The Cruelty of Conservatives May Stop
Virginia is one of the Republican controlled states
that refused to expand Medicaid. To even get Medicaid in the state
residents had to be not just poor,
but
as poor as some of the weakest economies in the world.
Currently,
Virginia has one of the most restrictive Medicaid programs. Childless
adults are not eligible and working parents cannot exceed an income
of 30 percent of the federal poverty level, or $5,727.
But reality, read elections, are changing things.
Elections
have consequences, goes the old saw, and in Virginia a Democratic
wave in November remade the political landscape on one of the state’s
longest-running and most contentious issues: whether to expand
Medicaid to 400,000 low-income residents.
Republicans lost 15 seats in the House
of Delegates and, left clinging to a bare majority, did an about-face
on Medicaid expansion — an issue that to many had smacked of
“Obamacare.” But Republicans in the State Senate, who had not
faced voters, blocked expansion last month, and lawmakers failed to
pass a state budget because of the issue.
Now, as Gov. Ralph Northam orders the
House and Senate back to the capital on Wednesday for a special
session to fix the problems, what remains of Republican opposition to
expansion appears to be cracking.
Two Republican state senators said
this week they would accept some form of broader Medicaid benefits,
as provided under the Affordable Care Act — enough votes to carry
the day on an issue that is widely popular in state polls.
And the Republicans who are changing are learning first hand how
vicious conservatives can be.
Mr. Kilgore’s district in southwest
Virginia is one of the poorest in the state, where each July
thousands of people visit a free pop-up clinic at a county
fairground.
Delegate Chris Peace, another
Republican who favored expansion in the House, said he had changed
his position in part because in his family law practice, he had come
to see the dire effects that a lack of health care had on low-income
families.
He called the House bill that includes
work requirements “the epitome of the Republican conservative
mantra of a hand up, not a handout.”
Ahead of the special session,
activists from the conservative group Americans for Prosperity have
demonstrated outside Mr. Peace’s office in Mechanicsville, trying
to pressure him to change his mind.
He dismissed them as remnants of the
Tea Party movement straining to remain relevant. “Half are 60-plus
gray-haired white men who hate Obama,” he said.
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