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Enough.
Author: Raine    Date: 01/06/2014 17:53:21

Enough of the stupidity.

I know that I have written of the incredulous lies, yes, lies from conservative quarters over the past few years, I know I said I wanted to stop writing about debunking those lies.

I also know that I am but a small person in a sea of lies trying to stop the baloney.

The time has come to stop buying the lies, and stop wondering if those lies have any basis in truth. I present this as evidence: Rand Paul claimed his kid was forced into Medicaid
"I'm trying to pay for insurance and can't pay for it. And I'm uncertain now whether I'm enrolled DC and/or Kentucky," he said Sunday on ABC's "This Week." "And it's a mess."

Paul said that his son was accidentally signed up for Medicaid, rather than for an individual health insurance plan.

"I actually tried to get my son signed up through the Kentucky exchange, you know, that the Democrats have said is so good. And I have here my son's Medicaid card," he said. "We didn't try to get him Medicaid, I'm trying to pay for his insurance. But they automatically enrolled him in Medicaid."
This is interesting, considering this story: Rand Paul had a sad a month ago.
U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, an outspoken opponent of President Barack Obama's health care law, described his frustration upon signing up for the Washington, D.C., exchange, which the senator did Wednesday.

"It made me an unhappy person," Paul said, chuckling.

Paul said the process took him more than two hours, and several times he lost the information he had entered into the troubled website.

"I got all the way through with Obamacare one time, and then I lost all my information," he said.

When asked how to fix the health care law, Paul said, "I'm not sure if there is a fix.

"I will vote to try to make it less bad if possible," he said.

Paul took issue with the suggestion that Kentucky's implementation has been a success; it has been hailed by Democrats around the country, including Obama.
Here we are, on January 6, and Senator Rand Paul doesn't appear to have a clue about how his insurance is working or how he can pay for it. He also appears to not know whether he got his insurance via the DC or the Kentucky exchange (see previous boldface). His confusion could be due to his missing the memo that he, as a Senator, has a special program to help him:
It turns out Congress is getting—surprise!—special treatment, as the New York Times reported today. Among the perks: face-to-face help enrolling in the District of Columbia’s health exchange and customer service lines from insurers dedicated to congressional staff.

The exchanges were created to help people buy health plans if they don’t already get coverage from their jobs or government programs such as Medicare or Medicaid. They’re intended for the self-employed, early retirees, and those between jobs, as well as small businesses that don’t have bargaining power with insurance companies. It’s a consequence of pure political theater that Capitol Hill staffers have to shop for coverage this way, since there is no policy reason to shunt a tiny subset of the federal workforce into the insurance exchanges. As employees of the nation’s largest employer—the U.S. government—they already have access to good, affordable group plans, like most American professionals who work for large organizations.

No one bothered to ask the good senator from Kentucky if that card was actually his son's. No one asked him which of his three sons it belonged to. No one asked him at all, and when I say no one, I am talking about George Stephanopoulos. Perhaps Senator Paul needs to have a conversation with the Speaker of the House, John Boehner.

The real question here is (for myself) this: Why is Rand Paul complaining to the media instead of using a program to fix his terrible, awful problem? You see - he's a part of the legislative branch who actually has liaisons in DC to help him with this terrible problem. He's also part of the very branch that can help solve the kind of problems he claims to be experiencing. I suspect I am splitting hairs here, but I don't think the senator is being completely honest at all about this claim. His children are not of "legal" age, so I am not clear as to how his son was enrolled into medicaid. Please make note, he only mentioned ONE child, he is the father of three boys: William, 19; Duncan, 16; and Robert, 13.

Consider this report: They are having problems signing people up for Medicaid. You can probably lay the responsibility about that on the 2012 ruling from SCOTUS. Remember, this expansion was supposed to be a nationwide program. The Supreme Court ruled that it could be left up to states if they wanted to take part in the Medicaid expansion. This is interesting:
Salo said there's a bit of a wait-and-see attitude from Medicaid directors, given the errors in the past. While the federal government has said that they won't penalize states that enroll someone via these flat files who doesn't actually qualify, states have their own concerns about doing so.

"That's not really how we run a program," Salo said."We don't enroll people who aren't eligible. From a financial perspective, we want to make sure we're enrolling the people who are eligible."


What's the real story here? I'd tend to believe his has less to do with Obamacare failures and more to do with disinformation.

Keep in mind, this is an elected member of the United States of America legislative body we call the Senate. He can fix his terrible problem if it really truly exists.


and
Raine
 

58 comments (Latest Comment: 01/06/2014 22:36:56 by Mondobubba)
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