"WHEN Colin Sandler was in high school in the mid-1980s, her grandparents legally separated after 45 years of marriage. This was not because their marriage was troubled, but because her grandfather had fallen ill and medical bills threatened to consume their entire life savings and all their income, leaving Ms. Sandler’s grandmother penniless."
"The separation, as Ms. Sandler recalls it, allowed her grandfather to qualify for Medicaid and her grandmother to stay solvent. Ms. Sandler, now an elder care consultant in Cortland Manor, N.Y., says that in those years divorcing was a mainstream financial planning move. Tactics to keep elderly people’s assets and income within their family’s control while still qualifying them for Medicaid were common. Loopholes were exploited."
"NPR asked eight health care experts to tell us what they view as the biggest problems with the current health care system. Then we asked: Does the Senate bill fix them? Most of the experts we consulted (backed up by a Congressional Budget Office assessment) said that for the most part, no — the Senate bill won't solve the health care system's problems, and that it in fact could make some of those problems worse."
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Pub.L. 88–352, 78 Stat. 241, enacted July 2, 1964) is a landmark civil rights and US labor law in the United States[5] that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. It prohibited unequal application of voter registration requirements, racial segregation in schools, employment, and public accommodations.
"Americans broadly disapprove of the Senate GOP's health care bill, and they're unhappy with how Republicans are handling the efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, according to a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll."
"Just 17 percent of those surveyed say they approve of the Senate's health care plan, the Better Care Reconciliation Act. Fifty-five percent say they disapprove, while about a quarter said they hadn't heard enough about the proposal to have an opinion on it."
"Pew notes that demographic groups historically more opposed to same-sex marriage have shifted significantly. For the first time a majority of baby boomers support legal recognition. Over the past two years, support for recognition among African Americans has increased from 39 percent to 51 percent. Support from younger white evangelical Christians has jumped from 29 percent to 47 percent in just a year."
"In terms of the political fight over who "owns" the LGBT vote, it's worth noting what's going on with Republicans. For the first time, opposition to legal recognition among Republicans and Republican leaners has dropped below the majority. It's nearly split now—47 percent favor recognition while 48 percent oppose it."
"For years, the Kaiser Family Foundation has surveyed Americans about health policy and the ACA, aka Obamacare. Periodically, those surveys have included open-ended questions about why Americans do or don’t support the law. Since the implementation of the law’s main features in 2014, Americans have thought about the ACA much as the Alaskans described by Murkowski have: Those who back it cite increased access, and those who oppose it worry about rising personal costs."
"Consider the tables below, in which I categorized responses along with the share of people falling into each category in Kaiser’s March 2014 and March 2015 surveys. For the law’s opponents, the single biggest issue to emerge from these answers is what I term “personal cost.” Thirteen percent of all respondents — and 23 percent of the law’s detractors — gave responses that fit into this category. This March 2014 response was emblematic: “My insurance has went up 400 percent. I think it rips off the doctors and young people. I can’t believe Congress will pass a law with them not knowing what it’s about.” If the new Senate bill seeks to improve upon the ACA in the public’s eyes, and especially in the eyes of the ACA’s detractors, it will need to keep out-of-pocket health care costs down."