Kentucky except for those that feed his wealth coffers.

We need to balance the budget - we need to make up for the tax cuts we gave the top 1%!!



Just in case:

Count on it, it is what they want.

please. It is a derogatory term aimed at females. By using it in this context, normalizes the slur as being acceptable to use in all context.

to 32.69% of the vote for Hillary Clinton. Trump won Kentucky by the largest margin of any Republican since Richard Nixon in 1972, and swept counties across the state. Clinton only carried the state's two most urban and populous counties, Jefferson County, home to Louisville, and Fayette County, home to Lexington, both of which traditionally vote Democratic.

Trump made history when he won Elliott County. In the nearly 150-year history of the county, it had voted Democratic in every presidential election, never Republican. Trump ended that tradition and won Elliott County handily with 2,000 votes to Clinton's 740, or 70%-26%.

LINK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_in_Kentucky,_2016

I feel sorry for those 32.69% who rely on Medicaid, of course. The others can fuck themselves (wait a sec -- they did)!!!

In 2010 Republicans made significant gains in Kentucky and exit polls showed that the economy was a major concern


By 2012 the trend was clearly continuing as Rodney was a massive winner.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_in_Kentucky,_2012

The 2012 United States presidential election in Kentucky took place on November 6, 2012 as part of the 2012 General Election in which all 50 states plus The District of Columbia participated. Kentucky voters chose eight electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote pitting incumbent Democratic President Barack Obama and his running mate, Vice President Joe Biden, against Republican challenger and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and his running mate, Congressman Paul Ryan.

On election day Romney carried Kentucky by a landslide margin, winning 60.49% of the vote to Barack Obama's 37.80%, a margin of 22.69%.

Although Kentucky had been won by Southern Democrat Bill Clinton twice in the 1990s, Obama was seen as a poor cultural fit for the state, and he did not compete here either time he ran.

The Romney campaign also attacked Obama's administration as being hostile to the coal industry, historically an important part of the state's economy, because of its environmental harm. Consequently, Obama suffered a historically poor showing in the traditionally staunchly Democratic coalfields of Eastern Kentucky. Many counties which had voted even for landslide Democratic losers like George McGovern and Walter Mondale defected to the Republicans. Knott County, which had given Bill Clinton 73% of the vote in 1996, gave Mitt Romney 73% of the vote in 2012. Even Elliott County, the only county in the state in which Obama had broken 60% in 2008, barely held on in 2012, giving Obama a narrow 49-47 plurality win, his only victory in the region, and one of just four county wins in the entire state.

Many Medicaid recipients in Kentucky who supported Trump will now have to work for their benefits. Would they have done so had they known in advance?

Have republicans thought about how stupid that sounds?

you get sick in order to avoid working..


Our country is scaring the hell out of me. As a boomer I keep telling people that Medicare is only about 50 years old and keep getting these weird stares like they think it's been part of the country forever.

Kentucky did Medicaid expansion under the ACA, and that expanded eligibility to otherwise healthy or able bodied people based only on income.

Any household making under 133% of the Federal poverty level qualifies now without regard to the other factors considered before expansion like disability status. So if you have a household with one person working and one not and they qualify on income the other person would be forced to work or volunteer or something.

Essentially this will affect people who probably didn’t qualify for Medicaid before the expansion under the ACA but who do now qualify thanks to the ACA expansion.

I guess the exceptions would be people with alcohol or substanc abuse problems. The opioid crisis, etc. Theres no mental health services to speak of, so they're barely hanging on. Taking away their Medicaid coverage will block them from medical care.

Meanwhile, the Republicans defunded the community health centers and health care for children. A lot of people will have no health care, so their diabetes, hypertension, other chronic health problems will be uncontrolled. They'll go to emergency departments but rural hospitals are closing.

At this rate, there won't be any rural voters left alive.

action law suit. It's got to be unconstitutional.

If they're going to seriously take away healthcare, they'll have to create those jobs, and Ill bet Kentucky can't come up with a 10th of that.

So that any lawsuit that comes they can say “you can always find a way to volunteer it look for work one 5 hours a week”.

Since poor people probably can't afford a car or insurance and may not even have a driver's license, unless the jobs are near their homes they'll need transportation services too. Will the state provide funds to buy work appropriate clothing, poor folks usually don't have a big wardrobe.

Its mindless stupidity. If a minimum wage worker works 8 hours, and has to pay a child care facility more than minimum wage for 8 hours, plus two way transportation to the child care center, work and home, they lose money.

I don't think this going to impact as many people as they think it will. I do think it will drastically drive up the cost of administering the program to the level that there will be no net savings.

that would satisfy a state agency? Somehow I don't think a letter from the person who is being taking care of is going to cut it. If this ever happens it will impact a lot of people in a negative way. Hopefully the courts will stop this from ever happening.

population of black folks, to do ANYTHING that will give poor people a break? No, just like they've done in the past, Republicans will make sure that there is some sort of list of requirements that will prevent most people from ever qualifying for that exemption.

or they do let them qualify they will make sure their exemptions expire often.

