Obamacare’s Empty Victory

By Margaret Flowers, M.D. for The Indypendent – It feels truly Orwellian that progressives are applauding the forced purchase of private health insurance — one of the most hated industries in the United States — while the right is opposing a model that originated from their political leaders. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is a…

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The Neoliberal Turn in American Health Care

By A.W. Gaffney for Jacobin – The failings of the Affordable Care Act are rooted in a long shift away from the idea of a truly universal health care. Last year’s three-ring Congressional shutdown circus — for many little more than a desperate rearguard action by an isolated rightwing fringe to undo the fait accompli…

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Labor Builds Support for Medicare for All

While Obamacare Enrollment Continues to Lag, Labor Builds Support for Expanded and Improved Medicare for All By Pearl Korn for Huffington Post – The 113th Congress will likely be remembered as the most unproductive in our history, and with an overall approval rating of 9 perent, it is safe to say that most Americans do…

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The ACA and America’s Health-Care Mess

By Gerald Friedman for Dollars and Sense – While it was enacted in 2010 without a single Republican vote, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), a.k.a. “Obamacare,” was built on a model first proposed by the conservative Heritage Foundation in the 1990s and implemented by Republican Governor Mitt Romney in Massachusetts in 2006.…

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Is Obamacare a Step Toward Single-Payer?

By Gary Lapon for SocialistWorker.org – NO, NO and no: That’s been the Republican Party position on health care reform since the Obama administration’s first months in office. No matter how many pro-industry concessions were made in drafting what came to be called the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Republicans never wavered in their all-out opposition.…

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Single-Payer Activism Gets Boost from Obamacare

By Claire Hughes for the Times Union – Dr. Richard Propp and Alice Brody thought Obamacare might sink their movement. Instead, based on the interest they say they are getting, the federal Affordable Care Act has buoyed their cause of universal health coverage, or “improved Medicare for all,” they said. At the heart of the…

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The Left After the Failure of Obamacare

By Shamus Cooke for Truth-Out – It’s satisfying to watch rats flee a sinking ship. This is because onlookers knew the ship was doomed long ago, and swimming rats signify that the drawn-out tragedy is nearing an end. A collective sense of relief is a natural response. The rats who propped up the broken boat…

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The Obamacare We Deserve

By Michael Moore for the New York Times – Today marks the beginning of health care coverage under the Affordable Care Act’s new insurance exchanges, for which two million Americans have signed up. Now that the individual mandate is officially here, let me begin with an admission: Obamacare is awful. That is the dirty little…

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Single Payer Is Getting a Second Life as Obamacare Frustration Peaks

From the Daily Beast – Could anger at the Obamacare rollout make Americans more receptive to a kind of Medicare-for-all system? That’s what activists are hoping—and they’re plotting a state-by-state fight. As the rollout of Obamacare clunks forward, activists who opposed the law from the beginning say it is time to seize the moment, to…

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How to Revive the Fight for Single-Payer

Rep. Jim McDermott of Washington is optimistic that it will come—if we give states the tools to adopt it at their own pace. By William Greider for the Nation – When the media frenzy subsides and Republicans run out of scare stories, the country will be faced with the most important question about Obamacare: Can…

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