Surely one element of Obama(snarl)care that's really upsetting Republicans is what health insurance could do to Mitch McConnell's political health. The problem for the minority leader is that "on the campaign trail, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was still blasting the new health-care law as unsalvageable," according to the Washington Post.
Obamacare is doing very well in McConnell's home state of Kentucky. The Post has been following Courtney Lively, one of the officials signing up new applicants.
In a state where 15 percent of the population, about 640,000 people, are uninsured, 56,422 have signed up for new health-care coverage, with 45,622 of them enrolled in Medicaid and the rest in private health plans, according to figures released by the governor’s office Friday.
If the health-care law is having a troubled rollout across the country, Kentucky — and Breathitt County in particular — shows what can happen in a place where things are working as the law’s supporters envisioned.
One reason is that the state set up its own health-insurance exchange, sidestepping the troubled federal one. Also, Gov. Steve Beshear (D) is the only Southern governor to sign on to expanded eligibility parameters for Medicaid, the federal health-insurance program for the poor. ...WaPo
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If you're interested in a somewhat deeper exploration of what Obamacare has done/is doing to Republicans, this article is strongly recommended. Warning: it's packed with ironies and many on the right are very uneasy with irony.
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And from The Atlantic:
We spend much more than any other rich country, but we certainly don't get more for it. We get less. We get about the same health outcomes, but don't cover everybody like other rich countries do. Now, there are a lot of statistics that show how singularly wasteful our healthcare system is ...
... The problem is everybody wants the system to change, but nobody wants their corner of it to change. Doctors don't want their pay to change. And patients don't want their coverage to change. Obamacare tries to change both at the margins, and even that is politically fraught.
But something has to change. We can't afford our healthcare exceptionalism. ...Matthew O'Brien,TheAtlantic
