Mitch McConnell’s Big Obamacare-Kynect Lie

Sleazy Liar, Mitch McConnell

Like many Republicans, Senator Mitch McConnell appears to be assuming that enough voters are too stupid to figure out that he is lying to them.  How so?  McConnell, like his disingenuous fellow Republicans is campaigning for re-election by running against Obamacare and promising its repeal.  The problem is that Kynect, a very popular program in Kentucky covering nearly a half million Kentucky residents that is in fact a form of Medicaid expansion under Obamacare, would be repealed if Obamacare is repealed.   McConnell is hoping that Kentucky voters are too stupid to figure this out - at least not until AFTER election day.  A piece in The Daily Beast looks at McConnell's campaign of lies.  Here are excerpts:

There’s just one problem with it. McConnell has made about a mistake a week so far! He’s run an awful campaign. And he’s given anybody no reason at all to think he won’t just keep making them.

The latest is maybe the biggest howler yet . . . . He said last week that while he will certainly still pursue repeal of Obamacare, he thinks Kentucky should be able to and will keep its celebrated Kynect health-care exchange, set up by Democratic Governor Steve Beshear under the Affordable Care Act.
McConnell took three questions on the Affordable Care Act and how its repeal would affect the 413,000 Kentuckians who now have insurance through the state exchange, Kynect. The first question asked how he would respond to those who say repeal would take away the healthcare of 413,000 Kentuckians, to which McConnell launched into his standard answer that Obamacare was raising premiums, raising deductibles, and killing jobs, concluding, “It was a big mistake, we ought to pull it out root and branch and start over.”

WHAS’ Joe Arnold followed up that answer by asking, “But if you repeal it, won’t all of the state exchanges be dismantled? How does that work?” McConnell then launched into his standard “solution” of sorts, calling for an “international market” of insurance companies that aren’t limited by state lines, in addition to “malpractice reform.”

The LEO [Weekly] writer, Joe Sonka,  . . . “Kynect could not have existed without the Affordable Care Act, and it would cease to exist if the Affordable Care Act ceased to exist. There would be no people eligible for the expanded Medicaid—the large majority of those who signed up through Kynect—and there would be no exchange for people to sign up for affordable private insurance with federal subsidies. Saying that Kynect is unconnected with the ACA or its repeal is just mind-numbingly false. The ACA and Kynect are one in the same.”

This gives Grimes an opening she didn’t have. More than 430,000 Kentuckians have health care now through Kynect. Mitch wants to take it away. No, wait, he doesn’t! Well, he wants to take Obamacare away, and Kynect came through Obamacare, but somehow he’s going to keep Kynect.

Grimes’ media team, a talented bunch in my experience, should be able to have quite a lot of fun with this.  The Lexington Herald-Leader sure did, raking McConnell over the coals Wednesday. It wrote:

Asked specifically if Kynect should be dismantled, McConnell said: “I think that’s unconnected to my comments about the overall question.”

Huh?  That’s a quote that should live forever, or at least until Election Day. The super-smart insiders may be right, though, about one thing. McConnell won’t make “a mistake.” He’ll make several.

Let's be frank.  I loathe Mitch McConnell and would break out a bottle of champagne if he loses on election day.