|
 5:04 PM, Jun 18, 2013 • By JEFFREY H. ANDERSONAt least for now (although a statewide referendum may be pending), Arizona governor Jan Brewer, a Republican, has succeeded in her efforts to implement a key part of Obamacare in her state. Brewer has very aggressively — and entirely voluntarily — spearheaded the charge to implement Obamacare’s massive Medicaid expansion on her watch. She now claims, however, that she’s not really implementing Obamacare — or at least not any significant portion of it. In a recent interview reported by the Associated Press, Brewer said, “This business that this is Obamacare is a little bit interesting.” She added, “It is a very, very, very tiny portion of the Obama health care.”
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that what Brewer calls a “very, very, very tiny portion” of the health care overhaul will result in an estimated 11 million new people being dumped into Medicaid under Obamacare, where they’ll receive subpar care at taxpayer expense. Of the net 30 million that the CBO projects will become newly insured under Obamacare, those dumped into Medicaid will account for more than a third. (The CBO projects that, even after ten years of Obamacare, another 30 million people will remain uninsured.) Some of these 11 million people have employer-sponsored insurance today, but the CBO projects that roughly 4 million people will lose such coverage under Obamacare.
Brewer was under absolutely no legal obligation to implement this key aspect of Obamacare. As A.P. writes, “Brewer was an early critic of [Obamacare] and among a group of governors who lost the Supreme Court case that fought it, so it was a surprise when she announced she supported [its] Medicaid expansion.” In fact, it was the Obamacare Supreme Court case that gave Brewer and her state the choice to opt out of the Obamacare Medicaid expansion. The Court struck down the Obamacare provision that threatened states with the loss of their existing Medicaid funding if they refused to implement the Obamacare Medicaid expansion.
So Brewer sued and won — at least on this point. But instead of subsequently working to repeal Obamacare, she has instead worked to implement it. She fought the Republican-controlled state legislature and succeeded in converting a few Republicans to her — and the Democrat’s — side. Rather unrepentantly, she now says, “I've led the charge from Arizona to oppose it [Obamacare] — sued, we lost, they won, it’s the law of the land.”
The CBO projects that Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion will cost federal taxpayers about $750 billion over the next decade (2014 to 2023).
At the other end of the spectrum of Republican gubernatorial leadership, late last night, Maine governor Paul LePage vetoed an effort by both houses of the Maine legislature to implement Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion in the Pine Tree State.
4:52 PM, Dec 19, 2012 • By MICHAEL WARRENJon Kyl, the Republican senator from Arizona, delivered his farewell address to the Senate Wednesday afternoon. Kyl is retiring at the end of this term after 18 years in the Senate and 8 years in the House of Representatives. Read his speech below:
Read more... 5:15 PM, Oct 29, 2012 • By MICHAEL WARRENA new ad for Republican Senate candidate Jeff Flake of Arizona, which features Republican senators John McCain and Jon Kyl, prompted a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to call the spot a "hostage video."
Matt Canter, the communications director for the DSCC, wrote the following on Twitter:
Read more... “[H]e specifically asked about a house and a car,” Kyl explains.1:20 AM, Oct 27, 2012 • By DANIEL HALPERIn an interview with THE WEEKLY STANDARD, retiring Republican senator Jon Kyl raised some possible reasons why Democrat Richard Carmona, one of candidates vying to win the Arizona Senate seat Kyl is vacating, might be seeking public office. If a past interaction Kyl had with Carmona reveals a motive for the present, it is that the Democrat is seeking the Senate seat for the "perks of the office."
Read more... "Richard Carmona should never, ever be in the U.S. Senate."11:07 AM, Oct 11, 2012 • By MICHAEL WARRENThe U.S. Senate race in Arizona to replace retiring Republican Jon Kyl was supposed to be an easy hold for the GOP. But the last several polls have shown the race is tightening between the Republican candidate, Congressman Jeff Flake, and his Democratic opponent, Richard Carmona, a former U.S. surgeon general under George W. Bush. One poll from last week even showed Carmona two points ahead of Flake, which was surprising since Flake led Carmona by double digits as recently as June.
Read more... 8:23 AM, Aug 18, 2012 • By MICHAEL WARRENU.S. Senator John McCain has endorsed Ben Quayle over David Schweikert in the Republican primary for Arizona's Sixth Congressional District. McCain endorsed Quayle, a House freshman and the son of former vice president Dan Quayle, in a press conference Wednesday in Phoenix. Dan Nowicki of the Arizona Republic reports:
Read more... Two Republican congressmen fight it out near Phoenix. Aug 20, 2012, Vol. 17, No. 45 • By MICHAEL WARRENIn separate interviews, Arizona congressmen David Schweikert and Ben Quayle shake their heads and shrug their shoulders at their political predicament. The freshmen members are running against each other in a Republican primary for the House in what local and national observers alike have labeled one of the nastiest primaries of the cycle. How nasty? Most recently, Quayle has called on Schweikert to apologize for a campaign mailer that claimed Quayle “goes both ways” on the issues, saying the phrase is sexually charged.
Read more... Jared Lee Loughner escapes the death penalty.2:50 PM, Aug 9, 2012 • By ETHAN EPSTEINJared Lee Loughner, who killed six people and injured thirteen others (including then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords) last year near Tucson, cut a deal yesterday: By agreeing to plead guilty to perpetrating the massacre, federal prosecutors in return spared the 23-year-old from the death penalty.
Read more... 7:04 AM, Jun 26, 2012 • By DANIEL HALPERFred Barnes, with Juan Williams, Mara Liasson, and Charles Krauthammer, last night on Fox News:
Read more... 3:13 PM, Jun 25, 2012 • By DANIEL HALPERDepartment of Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano celebrated the Supreme Court's Arizona decision in a statement. But Napolitano expressed concern in a statement that a key component of the law, which allows law enforcement officials to check the immigration status of folks who are stopped, saying that it "will make DHS' work more challenging."
Read more... 1:37 PM, Jun 25, 2012 • By DANIEL HALPERPresident Obama praised the Supreme Court decision that struck down part of the Arizona illegal-immigration law, but expressed "concerned about the practical impact of the remaining provision of the Arizona law that requires local law enforcement officials to check the immigration status of anyone they even suspect to be here illegally."
Read more... 11:25 AM, Jun 25, 2012 • By DANIEL HALPERArizona senators Jon Kyl and John McCain released the following statement on the Supreme Court's ruling today on tht state's immigration law:
Read more... 2:25 PM, Jun 13, 2012 • By KATE HAVARDDemocrat Ron Barber defeated Republican Jesse Kelly yesterday in Arizona’s special election for the House seat formerly held by Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Barber received 52 percent of the vote—to Kelly’s 45 percent—and will serve out the remainder of Giffords’s term, before coming up for reelection in November.
Read more... A tight race for the Giffords seat. Jun 11, 2012, Vol. 17, No. 37 • By KATE HAVARDThe special election to fill the last six months of Gabrielle Giffords’s term in the Eighth Congressional District of Arizona is rapidly approaching. Although the race looks close, no one can say that the candidates are neck and neck. At 6’8”, Republican Jesse Kelly stands head and shoulders above most people—not just his opponent, former Giffords staffer Ron Barber.
Read more...
|
|