Dispatches From Bevinstan, Con't

The unstoppable Obamacare analysis machine that is Richard Mayhew takes a look at Gov. Matt Bevin's new Kentucky HEALTH Medicaid waiver and nails him to the wall in one paragraph:

The only way money is being saved as per person costs are either the same or higher is by covering fewer people. The way that Kentucky will cover fewer people is by putting up half a dozen barriers to enrollment. Premiums, health savings accounts, limited open re-enrollment periods, benefit lock-outs and job training requirements all are barriers. Individually any of those barriers might only knock a few people out from the pool, but they are a bewildering array of complexity when put together. The goal of this type of waiver design is to reduce costs by making more people go without insurance.

And if all that sounds familiar, that's the same exact plan Republicans are using to keep people from voting, to keep people from getting abortions, and to keep people from taking advantage of a host of other government programs.  If you make it too obnoxious to get, then people will start going without it.

Bevin is no different.  His plan is designed to kick people off the Medicaid rolls, period, and claim that they're too lazy to jump through the hoops he set up to get back on.  It's not his fault people aren't going to do all the things he's making them do in order to get health coverage, you see, it just weeds out the bad ones.

The reality is far different, but Bevin doesn't care.  Once again, we punish the poors and tell ourselves that if we ever needed Medicaid, that we would follow all the rules out of "dignity".

And this state will buy that line of crap every time.