Tag Archives: Marco Rubio

Obamacare Does NOT Have A Mandate

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Some conservatives have charged that Marco Rubio has proposed an individual mandate for health insurance. [Credit: ABC News]

Some con­ser­v­a­tives have charged that Mar­co Rubio has pro­posed an indi­vid­ual man­date for health insur­ance. [Cred­it: ABC News]

Some con­ser­v­a­tives have accused Mar­co Rubio of propos­ing an Oba­macare-like man­date on all Amer­i­cans to buy health insur­ance. They’re wrong about Rubio.  And about Oba­macare.  Read more on Nation­al Review Online.

Antonin Scalia, R.I.P.

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Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who died on Saturday, practiced a constitutional conservatism that is out-of-step with today's Right. [Credit: lifenews.com]

Supreme Court Jus­tice Antonin Scalia, who died on Sat­ur­day, prac­ticed a con­sti­tu­tion­al con­ser­vatism that is out-of-step with today’s Right. [Cred­it: lifenews.com]

The arc of con­ser­vatism’s decline was traced in the course of a few hours last Sat­ur­day. That after­noon we learned of the pass­ing of a gen­uine con­sti­tu­tion­al con­ser­v­a­tive, Antonin Scalia. Hours lat­er, we endured anoth­er GOP debate dur­ing which pro­fessed con­ser­v­a­tives trad­ed barbs and insults, now con­sid­ered a suit­able sub­sti­tute for char­ac­ter and sub­stance by a large swath of Repub­li­can vot­ers. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Cruz Missiles

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Ted Cruz, like every other presidential hopeful, vows to destroy the Islamic State. Should we believe him? [Credit: ABC News]

Ted Cruz, like every oth­er pres­i­den­tial hope­ful, vows to destroy the Islam­ic State. Should we believe him? [Cred­it: ABC News]

Ted Cruz says we don’t have a dog in the Syr­i­an civ­il war.  He nev­er­the­less wants to car­pet bomb the civ­il war’s lead­ing bel­liger­ent, the Islam­ic State (IS).  Which just might kill some dogs. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Frenemies of the Poor

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The 50th anniversary of the President Johnson's declaration of a War on Poverty has provoked strong views on whether it has succeeded or failed. The truth lies somewhere between. [Credit: Huffington Post]

The 50th anniver­sary of the Pres­i­dent John­son’s dec­la­ra­tion of a War on Pover­ty has pro­voked strong views on whether it has suc­ceed­ed or failed. The truth lies some­where between. [Cred­it: Huff­in­g­ton Post]

It’s not much of an exag­ger­a­tion to say that right now Repub­li­cans are doing all they can to hurt the poor, and they would have inflict­ed vast­ly more harm if they had won the 2012 elec­tion. More­over, GOP harsh­ness toward the less for­tu­nate isn’t just a mat­ter of spite (although that’s part of it); it’s deeply root­ed in the party’s ide­ol­o­gy.  Paul Krug­man, “Ene­mies of the Poor,” Jan­u­ary 12, 2014

The 50th anniver­sary of Pres­i­dent Johnson’s War on Pover­ty has occa­sioned a good deal of moral exhi­bi­tion­ism. Lib­er­als heap praise on the pro­grams and flat­ter them­selves for sup­port­ing the trans­fer of an esti­mat­ed $20.7 tril­lion (in 2011 dol­lars) in cash and non-cash ben­e­fits from those who earned it to those who did not. And they are rel­ish­ing the oppor­tu­ni­ty to denounce con­ser­v­a­tives as ene­mies of the poor, moti­vat­ed by ide­ol­o­gy and spite.

Some con­ser­v­a­tives, like the Her­itage Foundation’s Robert Rec­tor, are using the anniver­sary to declare the War on Pover­ty lost. Rec­tor recent­ly was quot­ed as say­ing that “the War on Pover­ty has been a com­plete cat­a­stro­phe.” Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Obamacare’s Comfort Food For The Insurance Industry

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The President huddled with health insurance executives last month, part of a White House effort to assure them that the government has their back. (Credit: LA Times)

The Pres­i­dent hud­dled with health insur­ance exec­u­tives last month, part of a White House effort to assure them that the gov­ern­ment has their back. (Cred­it: LA Times)

The healthcare.gov web­site now works to the Admin­is­tra­tion’s sat­is­fac­tion.  While only 30 per­cent of users could enroll when the site first launched, it’s now up to 80 per­cent.

Frus­trat­ing one in five poten­tial cus­tomers, evi­dent­ly the gold stan­dard for the White House, is viewed less favor­ably by pri­vate insur­ers.  It’s among the rea­sons that the health care law is caus­ing such anx­i­ety in the C‑suites of insur­ance com­pa­nies that are hop­ing to prof­it by sell­ing poli­cies through the exchanges. Which is why White House meet­ings with insur­ance exec­u­tives are hap­pen­ing more fre­quent­ly than Cab­i­net meet­ings. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

More Than A Website: Will Insurers Prosper Under Obamacare?

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The Bee Gees' "More Than A Woman" was a 70s sensation. In promoting his health care law, the President now has a similar mantra: "More Than A Website." (Credit: AP)

The Bee Gees’ “More Than A Woman” was a 70s sen­sa­tion. In pro­mot­ing his health care law, the Pres­i­dent has adopt­ed a sim­i­lar phrase, remind­ing us that Oba­macare is more than a web­site. (Cred­it: AP)

The Pres­i­den­t’s health care law has had a trou­bled first month, but it is far too soon to know whether its prob­lems will prove last­ing and severe.  Even some of its most fer­vent sup­port­ers, like the Wash­ing­ton Post’s Ezra Klein, acknowl­edge that its defi­cien­cies run deep­er than a clunky web­site.  Oba­macare, the Pres­i­dent reminds us, is more than a web­site, but its prob­lems extend far beyond its 5 mil­lion lines of errant code. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

John Feehery Guest Post: Leaders and Followers

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John Fee­hery is pres­i­dent of Quinn Gille­spie Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and spent 15 years work­ing in the House Repub­li­can lead­er­ship. He blogs at www.thefeeherytheory.com

At my gym, they put lit­tle inspi­ra­tional quotes up on the wall to get you to work out hard­er (that’s the the­o­ry, at least).

“Lead, fol­low, or get out of the way,” was last Tuesday’s quote, attrib­uted to the Marine’s hand­book, which was a rev­e­la­tion to me. I always thought that Lee Iacoc­ca was the man who first said that mem­o­rable phrase when he was try­ing to fix Chrysler.

This quote must haunt Con­gres­sion­al Repub­li­cans on both sides of the Capi­tol dome. Con­tin­ue read­ing →