Tag: Insurance & Coverage

Posted inHealthcare, Policy Topics

PPA repeal effort fails: Millions of Americans spared (for now) from losing their healthcare

by Andrew Villeneuve

“This is an epic fail. This is his­toric. This is sev­en years of argu­ing going down the drain.” — Repub­li­can pun­dit Charles Krautham­mer Repub­li­can efforts to evis­cer­ate or sim­ply get rid of the Patient Pro­tec­tion and Afford­able Care Act have run into a series of fatal road­blocks in the Unit­ed States Sen­ate, which means mil­lions of […]

Posted inHealthcare, Policy Topics

SHAME! Republican-controlled U.S. House votes to take away healthcare from millions

by Andrew Villeneuve

In a brazen, whol­ly inde­fen­si­ble act of mal­ice and cru­el­ty, the Repub­­li­­can-con­trolled Unit­ed States House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives vot­ed today to take away the health­care of mil­lions of Amer­i­cans. By a vote of 217–213, with­out a sin­gle Demo­c­ra­t­ic vote, the House passed a mon­strous bill that, if approved by the Sen­ate and signed by Don­ald Trump, […]

Posted inHealthcare, Legislative Advocacy, Policy Topics

Trumpcuts implodes as feuding Republicans face the reality that they don’t have the votes

by Andrew Villeneuve

Con­ced­ing that they sim­ply don’t have the votes to pass the mas­sive wealth trans­fer that they false­ly call a replace­ment for the Patient Pro­tec­tion Act, Paul Ryan and top House Repub­li­cans today threw in the tow­el on H.R. 1628, can­cel­ing a planned vote that Don­ald Trump had insist­ed be held only hours earlier. 

Posted inHealthcare, Legislative Advocacy, Policy Topics

NPI to NW Republicans: For the good of our region and country, vote NO on Trumpcuts

by Andrew Villeneuve

Edi­tor’s Note: The fol­low­ing was trans­mit­ted by fac­sim­i­le this evening to the offices of Dave Reichert, Greg Walden, Dan New­house, and Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers. All of the afore­men­tioned indi­vid­u­als rep­re­sent por­tions of Wash­ing­ton and Ore­gon in the Unit­ed States House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives as Repub­li­cans. We are repub­lish­ing this com­mu­ni­ca­tion here on the Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate as […]

Posted inHealthcare, Policy Topics

Group Health Cooperative is no more: State approves GHC’s sale to Kaiser Permanente

by Andrew Villeneuve

Wash­ing­ton State Insur­ance Com­mis­sion­er Mike Krei­dler today signed off on Kaiser Per­ma­nen­te’s bid to acquire the state’s home­grown health provider Group Health Coop­er­a­tive, which means GHC will be no more as of Feb­ru­ary 1st, 2017. “After an exten­sive and thor­ough review by my office, it’s clear that Kaiser met all of the legal require­ments nec­es­sary for […]

Posted inElections, Healthcare, Policy Topics, Public Planning

Dow Constantine: Join me in supporting Best Starts for Kids (King County Proposition 1)

by Dow Constantine

Edi­tor’s Note: It is our great plea­sure tonight to wel­come King Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Dow Con­stan­tine to NPI’s Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate. In this spe­cial guest post, Exec­u­tive Con­stan­tine explains why it is crit­i­cal that we pass King Coun­ty Propo­si­tion #1, the Best Starts for Kids levy, this Novem­ber. NPI has tak­en a posi­tion enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly sup­port­ing this measure, […]

Posted inBreaking News, Civil Liberties, Economic Security, Healthcare, Litigation, Policy Topics, World Commmunity

Roberts Court’s logic: Corporations are people, so they’re entitled to religious liberty

by Andrew Villeneuve

The Roberts Court has done it again. Deter­mined to make the ter­ri­ble impli­ca­tions of the Cor­po­ra­tions Unit­ed and McCutcheon deci­sions look tame by com­par­i­son, the Supreme Court ruled this morn­ing that because it believes cor­po­ra­tions to be peo­ple, an arti­fi­cial for-prof­it enti­ty like Hob­by Lob­by is enti­tled to reli­gious lib­er­ty, and so it does not have […]

Posted inHealthcare, Policy Topics, Public Service

Seasoned Microsoft executive Kurt DelBene tapped to manage Healthcare.gov

by Andrew Villeneuve

For­mer Microsoft exec­u­tive Kurt Del­Bene, who has capa­bly served as the pres­i­dent of the com­pa­ny’s Busi­ness divi­sion for many years, will take over man­age­ment of Healthcare.gov, the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion announced today at a meet­ing with top tech­nol­o­gy exec­u­tives, includ­ing Microsoft gen­er­al coun­sel Brad Smith. Del­Bene will suc­ceed Jef­frey D. Zients, who has been serv­ing as a […]

Posted inHealthcare, Policy Topics

Patient Protection Act a start, but U.S. still needs true healthcare reform: Medicare for All

by Ralph Gorin

Along with eco­nom­ic secu­ri­ty, the future of Medicare has emerged as a sig­nif­i­cant issue in the pres­i­den­tial cam­paign. The Patient Pro­tec­tion Act, passed more than two years ago and recent­ly upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court,  pro­vides insur­ance reform, not health­care reform. But both are need­ed. The Patient Pro­tec­tion Act imposed new require­ments on health […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Elections, Healthcare, Policy Topics

Wanted: Women willing to run for office

by Kathleen Reynolds

At a time when women’s repro­duc­tive rights are under attack in state leg­is­la­tures across the coun­try, there might soon be no female Demo­c­ra­t­ic gov­er­nors to push back. The only two such gov­er­nors left in office — Washington’s Chris Gre­goire and North Carolina’s Bev Pur­due — are leav­ing office in 2013, and only one state, New […]