GOP Rep Compares Obamacare Rollout to Hurricane Katrina

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Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.) has come up with a historical parallel to the first two weeks of the Affordable Care Act’s healthcare exchanges: FEMA’s handling of Hurricane Katrina, the storm that cost 2,000 lives in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in 2005.

“We’re back at the same place we were before, which is that Obamacare’s unworkable,” Huelskamp told reporters after exiting the House Republican conference meeting on Wednesday. “The president’s statements in support of [Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen] Sebelius seem awfully, eerily similar to George W. Bush saying [ to then-FEMA director Mike Brown] ‘Brownie, you’re doing a heckuva job’ during Katrina. And to say this is rollout is much different than Hurricane Katrina, they’re very similar.”

Republicans have previously compared Hurricane Katrina to Superstorm Sandy, the IRS scandal, the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the Fort Hood shootings, the Haiti earthquake, the GM bailout, and the underwear bomber. Huelskamp, a second-term tea party Republican, has been a vocal critic of the Affordable Care Act exchanges, posting regular updates on Twitter and his House website on his failure to create his own HealthCare.gov account. But he suggested that the road ahead would become more difficult for Obamacare opponents once the law’s Medicaid expansion takes into effect in certain states on January 1 and complicate future defunding efforts: “I don’t think it’s too late, but I’ll have to think about what the implication is. January 1 is a big date.” 

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

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