It looks like one more year will come and go with no Obamacare Medicaid expansion. Why won’t the Republican fools in Jefferson City do what’s right when it comes to Medicaid? Temper tantrums because the GOP doesn’t like the scary black man in the white house and want to scuttle his legacy? Sure. Pandering to special interests who don’t want to pay their fair share? Of course. Efforts to insure failure of government run social programs that would otherwise deflect power from the GOP? That too. And there’s certainly plenty of delusional thinking, not to mention the ugly, retrograde political ideologies that have resurfaced in recent years.

Martin Longman speculates that the tantrum over Obamacare has extended so long and has been played out so passionately and so irrationally that there’s no way now for the committed GOP to retreat:

What’s interesting is that the Republicans’ are so dependent on ObamaCare being unpopular that they have to try to convince people it is failing even though it certainly is not. It’s not enough to point at polls about the law because those polls will change over time. They have to try to keep the polls low any way they can. One way to do that is to keep the myth alive among their base. Another way is to misinform as many people outside their circle as possible. Finally, they can work the refs in the media to the best of their ability, but that isn’t going to work anymore for media that aren’t formally or informally working for the Republican Party.

All undoubtedly true. But what this GOP miscalculation means in practical terms for Missouri is that no matter how empty their opposition is shown to be, the hardcore deadenders that populate many of the GOP seats in the Jefferson City will fight until their last breath against Obamacare, so, since Medicaid expansion under the program would be a big win, it can’t be allowed.  

This irrational animus is the sole reason why state Senator John Lamping (R-19), when confronted with efforts from those in his own party to find a way to take a good deal without losing face, insisted no way, “this is done. It’s not happening. Go find something else to do.” It’s why state Senator Kurt Schaefer (R-19) thinks an opportunity to do something to help his constituents is a “problem,” whining about “why is this somehow now our problem, and our immediate problem that has to be solved by us before the end of the session, when we didn’t create this problem?” It’s kind of like  having a meltdown when you win the lottery because you’re too stupid to figure out how to claim the prize.

But reality’s a bitch and, as they say, what goes round comes round, so sooner or later reality will catch up with the particular butt-end of the GOP that is now running the Republican show. Small solace though, since meanwhile, Missouri, currently ranked 39th in the nation for health outcomes, will continue to hover around the bottom, and, what’s even worse, people will actually, needlessly, die just so a few Republican diehards can save face and can continue to insist for a few more years that Obamacare really is a harbringer of Armageddon.