09 December 2013

How Republicans are Evil (Health Care Edition)

There's a good article in Slate today about the 5 million or so under-poverty line Americans in non-Medicaid expansion states, who are basically left out in the cold under the actual rollout of the Affordable Care Act.
Just to be clear, this was not the way the law was written. In the original law as passed, these people would have been automatically eligible for an expanded Medicaid. But thanks to the actual and palpable cruelty and indifference of (100% Republican dominated) state governments in 25 states, this option is not available (even though it would have been paid for entirely by Federal funds for the first three years, then at a 90% level, and even at that level would have saved the states money that would have to be spent on Federally mandated emergency medical care anyway).*

And thanks to the obstruction of (100% of the Republican majority in) the House of Representatives, it has been impossible to modify the law in any way to take care of these people. Of course, the reason this problem exists in the first place (as many have already forgotten), is because of the short sighted, cruel indifference of the ideologically motivated (Republican) majority on the Supreme Court, which overturned this part of the law in open defiance of any reasonable legal logic. (OK, it's a bit more complicated than that: four of them actually voted to destroy the health law altogether, which was even more cruel, indifferent, and irrational; but the Chief Justice wouldn't vote to save the law without this cruel, indifferent, and irrational provision).

So 5 million of the poorest Americans who would have been eligible for health insurance for the first time in their lives won't, thanks to Republicans.

This is why I maintain that Republicans (not individually, necessarily, but institutionally), are evil.  I just find it amazing that so many of them who hold these views claim to be Christians.

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*Not all Republican dominated states, either. Notably, Kentucky and Ohio have embraced Medicaid expansion and are making "Obamacare" work.

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