Idaho Medicaid Expansion Sails To Victory

[LAGC]

Source: Forbes

Idaho voted Tuesday to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act via ballot initiative, overcoming conservative Republican state legislators who refused for years to pass additional coverage for the state's poor.

With nearly 60% support and two-thirds of the votes counted, voters in Idaho were following the lead of voters in Maine who last November voted to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act in a public referendum at the ballot box. Supporters of Idaho’s Medicaid expansion put it on Tuesday’s midterm general election ballot after their Republican-controlled legislature for years balked at the idea.

But Tuesday’s overwhelming support of Medicaid expansion comes as public sentiment shifted and won some key Republican converts in the waning weeks of the campaign like GOP Gov. Butch Otter, who appeared in an advertisement touting his support for the initiative.

“Proposition 2 is an Idaho grown solution,” Otter said in the ad that made its debut in the waning days of the campaign pushed by Idahoans for Healthcare. “Vote yes on Proposition 2. It’s the right thing for Idaho.”

Read more: https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucejapsen/2018/11/07/idaho-medicaid-expansion-sails-to-victory/

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[brewens]

1. I thought it was a sure thing when "Butch" came out in support. He only did that because

they saw it had overwhelming support and would pass.

My jackwagon state rep was against it all along. I went to school with him and was friends with him, but I pissed him off.

One of his big things is addiction treatment. He's a recovering alcoholic or maybe a dry drunk. I think he introduced a bill or co-sponsored it that was supposed to help provide treatment for substance abuse. Then he won't expand medicaid that helps pay for that treatment for a lot of low income people. He probably knows that but won't go against his white-wing buddies.

How I pissed him off was pretty funny. Way at the start of the last election season he was on the Trump bandwagon. Then after the first republican debate he post a epic rant about Trump, and how he was crazy to have even considered handing the keys to the nuclear arsenal to a nut case like that! Then he declared Carly Fiorina his new favorite.

So like two years later, two days before the election, I go to his FB page and scroll all the way back to that post. It took awhile too. Then I commented and shared it, praising him and even calling him prophetic! Of course he had long before jumped back on the Trump bandwagon and had probably forgotten all about that post and hoped everyone else had as well!

I got up the next morning and he'd unfriended me and deleted that post. I shot him a message anyway saying, you know that was funny dude! He didn't think so. It was his first campaign and he thought it might come down to a few votes and I tried to screw him. I actually didn't have costing him the election in mind, I was just making a point to him and his little white-wing buddies.

I really wish I had thought to save a screen shot of that post. I could slam him with it any time I felt like it.