I don’t care that Mary Stamper “chose” to have 11 kids even though she doesn’t have a steady job with health benefits, or that Gary Gross has no job, smokes, and drank so much that he damaged his liver by the age of 36. I don’t care that Ronald Hudson has diabetes, five kids, and an income below $15,000. All I care about is that they are eligible for Medicaid in Kentucky thanks to ObamaCare. It’s not my responsibility to pass moral judgment on other people’s life choices; it’s my responsibility to make sure that everyone who needs to see a doctor can see a doctor. I don’t think there is a single political issue that should take precedence before this one, so I am ecstatic that these folks are signed up for Medicaid. This is exactly why I am became politically active.
It would be nice if some of these people decided to vote for the Democratic Party, but that is not the point of these reforms. The point is to help them whether or not we get any political credit for helping them.
But, at least one of them seems to get it.
Soon, Ronald Hudson walked in.
“Okay,” Lively began. “What Hudsons are you kin to?”
“R.T., Uncle Lenny . . .” said Hudson, a skinny 35-year-old who worked as an assistant director at the senior center and had just been released from the hospital after a blood-sugar spike.
He’d never had insurance before and said his hospital bills were up to $23,000 at this point.
“Good night,” Lively said, tapping in his information.
Kids: five. Salary: about $14,000 before taxes.
“You’re going to qualify for a medical card,” she told Hudson.
“Well, thank God,” Hudson said, laughing. “I believe I’m going to be a Democrat.”
Lively printed out his papers.
“RONALD’s Health Care Coverage Options,” one of them read.
“Oh, man,” Hudson said.
Hopefully, Mr. Hudson will be as good as his word and will vote against Mitch McConnell next November.
“It’s not my responsibility to pass moral judgment on other people’s life choices”… How very Pope-like of you Booman. I hope more people start listening to the two of you.
I hope he votes for his Governor that made it possible, no matter what party the Governor belongs to (I deliberately have not checked).
Steve Beshear is a Democrat. Term-limited, so he doesn’t give a shit, and doing everything he can to make sure ACA gets implemented properly in Kentucky. From what I can tell, a very solid, old-school Democrat.
A good argument against term limits.
Or at least a good argument to draft him for Senate.
I think that the scariest thing for the GOP right now are the once and future Democrats as a result of the very imperfect Obamacare. The GOP operatives with some degree of smarts know that once people begin getting services they are not going back to the situation that existed in 2010. It no mystery why the GOP has sought to spike the tires of the Obamacare vehicle.
It’s really funny. I quoted this exact passage in an email to a friend.
And I agree that it was done to GIVE MEDICAL CARE. Absolutely.
But now put yourself in a Republican politician’s place. The Dems have just begun giving this long absent medical care to people. What is going to be your reaction?
“If this works, the Democrats are going to get all the credit for it. People are going to begin to think more positively about Democrats. Even if it doesn’t work perfectly, if it gives even a LITTLE more health care to people in our poor areas that now vote for us, this could be bad for us.
Do we want that to happen?”
And what is going to be your next thought?
“We have to do everything we can to not let that happen. We need to stop this from getting implemented. Even if we have to stop the entire government, we have to stop this in its tracks.”
And, oh, did they think they were going to be able to stop it with Romney. They REALLY thought they were in the catbird’s seat back in October.
I don’t know HOW they thought that, because the electoral votes simply weren’t there, but they did. They were licking their chops, because their man, once in the WH, was going to shut it down any way he could.
Imagine their shock when they not only didn’t get the WH, but then ACA was still out there, and they were going to have to attack it some other way.
But NOW, now that the Ronald Hudson’s of the world have been told they have medical coverage, if they take it away, it will be an exodus from the GOP like none in history.
The GOP has been screwed, from the moment ACA began to sign up people.
It couldn’t happen to a nicer rich people’s party.
No matter what the social benefits, we’ll never get past conservatives’ fervent belief that these are “undeserved” “gifts” with which we’re “bribing” voters, until we find a way to address the ethical underpinnings directly.
I’ve argued the point with many conservatives, many times. They tell me to my face that “health care isn’t a right,” and won’t budge. It’s a profound philosophical impasse.
