All of this will happen during 2014, a midterm election year, where Democrats will struggle to hold the Senate, while trying a heavy lift of adding 17 seats in the House. What if the dominant story becomes the failures of Obamacare? Certainly that narrative is already being written in some circles? The ACA already indirectly led to one nightmare election for Democrats, in 2010. Could it lead to another?

Courtesy Think Progress, here’s a pretty good chart detailing the health program savings that were included in the White House’s opening bid on the fiscal slope. You can get this information from the White House’s FY2013 budget request.

This diatribe bestowed upon Rep. Raul Grijalva on CNBC, which has become Fiscal Cliff TV, is really priceless, with the anchor accusing Grijalva of tanking the market because he refuses to cut benefits for poor people and seniors. The means testing angle is really a joke here, too. Medicare is already means-tested. To means-test it more, in a way that will actually capture enough revenue to matter, you would have to dip into the middle class to make the math work. Similarly, this idea that this is the “wealthiest generation of retirees in history,” when they just suffered a financial crisis and the stripping of their wealth right before their retirements, is ridiculous.

In reality, we cannot be secure enough in the long-term projections about Medicare and Medicaid to take a hacksaw to the benefits today.

Oh, now you tell us… or, at least Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post does: After surviving a Supreme Court decision and a presidential election, the Obama administration’s health-care law faces another challenge: a public largely unaware of major changes that will roll out in the coming months. States are rushing to decide whether to [...]

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops held their annual November meeting this past week, and coming a week after the elections, it had to have been rough. The bishops lost four out of four state votes on marriage equality, and the prospects for rolling back the Affordable Care Act and advancing their other policy prescriptions dimmed greatly with Obama’s reelection and the failure of the GOP to take control of the Senate. It was not a good week for the bishops, and like all people in politics who came out on the short end of things, a little stock taking was in order. What went wrong, and how can we do better next time?

Their answer: bad messaging. “If only we were better at explaining things . . .” Right. And Todd Akin lost not because he was a man firmly on a mission to return us to the 18th century, but because he was inarticulate.

News flash for the USCCB: It’s not that the voters don’t understand you; it’s that they don’t agree with you.

With the election decided, it is now clear that the Affordable Care Act is here to stay. That’s great news for Pennsylvanians, some of whom have already begun to benefit from the health reform law, and many others who will see more gains as major provisions take effect in 2014.

One signature consequence, perhaps the leading consequence, of last night’s electoral victory for Democrats is that the implementation of Obamacare will now proceed unfettered. At least at the federal level. But as we’ve noted for many months, the law’s facility will rise or fall on the willingness of the states to carry it out. After the Supreme Court ruling in June, states can now decide on whether or not to expand Medicaid to their populations. There are now 30 Republican governors, one more than before last night (North Carolina flipped to the Republicans), which in my book means 30 potential land mines for the Medicaid expansion.

Elections in the United States are a public relations industry. How a campaign convinces a newspaper to respond to its campaign is part of maintaining good relations with the public. Through top newspaper endorsements, one can tell how a campaign has been able to persuade establishment news media that it has the right message for the country, along with a record that is worthy of endorsement.

The need to offer a substitute to placate those desiring a public option created this Frankenstein monster, which was admittedly not well thought-out. Those who did it ended up with the worst of all possible worlds; no public option supporter really even knew about these multi-state plans, and they have the potential to disrupt the exchanges and cause a race to the bottom.

Medicaid spending slowed down in 2012 and similar slowing is expected for 2013. However, it’s being accomplished through precisely the same program that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan endorse for the program – by effectively taking beneficiaries off the rolls.

The data comes from the respected Kaiser Family Foundation, and their annual survey of all 50 states.