I know the statement may seem obvious but the obvious statements in politics are often the most important. This was the point of the 37th Affordable Care Act repeal vote yesterday. According to the roll call vote, every single Republican supported repeal but only two Democrats, Rep. Jim Matheson (UT) and Rep. Mike McIntyre (NC), [...]

House Republicans are having their 37th vote on repealing the Affordable Care Act today. As Speaker John Boehner explained the reason for the vote is purely political. While during the previous Congress voted repeatedly on repealing Obamacare there are many newly elected Democratic and Republican members of Congress who are not officially on record. While many [...]

The re-election of President Obama nearly six months ago effectively doomed the Republicans’ last real hope of eliminating the Affordable Care Act before before it got fully implemented. It would be practically impossible to completely repeal it now. Yet on a rhetorical level the GOP refuses to acknowledge this fact. If anything the Republicans seem [...]

Mitt Romney’s decision to pick Paul Ryan as his running mate and fully embrace Ryan’s plan to turn Medicare into a voucher program is looking more and more like one of the biggest unforced errors of the campaign. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll, voucherizing Medicare is extremely unpopular and Obama holds a [...]

A perfect example of why Mitt Romney is a bad candidate is how even at this late date he can’t figure out a way to talk about his own signature health care reform law. Romney has never found a way to deal with the fact that in design Romneycare and Obamacare are very similar, yet [...]

When the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act one political silver lining for Republicans is that the Court effectively declared the individual mandate a tax. The problem for Republicans, though, is that Mitt Romney championed a near identical mandate in Massachusetts. As a result, Republican efforts exploit this tax issue have been extremely awkward. [...]

With the Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act only days away, I have tried to play out all the potential ways the Court could rule and what they would mean on a purely political level this election. As best as I can tell, any Court decision is likely to be either a political [...]

What was said: Mitt Romney’s campaign has launched a new ad making three promise of what he would do on “day one” if elected President. Approves the Keystone pipeline Introduces tax cuts and reforms that reward jobs creators Issues order to begin replacing Obamacare with common sense health care reform Whom the statement is for: [...]

What was said: Mitt Romney used an op-ed in USA Today to again reaffirm his commitment to completely repealing and replacing ‘ObamaCare’ if elected. From USA Today op-ed “Romney: Why I’d repeal ObamaCare” Friday is the second anniversary of ObamaCare. It is past time to abolish the program, root and branch. The Supreme Court will [...]

I think Robert Samuelson has the correct political read on Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius’ recent decision. The health care policy moves by the Obama administration since the 2010 election all seem to be about trying to minimize as much as possible health care reform as a political issue in the 2012 election. [...]