The Biggest Winner From Last Night’s Election? Obamacare

[ProSense]

The Biggest Winner From Last Night’s Election? Obamacare

By Igor Volsky

Virginia’s Ken Cuccinelli — the loudest critic of health care reform — went down in defeat on Tuesday night, paving the the way for the “bellwether for national politics” to expand Obamacare to nearly 400,000 Virginians.

A 10-member panel is currently considering whether the state should accept federal dollars to provide insurance to individuals and families below 133 percent of the federal poverty line ($31,321 in income for a family of four) through its Medicaid program. The decision still has to be approved by a majority of delegates and senators on the panel, though McAuliffe could bypass the GOP-controlled group “by deciding whether to include the federal Medicaid money in the state budget.” On the campaign trail, he repeatedly promised to build bipartisan consensus over the measure, going so far as to say that “he would not sign a budget that did not include Medicaid expansion.”

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http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/11/06/2897531/nights-election-vindication-obamacare/

Even if this election wasn't a "referendum" on Obamacare, a Democratic win in VA is a win for the law.

Morning Plum: Virginia race not a referendum on Obamacare, after all

By Greg Sargent

Democrat Terry McAuliffe squeaked out a closer than expected victory in the Virginia governor’s race last night, edging Republican Ken Cuccinelli by two points. Republicans such as Cuccinell, Marco Rubio, and RNC chair Reince Priebus had repeatedly cast the race as a “referendum on Obamacare.”

Not so much.

It’s true 53 percent in the exit polling oppose Obamacare, versus 46 percent who support it. But as we’ve seen, the more fine grained national polling has steadily revealed a small but non-trivial percentage in the opposing camp who disapproves because it doesn’t go far enough, meaning the GOP position is a minority one. (Some pundits simply refuse to entertain these nuances of public opinion, but they exist.) National polls also show that disapproval, while real, doesn’t translate into support for getting rid of the law entirely, and that majorities want to give it a chance...Cuccinelli supported repeal and was slow to distance himself from the national GOP’s push to defund the law. Of those who oppose the law, 11 percent of voters peeled off and voted for McAuliffe. We can’t know for sure the role the law played in determining the votes of that 11 percent, but it’s possible this sentiment expressed by an independent who backed McAuliffe was more widespread:

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It’s certainly possible rollout problems shifted the outcome a bit; even some Virginia Dems believe this. But the unabashedly pro-Obamacare candidate still won the race. This, even though an unresolved Obamacare policy question — whether the state should opt in to the Medicaid expansion — was a key issue in yesterday’s election, one that McAuliffe frequently cited, and even though the voting occurred at precisely the moment when the crush of anti-Obamacare press was about as bad as it can get.

If we must draw a conclusion about Obamacare here, it probably should be that scorched earth opposition to it isn’t nearly as widespread or fervent as its foes claim. But many of its most ardent opponents are impervious to the realities of public opinion — inside their bubble, the American people supported the government shutdown. If a leading cause of the internal GOP tension is a deep rift over whether to continue adopting a Total War posture against the law, the closeness of yesterday’s results will probably embolden the Total War camp and perpetuate these divisions.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/11/06/morning-plum-virginia-race-not-a-referendum-on-obamacare-after-all/

Here's the takeaway: Koch brothers' FAIL.

Billionaire Koch Brothers Spending Millions To Deny Health Coverage To Low-Income Americans

By Igor Volsky

Conservative advocates funded by the billionaire industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch have launched a massive campaign pressuring states to deny health care coverage to lower income Americans through the Medicaid expansion contained in the Affordable Care Act.

The effort, orchestrated by the group Americans for Prosperity, is targeting lawmakers in Virginia tasked with deciding whether the state should accept federal dollars to provide insurance to individuals and families below 133 percent of the federal poverty line ($31,321 in income for a family of four). Volunteers with the organization are distributing flyers through door-to-door canvassing, attending committee hearings, and according to one lawmakers who has become a target of the campaign, intimidating constituents.

As many as 400,000 Virginians could qualify for coverage if the state expands the Medicaid program, but AFP is warning Virginians that the system “will cost Virginia taxpayers billions,” require “future tax hikes and budget cuts to vital services like schools, police and fire departments,” undermine the “doctor-patient relationship,” increase wait times and even endanger lives. “Medicaid patients are almost twice as likely to die during surgery than individuals with private insurance,” the group writes on its website.

Under the Affordable Care Act, the federal government will pick up 100 percent of the cost of growing the program from 2014 to 2016 and states would contribute 10 percent thereafter. Analysis from the Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis in Richmond finds that “net savings from Medicaid expansion would average about $135 million per year in the upcoming budget cycle” since expanding Medicaid “would allow the state to use federal funds instead of state dollars for these programs that already provide care to the uninsured in Virginia.”

- more -

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/10/19/2806521/billionaire-koch-brothers-spending-millions-deny-health-coverage-income-americans/

The Biggest Winner From Last Night’s Election? Obamacare
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/11/06/2897531/nights-election-vindication-obamacare/

[cali]

1. I think the VA race boiled down to

women and intrusion on reproductive rights.

I also don't think it was a referendum on Obamacare as repukes wanted.

[Pab Sungenis]

2. If that were the case

Obenshein would have lost, too. He pledged to double down on the Cooch's anti-woman policies.

I think it was a mish-mash of many different issues, most playing to our favor.

[ProSense]

3. Like I said, it may not have been a referendum, but

the Medicaid expansion and the law score a huge win. It will be significant to the 400,000 Virginians that benefit and will also benefit women's rights.

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Women’s Health: McAuliffe seized early and often on Cuccinelli’s crusade against contraception, abortion, and women’s health clinics. Five separate McAuliffe ads focused on Cuccinelli’s support for a radical personhood bill that could have banned all abortion (even in cases of rape and incest) and common forms of birth control, as well as his efforts to eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood. Cuccinelli, while downplaying how much he’d focus on these issues as governor, responded by charging that McAuliffe’s supported “taxpayer-funded abortions and abortion for sex selection,” views called “far out-of-line with mainstream Virginians.” Additionally, NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia spent more than $200,000 in independent expenditures in support of McAuliffe.

Obamacare Implementation: McAuliffe has made his support for Medicaid expansion a major part of his plan and in debates hammered Cuccinelli for his unwillingness to take the billions of dollars available from the federal government for health insurance for poor Virginians. As McAuliffe said he’d push the legislature to enact the expansion, Cuccinelli ran ads attacking Obamacare and McAuliffe’s willingness to implement it. Boasting of being the “first state attorney general” to file an unsuccessful court challenge to the Affordable Care Act, Cuccinelli asked at rallies, “Why should we expand failure?”

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http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2013/11/05/2873211/mcauliffes-victory-progressive/

[Xyzse]

4. I am not sure about that

They are spinning it that, the race was this close because he was campaigning against the ACA.
However, it is still a win since he would not be able to affect it by messing around with VA's implementation of the law.

That, is definitely a win.

Still, the way I see it, this is an off year election where Democrats tend to fare badly due to demographics(let's be honest, they mention that younger people who vote Democratic tend not to vote as much), the fact that the Democrat won means that VA is now more solidly blue than before, and more likely than not would have better results for the Democrats on 2016.