Posted on 01/23/2014 12:36:12 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
The GOP has made opposition to ObamaCare a central pillar of its 2014 campaign strategy. And even though the health care law has begun to turn around, that may not be such a bad idea given lingering public skepticism over the law.
However, there is one crucial piece of ObamaCare that may well become a big winner for Democrats by the end of the year: The dramatic expansion of Medicaid.
Unlike the overall law, the expansion of Medicaid is actually quite popular with voters of all political stripes. Even in the Deep South, more than six in ten support expanding Medicaid, according to one survey last year; conservatives split almost evenly on the issue.
This presents the GOP with two interconnected problems.
First, it undermines part of the party's "repeal" crusade, since nixing ObamaCare would mean ending a popular policy that has already extended benefits to millions of Americans, many of them previously uninsured.
In red West Virginia, some 75,000 people have already enrolled in Medicaid, far higher than expected, according to The New York Times. As a result, the number of uninsured people in the state has plummeted by about a third.
From the Times:
Waitresses, fast food workers, security guards, and cleaners described feeling intense relief that they are now protected from the punishing medical bills that have punched holes in their family budgets. They spoke in interviews of reclaiming the dignity they had lost over years of being turned away from doctors' offices because they did not have insurance. [New York Times]
That's a perfect 2014 Democratic ad campaign right there: People are happy now that they're covered by Medicaid, and Republicans want to take it away.
Though voters are generally leery of ObamaCare as a whole, they like the Medicaid expansion because they support the idea of extending coverage to the needy. As the Washington Post's Greg Sargent notes, this gives Democratic candidates in red states some wiggle room.
They are not embracing ObamaCare. But they oppose repeal, and they are standing behind the general goal of expanding coverage to those who can't afford it. This is true of Michelle Nunn in Georgia (where 57 percent support the Medicaid expansion) and Alison Lundergan Grimes in Kentucky, who wants the law fixed and supports making coverage available to hundreds of thousands of Kentuckians, rather than throwing "the baby out with the bathwater."
None of these Dems were in Congress to vote for ObamaCare, so they are free not to embrace the law overall while supporting a part that's providing more and more coverage and security to people who lacked it. [Washington Post]
On another level, the GOP may have shot itself in the foot by broadly opposing Medicaid expansion at the state level from the get-go.
Thanks to a Supreme Court ruling, states are able to opt out of the Medicaid expansion. So even though the federal government will cover 100 percent of the added costs for the next three years, and 90 percent of the costs after that, 24 mostly GOP-controlled states have decided not to participate.
Virginia, under then-Gov. Bob McDonnell (R), is one of the states that opted out. However, McDonnell's would-be GOP successor, Ken Cuccinelli, lost last November's gubernatorial election after vowing to continue that policy. While Cuccinelli was a uniquely terrible candidate who lost for a host of reasons, it's likely that his position on Medicaid played a role, too. A recent Roanoke poll of Virginia voters shows that only one-quarter think Medicaid should not be expanded.
The refusal of some states to expand Medicaid has left an estimated eight million people with no access to affordable health care, all of whom would otherwise have been eligible under the program. Republicans have almost gone out of their way in fulfilling the Democrats' caricature of the GOP as a heartless "party of no."
Perhaps it's no surprise, then, that several GOP-led states are already beginning to reconsider accepting the expansion after all.
If Republicans continue to staunchly oppose the Medicaid expansion on principle, they'll be rejecting a widely popular policy and effectively advocating to push people off their new health care coverage. As we saw last year with Obama's broken "you can keep it" promise, stripping people of their existing health insurance doesn't go over so well.
Cloward and Piven.
Plus number people on Medicaid
Fewer Doctors seeing Patients
Results in zero Doctor appointments for many.
Maybe these Medicaid folks can get an appointment with a Nurse, or a Pet Vet
My take on an old Regan joke
Mr. Reagan then told his current favorite, about a Russian who wants to buy a car. A Matter of Delivery
The man goes to the official agency, puts down his money and is told that he can take delivery of his automobile in exactly 10 years.
Morning or afternoon?’’ the purchaser asks. ‘’Ten years from now, what difference does it make?’’ replies the clerk.
‘’Well,’’ says the car-buyer, ‘’I have a Doctors appointment in the morning.’’
It’s as if they can completely overlook the massive number of bankruptcies, store closures and incredible economic disaster not but a few weeks away...
The GOP has already shown it doesn't have the stomach, or the stones, for this fight and is trying to tip-toe away from it.
With their impending cave on immigration, the DemoncRATS will have no trouble holding the Senate, and will likely win the House, as the Republicans are giving the conservative wing of their base nothing to vote for.
According to the article, the feds pay 100 percent of state medicaid costs for the first 3 years, then 90 percent thereafter.
I stopped reading after the first sentence. When you start an article with an obvious lie, why read it. The Republicans haven’t done crap to oppose Obamacare.
Exactly what I was thinking. I have yet to see a reason to vote for Republican'ts this year other than they aren't Democrats. I'm no longer accepting that as a valid reason to give anyone my vote.
Not really. I doubt the expanded Medicare will get many people to vote dem that would've voted Republican, but the RINOs can lose this for us. Why? The Republicans can get the blame, those that accepted donations from complicit insurance companies and those that didn't vote to stop Obamacare from implementation.
Constitutional conservatives don't seem to be in much trouble. But the sellouts, the water boys and girls for the global empire, aren't going to inspire anyone to vote Republican. Their backstabbing is going to cost them the support of their voting fodder of the past. Who's going to vote for the backstabbers?
This past year the Republicans have made it crystal clear that they are no different than liberals.
Everyone already knows that, except that's really the problem. We have devolved so much as a country, a society, that even though people know that the "benes" come from people who work, they don't care, and figure, for some bizarrely selfish reason, they are "owed" the benefits.
They don't care that others are working for their livelihood, and actually expect others should support them. For whatever reason, because their childhood sucked, or because they have a chronic illness (that doesn't prevent them from working, it's just an inconvenience that they'd rather focus on than contribute to society), or because their race was once enslaved, and so it's whitey's turn now to be the slave. Or whatever selfish rationilization they can live with to stay at home and be a slug.
No, the only thing that's going to stop this downward spiral is an education and realization that this selfishness is indeed the root of the problem. And that's only going to come when (or if) people start waking up to the reality of Christ.
It's not going to happen by yanking away benefits or providing new ones or by any kind of legistlation in general, either. This is the primary reason to be conservative. To get government out of the way, to let Christ work in people's lives.
bookmark
Duhhhh!!
This has always been the 'hidden' strategy of the RATs to ensure a pathway to 'single-payer' coverage!! And now, sadly, the GOPe to help ensure their tenure in government.
Are you suggesting the dissonance is strong with this one ? ;-)
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