He ran on a platform attacking Obamacare and other social issues like gay marriage etc., and promising to take away the people’s healthcare if given a chance as governor. Well, the people of Kentucky have spoken and voted for Republican Matt Bevin to be their next governor.
Bevin led Democrat Jack Conway, Kentucky’s two-term attorney general, 52 percent to 44 percent when the Associated Press called the race just after 8 p.m. Conway never trailed in a public poll this summer or fall, or during the run-up to Election Day, and Bevin even trailed in his campaign’s own internal polling. But the Republican kept the race close and Kentucky’s increasingly conservative lean swept him home.
Bevin’s victory upends a decades-long trend in Kentucky in which Democrats have seen success at the state level despite struggling in federal races. Bevin leaned on social issues, including Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis’s refusal to issue same-sex marriage licenses this summer, to energize conservative voters. Bevin also criticized Conway for not defending the state’s same-sex marriage ban in court as attorney general.
And the Republican Governors Association spent millions of dollars on ads tying Conway to President Obama on coal, health care, and other issues, a formula that the group rode to success in other red-state races over the past five years.
By now I’m sure you’ve heard the bogus and outrageous claim by Republican Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell.
In his one and only debate with Alison Lundergan Grimes earlier this week, McConnell was asked about his plans for Obamacare if reelected to the Senate to represent the people of Kentucky.
It should be noted that McConnell already sits in that seat, he is the Senator for that state. But he knows that Republicans in Kentucky don’t like Obamacare and they want it repealed, even though Obamacare – they call it Kynect in Kentucky – provides them with life saving healthcare.
McConnell also know that Republicans cannot repeal Obamacare. They have tried over 50 times to no avail. And even if they win the Senate in November – and it’s looking more likely that they will – Republicans will not be able to repeal the law because the president is not going to sign any legislation that kills healthcare for millions of Americans.
But in the debate, McConnell could not avoid lying to the people of Kentucky, the people he represents, the people who wants the Obamacare repealed although they are benefitting from the law. When asked about his plans for healthcare, McConnell lied… twice!
“Kentucky Kynect is a website,” McConnell said. “The website can continue, but in my view the best interests of the country would be achieved by pulling out Obamacare root and branch.”
His first lie was trying to separate Kentucky Kynect from Obamacare as if they are two different entities. Kynect is not just a website, it is a marketplace set up and funded by Obamacare. Uprooting Obamacare “root and branch” is in fact, uprooting Kynect “root and branch,” and thus, eliminating health care for hundreds of thousands of Kentuckians.
His second lie? That re-electing him to the Senate will magically result in repealing Obamacare, as if the last 50 trials were just practice.
What’s the odds that the people of Kentucky picked up on these lies? Don’t bet on it. They are mostly Republicans.
While the rest of the Republicans are running away with breakneck speed from their “repeal Obamacare” nonsense, Mitch McConnell is slowly moseying along. Apparently, he didn’t get the memo that Obamacare is a hugely successful law and that millions of Americans are presently benefiting from it.
Mitch McConnell is running for the Senate again, the man has been there like, 100 years or so, but he is running again by telling the voters of Kentucky that he is still going to repeal Obamacare. You see, Kentuckians loathe Obamacare, so this repeal nonsense promised to be an easy win for McConnell. But there is only problem for Mitch – Kentucky residents loves Obamacare… sorry, they hate Obamacare but they love Kynect!
Kynect is what Obamacare is called in Kentucky!
When asked if he is going to dismantle Kynect, Mitch showed physical pain. His face said it all. His very being showed what is meant by the phrase, caught like a deer in headlights. You could see the wheels in his head turning, trying to figure out who was asking the question and why were they trying to put him on the spot. You saw the pain of him trying to muster words into a sentence that he hoped would explain that Kynect would stay even if he somehow managed to repeal Obamacare. You saw the pain of a man who knew he was lying to himself, but went ahead and lied anyway. After what seemed like an eternity, Mitch slowly turned to the general direction of the question and said, “I think that’s unconnected to my comments about the overall question.”
Another lie by McConnell of course, because Kynect is Obamacare and Obamacare is Kynect!
Nothing could be more connected — or should be more important to Kentucky’s senior senator — than the fates of the more than 400,000 Kentuckians who are getting health insurance, many for the first time, and the federal Affordable Care Act, which is making that possible.
Repeal the federal law, which McConnell calls “Obamacare,” and the state exchange would collapse.
Kynect could not survive without the ACA’s insurance reforms, including no longer allowing insurance companies to cancel policies when people get sick or deny them coverage because of pre-existing conditions, as well as the provision ending lifetime limits on benefit payments. (Kentucky tried to enact such reforms in the 1990s and found out we were too small a market to do it alone.)
Kentucky’s exchange also could not survive without the federal funding and tax credits that are helping 300,000 previously uninsured Kentuckians gain access to regular preventive medicine, including colonoscopies, mammograms and birth control without co-pays.
As a result of a law that McConnell wants to repeal, one in 10 of his constituents no longer have to worry that an illness or injury will drive them into personal bankruptcy or a premature grave.
Repealing the federal law would also end the Medicaid expansion that is enabling Kentucky to expand desperately needed drug treatment and mental health services.
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