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Jeffrey Young: Uninsured Rate Gets Lower And Lower, Thanks To Obamacare
The Affordable Care Act was designed to slash the percentage of Americans who lack health insurance, and it’s working. The uninsured rate fell to 11.9 percent during the first quarter of this year, 1 percentage point below the rate at the close of 2014, according to the findings of a Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index poll published Monday. The decline coincides with the start of benefits for new Obamacare enrollees at the beginning of 2015. The latest uninsured figure from the Gallup survey is the lowest since the polling firm began tracking the number in 2008, and contributes to a remarkable decline of 5.2 percentage points in the share of people without health coverage since the end of 2013, just before the first wave of Obamacare health insurance enrollees joined the ranks of the insured.
African-Americans, Hispanics and people with low incomes saw the greatest gains in insurance coverage, Gallup found. the pollsters conclude that Obamacare is mostly responsible for the current trend because the uninsured rate is lower than it was in early 2008, when the economy was in recession. About 12 million people are covered by private health insurance obtained via the exchanges, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. A separate analysis published by the department last month estimates that 16 million fewer Americans are uninsured because of the Obamacare coverage expansion, including the exchanges and Medicaid.
More here
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The Obama Diary 
GE TOD! Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!
You too LP!!!
Thanks a trabillion Nerdy, your Obamacare updates are a joy!!
TY Chips! I got four fillings at the dentist today and plan on getting faded with a nice mix of Stella Artois & pain meds….as soon as I can feel my face 😆
Oh holy heck! Four?! You deserve a barrel of Stella, LP – or maybe several!
My new ACA expanded Medicaid coverage in Indiana only covered 4 of the 7 that I needed (hadn’t been to the dentist in ~7 years 😦 ) ….so I want to than the President again for preventing me from enduring even more suffering 😀
😆 See? He took the pain away!
You’re welcome, Chips. Thanks for posting.
You’re a gem 🙂
Congrats LP 🙂
Thank you, NW, for another installment in your enlightening series of #OBAMACARE success stories.
🙂
Evening all
❤
I can list all the reasons I am truly grateful to President Obama for Obamacare, would need a lotta space in the reply field! I love that even in the hospital and clinic settings, everyone just calls it Obamacare, I suppose we can thank the gopeff’ers for that. That may be the only thing, however inadvertently it was meant, they have done to elevate our President!
🙂
Hey there NW 🙂
Just a short update regarding Katie the giraffe and her baby. The baby’s name is Kipenzi, which means Favorite in Swahili. The camera’s will be up for this weekend and turned off on Monday morning. The baby is truly a wonder and a joy to watch how she’s grown in such a short time 🙂
YAY!! VaHOO!! Kipenzi was my vote! I knew it would be the right name!
🙂
“What’s a pangolin? A “walking pinecone”? A modern-day dinosaur? Your Google Earth Day Quiz result? There are lots of different ways to describe the pangolin — a cat-sized, scaly creature that lives in Southeast Asia and Africa. But here’s one indisputable fact about the pangolin: It is the most trafficked animal in the world. Traffickers seek out pangolins for their scales and blood — which are boiled off or drained to use in traditional medicine — and their meat, which is considered a delicacy. Thousands of pangolins are trafficked each year, making them among the most critically endangered species in the world and liable to go extinct if we don’t take action.
This is where the President’s trade deal comes in. A trade deal may not seem like an obvious way to help protect pangolins from illegal trafficking, but the Trans-Pacific Partnership is not an ordinary trade deal. As the most progressive trade deal in history, the TPP will put in place environmental standards that combat wildlife trafficking in countries that sign on as our trading partners. Here’s why that’s important: Five of the countries who will join the TPP deal are among the world’s 17 “mega-diverse” countries — a group covering less than 10 percent of the earth’s area, but supporting more than 70 percent of the earth’s plant and animal species.”
Hah!
Just like the RWNJs so enraged with hate and malice against a President who doesn’t get ruffled by day-to-day ankle-biting, vocal opponents of TPP will soon be wearing egg on their faces.
They should get out more — I still see several Obama 2012 bumper stickers nearly every day that I’m out and about, and my area is pretty Republican (before 2010 redistricting we were Cook Political Index R4).
Warren and others apparently didn’t learn the lesson from 2014 — that it doesn’t pay politically for Dems to “distance” themselves from the most successful President since FDR.
When will they learn, Arapaho?
If you are a D, I don’t expect you to agree with the President 100% of the time, but to go out there like Warren and straight up lie about what is in TPP (and claim it is being negotiated “secretly”)….and then raise $$$ of those lies…irks me to no end!
