Only 1 In 4 Americans Want Health Care Repeal; 43% Want Stronger Reform

Is health care law really a 'job killer'? Experts doubt it
WASHINGTON — Despite what Republicans say, the 2010 Health Care law isn't necessarily a job killer. Republicans have titled their effort to overturn the law the "Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act," and that's their favorite talking point against it. The House of Representatives will start debate on Repeal Tuesday and probably vote Wednesday. Saying that the law is a job killer doesn't necessarily make it one, however, and independent experts say that suc...

Ten benefits Americans will lose if health care reform is repealed
This week the Republicans in the House of Representatives are expected to vote on a bill that would Repeal all of the Health Care reform package passed last year by the Democrats.  The Republicans have offered nothing to replace the Affordable Care Act, saying they will instead figure out new solutions in the coming months.  While the prospects for Repeal grow much dimmer in the Senate, anything that passes out of the House at least has to be considered seriously.  In addition, Re...

Healthcare Law a Jobs Killer?
TM NOTE: Texan4Hillary offers his perspective as a movement progressive Activist, weeknights 6 pm EST. Sorry Mr. Speaker, no. The healthcare law is very flawed. The mandate making Americans buy from a cartel is abhorrent. But it does have some redeeming qualities bundled in it and the Right Wing lies on the law must be debunked. The Right’s effort to Repeal the entire thing is outlandish, especially since the mandate is based on the GOP’s own plan for healthcare coverage back in the...

The GOP's lack of a healthcare plan
According to the Washington Post, the GOP lacks a plan for The House's GOP leaders have made clear that they regard the Repeal vote, scheduled to begin Tuesday, as the prelude to a two-prong strategy that is likely to last throughout the year, or longer. They intend to take apart some of the sprawling law, which Democrats pushed through Congress last year, piece by piece before major aspects of it go into effect. At the same time, Republicans say, they will come up with their own plan to revise...

Does new debate give Dems a second chance to sell health care reform?
WASHINGTON--Rep. Joe Courtney recently found himself testifying before a House committee about a family physician from Hebron who, thanks to small-business Tax Credits included in the Health Care reform law, will be getting a $4,000 break this year. Rep. Rosa DeLauro was at the Milford Senior Center last week highlighting the health overhaul's benefits for seniors, including free access to preventive care and a $250 rebate for prescription drug coverage. It is the Republicans who have pushed h...

Health care opponents' passion cools, poll finds
(01-17) 04:00 PST Washington - -- As lawmakers shaken by the shooting of a colleague return to the Health Care debate, an Associated Press-GfK poll finds raw feelings over President Obama's overhaul have subsided. Ahead of a vote on Repeal in the GOP-led House this week, strong opposition to the law stands at 30 percent, close to the Lowest Level registered in AP-GfK surveys dating to September 2009. The nation is divided over the law, but the strength and intensity of the opposition appear d...

House GOP Prepares to Override Wishes of 70%+ of Americans on Health Care
This week, House Republican'ts are planning to vote on repealing Health Care reform Legislation. Of course, the whole thing's a charade, for two reasons: 1) it has no chance of getting through the Senate or being signed into law by President Obama; 2) Republicans have no Health Care plan of their own (not counting the one they're about to vote on, which is largely modeled after the Republicans' 1993/94 alternative to what they called "Hillarycare"). But be that as it may, Republicans are moving...

Modest Reforms of Senate Filibuster Rules Wont Cause Political Backlash
I know this is often hard for professional politicians and political aides to comprehend, but regular Americans really don’t pay attention to abstract congressional maneuvers. If the Senate Democratic Caucus thinks reforming Senate rules is a good thing that would eventually will lead to better policy outcomes, they should implement them. If they don’t think it will, they shouldn’t make the change. But what definitely shouldn’t be part of their decision making process i...

House to Debate Spending Later This Week
Yahoo! Buzz Republicans begin the process of trying to slash federal spending this week, on the same day that they seek to roll back President Barack Obama’s new health-care law. On Wednesday, as the House debates a Republican proposal to Repeal the new health-care law, the House’s rules committee is scheduled to take up a  resolution directing Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wisc.), chairman of the Budget committee, to set spending for the rest of the year. Democrats complain that spending ...

GOP lacks clear health-care plan
With the House preparing to vote this week on whether to Repeal the health-care law, the chamber's new Republican majority is confronting a far more delicate task: forging its own path to expand medical coverage and curb costs. This Story GOP lacks clear health-care plan Democrats mount second sales pitch on health-care law as Republicans seek repeal House clears way for health-care Repeal vote GOP outlines plan to Repeal Health Care overhaul View All Items in This Story View Only Top Items i...

AP/GfK poll: Support for expanding health reform stronger than for repeal
Following quickly on the heels of a Marist poll that found that more respondents want to see the health reform law expanded than repealed, AP/GfK reports: The poll finds that 40 percent of those surveyed said they support the law, while 41 percent oppose it. Just after the November congressional Elections, opposition stood at 47 percent and support was 38 percent. As for Repeal, only about one in four say they want to do away with the law completely. Among Republicans support for repeal has dro...

Obama health care reform: Is it really 'job killing'?
More than a year’s worth of GOP scare tactics about Health Care reform now appear to be unfounded, partisan politics. There were no Death Panels, as Sarah Palin claimed. It is not a ‘job killing’ bill, as House Speaker, John Boehner claims. In reality, Health Care reform will actually create jobs in the Health Care industry. Furthermore, Congressional Budget Office data finds that Obama care will reduce the federal Deficit. Politico reports health Insurance Industry insiders ar...

