"How the Koch brothers are killing Medicaid expansion in Maine" -Mike Tipping

[eShirl]

http://thetippingpoint.bangordailynews.com/2014/04/09/state-politics/how-the-koch-brothers-are-killing-medicaid-expansion-in-maine/

Bragdon, a former Maine legislator, former head of the conservative Maine Heritage Policy Center (MHPC) and former co-chair of LePage’s transition team, now heads a Florida-based organization called the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA). His office in Naples is a nexus in a national network of conservative groups and causes funded by large corporations and some of the wealthiest conservative donors in the country, including billionaire oil magnates and arch-libertarians Charles and David Koch. The Kochs and their close allies are responsible for creating and underwriting much of the current right-wing establishment. (For instance, they sit on ALEC’s corporate board and are likely responsible for a significant amount of its funding.) They’ve spent millions fighting health care reform and the debate over Medicaid expansion in Maine is a convenient battlefield in their wider war against the Affordable Care Act and any government involvement in ensuring access to health coverage.

FGA doesn’t release information about its donors, but some hints about their financing have made it into the public domain. In 2012 (the last year for which records are available), tax documents filed by other organizations indicate that FGA received $213,500 from Donors Trust, a foundation created to allow conservative donors, including the Koch brothers, to give anonymously to various causes. FGA received $108,150 from the State Policy Network (SPN), an ALEC-founded and Koch-funded umbrella group for state-level conservative organizations of which both FGA and MHPC are affiliates. They also received $25,000 from the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, another group with close ties to the Kochs.

It’s the backing of these powerful national groups that has likely made the difference in allowing LePage to secure critical Republican votes in favor of his policy of refusing federal health care funding and denying coverage for 70,000 Mainers.

In pursuit of this goal, LePage and his national allies have engaged in a remarkably cynical campaign which has seen the large-scale rejection of political and policy reality and the creation and dissemination of new “facts” that more comfortably fit with their ideology. As the Bangor Daily News recently editorialized, it’s like something “straight out of 1984.”

please follow the link and read the whole thing; there's way too much to fit into the allowed 4-paragraph excerpt rule

[daleanime]

1. Kick....

[Doctor_J]

2. I would like someone to ask these psychopaths

Why? Why do you want to prevent your neighbors from getting health care? What can you possibly gain from literally killing thousands of your fellow citizens?

I have about 15 years left. I have done pretty much everything a regular working class man needs to do to have a complete life. But now I am really hoping I live long enough to see this

[blkmusclmachine]

3. Koch products in your grocery store:

Angel Soft toilet paper

Brawny paper towels

Vanity Fair

Sparkle paper towels

Dixie cups

Quilted Northern toilet paper

Mardi Gras

Soft n Gentle

Zee napkins

American Greetings cards

Stainmaster