When asked what they think of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), colloquially known as ObamaCare, Republicans are scathing and united in their disapproval. According to Gallup, 87 percent of Republicans disapprove of the law, and 77 percent think it will make the healthcare situation worse.
But in terms of their own experiences with ObamaCare?
According to a new poll taken by the Commonwealth Fund, people enrolled in ObamaCare are satisfied. And yes, that includes Republicans:
Overall, 73 percent of people who bought health plans and 87 percent of those who signed up for Medicaid said they were somewhat or very satisfied with their new health insurance. Seventy-four percent of newly insured Republicans liked their plans. Even 77 percent of people who had insurance before — including members of the much-publicized group whose plans got canceled last year — were happy with their new coverage. [Commonwealth Fund]
So for all the Hitler analogies and claims that ObamaCare causes cancer, the people enrolled in the program — even Republicans — are mostly happy about it.
The Commonwealth Fund study also found that the percentage of uninsured has dropped dramatically, from 20 percent down to 15 percent, with an additional 9.5 million fewer people now uninsured. John Aziz
Woodstock 50 is apparently still on after its financial backer said in April it was canceled. But with three weeks left to go, tickets still aren't on sale, the location is being moved, and one of the biggest performers has just dropped out.
Originally planned to take place at New York's Watkins Glen International and celebrate the 50th anniversary of Woodstock, the music festival had to find a new location after the venue pulled out. Permits were repeatedly denied in this search for a new host, but on Thursday, Bloomberg reported the plan is now to move it to Merriweather Post Pavilion in Maryland in hopes this will "salvage" the event. Tickets, The Washington Post notes, were supposed to go three months ago but still aren't available.
Bloomberg's Thursday report noted that "organizers are now holding conversations with artists and their representatives" but speculated that some might pull out given the new location, and indeed, The Associated Press reported on Friday that Jay-Z has dropped out of the event. Creedence Clearwater Revival's John Fogerty also will no longer perform.
Other major names attached to Woodstock 50 — at least for now — include Miley Cyrus, Janelle Monáe, Robert Plant, and Imagine Dragons, though it hasn't yet been confirmed who is still on board following the Maryland relocation, and The New York Times notes the artists' contracts were "tied to its originally planned venue" in New York. The chair of the company that operates the Merriweather Post Pavilion offered simply to the Post that "if the bands come, we'll produce the show."
Only weeks remain to prevent Woodstock 50 from turning into the next Fyre Festival, as it's currently scheduled to begin on August 16. Brendan Morrow
The U.S. economy grew at a 2.1 percent annual rate in the second quarter of 2019, slowing down from the previous quarter but not as much as had been expected, The Washington Post reports.
The Commerce Department on Friday reported the 2.1 percent figure, which Axios notes was a "significant slowdown" from the first quarter's 3.1 percent growth, but "still better than the 1.9 percent economists had expected." Bloomberg notes that consumer spending was strong and higher than estimated, rising 4.3 percent. Business investment, however, was weaker.
The New York Times writes that "the strong job market and robust consumer spending are keeping the recovery on track, even as trade tensions and a slowing global economy are threatening to knock it off course," urging readers not to "panic" because there's "little reason to think" economic growth is "about to stall out."
The Commerce Department on Friday also revised its previous estimate that compares the growth in 2018's fourth quarter to 2017's fourth quarter, downgrading it from 3 percent to 2.5 percent, The Associated Press reports, meaning President Trump's goal of 3 percent growth was not reached by this metric. Still, AP writes that "the changes don't significantly alter the broader trajectory of the economy." Brendan Morrow
Fox News legal analyst Andrew Napolitano tears into President Trump for his recent attacks on four minority congresswomen in a new op-ed, concluding that Trump is "shameless" and not the person he has known personally.
"I have known President Trump personally since 1986," Napolitano writes in the op-ed for Fox News' website. "The private Trump I have known is funny, charming and embracing. That is not the public Trump of today."
Napolitano goes on to write that Trump "unleashed a torrent of hatred" when he attacked minority congresswomen by telling them to "go back" to where they came from, using a phrase that "implicates a racial or nativist superiority." Trump "raises a terrifying specter" with these attacks, Napolitano also says, which serve as a "dog whistle to groups around the country that hatred is back in fashion and is acceptable to articulate publicly."
The Fox News host also blasts Trump for his rally crowd's recent "send her back" chant, saying Trump by seeming to embrace the chant created the image of a president "trying to divide rather than unite," especially as he praised the crowd days later even after saying he didn't support the chant.
Ultimately, Napolitano writes that the remedy for such hate speech is to shame the person who utters it, but "when the hate speech comes from a shameless president, we have a problem."
Napolitano, whose quotes have often made their way to the president's Twitter account, had previously hit Trump for his "xenophobic, racist and hateful" tweets in an op-ed, writing that he "sounds more like a Mafia don than a statesman." Read the full op-ed at Fox News. Brendan Morrow
Active-duty U.S. troops have been monitoring migrant adults and children in a Border Patrol holding facility in Donna, Texas, since earlier this summer, but they've effectively morphed into prison guards, continuously watching the migrants for health issues and signs of trouble from raised platforms just feet away from the migrants, two current and two former defense officials tell NBC News. The service members are unarmed and are supposed to refer problems to Customs and Border Protection personnel, but they can respond if a situation warrants immediate attention.
Under the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, U.S. military personnel are prohibited from performing law enforcement duties inside the U.S., and monitoring detainees is "probably a bridge too far," one former defense official told NBC News. "They should be way behind the fence of the border to help CBP."
Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) told NBC News that the role of the U.S. troops at the Donna facility is "teetering on the edge of the posse comitatus law," and could put the U.S. service members "in a precarious legal situation." He called the new role for the troops deployed to the border by President Trump "certainly mission creep," adding: "It's not the role of the U.S. military to be a prison guard."
An unidentified U.S. defense official disputed that characterization, saying the troops are monitoring the migrants, not guarding them. John Cornelio, a spokesman for U.S. Northern Command, said the interactions between troops and migrants "is limited as much as possible," and the U.S. military personnel stationed "at the Donna Facility specifically" monitor the migrants "for signs of medical distress, possibility for unrest, unusual behavior, and unresponsiveness." That's "not a law enforcement function," he insisted, "and this activity has been reviewed by our legal staff to ensure compliance with the Posse Comitatus Act and applicable law." Peter Weber
In May, a California jury awarded Alva and Alberta Pilliod $2 billion in punitive damages and $55 million in compensatory damages in their lawsuit blaming Bayer AG's Roundup weed killer for their cancer. On Thursday, California Superior Court Judge Winifred Smith reduced those awards to $69 million and $17 million, respectively, ruling that the jury's damages awards were excessive and unconstitutional. At the same time, Smith rejected Bayer's motion to throw out the punitive damages entirely on the grounds that there's insufficient evidence that glyphosate, the main ingredient in Roundup, causes cancer.
The Pilliod verdict was the third U.S. jury verdict against Bayer in Roundup cancer litigation, all from trials in California. The other two awards were in the same $80 million ballpark as Smith's reduced number. Bayer, which acquired Roundup last year when it purchased Monsanto for $63 billion, says it will appeal all three verdicts. Peter Weber