I get a closeup picture of the health care system and womens lives in Palestine
For the second week of the delegation, we divide into different interest groups and the medical folks are based in Nablus, working with Palestinian Medical Relief Society. On the second day we are standing in the waiting area of the Community Based Rehabilitation offices when a staff member, a beautiful somewhat demure woman with large black eyes and a graceful white Hijab framing her face, beams and offers us chocolates. I decline (I am still recovering from breakfast), but she insists. “Yo...

GOP lawmaker targets key health reform provision
A powerful House Republican is setting in motion a congressional challenge to a key provision of the Healthcare Reform law. Republican Conference Secretary John Carter (R-Texas) is trying to build momentum for a Congressional Review Act (CRA) challenge to a recent Regulation that requires insurers to spend at least 80 percent of their premium dollars (85 percent in the large group market) on healthcare services. The House GOP majority is expected to approve Legislation Wednesday that would re...

The Health Care that Billionaires (and Non-Billionaires) Need
So Steve Jobs is taking medical leave from Apple. The man who built his company into a $320 billion colossus has suffered from Pancreatic Cancer, which spread to his liver — he received a liver transplant in 2009. Now, sadly, he is sick again. What do you think he’s thinking now? He’s probably not thinking to himself, “Thank God for Obamacare,” because Health Insurance is irrelevant to him, and to other Billionaires. Perhaps instead Jobs is thinking, “How come...

Paul Krugman, Logician
Fresh from falsely accusing Conservatives of inciting mass Murder with metaphors, Paul Krugman has now taken to accusing us of launching a war on logic. He has come to this conclusion, he notes in today’s column, because Conservatives insist that the health-care bill enacted last year will not reduce the Deficit, and that repealing it will. Krugman points to a House Republican analysis of the costs of the health-care bill and then insists that the first and foremost argument in that analys...

Health care overhaul's foes ease back from opposition
Related: Question looms on WTC health act: Who is covered? WASHINGTON • As lawmakers shaken by the shooting of a colleague return to the Health Care debate, an Associated Press-GfK poll finds that raw feelings over President Barack Obama's overhaul have subsided. Ahead of a vote on Repeal in the GOP-led House this week, strong opposition to the law stands at 30 percent, close to the Lowest Level registered in AP-GfK surveys dating to September 2009. The nation is divided over the law, but...

House GOP targeting key health reform component, the medical loss ratio
The House GOP knows that while they have enough members to vote to Repeal the Affordable Care Act this week, the effort dies in the Senate. Even if it could get through the Senate, it would be vetoed by President Obama. So they're working on individual pieces to chip away at the provisions of the bill, including a critical one that went into effect January 1: requiring that insurers spend at least 80 percent of the premium dollars they take in on actual health services, rather than overhead or ...

Show Me the Numbers; or, My Response to Tim
Introduction: I started to write an answer to a comment, then when it got a bit long I decided to turn it into a post. I am responding to a comment from Tim, which turns out to have been copied and pasted wholesale from Vox Populi. But here’s my response, addressing Tim: Tim, there’s much here you don’t seem to understand. Let me see if I can explain it to you in plain English. First, some background: Congressional Budget Office analysis of the badly named “Patient Prot...

Picking apart Obamacare
I admit to a love-hate relationship with the subject of Healthcare Reform. Back when I was a naive liberal I waved around the words Universal Healthcare quite a bit, and with good reason. Going Uninsured in this country is a recipe for disaster, and there are indeed people who fall between the cracks in the healthcare status quo. Typically these are people who are either just a little too old to get good private Insurance, or who are just a little too well-to-do to qualify for Medicaid - but sti...

Schultz: The Republican Devil Makes Me Do It
Ed Schultz would like to be more civil. Really, he would. It's just that those reprehensible Republicans, by failing to agree with him, force poor Ed to advocate things like ripping out Dick Cheney's heart. That was the Schultz's oft-repeated theme on his MSNBC show this evening. View video after the jump. Consider: if someone is truly intent on changing the tone, would they not show some moral leadership of their own? Even if Ed is right about the GOP, does Schultz see himself as th...

Clyburn: 'Let Us Modify the Health-Care Law in a Bipartisan Way'
A leading House Democrat talks up "Bipartisan" changes to Obamacare: Democratic Rep. James Clyburn told Fox News he welcomes the upcoming . . . Go Newly elected chairman Reince Priebus has fired the 2012 convention staff. In a statement to the press, Priebus writes: “We are . . . Go Kevin Drum vs. the Commodities Market...

OVERNIGHT HEALTH: Opposition to reform law dips ahead of repeal vote
Welcome to The Hill's evening roundup of the day's health policy news and advance look at tomorrow's schedule. On the agenda for Tuesday: Repeal debate begins: The House on Tuesday will kick off seven hours of debate on a bill to repeal the Healthcare Reform law a day before the chamber is scheduled to vote on the measure. The debate and vote were delayed by a week in the wake of the Arizona shooting. Lawmakers have called for toned-down Rhetoric in ligh...

With repeal vote imminent, opposition to health reform law softens
As House Republicans plan to Repeal the Healthcare Reform law this week, strong opposition to the law fell to the Lowest Levels in more than a year, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll. While Americans remain divided on the reform law, strong feelings against one of President Obama’s key achievements appear to have diminished, the poll said. Thirty percent strongly oppose the reform law, the lowest percentage since September 2009, while Congress was still crafting the Legislation. ...

Will Dems Showcase Restraint During Health Care Repeal Debate?
Congressional Democrats have the rare opportunity to immediately put their Rhetoric into practice this week, as the House begins discussing the Repeal of ObamaCare. In the wake of the heinous shooting attack against Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, Liberal Democrats around the country blamed "violent rhetoric" from the Right for creating an environment in which the Tucson shooting was an inevitable outcome. On Jan. 8, Giffords was shot in the head outside a Safeway during her annual "Congress o...