US Politics Mega-thread - Page 471

Though there will be variations across the country, most Americans will be able to choose from multiple health insurance plans and pay lower-than-expected premiums for coverage on the Obamacare health insurance marketplaces, according to data released Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

According to the administration's analysis of data for the 36 states participating in the federal marketplace, with some additional information from 11 states with state-based marketplaces, 95 percent of Americans will be able to choose between two or more health insurance carriers and will live in states where premiums are lower than originally estimated by the Congressional Budget Office.

It's the definitive look at the insurance market with less than a week to go until the marketplaces open for enrollment.
"We've done a pretty good job of getting affordable options on the shelves," Jeanne Lambrew, deputy assistant for health policy to Obama, told reporters Tuesday in advance of the report's public release. "That is success that we've gotten to the point where we can say that."

On average, people will have a choice of 56 different insurance plans -- depending on which state you live in, though, that figure could range from seven (in Alabama) to 106 (in Arizona). The average number of insurers in a state is eight, though that again ranges from one to 13 in different states.

On September 26 2013 04:39 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
So after all that talk, not a filibuster but a hope in delaying cloture, Cruz votes Yes on Cloture....

On September 25 2013 18:42 sc2superfan101 wrote:


Oh, and he wasn't reading recipes from his Grandma's recipe book either or reciting the phone book. He's been talking about Obamacare this entire time.

On September 26 2013 05:12 sc2superfan101 wrote:

This vote was entirely meaningless, as I'm sure your aware. It was a test vote. The final vote comes later. Stop trying to confuse people who don't know better.

On September 26 2013 05:14 Jormundr wrote:

So was his filibuster. I mean you don't want another Romney on your hands, do you? He's getting to be a mite inconsistent and we're nowhere near the election season.

WASHINGTON -- While Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) was bemoaning the "defeatist attitude" of his fellow Republican senators, his close ally Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) acknowledged Obamacare won't be defunded in a bill to keep the federal government open.

The Kentucky Republican stood with Cruz in his all-night speech against Obamacare, but later on Wednesday Paul added his name to those who say the writing is on the wall.

"I'm not saying we would get everything we want. We don't want to fund [Obamacare] at all, but I'm ready to admit we may not get that," Paul told reporters shortly after he voted to begin debate on the government funding bill passed by House Republicans last week.

That bill would keep the federal government open beyond Sept. 30, but permanently strips the Affordable Care Act of its funding, as Cruz and his allies have demanded. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is expected to amend the measure to restore funding for the Affordable Care Act in the course of a subsequent procedural vote that requires a simple majority.

Republicans, with 46 votes, could stop the bill during the procedural motion; but many of them oppose shutting down the federal government, especially since it wouldn't lead to the end of Obamacare, and the GOP is likely to bear the brunt of the blame.

To Cruz, who spoke Wednesday on Rush Limbaugh's radio show, that stance shows that Republicans are "beaten down."

On September 26 2013 05:18 IgnE wrote:


To be fair, he is nothing like Romney.

- Senator Cruz was born in Canada, and thus automatically a Canadian citizen. Cruz's father was born in 1939 in Matanzas, Cuba, his mother born in Wilmington, Delaware. Cruz announced that he is renouncing his Canadian citizenship. [See “natural born citizen” as required by Article II, Section I, Clause 5 of the US Constitution for President and by the 12th Amendment for Vice President.]

- In 1998, Cruz served as private counsel for Congressman John Boehner during Boehner’s lawsuit against Congressman Jim McDermott for releasing a tape recording of a Boehner telephone conversation.

- Cruz joined the Bush–Cheney campaign in 1999 as a domestic policy adviser, advising President George W. Bush on a wide range of policy and legal matters, including civil justice, criminal justice, constitutional law, immigration, and government reform. There he met his wife, Heidi Nelson Cruz, another policy adviser who works for Goldman Sachs.

- Cruz assisted in assembling the Bush legal team, devise strategy, and draft pleadings in the Florida and U.S. Supreme Courts during the 2000 Florida presidential recounts, winning twice in the U.S. Supreme Court.

- After President Bush took office, Cruz served as an associate deputy attorney general in the U.S. Justice Department and as the director of policy planning at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.

- George P. Bush, the nephew of former President George W. Bush, endorsed Cruz for U.S. Senate.

"Ted is the future of the Republican Party," Bush said in a statement. "He is a proven conservative, and his personal story embodies the American Dream. Like Marco Rubio in Florida, I am confident that Ted will inspire a new generation of leaders to stand up and defend American Exceptionalism."

- Heidi Cruz, who graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. in economics and international relations from CMC in 1994, is a vice president in the Private Wealth Management Group at Goldman Sachs, Texas. She and her two partners work with clients to implement high net worth portfolios across a range of investments and asset classes, including complex derivatives products, private equity, hedge funds, single stock risk management, U.S. and international equities, and fixed income.

- Ms. Cruz began her career as an investment banker with JPMorgan in New York, focusing on international structured finance and subsequently on Latin America mergers and acquisitions.

- In 2000, she served on the Bush 2000 Campaign in Austin as one of President George W. Bush's three economic advisors. She also served in the Administration as the economic director for the Western Hemisphere at the National Security Council at the White House, advising the President and then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. She also is a former director at the U.S. Treasury Department and was special policy assistant to Ambassador Robert B. Zoellick, then Chief U.S. international trade negotiator.

- Heidi Cruz is a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

On September 26 2013 01:29 farvacola wrote:
Lol "starting to agree with him". Nice try Danglars, but we all know that your camp abandoned Christie the moment he agreed to take a walk with Obama post hurricane

On September 26 2013 05:13 IgnE wrote:


Dude read _Green and Eggs Ham_ with no irony and was reading tweets. Stop confusing people who don't know better.

On September 26 2013 10:44 Danglars wrote:

It was actually when he refused to sign on with other country governors opposing Obamacare. He made a political calculation and the result soured him in many of our minds. That is not to say he is leagues ahead of McCain and Romney. Without the stands that Tea Party representatives have been making, he would've been in the front or close to it in the pool for 2016 candidates. Lee & Cruz have captured the heart of the movement, Chris Christie is yesterday's news with his hardball on unions.


He scored a few laughs there. A few of those tweets were pretty good, "If it's bad for Congress, they have no right to force it on their constituents." Step away from the talking points and listen to a half hour of the raw speech, not just the parts others want you to characterize the whole speech by. He took apart Obamacare in all its aspects of failure.

The real crazies in the party are the birthers and their ilk. This goes for every person that can't comprehend a birth from an American citizen that was a citizen at his birth. The Council on Foreign Relations and John Birch Society types aren't big players.

On September 26 2013 10:44 Danglars wrote:

It was actually when he refused to sign on with other country governors opposing Obamacare. He made a political calculation and the result soured him in many of our minds. That is not to say he is leagues ahead of McCain and Romney. Without the stands that Tea Party representatives have been making, he would've been in the front or close to it in the pool for 2016 candidates. Lee & Cruz have captured the heart of the movement, Chris Christie is yesterday's news with his hardball on unions.


He scored a few laughs there. A few of those tweets were pretty good, "If it's bad for Congress, they have no right to force it on their constituents." Step away from the talking points and listen to a half hour of the raw speech, not just the parts others want you to characterize the whole speech by. He took apart Obamacare in all its aspects of failure.

The real crazies in the party are the birthers and their ilk. This goes for every person that can't comprehend a birth from an American citizen that was a citizen at his birth. The Council on Foreign Relations and John Birch Society types aren't big players.