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Since the passage of the Affordable Care Act, Republicans have waged war on health care. They tried to repeal the law dozens and dozens of times and Trump made sabotaging the ACA his top priority — but they failed, miserably. It cost them the House, the Senate, the White House, and governors offices across the country. And now Republicans have lost at the Supreme Court for a third time in their ten year mission to destroy the Affordable Care Act. 

While Republicans prioritized stripping millions of Americans of their health care coverage, even during a deadly global pandemic where Americans relied on their health care more than ever, Democrats never stopped fighting to expand access to care, lower costs, and protect people with preexisting conditions. 

Here’s a quick timeline to remind you of some of the endless ways Republicans tried, and failed, to strip health care away from the American people. 

Since the passage of the ACA, Republicans began a campaign to repeal the law, and voted time and time again to no success:

• From the day the ACA passed until President Obama left office, Republicans voted more than 70 times to repeal or change Obamacare.
• In the four national elections since the passage of the ACA, Republican candidates and outside groups spent $666 million on anti-Obamacare ads.
• In 2013, congressional Republicans were so against incorporating the Affordable Care Act into the budget that they shut down the government, costing the U.S. economy $24 billion.

Once Donald Trump was elected, he made it his top priority to gut the ACA by whatever means necessary, and replace it with a plan that never existed.

• Trump doubled down on efforts to appeal the Affordable Care Act starting day one of his campaign.
• Once Trump became president, the House GOP scrambled to come up with a repeal bill that they rammed through without transparency, expertise or bipartisan input.
• Even a global pandemic did not stop Trump from his attempt to overturn and sabotage the Affordable Care Act.
• In the midst of his attempts to undermine the ACA, Trump repeatedly claimed to have his own health care plans which we never saw:
  
  • JUNE of 2019 — TRUMP: “I’m going have a plan over the next month—”
  • JULY of 2020 — TRUMP: “You heard me yesterday. We’re signing a health care plan within two weeks, a full and complete health care plan that the Supreme Court decision on DACA gave me the right to do. So we’re going to solve—we’re going to sign an immigration plan, a health care plan, and various other plans. And nobody will have done what I’m doing in the next four weeks.”
  • JULY of 2020 — TRUMP: “Well, we’re going to be doing a healthcare plan. We’re going to be doing a very inclusive health care plan. I’ll be signing it sometime very soon.”
  • AUGUST of 2020 — TRUMP: “We’re going to be introducing a tremendous health care plan sometime prior — hopefully, prior to the end of the month.”
  • AUGUST of 2020 — TRUMP: “Over the next two weeks, I’ll be pursuing a major executive order requiring health insurance companies to cover all preexisting conditions for all customers.”
  • OCTOBER of 2020 — TRUMP: “It is fully developed. It’s going to be announced very soon.”

Thanks to the leadership of President Biden and Democrats, American manufacturing is back. U.S. factory output increased in May by more than forecast, and is expected to pick up even more steam in the months ahead.

The 0.9% increase followed a revised 0.1% decrease in April, Federal Reserve data showed Tuesday. Total industrial production, which also includes mining and utility output, climbed 0.8% in May after a revised 0.1% gain a month earlier.

The gain in factory output included a strong rebound in motor vehicle production and strength in machinery and chemicals. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for a 0.8% monthly increase in factory production and a 0.7% gain in industrial production.

Steady business investment, resilient consumer spending and a more recent pickup in export demand are all helping to fuel orders growth. When paired with a backdrop of lean inventories, factory output is poised to pick up steam in the months ahead.

[…]

Growing Capacity
Total industrial production is nearing pre-pandemic levels — down less than 1.5% from February 2020 — but restrained capacity continues to limit faster output growth. Manufacturing capacity utilization, a measure of plant use, climbed to 75.6%, while total industrial capacity increased to 75.2%.

Production of motor vehicles rose 6.7% last month compared with 5.7% decrease a month earlier. U.S. automakers have been hit hard by a global chip shortage, resulting in plant shutdowns and lower output in some cases. Excluding autos and parts, manufacturing rose 0.5% after a 0.3% advance.

[…]

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By: Deanna Pan
June 1, 2021 

Twenty-odd years ago, the trajectory of Roger Lau’s life changed forever when he responded to a classified ad about an internship at a United States senator’s office in Springfield. The senator was John Kerry and Lau, a struggling and adrift college student, applied on a dare from his friends.

He figured nothing would come of it. His grades were poor; his resume, unimpressive. But shockingly, Lau scored an interview. For the occasion, he bought an ill-fitting suit off a mannequin for $40 from a local shopkeeper who felt sorry for him. When he sat down with his prospective supervisor, Lau “immediately spilled [his] guts,” confessing all his worst misdeeds, fearful that lying to a federal employee would land him in prison.

His honesty seemed to impress his interviewer because he was told to start on Monday. But fate, too, played a role. Lau later discovered the ad had mistakenly been placed by a former intern; those positions are not usually advertised at all. Lau was one of just three people who applied, including a 13-year-old and middle-aged man who showed up for his interview in a clown T-shirt.

Lau, as it turned out, had a knack for politics and a long career ahead of him. In February, Lau, 43, was named deputy executive director of the Democratic National Committee, becoming the party’s highest-ranking Asian American staffer. A resident of Somerville (and soon, Washington, D.C.), he had made history two years earlier when, working for Senator Elizabeth Warren, he became the first Asian American to manage a major presidential campaign.

Now, at a time of rising anti-Asian bigotry across the country — fueled by the coronavirus pandemic and former president Donald Trump’s racist “Chinese virus” rhetoric — Lau hopes he can use his platform to increase Asian American political power and representation. For Lau, part of that means stepping far outside his comfort zone, and sharing his story more widely.

“Someone has to speak to humanize us,” Lau said. “In this moment, in this time, in this role, both for the outside world and for our communities and for younger Asian Americans who want to do the stuff, I just want to stand up — not even raise my hand — but stand up, to let people know that I am here. You can be, too.”

[…]

As Lau looks ahead to the 2022 midterms and beyond, he sees an opportunity to shape the future of the Democratic Party by engaging more Asian Americans, a powerful and fast-growing voting bloc that has often felt sidelined or ignored by both major parties. According to new Census data, voter turnout among Asian Americans reached a record high 59 percent in 2020 — a 10 percentage point jump from 2016.

After Congress passed the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act on May 18, which aims to expedite Department of Justice reviews of pandemic-related hate crimes, the DNC launched a major multilingual advertising campaign in more than 25 states and territories to promote the American Rescue Plan and celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. The campaign, which Lau had a hand in, is part of the party’s strategy of investing early in communities of color.

“This moment in time that we’re in is probably the most the Asian American community has been in the political consciousness, at least as far as I can remember,” Lau said. “I think that our power comes from building that community and embracing it as much as we can, and if we stand together and share our successes … that’s going to give us a lot more opportunity to claim more space in this country.”

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