Tag Archives: Economic inequality
Chart of the Week: SHOP Marketplac​e Premiums Flat in 2015
Chart of the Week: SHOP Marketplace Premiums Flat in 2015
On November 15, the Health Insurance Marketplace opened for the 2015 enrollment season on HealthCare.gov. But November 15 also marked the beginning of online shopping through the Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP).
Historically, small businesses have paid as much as 18 percent more than their larger competitors for the same coverage. However, SHOP now tackles these problems by creating a competitive marketplace where small businesses can shop for coverage that meets their needs via a convenient online application.
Find out more about the Chart of the Week and SHOP here.
Weekly Address: Immigration Accountability Executive Action
In this week's address, the President laid out the steps he took this past week to fix our broken immigration system. Enacted within his legal authority, the President's plan focuses on cracking down on illegal immigration at the border; deporting felons, not families; and accountability through criminal background checks and taxes. These are commonsense steps, but only Congress can finish the job.
The Faces of Health Care: Amy W.
Amy and her husband are self-employed, operating a semi-truck out of Augusta, GA. As self-employed Americans, they had to purchase health insurance on their own. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, they were able to keep a significant amount of their business profits in their pocket by purchasing an affordable, quality plan on the Health Insurance Marketplace.
What You Need To Know: The President's Actions on Immigration
Here's what you need to know about President Obama's new steps to fix our broken immigration system.
Republicans Are Mad That Other Republicans Are Debunking Benghazi
The right-wing Benghazi conspiracy has been thoroughly debunked numerous times, but now it is back in the news because Republicans are the ones that are debunking it.
Six different investigations in the past two years have found that, while the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, were tragic and reprehensible, there was no evidence for any kind of cover-up by President Obama and his administration. There was also no evidence that the Obama administration stopped attempted rescues from the diplomatic compound or that it intentionally misinformed Congress or the American people. Despite the myriad conspiracy theories, these notions have been disproven time and time again.
Well, none of that changed with the release of the House Intelligence Committee's latest report, the seventh of the genre, on what happened that night in Benghazi. According to the Associated Press, this Republican-led, bipartisan committee reported the following:
Debunking a series of persistent allegations hinting at dark conspiracies, the investigation of the politically charged incident determined that there was no intelligence failure, no delay in sending a CIA rescue team, no missed opportunity for a military rescue, and no evidence the CIA was covertly shipping arms from Libya to Syria.
While an investigation into the deaths at Benghazi was appropriate, conservative media, irresponsible right-wing politicians and pundits, and their enablers in Congress refuse to accept that these investigations have already concluded that there's no controversy behind the tragic attack. Republicans have used this as a distraction for 2016 instead of treating the violence with the seriousness it has deserved.
Some Republicans are asking the GOP to move on from trying to prove something that does not exist. However, that has not stopped leading Benghazi conspiracy theorist Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., from calling the report inaccurate, "full of crap" and "a complete bunch of garbage." Nor has this report stopped Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C. from continuing his $3.3 million investigation into Benghazi, with House Republicans choosing to spend more on an eighth investigation than on the committees for Ethics, Veterans' Affairs, the budget, or science.
BOTTOM LINE: The latest Benghazi investigation – this one led by House Republicans – found more of the same, namely that there was no conspiracy. But amazingly, that hasn't stopped some GOPers from continuing to push this non-story. And conservatives wonder why the Obama administration continues its work on moving the country forward through executive action with such unreasonable and hostile opposition in Congress?