JD Vance's reference to "risk pools" on Sunday was like a Bat-Signal to those of us who follow health care policy 🧵 Among those who noticed were @jonathanchait ... nymag.com/intelligencer/…

Trump said it last week, Vance said it yesterday

I'm still stunned they're even *trying* to make this claim (1)
huffpost.com/entry/donald-t… It's about the Affordable Care Act -- a.k.a., "Obamacare"

You may recall Trump spent years promising to repeal it, then tried desperately during his first year in office to do just that

Had he succeeded, millions would have lost insurance (2) huffpost.com/entry/donald-t…

Yesterday I wrote about Donald Trump vowing to repeal Obamacare -- and what that would mean for the millions of Americans who depend on it for health insurance (1/x) huffpost.com/entry/donald-t… Impact of repeal could be especially pronounced among Black and Latino Americans, who have gained disproportionately from ACA coverage gains

Per @ThePlumLineGS here (2/x)

https://twitter.com/ThePlumLineGS/status/1729198139939467748

Many ways to think about 303, but an underlying question is whether anti-LGBTQ discrimination deserves privileged treatment — ie, legal sanction we don’t give other forms — because people who want to discriminate can cite religious principle or their interpretation of it. (1/x) I realize this is not what Gorsuch & the majority say they are doing. They say this is about free speech, not religion or sexuality/gender identity.

Not for me to say what justices truly think.

Legal scholars know better than I do what decision will mean in practice. (2/x)

Pharma is suing to block the new Rx reforms, arguing that price "negotiation" is really just a form of extortion

But the companies can choose not to participate in Medicare, notes @nicholas_bagley -- "it doesn't follow that they've been coerced" (1/x) huffpost.com/entry/drug-ind… This @hiltzikm column has a great in-depth look at that issue in particular (2/x) latimes.com/business/story…

Seems like DeSantis doesn't want to talk about Medicaid expansion and what he's not doing for 2.6M uninsured Floridians.

Three weeks of inquiries to his office, couldn't get a straightforward answer on his position -- or any of my questions. (1/x) huffpost.com/entry/ron-desa… Could just be me -- staff too busy to deal with a HuffPost reporter, etc.

But it's tough to find recent public comments and DeSantis didn't engage when Democrats raised the issue in the gubernatorial campaign. (2/x) huffpost.com/entry/ron-desa…

2.6M Floridians have no health insurance

Ron DeSantis could do something about that

He hasn't huffpost.com/entry/ron-desa… More here from @mmfa @MattGertz -- one of few who have picked up on this story mediamatters.org/health-care/ro…

Epstein is "hard-core MAGA," as Steve Bannon once put it.

https://twitter.com/CitizenCohn/status/1523648311713927169

She wants to "minimize" federal funding, which she says means federal control. UM among top recipients of such $$$, which underwrites its world-class research.

Can't replace that with banners.

https://twitter.com/CraigDMauger/status/1585589207808020480

The whole Bannon interview is worth watching if you want a sense of where she's coming from, what she wants to do. rumble.com/v11hpzl-the-ca…

I've said previously who you think "won" a debate usually says more about which candidate you support than how that candidate performed. I still think that. I'm not even sure how you define "win." Most truthful? Most articulate? Most engaging? ... #MIGov But after the last #MIGov debate, I noticed conservatives flooding twitter with declarations that Dixon won -- I guess because she had some good lines and looked like she belonged on the stage. Not how I saw it. ...

This is a principled position for Republicans, who voted against the Democratic Rx reforms. It's also politically hazardous.

These reforms consistently poll well, even when voters hear counter-arguments.

axios.com/2022/09/23/gop… See, for example, the polling from @KFF kff.org/health-costs/p…

"Top Republican Healthcare Message" seems to be a set of broad principles that don't make especially clear the actual GOP position on health care -- i.e., their opposition to the Rx pricing system Dems just enacted.

https://twitter.com/Olivia_Beavers/status/1572942379530989568

The policy platform that appeared online briefly this week, before GOP leaders took it back down, was a little more specific on this point. huffpost.com/entry/kevin-mc…

Democrats are making a big play for seniors in the midterms, citing

(a) the Medicare drug price reforms they just enacted

(b) threats to Social Security and Medicare by the likes of Rick Scott.

