Republicans have long campaigned against the Affordable Care Act by calling it European-style health care. But French Minister of Health and Social Affairs Marisol Touraine said that wasn’t exactly true.

She explained that the Affordable Care Act creates a system that is very different from France’s more far-reaching universal health care system:

Among other differences, the U.S. system provides government-sponsored insurance coverage only to certain segments of the population. Historically, that’s been seniors, the disabled and the poor. Starting in 2014, the federal government will begin subsidizing private insurance for some low and middle-income Americans.

“This segmentation is quiet different than what we have,” said Ms. Touraine, given that France’s health coverage extends across age groups and income levels. Many French find it surprising that Americans would resist a system of near-universal health coverage, she said.

Similar to U.S. officials attempting to slow the growth of Medicare and Medicaid costs, France is trying to reign in health care spending. Because the French government pays for 75 percent of citizens’ health care, controlling the costs is part of the nation’s effort to limit spending while Europe tries to resolve the euro crisis.

Planned Parenthood of Central North Carolina (PPCNC) successfully thwarted Republicans’ attempt to strip funding from the organization. Despite state legislators’ aim to effectively shut down its clinic in Durham, PPCNC received federal grant money that will not only allow the clinic to remain open, but will also help it expand.

This news comes after North Carolina legislators passed a budget bill earlier this month that “prohibits state contracts for family planning or pregnancy prevention services.” As the Huffington Post notes, the bill “effectively, but not explicitly,” singles out PPCNC, since Planned Parenthood is the only organization to fit the bill’s description.The bill cut $125,000 in funding for Planned Parenthood, enough that Durham clinic would have to close.

The PPCNC then filed to receive federal grant money through Title X, the nation’s family planning program, and was given $426,000. Now, with more than three times the amount of funding that would have been revoked by Republicans, the clinic can actually expand:

The Durham clinic expects to see a fourfold increase in patients, to about 2,000 a year, said Emily Adams, vice president of operations. Adams said the funding dispute was a close call [...]

The extra money will allow the clinic to expand its programs to help men and to educate teenagers to delay having sex or teach safeguards to those already having sex.

The Durham clinic doesn’t even provide abortions, it offers “subsidized preventive health care such as annual exams, birth control, cancer screening and STD detection and prevention to low-income women, men and teenagers who would otherwise have no care.”

– Nina Liss-Schultz

A powerful business lobby bankrolled by health insurance and pharmaceutical companies is running advertisements attacking Democrats for their support of the Affordable Care Act.

Pharmaceutical companies, like Merck and Eli Lilly, and insurance companies, including Aetna, Cigna, Humana, UnitedHealth and Wellpoint, all donated money — to the tune of at least $100 million — to the Chamber of Commerce. Those donations are now being used for election advertising to try to take down Democrats who supported the Affordable Care Act:

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce will air new ads hitting five Democratic Senate candidates and incumbents, ABC’s Chris Good reports. Targeting votes on health care, energy, and regulations, the Chamber will go after Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida, Sen. Jon Tester of Montana, Rep. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Rep. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin. Last week, the Chamber aired ads in New Mexico, Hawaii, Nevada, and North Dakota. In Montana, for example, the ad says, “For Jon Tester, there’s no hiding from the truth. He sided with Washington time and time again. Take the health care law. The people didn’t want it, yet Senator Tester cast a deciding vote, forcing it on Montana…”

The Chamber has been known for some shady advertising tactics in the past; the Denver Post determined that one of their ads on health care “leans deceptive.” The group’s practices are so questionable, in fact, that New York’s attorney general is investigating them for illegal funding practices.

In the letter dated July 18, more than 100 GOP lawmakers asked House Speaker John Boehner (OH) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (VA) to stop “any legislation” from coming to the floor that would fund the implementation of the Affordable Care Act — potentially leading to a government shutdown. Congress must pass a funding measure before October 1 to keep the government running, yet a majority of Republicans are willing to risk a shutdown in order to take away coverage from more than 30 million Americans and increase the deficit by more than 100 billion.

Despite the possibility of a standoff with the Democrat-controlled Senate and a veto threat from President Obama, the Republicans called for defunding Obamacare while continuing attempts to repeal the heath care reform law:

Since much of the implementation of ObamaCare is a function of the discretionary appropriations process, and since most of the citizens we represent believe that ObamaCare should never go into effect, we urge you not to bring to the House floor in the 112th Congress any legislation that provides or allows funds to implement ObamaCare through the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Health and Human Services, or any other federal entity. We also urge you to take legislative steps necessary to immediately rescind all ObamaCare-implementation funds.

According to Talking Points Memo, Boehner suggested on Tuesday that he would reject the proposal. “I expect we’ll have an agreement with the Senate on a CR,” he said. “But our goal would be to make sure the government is funded and any political talk of a government shutdown is put to rest.”

House Republicans so far have wasted $50 million trying and failing to repeal Obamacare 31 times. The latest Congressional Budget Office report shows that eliminating the Affordable Care Act would add $109 billion to the nation’s deficit.

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