Vox writer Sarah Kliff visited Obamacare enrollees — including one lady who estimates she’s enrolled thousands in Obamacare — to find out why they voted for Trump. An excerpt of her findings:
CORBIN, Kentucky — Kathy Oller is so committed to her job signing up fellow Kentuckians for Obamacare that last Halloween, she dressed up as a cat, set up a booth at a trick-or-treat event, and urged people to get on the rolls. She’s enrolled so many people in the past three years that she long ago lost count.
“Must be somewhere in the thousands,” she said to me one morning at a local buffet restaurant where she’d just finished an enrollment event with the staff.
The health care law has helped lots of people in Whitley County, where Oller works. The uninsured rate has fallen from 25 percent in 2013 to 10 percent today, according to data from the nonprofit Enroll America. Overall, Kentucky is now tied with West Virginia for the biggest increase in health coverage.
But Obamacare’s success in Whitley County and across Kentucky hasn’t translated into political support for the law. In fact, 82 percent of Whitley voters supported Donald Trump in the presidential election, even though he promised to repeal it.
Oller voted for Trump too.
“I found with Trump, he says a lot of stuff,” she said. “I just think all politicians promise you everything and then we’ll see. It’s like when you get married — ‘Oh, honey, I won’t do this, oh, honey, I won’t do that…’”
I kept hearing informed voters, who had watched the election closely, say they did hear the promise of repeal but simply felt Trump couldn’t repeal a law that had done so much good for them.
Translation: she thinks the straight-talker was lying about taking away her and her neighbors’ healthcare. Well, Oller’s in for a rude goddamn awakening, as are some of the Trump voters Oller enrolled, one of whose husband is on a waiting list for a liver transplant.
I recommend the article. Kliff is sympathetic to her subjects, noting that plenty of analysts didn’t believe the GOP would be able to roll back Obamacare either — until they got a gander at Trump’s plan prior to the election and saw his post-election HHS pick.
Kliff documents her subjects’ discontent with the healthcare law as it exists, including rising premiums (because that never happened before Obamacare came along). But one major complaint was that lazy moochers were benefiting from Obamacare.
So basically, Kentucky voters are saying, “Garçon, table for two under the bridge — we’ll split a roasted sparrow on a curtain rod as long as the welfare queens at the next table lack both sparrows and rods.” As the kids say, SMDH.
Tell me again why it’s wrong to conclude these folks are dumber than dirt?Post + Comments (284)