Just not quite as bad as Bush did in 2006 or Obama did in 2010 but an ass kicking is an ass kicking. Ironically the reason Obama got his ass kicked in 2010 seems to have come around full circle:
Red-State Voters Opt for Obamacare – Mattie Quinn
Making sure the working poor have access to health insurance pays for itself, unlike tax cuts, and the unwashed masses appear to have figured this out. If you believe exit polling and I think there is a kernel of truth to what the exit polls found last week, health care ranked number 1 on the list of issues that were most important to those that voted. In Arizona, Wing-nut Senatorial Candidate Martha McSally resorted to lying about her record of trying to gut access to health insurance in a vain attempt to run from her past votes on that issue. You wonder who the hell these Wingnuts thought they were representing trying repeatedly to increase the ranks of the uninsured over the last two years but it wasn’t their constituents. Back to healthy workers being more productive, from Quinn’s article in Governing magazine linked above:
While the price tag of Medicaid expansion can come with some sticker shock, independent analyses have found that states often save money by insuring people — there are fewer instances of uncompensated care, and people are healthier when they have insurance. According to a 2016 report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 11 states experienced some savings from Medicaid expansion.
2016 studies showing healthy populations pay for themselves are fine and dandy but is there more recent data? How about from next door in Louisiana:
Medicaid expansion created 19,000 new jobs in Louisiana, according to study ~ Marcia Clark
Phil Bryant’s mishandling of this issue will be the biggest stain on whatever legacy he leaves the state and the refusal of Phil and the GOP to take Medicaid expansion to cover the working poor has contributed to some very real problems in Mississippi such as community hospitals breaking under the weight of having to eat the cost of uncompensated care along with the sheer human misery of not being able to have sufficient access to the health care system.
It is against this backdrop that an idea from the far left has gathered significant traction even among the right wing: Continue reading “Mid-term election special: Trumpy and the Wingnuts got their asses kicked”