We cats thought we'd take some time out from fundraising for the National Abortion Museum to check on the GOP's anti-Obamacare campaign.
Item 1: It looks like the President's nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services zoomed through her confirmation hearings today, having only to listen to a few anti-ACA sputterings. (John McCain compared Obamacare to the Titanic, but only if you think that enrolling 8 million Americans in health coverage is on par with 1,500 people dying in the icy North Atlantic a hundred years ago. Perhaps McCain was around then and remembers something we don't.)
Item 2: Yesterday, Republicans were disappointed when six health insurance executives, testifying before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, declined to support their Obamacare horror stories. Democratic Representative Jan Schakowsky rubbed it in, observing that although the execs "were not the biggest supporters of the law...they do not live in the Republican echo chamber." Way to go, Jan!
Item 3: Meanwhile, check out the stunning map above from the Commonwealth Fund's Scorecard on State Health Systems. See that wide, dark-blue swath in the South? Those are the states whose health systems rank in the bottom quartile of performance. Know how many of those bottom-quartile states' Governors have refused Medicaid expansion? All of them — except for Kentucky and Arkansas, which happen to have Democratic Governors.
That's right, folks: Nine of the states you see above in dark blue — Indiana, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas — have Republican Governors, all of whom have refused free Medicaid money from Washington.
We cats think this is a scandal — one far worse than the Republicans' manufactured outrages over Benghazi and the IRS. After all, people's lives are at stake. We urge these GOP Governors' constituents to march on their state capitals like the people of Missouri just did. That would make us PURR.
No comments:
Post a Comment