• About
  • The Poetry of Protest

Show Me Progress

~ covering government and politics in Missouri – since 2007

Show Me Progress

Tag Archives: Jan Brewer

Medicaid expansion for Arizona while GOP lawmakers fiddle with Medicaid “reform” in Missouri

13 Thursday Jun 2013

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Jan Brewer, Jay Nixon, Medicaid expansion, Medicaid reform, missouri, Obamacare, Private managed care

Late in May I wrote about how Jan Brewer, the GOP Tea Party governor of Arizona, saw the light and went to bat for the Obamacare Medicaid expansion in her state, fighting tooth-and-nail against her once simpatico Tea Party legislature. Today I learned that she managed to prevail in her fight. Shows what all-out commitment will do – and maybe suggests just why our cautious, low-key Democratic governor isn’t able to achieve similar goals.

Of course, it looks like the GOP-dominated legislature may be having second thoughts about expanding access to Medicaid – or perhaps they’re just worried that blowback from such a wanton rejection of measures that would improve the quality of life for thousands of Missourians might hurt them in the long run, particularly when it becomes clear to Missourians just how costly the GOP’s mindless opposition to anything Obamacare will be for the state. It seems that both houses have now appointed panels that will prepare Medicaid “reform” legislation for the 2014 session.

Sadly, I fear that the reforms these ALEC-fearing jokers might have in mind might be almost as bad as going without. Last year, some GOP lawmakers supported changes that would have moved Medicaid into private, managed care systems – which have proven problematic in many states where they have been tried (see here, here and here) – and it’s likely that they will continue on down the path toward what State Rep. Jay Barnes (R-114) speculated could be “the most market-based system in the entire country.”

Of course, many healthcare economists are unequivocal that the biggest problem contributing to raising health care costs is simply our private delivery system with its perverse incentives and cumbersome administrative costs. Nor do we always get good value for the money spent. Oh well – if it gets more people into the system, I guess we can afford a little degradation in the service – it’s just the usual cost of doing business with ideologues and corporatists.

Why can’t the best of us behave a little like the worst of us once and awhile?

27 Monday May 2013

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

healthcare, Jan Brewer, Jay Nixon, Medicaid expansion, missouri, Obamacare

In W.B. Yeats’ poem, “The Second Coming,” he famously writes:

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Sadly, these often quoted lines seem to be all too true when it comes to current politics. Take, for example, Arizona’s Governor Jan Brewer and Missouri’s Governor Jay Nixon and their respective responses to the Obamacare Medicaid expansion.

Nixon’s no dummy; he wants the Medicaid expansion badly. He’s campaigned around the state and tried every reasonable, polite way to bring pressure to bear on the stable of GOP jackasses in Jefferson City to get them to do the right thing. Of course, it doesn’t take a genius to realize that there’s no way the Missouri GOP would forgo their obsessive hatred of Obamacare – along with everything Obama – long enough to think the Medicaid issues through,or to take them seriously if they did. These are the same fools, after all, who made the legislative session that just finished the butt of jokes across the nation.

Nevertheless, the Governor, in response to the GOP legislative rebuff, has politely refrained from casting stones, remarking that next session will provide another opportunity for Medicaid expansion. Of course, the statehouse will also be populated with the same blockheads next session, but such an observation would be beneath the dignity of famously GOP-cooperative, non-partisan (and lacking all conviction?) Jay Nixon.

In Arizona, however, Republican Jan Brewer, who has in the past been viewed as a number one, prima dona, tea partier – particularly when it comes to immigration issues – nevertheless managed to figure out that the federally-subsidized Medicaid expansion was a really good opportunity to improve life for thousands of Arizonans. Gifted with a legislature on a par with that of Missouri’s, she has shown herself to be filled with Yeats’ passionate intensity. No polite, rationally argued invitations to do better from Brewer  – she’s going to war with the Obamacare-averse Arizona legislature:

Arizona’s Republican Gov. Jan Brewer is stepping up her pressure on the GOP-led legislature to expand Medicaid by declaring a moratorium on legislating until they give in.

Brewer vetoed five unrelated bills on Thursday, according to the Arizona Republic, and threatened to keep blocking legislation until Republicans expand Medicaid to cover thousands of Arizonans, which Obamacare permits at minimal cost to the state.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m truly grateful for a Democratic governor like Nixon who can still veto some or, if we’re lucky, all of the bad bills sent to him by GOP lawmakers – as long as he actually does so, that is, since one can never be sure when he’s going to decide to make nice with the GOPers. I supported his election, and it’s possible he’s got some surefire strategy in mind in regard to Medicaid for next year. But I still wonder why liberals like Claire McCaskill or pseudo-liberals like Nixon don’t care enough to really go down to the wire fighting for just a few truly important issues. True, there are a handful of Democrats who show some spirit: Massachusett’s Elizabeth Warren, Vermont’s Bernie Sanders, and just-retired Rep. Barney Frank, to name a few. But still – why can’t we grow and support progressives like these in Missouri?

While it’s too early to say whether or not Brewer will win her war with the Arizona legislature, it still grates that backward-thinking Jan Brewer has what it takes to fight for the uninsured in her state. Meanwhile, good old Jay Nixon just takes the slings and arrows of the GOP legislature on the chin – and, as a result, thousands of low-income Missourians will have to keep on keeping on without the health insurance that could save their or their children’s lives.

P.S. I don’t really think Jay Nixon is the best of us – but he’s not that bad, especially when compared with the Jan Brewer of the recent past.

*Edited slightly to restore omitted text.  

Chutzpah

28 Wednesday Apr 2010

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Arizona, chutzpah, illegal immigration, Jan Brewer, Senate Bill 1070

Chutzpah – murdering your parents and then asking for leniency from the court because you’re an orphan. *

Via Balloon Juice:

Arizona agency seeks federal help on immigration law

The Arizona agency tasked with training 15,000 law officers to enforce the state’s controversial new illegal immigration law has asked federal authorities for assistance, but administration officials say it is unclear whether the government will help….

John Cole at Balloon Juice:

…How about this for an answer? NO.

You guys want a police state, pay for it yourself. You probably should have thought about this before you all passed the idiotic bill in the first place….

Mo Udall weeps….and laughs.

* Thanks to John Cole for the title of this post.

Subscribe

  • Entries (RSS)
  • Comments (RSS)

Archives

  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • October 2007
  • September 2007
  • August 2007

Categories

  • campaign finance
  • Claire McCaskill
  • Democratic Party News
  • Healthcare
  • Hillary Clinton
  • Interview
  • Josh Hawley
  • media criticism
  • meta
  • Missouri General Assembly
  • Missouri Governor
  • Missouri House
  • Missouri Senate
  • Resist
  • Roy Blunt
  • social media
  • Standing Rock
  • Town Hall
  • Uncategorized
  • US Senate

Meta

  • Log in

Blogroll

  • Balloon Juice
  • Crooks and Liars
  • Digby
  • I Spy With My Little Eye
  • Lawyers, Guns, and Money
  • No More Mister Nice Blog
  • The Great Orange Satan
  • Washington Monthly
  • Yael Abouhalkah

Donate to Show Me Progress via PayPal

Your modest support helps keep the lights on. Click on the button:

Blog Stats

  • 413,149 hits

Powered by WordPress.com.