1. 600 New Jobs Created by the "Job-killing" ACA in Just One Missouri County
Missouri is a Republican led state that has not only refused to set up an ACA insurance marketplace, it has prohibited any public employee from assisting private companies that wish to do so and from answering any questions relating to the law that may be asked by Missouri's citizens. You can read more on this here: http://whateyethynk-politics.blogspot.com/2013/08/aca-mandated-insurance-exchanges-two.html
State Senator Scott Rupp (R), who represents St. Charles County, has actively worked against the Affordable Care Act, calling it, "the largest job-killing tax increase in American history". A recent news story in the Post-Dispatch, a newspaper that covers Senator Rupp's home district, reported that, as a result of state government sanctioned obstructionism, a Virginia based company is stepping in to help Missourians understand the benefits to which they are entitled and is hiring 600 people in St. Charles County to staff a processing center there.
When asked about the 600 new jobs which seem at odds with his "job-killing" rhetoric, he replied: "It doesn't change my view."
Of course not.
2. ACA Haters Think Their State Exchange Insurance Plans Are "Better Than Obamacare"
An interesting phenomenon is being reported in Kentucky. Kentucky is a heavily Republican state that just happens to have a Democratic governor. On October 1, Gov. Steve Beshear's Kentucky will be ready to begin signing people up for health insurance through the state marketplace they are calling "Kynect".
Kentucky has spent millions of their federally allotted ACA dollars to staff outreach programs all over the state in order to explain the health insurance programs that will be available this Fall. ACA policy experts like Reina Diaz-Dempsey are finding that, when people in Kentucky are presented with the facts about the ACA, they are impressed--but seem not to realize that what outreach leaders are presenting is simply the details of the ACA health programs they have been told are so bad. Some Kentuckians are pleased to see that their state is not falling for that nasty ACA business and is instead offering benefits under Kynect. Outreach leaders are reporting that many of the people they speak with tell them they are very happy with what the Kynect program offers and that it "is better than Obamacare".
As Washington Post writer Jonathan Bernstein explained, this is not happening just in Kentucky. "The law is going to make health care better for many Americans. A lot of them just won't realize it's the same thing as the Obamacare they hate...Fortunately, the Limbaugh self-employed listener will think, I don't have Obamacare; I have the private health insurance I purchased on (my state's) web site. But if the liberals had their way, everyone would be forced to have Obamacare, and...American would be ruined."
Speaking at a Kentucky Farm Bureau breakfast, Gov. Beshear pointed out that 640,000 Kentuckians are uninsured and many of them are self-employed farmers. Kentucky is at or near the top of national charts for bad-health indicators. "We've ranked that bad for a long, long time. The Affordable Care Act is our historic opportunity to address this weakness."
Pointedly referring to U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who was in attendance, he added: "It's amazing to me how people who are pouring time and money and energy into trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act sure haven't put that kind of energy into trying to improve the health of Kentuckians. And think of the decades that they have had to make some kind of difference."
Gov. Beshear also cited a study that showed the ACA would inject $15.6 billion into Kentucky's economy over eight years and create 17,000 new tax paying jobs.
And still, the Republican Anti-ACA Zombie Parade continues.
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