@Robillard has the details (1/x) huffpost.com/entry/democrat… As @Robillard notes, seniors turn out more reliably in midterms and in recent elections they’ve skewed Republican — although Ds kept margin close in 2018, helping them to their big sweep that year. (2/x) huffpost.com/entry/democrat…

This is wild.

So that Michigan abortion rights petition, the one that deadlocked the election board because of no spaces between some words?

Turns out spaces are there electronically, but for some reason don’t display on official copy.

@jonathanoosting shows it here:

https://twitter.com/jonathanoosting/status/1565450755208773633

Full backstory in the @BridgeMichigan article

Apparently removal of an extra “the” in the text of the original somehow triggered a set of changes in the display, and effect was to compress a bunch of spaces between words.

bridgemi.com/michigan-gover…

Looks like another Republican candidate has removed abortion language from his website.

This time it’s Tom Barrett, who is challenging Elissa Slotkin for a U.S. House seat in Michigan.

Via @nannburke @CraigDMauger detroitnews.com/story/news/pol… Barrett said he was unaware of the change, adding that they try to keep website current with most important issues — and abortion, he says, isn’t one.

An interesting statement, given that Michigan voters identified abortion as their top issue in not one but two polls this week.

https://twitter.com/CitizenCohn/status/1563149546766475265

New EPIC/MRA poll:

Whitmer 50
Dixon 39

Whitmer favorability rating positive, but job approval rating negative

Dixon favorability negative, though with a substantial undecided block

And #1 issue is... abortion

freep.com/story/news/pol… One thing @Anna_Greenberg said the other day: Given past polling misses on Trump voters, she looks at level of support more than margin.

Which in this case would mean -- I think -- that Whitmer hitting 50 may tell us more than leading Dixon by 11. huffpost.com/entry/democrat…

No question now that abortion has disrupted the usual midterm dynamic. But still plenty of uncertainty too.

A look at what we know and don’t know, w/help from @DannyFranklinBK @Anna_Greenberg @nataliemj10 @SeanMcElwee @PatrickRuffini huffpost.com/entry/democrat… Especially grateful to them for walking me through the (many) sources of potential polling error these days — technology, partisan non-response, etc — and their efforts to adjust.

Didn’t have a chance to go into all the material in my article but hope to return to it soon.

Update: A county judge just issued a new, temporary restraining order blocking county prosecutors from bringing cases under Michigan's 1931 abortion ban.

This is part of a case that Gov. Whitmer filed months ago. TRO in place until court rules on it. Hearing this week.

https://twitter.com/CitizenCohn/status/1554120136126234627

Back when Whitmer & Planned Parenthood were filing separate cases, seeking to block/invalidate the 1931 law, many wondered why the parallel efforts were necessary.

Now you see why. Neither effort was/is a sure thing.

A Michigan state court just gave county prosecutors permission to enforce the state's 1931 abortion ban.

There will be appeals. In the meantime, two prosecutors have said previously they'd bring such cases. One's jurisdiction includes Grand Rapids.

Here's his statement. Key caveat: Other county prosecutors like @EliNSavit have said they would *not* enforce the ban. They believe an injunction against it applies to them.

(The new ruling says it applies only to state officials; the appeal will ask the state Supreme Court to rule otherwise.)

My new story takes a long look at a controversy ripping apart a Christian college in Michigan.

It's about a professor who officiated a same-sex wedding, the ensuing campus battle and its echoes of the fight over LGBTQ equality across the country... (1/x) huffpost.com/entry/calvin-u… The school, Calvin University, has a reputation for intellectual diversity and faculty who ask tough questions of their faith.

Many prospective students believed it was, by the standards of Christian colleges, relatively LGBTQ-friendly. (2/x) huffpost.com/entry/calvin-u…

A friendly reminder that the Supreme Court did not even recognize an individual right to own a firearm until 2008 -- and that the opinion, by Scalia, relied on some highly suspect reasoning. For background and context, I highly recommend reading the opinion alongside the dissent by Justice Stevens.

Or the essay Stevens wrote for @TheAtlantic many years later. theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

On Saturday @UMich had a “comeback” commencement for the Class of 2020, who lost their original ceremony to COVID.

Speaker was Anthony Fauci.

His message: “Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.”

Via @LainaStebbinsMI michiganadvance.com/2022/05/08/fau… More Fauci:

michiganadvance.com/2022/05/08/fau…