Something remarkable happened yesterday. Florida Governor Rick Scott (R) decided to endorse using the Affordable Care Act to expand Medicaid in his state. Though he did this only after getting the administration to provide a major concession regarding how the program would be run. This is an important policy development because it means roughly a [...]

If you really just can’t wait to find out what President Obama is going to talk about in his State of the Union speech this evening, the best indications come from the First Lady’s guest list. Normally the President will refer to the guests during the speech to highlight a particular issue. Immigration should be [...]

Ben Smith has made a splash at Buzzfeed pointing out that the age-rating regulation in the ObamaCare bill will result in a subset of young people paying substantially more for health insurance. Since older people can only be charged three times as much as young people, some young people will see big rate increases next [...]

As part of his budget proposal Governor John Kasich (R) will support taking advantage of the Affordable Care Act to expand Medicaid in Ohio. This move comes as a bit of a surprise given that Kasich as been one of the biggest opponents of Obamacare, but in the end Kasich decided the expansion was too [...]

The one upside to the Supreme Court making the Medicaid expansion in the Affordable Care Act optional is that it has stopped the Obama administration from trying to cut it. Senior economic adviser Gene Sperling confirmed that the administration sees taking Medicaid completely of the table as necessary to make Obamacare function; but since President [...]

There biggest potential sticking point to passing a broad immigration reform law could be cost and the biggest possible driver of cost could be how immigration reform would interact with the Affordable Care Act. Currently a bipartisan group of senators seems to have reached an agreement on broad outline but it is easy to support [...]

After receiving a lot of blowback for calling Obamacare “fascism”, Whole Foods Markets CEO John Mackey tried to make a more nuanced criticism at the Huffington Post. His attempt though to compare the Affordable Care Act with the Swiss health care system only highlights his lack of understanding. From John Mackey: I believe that, if [...]

Yesterday, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer endorsed taking advantage of the Affordable Care Act to expand Medicaid to everyone up to 138% of the federal poverty level. While Brewer has been one of the most vocal opponents of “Obamacare,” in her State of the State address she acknowledged that it is the law of the land [...]

The Republican Governor of New Mexico, Susana Martinez, says she plans to have her state expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. From KOAT 7: Gov. Susana Martinez announced the expansion of the state’s Medicaid system, meaning many New Mexicans could soon have federally funded insurance. It’s an unusual move for a Republican governor to [...]

The most recent fiscal cliff deal ended up cutting $1.4 billion from the Affordable Care Act’s CO-OP program. For those that don’t remember the CO-OP was designed to be a lame replacement for the public option. It was meant to help consumer by creating alternatives to for-profit insurance companies. It provides loans to start health [...]