Fox News
by Alan Colmes
October 5, 2013
It’s outrageous that Republican-controlled states are doing everything they can to thwart implementation of the Affordable Care Act, AKA Obamacare. Many of these are Southern states with a large number of poor and minority residents.
The New York Times has noted that many residents of red states are getting royally screwed because their elected officials refuse to participate. As I previously noted in the link to that article, two-thirds of poor blacks and single mothers and more than half of low-wage workers who don’t have insurance are being left in the cold.
Scott Maxwell in the Orlando Sentinel has it right about the shameful behavior of Republican Florida legislators who are rejecting $51 billion in federal dollars that would help the needy in their state. Florida House Speaker Will Weatherford said he was “proud” to reject expansion of Medicaid. To do a little PR on their ill-begotten behavior, lawmakers increased the cost of their own benefits, instead of doing what they should have done: take the free money offered by the federal government to provide benefits for all. Miley Cyrus is currently making better decisions than these people. Even presidential chest-poker Jan Brewer, Arizona’s governor, is taking the dough, saying, “It’s pro-life, it’s saving lives, it is creating jobs, it is saving hospitals.”