Totally O/T…but I was reading this article the other day and the pic reminded me of your avatar 😎
Wouldn’t want to be in the neighborhood of an erupting volcano (eeek!!!), but my avatar is from my favorite state — Las Cruces NM, stolen from @NatGeo years ago. 😉
Hey Nerdy, I hope you didn’t mind me taking your wonderful and powerful essay from yesterday and pin it in an “Open Letter to Ungrateful Dems/Emoprogs/Libs”. Great Job! 👍👌 👍👌 👍👌
No, I didn’t. I’m glad it moved you to share it. Thank you very much, RanMan. Wishing you a great weekend. 🙂
NW, thanks>>
While giraffe hunter Rebecca Francis incurs the wrath of a thousand animal lovers on Twitter – including Ricky Gervais – Kinessa Johnson is inspiring a wealth of fan support. Why? Because while the tattooed army veteran is a hunter, it’s the animals she’s protecting, not shooting for sport. Johnson, from Washington, poaches poachers in Africa in order to preserve endangered wildlife from becoming extinct.
She signed up to the Veterans Empowered to Protect African Wildlife (VETPAW) as an anti-poaching advisor following a tour of Afghanistan as a weapons instructor and mechanic. “Our intention is not to harm anyone; we’re here to train park rangers so they can track and detain poachers and ultimately prevent poaching,”…“Most of the time anyone that is in a reserve with a weapon is considered a threat and can be shot if rangers feel threatened. “Our goal is to prevent trigger pulling through strategic movements and methods of prevention.”…continued”
I LOVE her!!!!!
Isn’t she awesome!!! I hadn’t even heard of this non-profit before…. but I plan on donating to it.
It reminds me of a computer game I loved years back where deer hunted deerhunters – honest, I’m not a violent person, but I loved blowing them to smithereens 🙂
That seems like an awesome conceptual game based on karma!
Closest I’ve ever been to shooting a weapon was Nintendo’s ‘Duck Hunt’ back in the day 😆
😆 I introduced my then 3-year-old nephew to it, while his mother appreciated the animal-loving aspect of it, she was less than comfortable with him howling ‘DIE SUCKER!’ when he shot a deerhunter.
😀 You’re such a wonderful role-model Chips.
I know GGail, I know 😆
😀
“DIE SUCKER”
Oh my, Chips, you do have a way of igniting righteousness ….. 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀
hahahahahahahahahahahaha
She’s AMAZING!
Thanks LP 🙂
No one messes with Kinessa!!!
A very cool person, for sure …..
And, in some poses she reminds me of another animal lover, Scarlet Johansson.
Thank you LP for sharing her story with us.
I absolutely wouldn’t want to get in her way Bob!
BTW I’m late catching up to my notifications, but here is a video interview with Charles Gladden, who was featured in that Washington Post story I posted few days ago. http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/24/politics/congress-living-wage-homeless-capitol/ The end of the video breaks my heart “I’m an embarrassment. I don’t want to be an embarrassment to this country, the country I was born and raised in”
I didn’t know the kitchen staff that works in the cafeteria of Congress are from privatized contracts. That is unbelievable to me! This has to be due to an anti-union agenda of some GOP P.O.S. (same assholes want to privatize the USPS & VA) I want to know who initiated it, allowed this policy to be put in place and continue to this day.
Charles Gladden is one of millions of Americans who suffer needlessly because a few thousand (literally) rich folk are totally consumed by avarice.
He is not an embarrassment – those #Kleptocrats and their minions are.
TY for the update, LP.
I remember Tribal Youth being featured last year at the annual Tribal Nations Council and I think PBO and FLOTUS took on some menthes but I guess this is a distinct Gen-I event. In any case, WOOOOOOOT!!
Another example of what PBO & FLOTUS do behind the scenes. When it appears like it will be a one-time event, they find a way to morph it into a tradition that the group will be able to carry on for years to come.
Yes. I know they were so deeply touched by the youth group they met with at Standing Rock they came away with a commitment to help Native American youth going forward. POTUS even spoke about how it was such a moving experience for him it brought him to tears. So I have a hunch this may also be a project they may both pursue post-presidency through the Obama Foundation. I would love to be a part of that movement.
should read: PBO and FLOTUS took on some mentees.
Autocorrect is crazy sometimes……
I was wondering what “menthes” meant… 🙂
Me, too! Apparently only auto-correct knows.
That boy just got Barack’d 😀 😀
I’m on my 9,536th play, GGail!!! 🙂
I know what you mean, I enjoyed it over and over and over, which is where I got the idea of PBO kicking some azz “Barack’d” 😀
I really was in stitches. I’m just recovering from the muscle spasm laughter.
I hollered!😃 Would love to sic that creature on some dems.
DAMN!!!
😀 😀 😀
Good evening Nerdy, Chips & TOD! Great ACA post – thanks Nerdy. Also, I just finished readling LL’s brilliant piece on the emo-left latest poutrage du jour and the Dem Presidential Neverbeens who are jumping on their bandwagons…Thanks so much LL – you speak for us here!
MEMORY LANE: Before the ACA
(How many current candidates for the presidency can prove they’ve put this level of thought into issues BEFORE seeking election?)
A presidential candidate showing wisdom and sensitivity on a delicate topic
The brilliance of candidate Barack Obama is striking in those segments. He was a young senator, but still had an integrated, holistic, nuanced knowledge on all subjects.
