Health Care

Recent news about Obamacare hasn't exactly been good, but the press has been pretty effective in keeping it quiet. To name just a few items, Enrollment is shrinking, because perhaps as many as 20 percent of enrollees aren't keeping up with their premiums. Rising costs have moved insurers to beg for bailouts, which appear to be forthcoming.  Then there's this: Just last week in Massachusetts,…

Univision is out with a new ad series promoting ObamaCare enrollment. In the latest installment, instead of distancing Univison’s news division from the ObamaCare marketing machine, now the tie-in could not be more direct, as the new ObamaCare ad features none other than network’s chief medical correspondent, Dr. Juan Rivera. “We want you to enroll now. Insure yourself,” Dr. Rivera exhorts…

This morning, the Census Bureau, in its advance report on retail sales, revealed that seasonally adjusted July sales were "virtually unchanged" from June. Expectations were for a 0.2 percent gain, supposedly with "solid upside" potential. Oops. June's result stayed at its previously reported 0.2 percent increase. Reuters did the "U-word" honors this time out: "U.S. retail sales unexpectedly…

Former CBS correspondent Sharyl Attkisson, with the assistance of the conservative organization Judicial Watch, filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Servies on Friday, seeking records related to the ObamaCare website, HealthCare.gov. Attkisson announced the lawsuit on Twitter on Tuesday afternoon: "I'm suing the federal govt for http://healthcare…

It would almost not be worth noting, because it's so predictable. On Fox News Sunday, Juan Williams, with strategic support at opportune times from National Journal's Ron Fournier, characterized the support within the Republican Party for impeachment as coming from "Tea Party opposition ... (with) no diversity, it's a white, older group of people." What makes it worthy of notice is the fact…

Former Congressman Barney Frank had "a July interview" with the Huffington Post. The liberal blog's Zach Carter put up a post about it on Friday, August 1 at 3:59 p.m. How convenient, because Frank ripped President Obama and his administration, who he says "just lied to people" about whether they could keep their existing healthcare plans under the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.…

Carol Costello badgered Congressman Matt Salmon on Thursday's CNN Newsroom over Congress choosing to go into recess instead of dealing with issues like illegal immigration: "Congress is again the butt of jokes on late-night TV. Rome burns and lawmakers go on vacation....Why don't you guys just stay in Washington and deal with problems like immigration?" Costello later hounded the Arizona…

In a Thursday report on why many Americans are still unimpressed with the U.S. job market, Associated Press reporters Christopher Rugaber and Josh Boak made a rare admission that "Finding a steady full-time job has become harder" than it was before the recession. The AP pair then contended that "the trend might also reflect a lasting shift among restaurants and coffee shops," but found an "…

According to Daily Kos writer Dante Atkins, the D.C. Circuit’s Halbig decision resembled a plot twist in a movie in which “evil” conservatives know they’ve lost the Obamacare battle but “refuse to go quietly and seek to cause as much destruction as [they] can on [their] certain path to oblivion.” Atkins wrote in a Sunday post that two factors made the court’s ruling possible: “imprecise…

On July 29, the Senate confirmed Robert McDonald by a vote of 97-0 to be the next Secretary of Veterans Affairs but that evening only the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley covered the story whereas ABC and NBC were nowhere to be found.   Fill-in host James Brown introduced the report on the V.A. by explaining how “the first job for the former CEO of Procter & Gamble will be cleaning up…

At the Washington Post's Plum Line blog this afternoon, Greg Sargent argued that the legislative history of Obamacare supports the argument that Congress intended that participants in federal exchanges be entitled to premium subsidies (alternatively referred to in some quarters as "tax credits"), and that the history should doom the Halbig suit, which contends that tax subsidies cannot be…

On July 1, a local hospital in Belhaven, North Carolina closed its doors in part because the state legislature opposed the expansion of Medicaid. Since its closure, the liberal media rallied behind the town’s mayor Adam O’Neal, who has repeatedly complained about his fellow Republicans refusing to expand Medicaid.  While O’Neal has become the newest media darling for the left, including…

On Monday, July 28, the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley used a new study showing that high fives are five times more hygienic than shaking hands as a way of promoting President Obama's use of the fist bump. Fill-in anchor James Brown, who hosts The NFL Today on CBS, gushed at how “in his line of work, President Obama does a healthy amount of handshaking but a study out today says high…

Following the Hobby Lobby Supreme Court decision, one of the key talking points that emerged from enraged opponents of the ruling was: "My boss shouldn't be involved in my health care decisions." California State Senate candidate Sandra Fluke says on her official website that such a perspective is "common sense." An Ohio Democrat is introducing a "Not My Boss's Business Act" in the state…