How does one of the most powerful politicians in America, who has been so powerful for so long, abide miserable poverty, rising drug addiction and falling mortality rates in his own state, do nothing about it, and yet come forth with so-called health care legislation that makes it all worse?
Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate Majority Leader, has produced a bill that would devastate rural areas, especially in his home state.
Among these are deep cuts in Medicaid spending and an end to Medicaid expansion. About 45 percent of rural children use Medicaid. The bill would reduce funding for treatment of opioid addiction, another issue for rural America. McConnell’s bill does nothing to improve insurance market places for rural areas and could make them worse by cutting tax credits for insurance purchases.
Rural hospitals and nursing homes dependent on Medicaid will continue to be at risk of closure or downsizing under McConnell’s legislation. (Read More at DailyYonder.com)
Sarah Kliff of VOX.com on CNN (Sunday): “I have spent a decent amount of time over the past few months in an area of Southeastern Kentucky that voted for Trump, but also has very heavy Obamacare enrollment. There are a lot of people in that area who are expecting that this health care bill will make their health insurance better. But everything we know about it is, those people will be really disadvantaged by this health care plan. I think they really listened to Donald Trump on the campaign trail. And he said repeatedly again and again in debates: I’m different from the other Republican candidates. I don’t want to cut health care programs. He promised: I won’t cut Medicaid. … These bills don’t deliver on those campaign promises. They cut Medicaid very significantly. They would scale back the federal subsidies that the people in Kentucky and the people in other states really rely on. But the voters, they understood. They had watched the news. They had seen the promises that their candidate made. And they took those promises at face value.
