Two quick notes on Medicaid expansion:
In Maine, Governor-elect Mills (D-ME) will expand Medicaid on her first day in office.
Mills said she will implement Medicaid expansion immediately after she takes office on Jan. 2 using existing state funds.
Due to organizational prep time, people may or may not be enrolling into expanded Medicaid in Maine when pitchers and report but enrollment will be indubitably be happening by the time that the World Series Champions have their first regular season home game.
Now let’s move over to Kansas where Governor-elect Kelly is supportive of Medicaid expansion. One of the major opponents in the Kansas House concedes that it is likely that Medicaid expansion will happen. The Kansas City Star reports:
On Medicaid expansion, however, Hawkins appeared to concede defeat. Hawkins chairs the House’s health committee and has been a staunch opponent of expansion.
“I think it’s a foregone conclusion that now that will probably go through,” he said.
The Legislature approved expansion in 2017. It passed the Senate 25-14 and the House 81-44.
Elections matter. Policy matters.
MomSense
Our governor elect’s sister was the head of DHHS/Maine CDC during the two administrations prior to LePage. Janet Mills will be a fantastic governor for Maine.
guachi
If there is any upside to the Supreme Court decision letting states opt out of Medicaid expansion it’s that so many Republican politicians and states had to affirmatively approve of it. Or citizens affirmatively vote on it.
Certainly, there are some like in Kansas or Maine where the governors never switched or much of the deep south, but I’ll look for a silver lining where I can.
OzarkHillbilly
And the hits just keep on coming.
JGabriel
David Anderson @ Top:
Honestly, this is probably the best news out of the elections so far.
JGabriel
guachi:
Forcing parts of their own base to vote against them in order to get health care was really not one of the GOP’s brighter ideas.
Who knew?
sherparick
A certain element of the progressive “Left,” (usually White Bros like Thomas Frank and Matt Stoller), constantly disparage “Obamacare,” yet as the guys at LG&M and David Anderson document, it was the most progressive and beneficial law enacted since Medicare in 1965, providing millions of people access to medical treatment and security that that they will have the means to pay for that treatment.
One of the priorities of the Democratic House will be to insert riders on appropriations and funding bills to 1) kill work requirements for Medicaid eligibility and eliminate all bureaucratic requirements to produce evidence of employment 2) ditto for food stamps 3) maintain requirements for states to provide transportation services to medical treatment for Medicaid beneficiaries 4) increase Federal funding of Medicaid expansion to encourage States to accept ACA expansion.
A priority also, even in the lame duck, are riders will have to be put to protect voting rights in States with Neo-Confederate (e.g. Republican) Governments.
Riders will have be put in to give specific regulations on climate, that CO2 produced by power plant and vehicle combustion is a pollutant that must be regulated and reduced, that public lands can’t be sold off or transferred to the States for private sale, and other very specific instructions to slow the looting of the country and its natural resources.
rikyrah
Elections matter!!!
Tell it, Mayhew
Ken
In my fantasies, I imagine that the bill restoring the Voting Rights Act begins:
1. This Act is enabled under the authority of Amendment 15, Section 2.”
1.1. For those who may have trouble locating the reference, the text is “The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”
1.2. The reference in section 1 being (a) simple to find, (b) in the document which is the supreme law of the United States, and (c) clearly a grant to Congress of the power to enact this legislation, any judicial ruling to the contrary will be considered as sufficient evidence of incompetence and/or lack of Good Behaviour to justify impeachment.
L85NJGT
@JGabriel:
Thanks Obama!
@sherparick:
A hard line economic ideology is meaningless by itself, and a fig leaf to cover issues with gender and race.
The goal is universal coverage. Distributive justice without social and environmental justice is not possible. They are a package deal, and there are no carve outs.