Beshear Weaseling on Medicaid

I should have known better.  I should have known better than to give Governor Cowardly Waste of Oxygen credit for doing the right thing before we had his signature in blood on indestructible paper.

Al Cross:

Gov. Steve Beshear said on Wednesday that he would expand Kentucky’s Medicaid program under the federal health-reform law if the state can afford the cost.

“If there is a way that we can afford that will get more coverage for more Kentuckians, I’m for it, because if we’ve got a healthier Kentucky, we’re all better off. Our economy’s better off, and of course the individuals are better off,” Beshear told Jack Pattie of WVLK Radio in an interview on Pattie’s mid-morning show.

That may have been Beshear’s first public statement from his own mouth on the issue. State House Republican Leader Jeff Hoover has said Beshear should not expand Medicaid because it would cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars once it has to start paying part of the cost of covering the new patients, beginning in 2017 and rising to 10 percent in 2020.

The first caller to the show asked the Democratic governor, “How much is this going to cost us?”

Beshear did not reply with a number. He said, “We’re gonna analyze that part of the law to see how much it will cost us, how many people we’re talking about. I do know the profile of the people we’re talking about; they’re working adults, they’re working families that just can’t afford health care because they don’t make enough money to be able to pay premiums” for health insurance.

Beshear said he would make “a reasoned and fiscally responsible decision, and there is “no timetable on making it at this point.” Republicans are expected to make it an issue in the fall elections, raising the prospect of reduced state services or higher taxes.

Are you fucking kidding me? The expansion is covered 100 percent - all, everything, every single penny - by the feds. For three years it will not cost Kentucky one thin dime, but will instead save Kentucky millions of dollars each year because thousands of currently uninsured Kentuckians will be covered. And after that, the feds will cover 90 percent of the cost. That's the best funding deal in the history of the world.

Under that ridiculous deal, Kentucky will reduce its number of uninsured by 57.1 percent - more than any other state. Refusing this deal amounts to criminal malfeasance and cause for impeaching the governor.

The Cowardly Gov knows that, of course, but he won't say it on a teabagger radio show, even though he's just won re-election. Shit, maybe he really is thinking about challenging Mitch McConnell in 2014.