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Originally Posted by Boreas
No doubt for the same reasons I don't.
A big wet kiss with a cyanide pill under their tongue. Medicare Expansion? State Exchanges?
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Medicaid expansion - as written in PPACA - was problematic for reasons that had been previously tested before the courts. The Feds could not essentially threaten states with loss of funding to compel compliance with PPACA's mandate to expand Medicaid. As far as the State Exchanges, while there was funding / grant money available to help states set up exchanges and the states were encouraged to set up exchanges, exchanges were one step short of unfunded mandates. The states had to figure out how to pay for the exchanges over the long term. As many states are starting to find out, funding is proving difficult, particularly in states that charged a fee to enrollees where enrollment failed to meet projections. Besides, at the end of the day the state exchange language in PPACA was ultimately a concession to Bill Nelson, a conservative - but hardly a Blue Dog - Democrat. The concession was necessary to get his 60th and deciding vote to pass PPACA.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Boreas
And the "Blue Dogs" certainly did some serious damage, as well as the Senator from Aetna Joe Lieberman but the Republicans in both houses worked strenuously to defeat the legislation.
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The legislation passed and the Repubs never had the votes to stop PPACA or even steer it. Whatever they did to "strenuously defeat the legislation" isn't relevant. Beyond the Blue Dogs, the Dems had to work hard to put together the votes in their own caucus for PPACA, and that took a hell of a lot of sausage - making.