Kevin Drum is right that non-participation in the Medicaid expansion is basically a tribal revolt against President Obama that has no policy merit, but the enormous difference in profitability for hospitals in red and blue states will eventually drive non-participation out of existence. Not only are blue state hospitals seeing a big downtick in uninsured patients and a big uptick in Medicaid patients (both phenomena are not evidenced in non-participating red states), but hospitals are no longer getting compensation from the federal government for treating the uninsured.
In other words, in states that expanded Medicaid, the huge drop off in uninsured patients pays for the loss of money to compensate them for treating the uninsured, but in states that didn’t expand Medicaid and have not seen a drop in uninsured cases, they’re just losing money. Not only that, but staggering sums of money are being withheld from these states that would have stimulated their economies.
Non-participation in the Medicaid expansion is the most self-defeating thing I’ve ever seen a political party do, and that doesn’t touch on the immorality of it.
But I think that logic (and economic self-interest) will win out here before too long.
BooMan, when Kansas stops its catastrophic freefall past being an even worse state to live in than Mississippi, then I’ll believe to you that there’s a limit to the tribal masochism of American conservatism.
Until we reach that point, trying to figure out an endgame for this self-defeating Medicaid opposition is pretty meaningless. Things can and have gotten a lot worse in conservative fantasy-land than some takers dying in their taker hospitalers.
If it weren’t for the fact that people are needlessly dying, I would find this funny. It would be one of those “sit back and watch the farce unfold” events in world history but for the fact that completely innocent people are suffering.
True but your home state(PA) is trying to make Medicaid a complete mess. Hopefully HHS tells Corbett to pound sand since he won’t be governor come next January.
Re: your post about ‘Obamacare’ vs. ‘Affordable Care’. So much has been tied into “Obama” as a person and personality that when he’s gone, the ‘no’ crowd will be left scrambling. Obama’s fauxnews joke about missing him because “it’ll be a lot harder to convince folks Hillary is from Kenya” just totally set the meme.
But it’s not just in the healthcare debate that this dynamic is at play. Obama’s neo-liberal foreign policy, which gets a pass from many on the left, will be seen quite differently post Obama. I think the personalization of “Obama” will bring about many new alliances and connections when he is gone that are now hidden.
So maybe the “it’s all Obama’s fault” crowd is really helping to set the table up to clear it of many worn out storylines and identities when sanity and forward movement takes control again in the public mind.
Thank you, kafkananda. There is so little clear-minded commentary about Obama here.
You bet it will.
AG
If tl;dr, sorry.
The thing is, once you accept that the United States is and has been an Empire since before it called itself the United States, the whole “foreign policy” thing is much easier to swallow, especially when taken in context with history.
If you start at the fact that Emperors’ gotta Empire, I think Obama is a pretty decent one. GASP!
Now, some people’s eyes will get big at that. Some, because they are cognitively dissonant on the fact that the US is the world Empire right now. Others, because admitting that Obama isn’t the worst Emperor that the US Empire could have put in charge somehow makes them complicit in Empire itself.
I am not complicit in Empire because I will tell anyone and everyone I know that it is wrong, a mistake, and a waste of money, lives, and resources. That said, I have one vote and one voice, and not very much money. So, I’ll do whatever I can to help the US de-Empire, but first, we have to stop starting fucking land wars, knowwhatimsayin’?
We deal with euphemisms all the damn time, and I’m sure Orwell is fucking puking in his grave, but there it is. American Exceptionalism is just one way to say that the fuckin’ rules don’t apply to us, yo. American Interests is just one way to say that we get to take whatever the fuck we want, because we have the biggest g̶e̶n̶i̶t̶a̶l̶s̶ weapons, so fuck off.
So, while I do not support Empire and would love to see the US give up its Empire, and think something like that would instantly change many things for the better… at the same time I can objectively acknowledge that US foreign policy is better under this guy than the last guy.
Drone warfare = Terrorism
Government-supported coups = Terrorism
But, Obama is much better at it than Bush Jr. And you have to start somewhere, because Jill fucking Stein, Ron fucking Paul, and Jesus T. Unicorn isn’t getting nominated and elected E̶m̶p̶e̶r̶o̶r̶ President anytime soon.
