Discussion: Republicans’ Double Talk On Exempting Rural Whites From Medicaid Rules

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There is no system that these people won’t try to rig.

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Trump want to appease his various constituencies. Just as he threw a bone to Evangelicals by moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, this and gun talk plays well with the ultrarurals, another very strong constituency.

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So if you spend, say, 25% of your time on the golf course and, say, another 50% of your time watching TV upstairs, should you still be eligible for Federal benefits or should you lose your Federal housing and benefits?

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Cruel, evil, lying, despicable people.

Although, I suppose the Medicaid work requirements will be accompanied by improvements and equity in public education and job training, as well as stepped-up enforcement of fair and non-discriminatory hiring practices.

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It would have been entertaining to sit in on the meeting when they first considered the impact on their constituents and had to figure out a way to make sure that they could continue to provide the program to them (or, as they would surely characterize it, "the deserving poor). The euphemisms alone would have been priceless.

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‘There may be problems with the economy in that particular area.’

Yes, the ‘area’ of the precarious, low-waged economy, you ruthless, spiteful, hateful person.

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There are times when I read a story about this administration and/ or a ridiculous policy they’re implementing and all I can do is sigh and shake my head because I am a complete loss for words.

This is one of them.

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The best argument against these carve outs is this:

“If work requirements were a good idea, conservative Michigan legislators wouldn’t need to exempt their rural constituents,” he writes. “They’d just offer a tough-love message: If you want health insurance on the public dime, you should move to a place where you can find work.”

In fact, it underscores the cowardly way the GOP is going about this. All we hear is: people need to have skin in the game, yada, yada. The carve out exposes the Republicans crass hypocrisy; they fear the backlash from their own voters, the white rural electorate. So, only urban dwellers, POC and/or Dem voters need skin in the game. Those %'s in Michigan tell the sorry story.

How is this even legal?

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It’s legal to kill a black person for a malfunctioning turn signal bulb. So this is no surprise.

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And surely making it easier for workers to organize unions to demand higher pay, better benefits, and more secure and safer working conditions.

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Sweet Jesus what a mean bunch of rat-fuckers.

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Are you talking about politicians? Or most of the nation’s citizens? If it’s the latter you’re probably more spot-on than the former.

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But it’s a damn important story, and a big shout out to Alice Ollstein for sticking with it.

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Yet despite the crafty wording and design, we need to be bold about pointing out that a policy that intentionally or unwittingly discriminates racially in the access to health care will end up being an instrument of ethnic cleansing in its consequences.

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And yet amazingly we always survive, like the boll weevil. Count on the unintended consequences.

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There’s nothing contradictory about it! This is exactly how poll taxes, grandfather clauses, literacy tests and all the other forms of Jim Crow disenfranchisement used to work. It’ll be a state-by-state patchwork of just-creative-enough workaround to make it extra hard for people of color to get Medicaid, because they don’t yet think they can get away with openly and directly legislating that people of color can’t have Medicaid.

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Inconsistency is a feature, not a bug.

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I’m not sure why anyone would support the GOP at this point unless they’re mean SOB’s at their core.

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That prerequisite will garner you a plurality in most elections.

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