Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker sure is endearing himself to voters this week as the recall effort has obtained nearly twice the signatures it needed to trigger an election. His latest antics? Becoming the latest GOP governor to turn down a federal grant to create a state health insurance exchange, all but assuring that the feds will have to step in and do it in 2014…if Walker’s still in office, that is.
Wisconsin will turn down $37 million from the federal government that had been awarded to help implement health care exchanges under President Barack Obama’s health care reform law, Gov. Scott Walker said Wednesday.
Walker announced in December that Wisconsin would not pursue implementing the exchange until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on the constitutionality of the law.
But he did not say whether the state would take the money. On Wednesday Walker said he was notifying the federal government that Wisconsin was turning down the Early Innovator Grant, saying it didn’t make sense to commit to reforms that could have a devastating economic impact.
“Stopping the encroachment of ObamaCare in our state, which has the potential to have a devastating impact on Wisconsin’s economy, is a top priority. Wisconsin has been a leader and innovator in health care reform for two decades, and we have achieved a high level of health insuranEce coverage without federal mandates,” Walker said in a statement.
The American Cancer Society called the Republican governor’s action a move backward.
“A robust, consumer-friendly health exchange designed specifically for Wisconsin would greatly expand access to care to those who need it most, while preserving what already works. It’s unfortunate the (Walker) administration is deciding to ignore this reality,” said Allison Miller, Wisconsin government relations director for the American Cancer Society.
Walker and his Koch Brothers masters don’t want to expand access to care to Wisconsin’s poor. There’s no massive profit in keeping poor people alive through health care, you know. The funny part is while Walker is screaming about a GUBMINT TAKEOVER, that’s effectively what will happen if the exchange isn’t created: federal law means that Washington will step in and create and run the state exchanges if the states refuse to do it. I guess Walker is counting on Republicans taking complete control in 2012 and repealing everything back to 1867, or at the very least defunding the PPACA along with most of the rest of the federal government.
Wisconsin would join Kansas and Oklahoma in that respect if Walker goes through with it. Somehow I’m thinking he won’t be around too much longer to make decisions like these.
Misamericanthrope
So, he uses “ObamaCare” in a formal statement?? I guess “Stopping the encroachment of the Affordale Care Act” wouldn’t whip the WIngnuts into a lather.
Ben Cisco
At this point, Walker is like a newly-slaughtered chicken, running around sans head. He’s done and just doesn’t realize it yet.
Keith
The guy is trying to endear himself to the power base in time to be The Chosen One for 2016.
bnmng
You can’t trust the American Cancer Society. They’re just a bunch of socialists with a Liberal agenda to destroy an important American jobs-creating industry.
jon
I love this. By not creating a plan, they rely on the Feds to work one out. Soon all those liberal Betrayalists might realize that their greatest allies working toward government options and single-payer plans might be the various state GOP statehouses as they work toward making those goals not just an easy step to take but also a logical one.
Someday, just as it won’t be noted that Jimmy Carter started to robustly modernize and increase the size of the military, it will not be noted how Obamacare led to Medicare for Everyone.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Saving people who can’t afford it isn’t the American Way, they’ll just breed more people who can’t afford to care for themselves. In America, you’re supposed to work your ass off for the glory of capitalism, giving it your all. You can’t give it your all if you have health care because they keep taking you out of work to heal.
In America, you are supposed to keep your nose to the grinding stone until your face is gone. Only then can you dig your own grave, lie down in it, cover yourself up and die.
Anything less is unpatriotic.
cmorenc
I’m a bit nervous about the fact that the number of recall signatures gathered against Walker is nearly the same as the number of votes for the democratic gubernatorial candidate in 2010 whom Walker defeated – just over 1 million. Yes, not everyone who voted for the D in 2010 has bothered to sign the recall petition, but if that’s so, then not everybody who signed the recall petition bothered to vote in 2010, either. Frankly, the difference is going to have to be made up in significant part by the substantial percentage of black voters who will turn out to vote for Obama in Nov 2012 who did not bother to turn out in the judicial election or earlier Senate recall elections.
jimmiraybob
There’s no massive profit in keeping poor people alive through health care, you know.