How sad though, that he was not able to put in place the process he wanted for the health care debate. Political realities were much more harsh than he thought. There were public submits at the beginning, but it became obvious pretty soon that he didn’t have the choice but to negotiate behind the scenes. Very complicated law to write, so many aspects to take into account, opponents too powerful, congressional democrats too afraid of risk, you name it. Had he put in place the ideal process he was dreaming of, opponents and media would have made it a circus.
Lovep2008, I revisit, and share, memory lane vids precisely because they display not only PBO’s intelligence, but the fact that he had plans and goals going in. No one else comes close, IMO. I think he has done far more than one could have expected given that he’s been working with both team members AND opponents who lack vision.
Yay, I’m actually going to post this in an appropriate post. This is especially for globalcitizenlinda & zizi. Please watch when it gets to President of Liberia segment, 2nd part. This after their meeting w/ PBO.
.
http://www.voanews.com/media/all/straight-talk-africa/latest.html?z=1434
Host Shaka Ssali brings you in-depth interviews with two West Africa leaders who’s nation was most affected by the Ebola epidemic to assess the progress and talk about recovery efforts with U.S President Barack Obama. Pre-Taped Interviews: Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia and Darius Mans, Ph.D. President of Africare.
Thanks a lot for sharing this
I had not seen it
This rseponse made me laugh! And no, I’ve never been to the north; it’s cold enough where I am.
Are the two tweets I posted here in moderation because they mentioned the word ‘artic’? I don’t blame WordP – it’s past the middle of April, we shouldn’t be talking about cold places. 😉
Or, perhaps mother nature is spelling-sensitive, oh quiet one, and schooled WP …. ‘arctic’ might not have caused it to trigger 🙂
😀 😀 😳 …Will you accept that my fingers were too cold to manage two c’s?
Darn good excuse, VC 😀
😉 😉
BTW, I’d never heard of Ypsilanti? Probably just as ‘strange’ as Iqaluit.
😉
#IranDeal update …
And, these folk do have a sense of humor ….
My thoughts of peace, strength and good will go out to all the negotiators.
HOPE
Long overdue ….
“Poroshenko Says He Would Introduce Martial Law In Event Of Another Offensive By Russian-Backed Forces
16:13 (GMT)
Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko has announced this evening on the Ukraina television channel that, in the event of an offensive by Russian-backed forces, he will propose the introduction of martial law.”
G’Night.
Good night, VC.
bbl ….
On Facebook just now in a Democratic group of saw this post: “Tell Loretta Lynch to keep her promise to end “Too big to jail”! She’s been in office for, what, a few hours? And they’re already trying to boss her around??
Her swearing in takes place on Monday. They are always so keen to tell everyone else what to do, how to do their job. They are all so mentally deranged.
MP, it’s like dealing with tea party people. Good a group who supposedly prides themselves on logical thinking and rationality, they to be at once ill-informed and incredibly and unreasonably certain of their total mental superiority.
These people are always about talking, and not acting. Their heroes like Bernie Sanders, Alan Grayson and Elizabeth Warren are big on talking, with very little by way of accomplishments. They know exactly what needs to be done, but have no idea what it takes to make things actually happen.
Was hanging in there with Bruce Jenner until he dissed PBO. 😡
What did he, I mean she say about POTUS?
He’s a conservative. Because they are the party that supports LBGT rights, of course.
Never talked about him before. Don’t intend to talk about him again. And why was he not arrested for causing that fatal crash?
Hope nobody just ate.
BARF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Good night TOD ……………
Ha! So right about that!
Tweet of the evening Bob – thankyou for all you do
Is it really necessary for Joy Reid to be so deferential to such an incompetent asshole like Jake Tapper? Is that what it takes to get ahead in the punditocracy?
Well said and good question, Bill R. I find it surreal.
And, with that, goodnight, TODville!
Another issue that PBO is not getting attention about…taking on the rape culture at Colleges
Yep. There’s a whole book about everything he’s not getting attention on – surreal!
#TrustJoe …. and, he’s running!!! 🙂
He’s running!!!!!!!!!!
A right wing sustained 40-year effort is responsible for that – AND Labor’s own follies. Labor is continuing those follies by missing a golden opportunity. There is no reason within the light of facts – rather than the heat of knee-jerkery – as to why labor shouldn’t rally behind the President on the TPP. Had they done so, they could have been part of the historical shift in American trade policy to globalize the rights and protections of all working people rather than clawing on the chalkboard repeating counterfactual talking points.
Honoring the tremendous work that AG Holder has accomplished during his time at the DOJ…posting a page by smartypants…called DOJWatch…
Mooooooorning!
http://theobamadiary.com/2015/04/25/early-bird-chat-518/
“Why Biden? Quite simply, WHY NOT BIDEN? As one of the calming forces and charming presences in the White House, Vice President Joe Biden has been front and center in playing a significant role in many of the important successful political events of the past few years.
We believe that the Vice President is, quite simply, the best person for the job. There’s no other candidate in the race (or thinking of entering the race) that has the experience, loyalty, knowledge and spirit as Biden.”
Why we need Joe Biden – https://www.draftbiden2016.com/why-we-need-joe.html <— this speaks for me