Final unofficial numbers until we finish double check: Obenshain +206, Herring +572. Net Herring + 366. 13 challenged ballots.
— @BrianSchoeneman
That's in Fairfax.
Recount is now completed in 51.4% of #VAAG precincts, & Herring is flirting with a 700-vote lead: He's at 685. See
https://t.co/...
— @Taniel
That's overall.
Also- the larger @SenMarkHerring's lead becomes the more difficult it will be for @MarkObenshain to make a case to contest. #VaAG
— @ryanobles
NY Times:
Something odd happened here on Tuesday. The Senate advanced a two-year bipartisan budget deal that will now surely be sent to the president for his signature later this week without waiting for a cliff, a chasm, a deadline or a shutdown to force its hand.
Well, even though it's conventional wisdom, it might even be true.
WSJ:
Rep. Paul Ryan, last year's GOP vice-presidential nominee, is setting his sights on a new challenge: He plans to be the next chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee starting in 2015, a move that would give him a high-profile platform for advancing conservative policy ideas.
More politics and policy below the fold.
Read this from the bottom up.
Or read it at Gawker.
The Monkey Cage:
States with higher black turnout are more likely to restrict voting
USA Today:
The ability of the HealthCare.gov website to keep operating despite a high number of visitors has heightened health officials' belief that the site will be ready to help customers meet the Dec. 23 deadline to enroll in insurance in order to be covered by Jan. 1.
By noon Monday, 165,000 people visited the site, where people can shop for and buy health insurance, while another 500,000 went to the site over the weekend, said Julie Bataille, communications director for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Brainwrap's
ACA enrollment tracking doc is here.
Greg Sargent:
I’ve got some new numbers from the Post polling team that shed a bit of light on why the law’s approval has enjoyed something of a rebound. The short version: It originally cratered because of a big drop among young people (aged 18-29), moderates, and independents, and also because groups who were already most hostile to the law turned on it even more fiercely.
The rebound in support is driven mostly by these comebacks, which are the largest changes our poll recorded:
• Among people under 30, support for the law has bounced back by 20 points, dropping sharply to 36 percent in November and returning to 56 percent now. (There has been a ton of chatter about young voters supposedly abandoning the law; we’ll see if this new poll causes anyone to revisit that assessment.)
• Among independents, support has come back by nine points, dropping to 36 percent in November and returning to 45 percent now.
• Among moderates, support has come back by 10 points, dropping to 44 percent in November and returning to 54 percent now.
I expect (with time) rising support. I also expect (with time) rising enrollment. if so, all the dire predictions will be shoved down the memory hole as if they never happened. Except if you are a conservative, since you are already convinced it's failed.
Aaron Carroll on the argument that ACA accelerates a doctor shortage:
Moreover, if adding people to the insurance rolls will worsen an already problematic system, then a natural conclusion would be that removing people from the insurance rolls would make it better. After all, if we increased the number of uninsured, then wait times for the rest of us would go down.
No one, of course, makes that suggestion. Making people uninsured to do this would be unthinkable for pretty much all Americans, regardless of their political bent. We recognize that making some people worse off to benefit the rest would be immoral in this situation.
But that’s really not that different than the argument that some make when they oppose the Medicaid expansion because of access issues. It’s completely reasonable to oppose the Affordable Care Act for a number of reasons. Opposing it because it reduces the number of uninsured is a difficult one to defend.
Speaking of Virginia, from
WaPo
Gov.-elect Terry McAuliffe will keep Gov. Robert F. McDonnell’s health secretary on as his own, a choice that could help the new governor sell Medicaid expansion to wary Republicans but that also infuriates some abortion-rights activists.
McAuliffe (D) will announce Wednesday that he will reappoint Dr. William A. Hazel Jr., an orthopaedic surgeon from Northern Virginia who served as secretary of health and human resources under McDonnell (R), two people familiar with the decision said.