I don’t know. They seem to buy things. And, there are a lot of them. I believe they call that a market.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@jimmiraybob:
Yeah but they buy things with GOVERNMENT WELFARE MONEY!!
/winger
kay
This puts Walker out on the fringe, and Wisconsin isn’t a fringe Right state.
He just keeps doubling down, and ignoring the fact that he’s the governor of a 50/50 state. He’s going to force that state to become Alabama? I don’t think that’s a good plan.
Villago Delenda Est
@jimmiraybob:
Obviously, you are some sort of follower of that vile soshulist Adam Smith.
Begone!
daveNYC
I think he figures he’s going to get booted, so he might as well make the most of the time he has. Bet his last action in office will be to light the place on fire.
Steve
A health insurance exchange is a website where people can shop for insurance coverage and easily compare the benefits of different plans. Who would want something as oppressive as that?
SteveinSC
@jimmiraybob: Not just now there isn’t, but wait until President “Baby on the Mantlepiece” Santorum establishes the “Redneck Body Parts Exchange.” Reverse mortgage? Hell no. Body parts for dough. Keep that body healthy (at your own expense, of course) and see how valuable you are. The 99 Percenter republican will find out exactly what part in the New America they play.
Villago Delenda Est
@Steve:
Well, for one thing, health “insurance” companies don’t want it. If they actually have to compete in a marketplace where information is readily available to consumers, it will destroy their profit margins.
Actual free markets terrify feudal lord wanabees like the Koch brothers. Making the marketplace as opaque as they can possibly manage is the key to easy profit, and they’re all about easy profit. Even if it’s only short term.
geg6
@cmorenc:
Dude, chill.
Having this recall during the presidential cycle is the best thing that could ever happen for the recall effort. There is no way that a stand-alone recall election or even a congressional election cycle will pull enough voters out of the La-Z-Boy to get to the polls. Not even Democrats. Hell, especially Democrats. Not to mention Indies.
I think Walker is a dead man walking.
The Republic of Stupidity
I think yer off by about ten years here… they’re probably shooting, at times literally, for 1857… ya know… BEFORE the CW, not after it…
RIght… most of the rest of the govt… except for the military, prisons, THEIR jobs… and naive, compliant, underage pages, both male and female…
Whilst magical thinking is charming in 4 & 5 yr olds, it is an absolutely abhorrent sight in adults…
feebog
At cmonenc:
Really? I think getting 46% of the winning margin from just over a year ago is astounding. It took 30,000 volunteers to gather signatures all over the state in the middle of winter. The thing I am nervous about is the canidate the Dems eventually put up against Walker. It has to be someone with enough charisma and smarts to withstand the millions in negative ads the Kochsuckers will throw at him or her.
kideni
@cmorenc: There were a lot of remorseful Walker voters signing the petitions. In 2010, he got a significant percentage of union votes (I think I’ve heard 40 percent), and there’s no way they’ll vote for him again. It sounds as though there were a lot of signatures that came in too late, so the actual number is probably over 50 percent.
There are a lot reasons that someone opposed to Walker might not have signed a petition. Some people procrastinated too long. Some people were waiting for someone to come to their door. I know a couple of people overseas who didn’t have easy access to printers, so they couldn’t send theirs in (though a researcher in Antarctica managed to get his in). Some people are reluctant to put their names out there in the public record on something like this (particularly when assholes get names off of screen captures and then call people in the middle of the night to harass them about it); voting at least is more private.
Walker’s been flooding the airwaves with ads since the fall, and it hasn’t moved his approval rating one bit. His only hope to hang on is voter suppression, and unfortunately he’s got a pretty good shot at that. Just as Wisconsin’s losing its status as a state ahead of the curve on health care access, it’s gone from being a state with excellent voting access to one of the most restrictive.
Make no mistake, though: Walker’s trying to go national. If he beats back the recall, expect him to run for president in four years. He’ll probably also be on the shortlist for veep this year if he succeeds.
John M. Burt
Walker strikes me as being a member of the cynical huckster caucus of the rump GOP, rather than the True Believer caucus. That being the case, I think he is doubling down because he figures his future is brighter as a True Patriot Betrayed By Fickle Voters.
becca
@kay: How about Wississippi?
Ruckus
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
DAD!