Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

She burned that motherfucker down, and I am so here for it. Thank you, Caroline Kennedy.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

This fight is for everything.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

I did not have this on my fuck 2025 bingo card.

’Where will you hide, Roberts, the laws all being flat?’

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it is not glory.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

You are here: Home / Anderson On Health Insurance / Nebraska’s Medicaid Expansion is live

Nebraska’s Medicaid Expansion is live

by | 18 Comments

This post is in: ,

It took twenty three months from a referendum accepting Medicaid Expansion to the first person enrolling in expanded coverage today, but it worked.

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

18Comments

  1. 1.

    Soprano2

    I have been wondering what happens to Medicaid expansion in states like Nebraska and Missouri where there was a voter referendum to expand Medicaid. If SCOTUS says the ACA is unconstitutional, does the Medicaid expansion go away in those states?

  3. 3.

    lee

    This is really good news for everyone in Nebraska. Any bets on the last state to expand? My money is on my state of Texas.

    Since this is an open thread:

    Wednesday morning my neighbor took down his trump flag. It has not gone back up.

  4. 4.

    Ken

    @Soprano2:  Yeah, I’m happy for Nebraska, but it’s a little like, oh, spending all of August putting the finishing touches on your rustic log cabin in the hills east of Santa Rosa.

  5. 5.

    Fair Economist

    Congrats to the people of Nebraska for overcoming Republican resistance to their good health.

  6. 6.

    Hoodie

    @p.a.: It is. It’s probably a contest between NC and WI as to which is worse. Some court rulings (federal and state) have helped make it less so in NC. It’s really hard to profoundly change because the leg controls not only the legislative agenda, but also the process for introducing amendments to the state constitution. Until the GOP gets sick of losing statewide offices on a regular basis, loses control of the leg, and/or starts seeing it being in their interest to get nonpartisan apportionment, it will be a while before it’s really under control.

  7. 7.

    RaflW

    That Madeline Guth map is wild. A flashing arrow pointing at the states with the most resentful white people. To which I say, c’mon Wisconsin. Kick the GOP in the teeth this November.

    Also, too: I had a very fun and vigorous college friendship with a heartland™ Nebraska liberal in the mid-80s, when I was briefly an asshole freemarketeer (thanks for the inculcation, dad). The populist, Democratic state he described to me seems unrecognizable sometimes now, but things like that expansion vote help me see that at least some of that has remained

    I credit Charles and his smiling but red-faced arguments with me as part of my poplar education that woke me the f\\k up.

  8. 8.

    Kent

    @RaflW:

    That Madeline Guth map is wild. A flashing arrow pointing at the states with the most resentful white people. To which I say, c’mon Wisconsin. Kick the GOP in the teeth this November.

    Also, too: I had a very fun and vigorous college friendship with a heartland™ Nebraska liberal in the mid-80s, when I was briefly an asshole freemarketeer (thanks for the inculcation, dad). The populist, Democratic state he described to me seems unrecognizable sometimes now, but things like that expansion vote help me see that at least some of that has remained

    I credit Charles and his smiling but red-faced arguments with me as part of my poplar education that woke me the f\\k up.

    I knew Kansas liberals in the 1980s too.

    I think what we have seen in the past 40 years in that part of the country is a realignment away from a North-South split in which states like Kansas and Nebraska were a part of the more liberal post Civil War Union side, to a urban-rural split in which they are clearly part of the rural side.

    Mix in Fox news, the investment of conservative religion with the GOP, and 40 years of younger brighter people leaving those states, and this is the result.  In previous generations, young bright Nebraskans might leave the farm for Omaha.  But would still be Nebraskans.  Now they don’t stop until they get to Chicago or DFW or Denver or points beyond.  Companies and employers are far more national and global than they once used to be.

  9. 9.

    Splitting Image

    If the GOP are ruthless enough to blow away the ACA via the Supreme Court, you could colour all of those orange states red and call it an electoral map. The ones which are already blue on the map won’t need to change.

    As Wisconsin sticks out more and more like a sore thumb on that map, it looks less like the Republican gerrymandering in that state was about cutting taxes and more like it was about murdering people in that state by denying them health care.

  10. 10.

    RaflW

    @Kent: I think this is particularly true for Nebraska. One of my cousins took a job in Omaha, and he and his wife felt like it was too conservative for them, even after growing up in the Kansas City metro. He started looking fairly quickly for a job in the Twin Cities, and they’re very happy here now.

    I think Kansas may gradually tip more purple. Johnson County and Wichita will be the main forces in governor races going forward. Farm and ranch country will probably control the legislature, but if (IF!!) we can break the GOP fever, there was a time when divided government at the state level could actually produce compromise work that was decent for the people. I won’t hold my breath.

  11. 11.

    Brachiator

    @Soprano2:

    If SCOTUS says the ACA is unconstitutional, does the Medicaid expansion go away in those states?

    I was just about to ask that question!

    I saw this in a CNBC story.

    As of now, the federal government pays 90% of the cost in states that have expanded Medicaid, but if Obamacare is repealed, states would no longer receive that funding. Sommers said states don’t have the resources to continue Medicaid expansion without federal funds, which could cause the people now insured through expanded eligibility to lose their coverage.

  13. 13.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Splitting Image: you could colour all of those orange states red and call it an electoral map.

    Hell, just let orange be their color on the electoral maps now.  It’s Trump’s party, it should be represented by his color.

  14. 14.

    Kent

    @Brachiator:As of now, the federal government pays 90% of the cost in states that have expanded Medicaid, but if Obamacare is repealed, states would no longer receive that funding. Sommers said states don’t have the resources to continue Medicaid expansion without federal funds, which could cause the people now insured through expanded eligibility to lose their coverage.

    Congress could still allocate the money.  And a Dem Congress most certainly would.  It just wouldn’t be on auto-pilot like it is today.  And if McConnell is still controlling the Senate, the money would come with all kinds of racist neoconfederate strings attached, like work requirements for black urban counties, but not for rural white counties.

  15. 15.

    Splitting Image

    @lowtechcyclist: 

    Hell, just let orange be their color on the electoral maps now. It’s Drumpf’s party, it should be represented by his color.

    I’d be down with that.

  16. 16.

    Starfish

    I would like you to cross-reference this with the states that have the most COVID-19 right now and the states that have governors deciding they are not going to COVID-19 anymore. Mississippi let its mask mandate expire. Wisconsin and South Dakota have crazy amounts of COVID-19 and no Medicaid expansion.

  17. 17.

    Mathguy

    @RaflW: If you live inside of the 680/480/80 loop, Omaha is very moderate. My neighborhood has Biden-Harris signs everywhere. Outside of that inner core, ugh.

    BTW, one Trumpian couple (perfect fit of the demographic-over 80, white, upper middle class) put up a shitgibbon sign on their lawn after their next-door neighbor put out a Black Lives Matter sign. The next day a Biden-Harris sign was sitting 6 inches inside the neighbor’s property line, sitting exactly where the Trumpidiots could see it from their living room. Nice bit of trolling.

Comments are closed.