I consider myself to have very radical political ideas, but I can at least acknowledge that Obama isn’t the worst E̶m̶p̶e̶r̶o̶r̶ President that we could be saddled with, and the fact that he is willing to say that Congress should vote to rein-in the use of Drones, or to stop attempting to stop him from closing Gitmo, etc etc etc is a lot better than any Rmoney candidate, even if you think Rmoney was just a tomato can.
Yeah, sure, good cop bad cop kabuki theatre, why not. But, objectively speaking, if you’re still attempting to change the system without destroying it, you have to start somewhere. I’m still stuck there, fortunately or unfortunately. Maybe because I’m relatively young, and maybe because I haven’t decided to grab my passport and become some other country’s illegal immigrant.
Ultimately, it’s not so much that liberals are going to give Obama a pass on his continued policy of promoting US Empire, as much as most liberals understand that it could be far worse. And not just abstractly, but in reality, as we saw under Bush Jr and his grand Iraqi safari.
Obama would have been a fairly-decent 70’s era Republican. Unfortunately, one party really is fucking deranged, and his only opportunity to be Emperor required membership in the modern Democratic party. I think a whole hell of a lot of progressives and liberals would freely admit that, but progressives and liberals have been name-called and strawmanned for so fucking long that we inherently defend those who are aligned with us first and foremost.
That isn’t a good thing. But you’re basically piling on and when you do that, the initial response is to close off debate and instead of talking debate, we have to defend liberalism/progressivism as if liberalism/progressivism = Obama.
Think of it as you having a decent idea but forcing us into an error of logic/judgement because of the game that has been played by Republican trashbags for the last 30+ years.
Progressives and liberals talk about Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders as good candidates. You’re rarely going to hear a progressive or liberal discuss how awesome it would be to have Chuck Shumer or Jon Tester as President. But the cockbags are at least willing to allow the poors and the blahs a seat at the table, so we make do.
Obama sucks as a progressive/liberal, because he isn’t one. I don’t think you’re going to get a lot of debate about that.
That said, Rmoney would have been worse, regardless of who you think controls them. Gore would not have gone into Iraq. McCain probably would have gone into “bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran”. Palin would have been the worst Vice President in the history of the US simply because she is Sarah Palin.
Yes, progressives and liberals play politics, but most of us aren’t all about drone terrorism. That is just an artifact of this “country” being Rome on steroids, HGH, and a shitload of amphetamines.
Im not opposed to empire in the abstract. (Especially if I’m emperor!)
One of the things that really pissed me off about Bush was how much of US power and credibility was squandered. The best way to maintain dominance is to have a numerous population economically and intellectually vibrant with strong social cohesion. Internationally you strengthen your allies and that strengthens you.
Every god damn thing the GOP has done for decades has moved us farther from that and is a major reason I want to wring their necks while I scream “You made us WEAK!!” at them.
More clear-minded commentary on Obama and the Empire!!!
Is there some sort of coup going on here at Booman Trib?
Thank you, n1cholas.
AG
The GOP will cry uncle eventually.
But it will be AFTER the negro usurper is gone, and further after no one is really keeping track of the issue, due to attention span deficiency. They will pretend that all the bad things have been fixed by principled, freedom-loving conservatives in the intervening years.
So it WILL take a few years. And State by State it will be even longer.
Places like Texas will hold on for a long time. Funny that is – Red States are usually first at the trough for free stuff from the Federal Government.
Their hospitals are already starting to close. The hospitals (and their investors) don’t have years to wait.
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/04/30/3432599/tennessee-medicaid-hospital/
The GOTP governors will reap the electoral whirlwind for their vicious stupidity. Nathan Deal in GA appears to be first up.
http://www.myajc.com/news/news/state-regional-govt-politics/ajc-poll-finds-tight-races-for-governor-
senate/nfsXR/#bfcda131.unknown.735364
Yes, But:
This crowd will say the Hospitals are closing BECUASE of Obamacare.
Do not underestimate the willingness of GOP Politicians to inflict pain on the public –> which they will then blame on the Negro Usurper President.
If you listen to AM radio, you just would not believe the stuff that is out there on the right. They will absolutely accuse Obama of murdering people who are dying in the states that have declined Obamacare’s various expanded coverages.
Well that’s true but not dispositive.
The hospitals have been privatized and those corporate owners/investors are not Fox rubes. The greedy CEOs and the Chamber of Commerce members who are suppliers/vendors (and creditors) to those hospitals aren’t going to tolerate this nonsense.
