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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsCongratulations, Arkansas, Kentucky, and West Virginia. You just voted to lose Medicaid.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/11/05/1342201/-Congratulations-Arkansas-Kentucky-and-West-Virginia-You-just-voted-to-lose-nbsp-MedicaidArkansas, Kentucky and West Virginiastates that saw substantial drops in the proportion of their residents without insuranceall elected Republican Senate candidates who oppose the Affordable Care Act. Control of the West Virginia state House of Delegates flipped from Democrats to Republicans. And Arkansas elected Republican supermajorities to both houses of its legislature along with a Republican governor, a situation that could imperil the Medicaid expansion that helped more than 200,000 of its poorest residents get health insurance.
There's this quote in this story, from a report from Kentucky about how Medicaid expansion was working in the state, but still failing politically: "'Born and raised Republican,' Robin Evans, an eBay warehouse packer who was grateful for new Medicaid coverage, said of herself. 'I ain't planning on changing now.'" We don't know if Evans actually voted on Tuesday. We do know that Alison Lundergan Grimes didn't give her a reason to vote Democratic. Because she was so busy tiptoeing around the idea that she was actually a Democrat that she refused to make the obvious case: this one Democratic law made a profound difference in individual lives in her state. Lots of lives. Robin Evans' life.
Arkansas? West Virginia? Every day should have included Mark Pryor and Natalie Tennant going to the doors of new Medicaid recipients and taking credit for it. Every other ad on television should have been about how local hospitals were saved because of it. Because Democrats did it. That would have been a pretty good start in changing people's minds and maybe, just maybe, getting them to a polling booth.
upaloopa
(11,417 posts)voted Democratic and need Medicaid but the rest can pound sand.
cry baby
(6,682 posts)They have no ability to empathize.
Besides, they don't want those who they believe to be inferior to take any of their tax money...you know, because they are superior and poor people are just lazy anyway. *tearing up a bit thinking how that's the way they really feel*
If people had cared enough to show up, it would be a different story. I can only surmise from their inaction that the people that didn't show up don't care either.
I keep tearing up today for some reason.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)cry baby
(6,682 posts)Funny when I think back, I felt about the same as today.
I've often wanted to change it to something more optimistic.
Rosa Luxemburg
(28,627 posts)Ykcutnek
(1,305 posts)We kept the KY House Democratic, who will keep the Medicaid expansion Beshear put in place.
Inaccurate article is inaccurate.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)BillZBubb
(10,650 posts)And they will be happy it is gone--unless they need it.
standingtall
(2,787 posts)there was a poll where the majority supported medicaid expansion even something like 60% of Kentucky Republicans. Too bad it didn't translate to votes.
Rosa Luxemburg
(28,627 posts)Did we inform them?