In order to keep the base voting for them in future elections, rather than actually governing and helping the citizens of their states, Republicans have decided to screw the most vulnerable in their state. This way, they can go on Hardball and tell us all how Obama care has failed:
The refusal by about half the states to expand Medicaid will leave millions of poor people ineligible for government-subsidized health insurance under President Obama’s health care law even as many others with higher incomes receive federal subsidies to buy insurance.
Starting next month, the administration and its allies will conduct a nationwide campaign encouraging Americans to take advantage of new high-quality affordable insurance options. But those options will be unavailable to some of the neediest people in states like Texas, Florida, Kansas, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Georgia, which are refusing to expand Medicaid.
More than half of all people without health insurance live in states that are not planning to expand Medicaid.
People in those states who have incomes from the poverty level up to four times that amount ($11,490 to $45,960 a year for an individual) can get federal tax credits to subsidize the purchase of private health insurance. But many people below the poverty line will be unable to get tax credits, Medicaid or other help with health insurance.
Sandy Praeger, the insurance commissioner of Kansas, said she would help consumers understand their options. She said, however, that many of “the poorest of the poor” would fall into a gap in which no assistance is available.
Look, I’m sure they feel really bad about this, but, with almost 40 votes to repeal Obamacare from the teahadists in the House, the priorities are clear. Caring for the citizens and expanding medical access quite simply is not a priority.
I honestly have no idea how anyone votes Republican and sleeps at night.
Redshirt
Very comfortably on their big piles of soft, cushy money.
cathyx
It’s simple. Democrats want to take away our guns.
Omnes Omnibus
Many are assholes. How did you manage it back in the day?
Maude
@Redshirt:
And not a care in the world.
Money is effective insulation.
Redshirt
@Maude: Not true. Rich people have all kinds of worries. These worries are real enough, but, given their influence, their response is far more influential than ours.
CaseyL
Insofar as policy matters at all, GOP voter priorities are reducing taxes and keeping guns. Period. They care not one iota about anything else – at least, not enough to affect their votes.
cyntax
@Redshirt:
They may have worries, but they aren’t like the rest of us:
Mike in NC
Our asshole Republican legislature is even more extreme than our assshole governor, on such topics as state employees. He wants a whopping 1% pay raise, while they want zero raises and probably massive layoffs.
Mike E
@Mike in NC: Yeah, ain’t it a fresh slice o’ paradise? Fracking is gonna pave our roads, and oil platforms will be like lil gateways to our coast. Hoocoodanode?
cbear
They’re confident no one knows about the live boy in their bed or the dead hooker in the trunk?
Chris
@cyntax:
What you said. Lack of empathy explains a lot of conservative behavior, perhaps most of it.
ETA: also, tribalism. Most do not see poor people as part of their in-group (the disproportionate amount of nonwhite people in there helps) and thus see no obligation to help them.
There are still many other things that play into it, but those two are possibly the biggest.
SiubhanDuinne
Very surprised nobody has brought up Jan Brewer’s (undoubtedly fleeting) attack of sanity. She’s holding firm to her pledge of vetoing bills until the AZ legislature expands Medicaid. Is this a “stopped clock” phenomenon, or is there something going on that I don’t understand?
Rommie
Most/a lot/many sleep just fine at night because they are convinced they are right. Therefore the poors are the ones who aren’t doing it right, and *deserve* the crap they get.
Makes for a comfy bed when God’s on your side, you have a gun under the pillow, and enough money to retire 10x over. Consequences, schmonsequences, as long as I’m rich, armed, and going to Heaven.
It’s also easy to sleep when you are fighting the good fight against the Near guy who snookered his way into the White House, against those who would take the USA into the awful hell that is Socialism, against the Evil Evil Gubmint who will take your guns and your freedom whenever The Plan is set into motion, against those out to murder Jesus and Christianity for a second time.
And it’s easy to sleep when you really are Evil, and get your rocks off doing Evil things.
SenyorDave
I just finished reading about how North carolina, which now has total GOP control, is moving to screw the poor and the middle class. They couch it in modernizing the tax code and attracting business, but they actually seem pretty overt in how they will screw everyone other than the wealthy. Looking to ultimately eliminate the state income tax, and replace it with a much higher, expanded sales tax. People like the Kochs are sociopaths, totally incapable of empathy. When I read articles I feel like saying F this, if people are too stupid to understand the implications of their vote, they deserve what they get. But I have two grandchildren, including a 6 month old, and I would like for them to live in a decent country.
Any midlle class or below person who votes for a Republican has to have their head up their ass.
Wag
@SiubhanDuinne:
I think that Brewer looked deep into Obama’s eyes on that fateful day at the airport last fall and saw the error in her ways.
Hey, I can dream, can’t I?
Kay
@SenyorDave:
You may be surprised. Kasich floated a modified version of that (it’s all the rage among conservatives) and people seemed to get that it was more tax cuts for the rich and a tax increase on working and middle class, immediately.
The tax mumbo jumbo magic on the Right seems to have worn off. “Broaden the base”, “simplify”, whatever. It didn’t sell real well here.
Like I say, I was surprised.