The GOTP will be squeezed on both ends and they can’t fool their donors.
Time will tell…
I think the whole thing is frozen until after Obama is off-stage.
Then it’s time for some Hillary hate. Yea, the Clinton years – those were the good ol’ days.
Well of course they’ll accuse Obama of the inevitable deaths from failing to do the Medicaid expansion.
They haven’t sold their souls to The Prince of Lies for nothing, y’know.
So it’ll be a lot of noise about Obama Death Panels, or better yet SECRET Obama Death Panels.
To say this Repub Medicaid atrocity is cutting off one’s nose to spite their face is a gross understatement. It’s cutting off some hated poor’s head to spite Obama. Further, this lunacy is causing long standing Red State rural hospitals to go under, for no sensible reason whatever.
Of course, the red state rubes are told by Team Conservative that the loss of their local hospital(s) is CAUSED by catastrophic Obammycare, and we know what kind of “news” media serve, say, rural Georgia. So the likelihood of the ignorant ever figuring out the truth about the needless degradation of their healthcare facilities is zero.
Team Conservative won’t relent on this until their coaches decide to do it. The rubes will never figure out they’ve been had and use the ballot box appropriately.
This idea that the GOP will relent, or at some point in the not too distant future will cry uncle, is very quaint. I don’t think we will see anything which we will be able to identify as a capitulation. The only way that this crazy faction will ever be quelled is at the ballot box. Until they become electorally irrelevant, they will continue to have a major hand on the GOP rudder. The crazies are here to stay, in numbers which will continue to influence our politics,for at least a couple more generations. It is going to take that long to purge enough of them from the GOP ranks to make a substantial difference.
In general, I agree.
But I’m talking about Medicaid expansion. They have already capitulated in many states.
When a person looks at it in any sort of rational way, what you say makes perfect sense. It’s just that when I look at the GOP, I see a group of people whose solution to a burning house is to throw accelerant on it in order to more quickly make the empty lot available for sale to their friends. And I have a hard time seeing that changing, considering all of the structural advantages the crazies have within the modern GOP. I don’t think the situation with Medicaid will change in the majority of those states until this zombie that is the Tea Party wing is almost completely annihilated. I am afraid that is going to be a very, very slow process. Until that time, we are going to be witnesses to a couple of generations of poor and unfortunate people dying needless and horrible deaths in those states. And unless actions at the ballot box change things more quickly than the natural political evolution, I fear that there will be little that we can do about it.
It saddens me to say so, but I am inclined to share your opinion on this. I think strong evidence for it can be found in the horrifically low income levels one must hit for medicaid eligibility in many of the red states. THAT was there before Obamacare.
I don’t think Obama leaving office will make that big of a difference. Call this tea party, crabs in a bucket or mass sociopathy…
And there are a few states playing games now that want to use medicaid expansion funds to buy private insurance for the poor, but they also want to lay on work or other requirements. And those requirements are all about how someone must be lazy if they need a hand – One of the Mitt’s fantasy 47%.
Thanks to the Robert’s court we really have two programs in the country: Blue State Obamacare and Red State ACA.
They will only capitulate when the can pretend they are not capitulating. Or when no one is looking.
“They have already capitulated in many states. “
What are you counting as a capitulation? Because I don’t think that using Medicaid money to buy private insurance for eligible participants is capitulating. When some states also want to add a work provision as a condition, that also isn’t a capitulation.
Maine, Virgina and Pennsylvania on the other hand are blue or purple enough to reverse their temporary set backs because Dems will regain power. That’s not capitulation either, that’s just letting the good guys run the state. Montana citizens may take control away from the leaders and vote it in via referendum.
Maybe I’m misinformed or looking at older data, but where are there states with Repubs in control who are reversing their position?
What is the second-most self-defeating thing you have ever seen a political party do and how long did it take for them to stop punching themselves in the face that time?
I expect this to take at least as long.
The other irresponsibly-voting states might change, but not the confederates. They pretty much never do anything right without being forced by a federal judge, it by federal troops.
They decided hundreds of years ago to value their hate over all else. And haven’t indicated any signs of changing.
Which is fine. The rest of us in responsibly-voting states are no longer held back by the confederates. Let them rot in the hell they demand for themselves (shrug)