It is one state where that is very common, along with Tennessee, Mississippi, West Virginia, Arkansas. A lot of the Whites that will be affected voted for Trump and earlier, for Blevins.

For some reason, Republicans think every single solitary person on Medicaid is an able bodied lazy leech. I wish they'd do some research as to exactly who is on Medicaid and why. Like you said, this won't impact that many people, and it could cost the state even more money. But, ya gotta make sure you teach those poor folk a lesson, right?

This is economic terrorism!

If that stays as an exception.

force volunteer work or community service too? if no jobs available?

working for the state without pay to get food vouchers to feed their families. Since all these red states are privatizing as many state facilities as they can, all this source of free labor will be a nice windfall profit for Republican donors who run private prisons, group homes, utilities, highways, airports, nursing homes, and, of course, schools.

I imagine that will be the majority of what happens, people will “job search” documenting going around and looking for work or sitting at the computer in the employment office looking over the same listings again and again.

... and read a book.

Added to your list.

The part about the advocates for the poor being horrified..

With the exemptions listed here alone, I can't see that many people being forced to work or lose healthcare. Especially with the exemptions for being homeless, a caregiver, full time students, medically frail, disabled, or pregnant. Sure, there are some that don't fall into those categories that might not already have a job, but don't the people that are already working on medicaid qualify because they are at low paying jobs? I just don't believe that everyone on medicaid is sitting at home giggling because they got one over on someone and get to sit at home doing nothing and still have health insurance. People have to pay other bills and expenses to worry about.
If they do have to work or do volunteer time, this is what they do in Germany. You get a basic income if you're out of work and everything you need is supplied, but you have to do something besides sit at home. Back when I was unemployed here nearly 25 years ago, I had to prove I had tried to get a job at 3 different places a week by filling out a post card with the contact information in order to continue to get my unemployment benefit check. It's not a new thing.

that is the trouble, there are NONE. I work for poor elderly disabled every day.....they have no lobby.

Kentucky appears to be a healthcare S-Hole which does not bode well for employment.

Mitch McConnell has to be aware of the pathetic health statistics in his state of Kentucky.
Rand Paul, the senator from Kentucky is a physician and all has to be aware of the sad state of health in his state.

Yet nationally they vote and encourage others in the senate to vote for legislation to keep people in poor heath in Kentucky and want to make health care worse for people in more advanced states.

These two men should be ashamed of themselves. They feather their own nests while trying to keep others in poor health.

Lack of health care does not just correlate with pain, it correlates with low employment opportunities.

Nationally, Kentucky had the nation’s highest percentage of edentate persons, those who have lost all their natural teeth due to tooth decay or gum disease,1 among working-age adults (age 18 to 64)2 in 2004; the second highest percentage among older adults (age 65 and older); and, as shown in Table 1, the second highest percentage among adults aged 18 and older.3 Kentucky ranks 8th for adults who have lost at least one permanent tooth due to tooth decay or gum disease and 14th for adults who have lost 6 or more teeth.4 On the brighter side, the percentage of Kentucky adults who have visited a dentist or dental clinic within the past 12 months, about 70 percent, is at the national average.5
While dental health has improved markedly here as water fluori- dation, the nation’s second highest rate,6 has helped reduce cavities and extractions, the findings of a 2001 state survey of children suggest that a high percentage of even very young children in Ken- tucky may be in pain every day, a circumstance that could affect overall health as well as the capacity to learn. Among other things, the survey found disturbingly high levels of cavities among two- to four-year-olds (47 percent), and visible, untreated tooth decay

http://www.e-archives.ky.gov/pubs/LPRC/foresighno50.pdf

Leisure time, health care, quality of life, these things will be for the rich only. The rest of us will work & toil 24x7x365 until we drop. That's the plan America, & half of you stupid shits have voted for this agenda for the past 40 years. Dumbing down America has paid off handsomely for the 1%.

Medicaid...

This is some shit...

For example, I know a family of five, the mom's unemployed sister is living with them. The husband was in a head-on with a cememt mixer and can barely take care of himself when he's not recovering from surgery (and still needs several), let alone their two under 5. The mom finally found a desk job with benefits, but someone has to take care of the people at home.

At least under that the little sister could keep Medicaid by being the dad's caregiver, and if the mom loses her job she could become eligible as the primary caretaker of the kids.

My bigger concern is being able to prove "medical frailty" without access to doctors. I was denied state Medicaid while applying for federal disability, and it's hard to prove medical conditions to the satisfaction of bureaucrats without copious records.

Last edited Sun Jan 14, 2018, 02:35 PM - Edit history (2)

Medically frail people will have to have their doctors show not only that they have a medical condition, but that condition prevents them from working.

I am not at all convinced many exemptions will be given to caregivers. Where exactly is a caregiver suppose to go to get an exemption to the satisfaction of bureaucrats?

I can see where medically frail people with access to doctors go and where college students go, but someone taking care of a sick relative is outside of institutions like doctors offices,hospitals and schools.