That philosophical impasse may melt away as the full service rural clinics/small hospitals close due to the lack of paying customers ACA would have provided.
It’s a bit more complicated than that. Hospitals in non-ACA states won’t be able to make up their DSH cuts with more insured patients. So, it’s possible that some will be forced to close. But that impacts everyone in the community, insured and uninsured, and it’s not limited to rural communities. WRT to clinics, there’s less negative direct impact from the ACA (and Bernie Sanders did manage to get more direct money for rural clinics in the bill). It’s the shortage of primary care providers that may lead to competition for those professionals. Clinics/hospitals in ACA states with a higher percentage of paying patients will be able to offer them higher salaries.
With five children and annual income of $14,000, he should have qualified for Medicaid before the expansion.
He may have been among the 43,000 KY residents eligible for Medicaid that were unenrolled. A shame if that’s correct that he waited several years until the ACA website went up before applying.
Should expect to see those numbers of eligible and unenrolled for Medicaid plummet. There are half a million in Texas and pre-PPACA there were over 700,000 in NY.
Also odd that Mary Stamper wouldn’t have been eligible for Medicaid for most of her pregnancies under the Pregnant Women part of the traditional program. The cap on monthly income (resources didn’t apply) for a family of eight was $6,110.
good point, but as I understand it the outreach for ACA has contacted ppl who were eligible but did not know it. possibly the case here
If she learned of her eligibility from an ACA outreach worker or even inquired based on all the news of it, then the ACA can take some credit.
However, as written her story doesn’t add up. Unless her low income and uninsured status is relatively recent or she birthed ten of her eleven children at home and without prenatal care, it’s not possible that she wouldn’t have been enrolled earlier. Hospitals are well versed in emergency Medicaid procedures when poor and uninsured women show up to deliver their babies. And keep them enrolled for the first year of the baby’s life. Medicaid or SChip would kick in after that.
Supporters of any ACA success story need to make sure they have the facts right because if incorrect, the rightwing media will pounce.
it would be nice if they voted Democrat.
It would be enough for me to force them to say
” THANK YOU, PRESIDENT OBAMA.”
Hopefully, Mr. Hudson will be as good as his word and will vote against Mitch McConnell next November.
Well, McConnell is of course going to spend the next year trying to take away Mr. Hudson’t health benefits. That should help.
Not if he wants to have any chance to win.
KY recent voting patterns are interesting.
First the registration rate is high. Only slightly lower for lower income eligible voters. The voting participation rate that’s lower for lower income voters.
In the past four presidential elections, the split was approximately 60/40 for the GOP. However, in the two presidential elections when there was also a KY Senate race – 2004 and 2008 – there was substantial ticket splitting. Bunning won with only 50.7% and McConnell with only 53%. They do significantly better in mid-term races when the number of voters drops from 1.8 million to between l.1 and 1.3 million. In 2002 (a GOP mini-wave year) McConnell won 64.7% and in 2010 (another GOP mini-wave year) Paul won 55.7%. Yet in the off-year Governor’s races in 2007 and 2011 when votes cast fell to approximately 1 million and 800 respectively, Beshear won with 58.7% and 55.7% respectively.
Unlike 2001, 2005, 2007, and 2009 nothing has materialized this year portending a wave election next year. There will be a lot of rightwing money spent in KY to hold McConnell’s seat, but voter enthusiasm for him won’t be high and he faces a strong challenger. Grimes won her SOS race in 2011 with 60.7% (five points better than Beshear ran that year). Looks as if McConnell only gets smooth sailing if the race becomes tepid.
The more the Republicans holler about Obamacare (their name) the more it is clarified that they oppose it and the Democrats favor it. People may be low-information voters, but they can tell night from day. If the Republicans were smart they would start blurring the distinction, but they just can’t seem to help themselves. As such, their future lies about how the “saved” Obamacare (like they “saved” Medicare) just won’t fly.
The part of the reporting that jumped out to me is the deeply depressed economy in some portions of our country. The County where the story takes place has a per capita income of about $15,000.
And it’s not just the unemployment and disability rate driving this poverty. Work doesn’t pay worth a good damn. New Medicaid beneficiary Mr. Hudson is the assistant manager at a senior center. His income? $14,000 a year with no health benefit.
That’s f***ing shameful.