Maybe they can commission a Harvard study :)
Kay
@Wag:
Scott and Kasich want the Medicaid expansion, too, so it’s not just Brewer.
The legislatures are terrified of the Tea Party. It’s sick. It’s insane. If you make 14 dollars an hour you get a subsidy and can buy health insurance. If you make 10 dollars an hour, you can’t.
Is this what Republicans intended? This irrational, ridiculous result? They’re just careening along, battling everything blindly, like lunatics.
mai naem
@SiubhanDuinne: If you look at the ads that are running for Brewer’s plan, they’re backed by a business consortium. Trust me, Jan Brewer would not be doing something that was for regular peeps. It’s the businesses and I’m guessing hospitals who are pushing it. And,BTW, that’s ok by me, whatever floats Jan’s boat that gets this thing through is fine by me.
Chris
@Kay:
It’s been a theory of mine for a while that the 1%ers running the GOP do what they do at least partly just because they’re bored (the result of having never needed or wanted for anything in their lives) and see the world as one big board game for their entertainment, and those of us who have to live in it as pieces in the game. Thus, I’m not even sure they “intend” anything in a really meaningful sense, any more than we do when we start a game of checkers.
I don’t insist upon it, but it’s one possible explanation for the behavior.
Ruckus
@Kay:
Not “like lunatics” they are lunatics. At least that is the only explanation that works for me when discussing people who will vote against both their short and long term health and welfare.
PsiFighter37
@Kay: Funny how all these politicians are scared of the Tea Party. It makes you think they’re afraid of losing their sweet six-figure taxpayer-funded salary or something. Point that out to them, though, and the irony will go right over their head.
Redshirt
I assume we’ve reached the stage where Republican voters know of the various scandals of their elected representatives and vote for them anyway, yeah? Who cares what the liberals say anyway?
fuckwit
Induced, institutionalized sociopathy is such an old phenomenon, it’s been studied to death. We all know how it’s done. We can look at history, from the Sumerians to the Egyptians to the Macedonians to the Romans to the Portugese to the Spanish to the Dutch to the French to the British to the Russians to the Germans and Japanese to the Americans.
First, the people suffering are not “real” people. They’re animals, sub-humans, not like you, of course.
Secondly, you don’t actually see them most of the time, they’re off somewhere else, hidden away from you, segregated, or across an ocean or two.
Thirdly, you’re comfortable, everything is great, what’s the problem? How bad could anyone have it? Why are they whining?
Fourthly, if you do have a conscience, you’ll get shunned by everyone else around you. Who wants to be the party pooper, Debbie Downer?
Fifthly, if you don’t care about being shunned, and step up and speak out, you get to live in fear of evil, ruthless people who will not just shun you, but smack your ass right back down again. People who will actively defend their privilege. Or would you prefer to live like the downtrodden people you are championing? That can be arranged! And once it is, your voice disappears, just like theirs.
And now, using these fantastic, time-tested, foolproof techniques, you have a license to oppress with impunity!
This, people, is how it works, how it always has worked, and, unless we can somehow evolve ideas, how it always will work.
fuckwit
@mai naem: Seniors. She is the gov of a state with many retired seniors, and many not-quite-retired almost-seniors. She sees what’s up. I’d expect AZ and FL to be the two red states most likely to grudgingly sign on to this.
kc
Republican governors screwing their most vulnerable constituents? Gee, who coulda seen THAT coming?
Lurking Canadian
How can they do this? Obamacare is the law, right? How can they just tell the Feds to screw off? Isn’t this nullification, or some other 1850’s era misbehavior that General Sherman corrected?
Kay
@Lurking Canadian:
It was part of the SCOTUS decision. Medicaid is a state-federal program, so states can decline the expansion, but of course they don’t get the increased funding.
I think hospitals will (successfully) pressure conservatives to expand it. They bear the brunt of us ignoring the fact that poor people have no way to pay for health care.
It’s frsutrating to watch in Ohio because it’s purely political, purely short term thinking. I think most in the statehouse WOULD expand Medicaid, but Obamacare is just central to the Tea Party here, and the Tea Party are the GOP base.
There’s a bit of an upside (or less of a downside). Medicaid is underenrolled as far as children. Something like 35% of eligible kids aren’t enrolled because their parents don’t know they qualify. They’ll find out when they go to sign up for Obamacare. So the parents will be refused in the states that don’t expand, but their kids will get signed up.
Chris
@fuckwit:
Well summarized. Best answer in all the comments.
Kay
@Lurking Canadian:
Also, I wish it weren’t true, but Democrats are part of the problem. They refuse to sell this law. They won’t even point to the fact that they expanded childens coverage between 1999 and 2009. It’s a huge success. They covered tens of millions of children. The 2009 childrens expansion alone added 5 million children. That’s a huge achievement.
If conservatives had covered millions of children it’s ALL we would hear. No one even knows Democrats did it.
'Niques
@Chris:
I’ve thought the very same thing for quite a while. Think of the Kock Bros.
Kay
@Lurking Canadian:
I wish they would stop using “the poor”. It comes from elite opinion and it’s just terrible language. It allows everyone to distance themselves from “the poor”.
