Reid Trolls McConnell As Obamacare Slashes Kentucky's Uninsured Rate

[ProSense]

Reid Trolls McConnell As Obamacare Slashes Kentucky's Uninsured Rate

Obamacare is slated to cut Kentucky's uninsured rate by 40 percent, and Harry Reid really wants to rub it in Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-KY) face.

"My counterpart, the senior senator from Kentucky, will address the Senate probably after I finish," the Democratic majority leader said Thursday on the Senate floor. "In his home state of Kentucky, 360,000 people have signed up for coverage under the Affordable Care Act. Three hundred and sixty thousand."

He was referring to official Kentucky figures that the state-based Obamacare exchange signed up roughly 360,000 Kentuckians before the March 31 enrollment deadline. About 270,000 of them were previously uninsured, which stands to cut the state's uninsured population of 640,000 by 42 percent.

"Over a quarter million Kentuckians who did not have insurance now have health care under the Affordable Care Act. Or, in other words, Obamacare has reduced the uninsured population in Kentucky by 40 percent. I wonder when my friend from Kentucky will explain to the 270,000 Kentuckians how he plans to repeal the law without stripping their new health benefits."

During the speech, Reid name-checked Kentucky no fewer than five times in that context. The state has been comparably successful at implementing Obamacare under its Democratic governor, Steve Beshear.

- more -

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/reid-mcconnell-kentucky-uninsured-rate-40-percent

Harry Reid is getting under their skin. He made the Kochs whine. http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024774266

LOL!

[The Magistrate]

1. Every So Often, Ma'am, The Man Makes Me Like Him

This is one of those times....

[ProSense]

2. Yes, reminds me of how he got under Romney's skin. LOL n/t

[ProSense]

3. The Kentucky case study

The Kentucky case study

By Steve Benen

Few states have been as successful in implementing the Affordable Care Act as Kentucky, where the state’s two-term Democratic governor, Steve Beshear, has been a national leader on the issue. The results have been striking: just this week we learned that the uninsured rate in the Bluegrass State has been cut by a whopping 42% in just six months.

<...>

Reid referenced Kentucky five times during his remarks – and they weren’t long remarks.

McConnell’s spokesperson responded by touting a report from last fall, noting Kentuckians transitioning from old, substandard coverage plans to new plans. This was apparently intended to be proof of … something.

Reid’s needling isn’t just for entertainment and his comments this morning were more than partisan taunts. In fact, there’s an important underlying point to this: McConnell’s constituents are benefiting from the law and it’s clearly helping the state he represents. Do the senator and his allies consider this good news or bad?

The Associated Press had a report this week suggesting the answer is no mystery.

In one of the poorest areas of Appalachia, about 2500 people have signed up to get health insurance over the last six months – a number that represents more than a tenth of Clay County’s residents.

One hundred and twenty miles way, the county’s state senator, Robert Stivers, is laying out his plans to gradually gut the Affordable Care Act in Kentucky, which provided his constituents with insurance…. If Republicans can gain more seats in the state legislature here over the next year, he said, they will look to peel back Kentucky’s participation in the health-care law by limiting the expansion of Medicaid in the state.

“I do think it should be repealed,” Stivers told the AP emphatically...McConnell is no different, remaining unmoved by his state’s recent progress and vowing to repeal the law in nearly every campaign speech, even as hundreds of thousands of his own constituents gain access to affordable medical care, some for the first time.

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http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/the-kentucky-case-study