Berger/Moore Bow To Reality and Accept Obamacare

 

Yesterday afternoon, House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate leader Phil Berger held a joint news conference to announce the compromise between Berger's Senate and Moore's House that they promise will lead soon to the expansion of Medicaid under Obamacare. In other words, they've finally caved to the Affordable Care Act. NC was one of just 11 holdout states. Berger/Moore will not only sign onto the program, but they'll also be giving Governor Cooper a big win. Conservative hardasses are gonna lose their shit (e.g., The Daily Haymaker today).

The NC House under Speaker Tim Moore has already passed its version of Medicaid expansion, covering an additional half-million people who are below the poverty line. The bill has already passed a first reading in the Senate and is in the hands of the Rules Committee. It's always been up to the Senate, which means it's up to Phil Berger, and the announcement yesterday puts previous workproducts for Medicaid expansion on ice.

A sticking point as been a regulation on hospital expansions, the so-called certificates of need (CON) that large hospital chains evidently use to limit competition. The N.C. Healthcare Assoc. of hospitals defended the CONs in the Senate last year and succeeded in killing the version that contained a loosening of their control. But in the thing announced by Berger/Moore yesterday, CONs reform will be included so that new drug treatment and rehab facilities (especially) can break free of corporation monopoly. Berger, according to Dawn Baumgartner Vaughan's reporting, said that since the state would be giving 600,000 people a card that says they will now get free health care, "it's going to be somewhat problematic if we don’t increase the supply of folks that can treat them.”

Master of understatement, that one!

A major beneficiary of the Berger/Moore deal will be rural hospitals, which have been closing down in multiples in North Carolina. A separate feature of the Affordable Care Act, the Healthcare Access and Stabilization Program, will bring in an additional $8 billion annually to North Carolina, "with no additional cost to the state," along with $1.8 billion which can support behavioral health, public safety support, rural health care, and other needs.” Opioid epidemic money.

Hardcore Reaction

A post by "Reaganite," on Daily Haymaker cited above:

Any sell out “Republican” (who is really a Democrat-in-Drag) who votes for this left wing special interest excrement sandwich needs a primary. Our Republican legislative “leaders” are actually stalking horses for the Democrats and the left, and we need a fruitbasket turnover of the “leadership”. NONE of them are fit to serve.

Any of the traitors who betray the Republican base to brownnose sell out legislative “leaders” need to be abandoned in all future elections. They are no different than Democrats. If the choice in your district is a Democrat or a Democrat-in-Drag, there is no real difference, and it is time to just leave that race blank. You are screwed either way. That is what happened to many of those who betrayed the Republican base on repealing HB2, and conservatives did not support them in the next election, handing legislative seats to Democrats because the “Republicans” were sell-outs who were no better.

And conservatives need to organize a primary campaign to expose Timmy Moore’s lousy liberal legislative record when he tries to run for Congress. Lets jam HB2 repeal, the Green New Deal, and Obamacare Medicaid expansion down his miserable throat and make him totally toxic to Republican voters.