scott, Tim - (R – SC)
Sessions, Jeff - (R – AL)
Shelby, Richard C. - (R – AL)
Toomey, Patrick J. - (R – PA)
Vitter, David - (R – LA)

Here are the 144 House GOP votes to continue the hugely unpopular GOP government shutdown:

ALABAMA
Aderholt, N; Brooks, N; Roby, N; Rogers, N.
ARIZONA
Franks, N; Gosar, N; Salmon, N; Schweikert, N.
CALIFORNIA
Campbell, N; Denham, N; Hunter, N; LaMalfa, N; McClintock, N; Miller, Rohrabacher, N; Royce, N;
COLORADO
Lamborn, N;
FLORIDA
DeSantis, N; Mica, N; Miller, N; Nugent, N; Posey, N; Radel, N; Rooney, N; Ross, N; Southerland, N; Yoho, N; Young, X.
GEORGIA
Republicans — Broun, N; Collins, N; Gingrey, N; Graves, N; Kingston, N; Price, N; Scott, Austin, N; Westmoreland, N; Woodall, N.
IDAHO
Republicans — Labrador, N;
ILLINOIS
Republicans — Hultgren, N;
INDIANA
Bucshon, N; Messer, N; Rokita, N; Stutzman, N; Walorski, N;
IOWA
King, N;
KANSAS
Huelskamp, N; Pompeo, N; Yoder, N.
KENTUCKY
Barr, N; Massie, N;
LOUISIANA
Cassidy, N; Fleming, N; Scalise, N.
MARYLAND
Harris, N.
MICHIGAN
Amash, N; Bentivolio, N; Huizenga, N; Miller, N; Walberg, N.
MINNESOTA
Bachmann, N;
MISSISSIPPI
Nunnelee, N; Palazzo, N.
MISSOURI
Graves, N; Hartzler, N; Long, N; Luetkemeyer, N; Smith, N; Wagner, N.
NEVADA
Amodei, N;
NEW MEXICO
Pearce, N.
NEW YORK
Collins, N; Reed, N.
NORTH CAROLINA
Ellmers, N; Foxx, N; Holding, N; Hudson, N; Jones, N; Meadows, N;
OHIO
Chabot, N; Gibbs, N; Johnson, N; Jordan, N; Latta, N; Renacci, N; Turner, N; Wenstrup, N.
OKLAHOMA
Bridenstine, N; Lankford, N; Lucas, N; Mullin, N.
OREGON
Walden, N.
PENNSYLVANIA
Marino, N; Perry, N; Pitts, N; Rothfus, N;
SOUTH CAROLINA
Duncan, N; Gowdy, N; Mulvaney, N; Rice, N; Sanford, N; Wilson, N.
SOUTH DAKOTA
Republicans — Noem, N.
TENNESSEE
Black, N; Blackburn, N; DesJarlais, N; Duncan, N; Fincher, N; Fleischmann, N; Roe, N.
TEXAS
Barton, N; Brady, N; Burgess, N; Carter, N; Conaway, N; Culberson, N; Farenthold, N; Flores, N; Gohmert, N; Granger, N; Hall, N; Hensarling, N; Johnson, Sam, N; Marchant, N; McCaul, N; Neugebauer, N; Olson, N; Poe, N; Sessions, N; Smith, N; Stockman, N; Thornberry, N; Weber, N; Williams, N.
UTAH
Bishop, N; Chaffetz, N; Stewart, N.
VIRGINIA
Forbes, N; Goodlatte, N; Griffith, N; Hurt, N;
WISCONSIN
Duffy, N; Petri, N; Ryan, N; Sensenbrenner, N.
WYOMING
Lummis, N.

Congratulations, GOP! You're now an international embarrassment, not just a national one.

RELATED:

Petition to arrest House GOP for Sedition

Nothing Ted Cruz Said About the ACA Today Is True

Don't Laugh. Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.) Urges GOP To Declare War On Ted Cruz. Stop Laughing.

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

GOP NOW HATED MORE THAN REAL TALIBAN

US DOMESTIC WILLING TO PARLAY EXECUTION OF ITS HOSTAGES

The GOP is still not willing to release the hostages [open government], but from the kindness of their heart [god bless their compassion] they are willing to delay shooting the hostages, to defer if you will, the execution of said hostages until November 22. The GOP is said to be ready to set the gas can and matches to the side for six weeks, so then, when the holidays are around, they can then reissue new demands to the hostages, setting yet more economic destruction to the country and the world.

As the government shutdown enters its eleventh day and the nation races towards a possible default, a growing number of teafundie lawmakers, leaders, and voters are publicly blaming Congressional GOP Teahadists for the budget impasse. Though they fault President Obama for failing to negotiate with Congress, as the public mood sours, some within the GOP are hurriedly distancing themselves from the mess in Washington.

“It’s time for someone to act like a grown-up in this process,” former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu (R) told the Associated Press. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) agreed, remarking on Monday that “This is not how we should operate. It shouldn’t be about people fighting and yelling.’ “The bottom line is we need that money in our economy to save rural hospitals and jobs in the rural areas,” Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) told the Arizona Daily Star on Thursday, criticizing the GOP’e effort to defund the Affordable Care Act.

GOP DYING A PAINFUL DEATH

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The criticism comes as an Associated Press-GfK poll released Wednesday showed that “three-quarters of Republicans nationally said their party in Congress deserves a moderate degree or most of the blame for the shutdown” and a NBC/Wall Street Journal survey reported that just 24 percent of Americans now have a favorable view of Republicans — the lowest figure in the poll’s history. Seventy percent of Americans say Republicans are putting politics ahead of the national interest and have an increasingly dim view of Tea Party backed Sens. Ted Cruz (Teahadists) and Mike Lee (Teahadists), who orchestrated the current impasse.

In yet another sign of trouble for the GOP, business interests are also showing signs of discontent, signaling a possible rift with Republicans ahead of the 2014 mid-term elections.

Iowa Republicans “are recruiting a pro-business Republican to challenge six-term conservative Rep. Steve King (R), a leader in the push to defund the health care law,” the Associated Press reports and party establishment leaders in Michigan are threatening to recruit and fund challengers to Rep. Justin Amash (R) and other Tea Party aligned candidates.

BETTER IDEA, LETS FUCKING HEAR IT



Meanwhile, Republican governors — some of whom questioned the wisdom of shutting down the government over Obamacare in the first place — are scrambling to deal with sudden shortage of federal dollars in their states.

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) “has ordered the state pay 244 federally-reimbursed employees who support the National Guard” and has committed to “funding federal programs like SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) and WIC (Women, Infants and Children) through the end of October.” Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) has declared a state of “civil emergency” and warned that “our federally funded state employees may have to be laid off.”

A report released earlier this week found that the shutdown is disproportionately affecting Red-leaning states like Virginia, Alaska, and Alabama, which have higher concentrations of federal employees and federal contracts.

So what we have here is....basically, the conservative wants to be rewarded for calling in a bomb threat and then reacting to it? Let's face it readers these radical RWNJ's form of healthcare is, saying bless you after someone sneezes.

This party, the tinfoil hat society, loves the Constitution so much, especially where it says if you lose an election, you're allowed to destroy America to get your way. My advice for John Boehner: Walk away from the craps table. You just lost your House.

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West