No one thinks they’re poor. Normal people don’t put themselves into categories like that.
They should use an hourly wage. That’s how people talk about themselves. If you make 10 dollars an hour and you hear “10 dollars an hour” you say “that’s me they’re talking about!”
This sort of mewling, whiny “THE POOOR will suffer!” reaches no one, because people won’t hear it. It closes a door.
RSA
Secure in the thought that they’re not sleeping under a bridge–that’s against the law.
Riccardo Cabeza
I view your partisanship with distain. Asshole tea bag conservatives have feelings too.
Elie
Its up to the peeps to stop this and to make sure the Repubs and their owners pay the price. This is the part that Obama cannot do and that building from the grassroots is the work and awareness that WE have to build. The real work of democracy is not in electing the President, but activating our citizens to look after ourselves. The republicans do not care about Obama care per se — they just want to destroy faith in government and demoralize people from trying to save themselves by making it look impossible and that government can’t be trusted. Sadly, some of our thoughtless progressives tend to scream that too, providing reinforcement for the message — perhaps unintentionally.
WE have work to do. I am moving back to Northwest soon and I have already signed up to be precinct captain in my neighborhood. Out of 19 captain slots, 5 are filled, so the work will be to find those local leaders who care to step up and make sure we invest in the work that is needed… No magic — just hard work.
A Ghost To Most
@Rommie
Do not ascribe to evil that which is more easily assigned to greed. Although I am quite comfortable with the idea that greed equals evil.
RevRick
Good question, John, especially in view of the fact that the majority of Republicans aren’t rich. For those who aren’t, most vote Republican, because they’re seething masses of resentment, absolutely outraged that someone, somewhere is enjoying an ounce of happiness on their dime. Add to that a lot of Republican men are pissed at their loss of privilege, because Feminazis, you know. Republican wives must practice the willful blindness of “Not my Nigelism” since they have to be putting up with an enormous amount of misogynist garbage.
With that emotional stew constantly brewing it’s hard to imagine any peaceful night’s sleep.
Frankensteinbeck
Take Sullivan as your example. They sleep easily at night because they know they’re doing the best for those suffering by helping them help themselves. They sleep easily at night knowing that they’ve helped elect good, honorable men who will take care of us with strength and mature, responsible policies. They sleep easily at night knowing that they’re fixing the economy by cutting taxes on job creators and removing the social programs that are a poisonous tumor in our budget.
To the rest of us, these are OBVIOUS LIES, but humans are not naturally logical. This reasoning is intuitively true at a gut level for many people, and they have no reason to go the extra step and compare theory to results. Many have strong reasons not to go that extra step. Racists, for example, really need Obama to be wrong, need to be better than him, and swallowing these arguments lets them feel like he’s a minority coddler destroying America, while they (as superior whites) support more responsible policies.
pablo
Man, this is a no brainer for any democratic PAC!
At the same time those in states expanding Medicare are being informed of their new services, flood the red states with information ads bemoaning the fact that you poor people are being denied the coverage that the blue states are getting, and the fact that you are being denied is your state are electing to damn many REPUBLICANS!!! GOTV!!!
pablo
@pablo: read that `Medicaid`.
Daulnay
Look at the states involved. Most of the poor in those states are black. The denial of medical insurance parallels the Southern denial of Social Security during the depression and afterward.
The motive is racism, pure and simple. It’s not about ‘socialism’, mainly, because helping constituents nearly always trumps cutting back government even for devout Republicans. It’s about preserving the racial caste system in the South.
TNC had a lot more to say, and more eloquently of course.
Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (Mumphrey, et al.)
Well, you know, I don’t think they do. I don’t think they could feel bad about this, not the way they keep doing it. It’s always been my experience that of I feel bad about doing something, then I can’t keep doing it. There comes a point at which you just can’t live with yourself. So, all I can assume about this is that the assholes who are screwing poor people either believe that poor people are morally tainted and so they deserve to suffer and that they (the assholes) are therefore doing The Lord’s Work; or they just dont give a shit, they don’t feel anything at all about the people they’re screwing, that those losers are so meaningless that there’s no need to feel anything at all about them.
jake the snake
Here in Kentucky, the wingnuts are having a shit-fit because Gov. Beshear expanded Medicaid. Of course, he already screwed up Medicaid by making it managed care.
jake the snake
Here in Kentucky, the wingnuts are having a shit-fit because Gov. Beshear expanded Medicaid. Of course, he already screwed up Medicaid by making it managed care.
jake the snake
Here in Kentucky, the wingnuts are having a shit-fit because Gov. Beshear expanded Medicaid. Of course, he already screwed up Medicaid by making it managed care.
Tom_B
I think the Feds should just bypass the states and offer expanded coverage DIRECTLY to individuals living in states with substandard governments. I doubt the 10th Amendment was intended to screw citizens with the misfortune of living in stupid states. “powers not granted to the federal government by the Constitution, nor prohibited to the States, are reserved to the States OR THE PEOPLE.” I mean, really, heck, the 2nd Amendment has been stretched way out to the point where Righties believe it applies to individuals rather than organized militias……