Senator Capito and the consequences of Trumpcare for West Virginia
A straightforward article assesses the damage Trumpcare would do to West Virginia
Michael Tomasky' s thesis is stated in the headline of today's Daily Beast article:
If She Votes for Trumpcare, Her Home State Gets Mauled
And the subheading explains why:
No senator who has yet to come out for or against the health care bill faces a more open-and-shut case than Shelley Moore Capito.
He explains:
The case is plausibly built around five questions:
1. Has the Affordable Care Act had a positive impact on the state?
2. What would repeal mean for residents’ health?
3. What would repeal mean for the economy?
4. What would the bill’s massive Medicaid cuts mean for the state?
5. Given who benefits from the bill, are there large constituencies within the state about whom it could at least be said that Trumpcare would be good for them?
You can read the article for his specific answers but Tomasky's conclusion is unequivocal:
On each of these questions, the West Virginia evidence seems clear. Capito would be disserving her state and her constituents horribly if she voted yes on the bill.
Will she or won't she?
Last Wednesday, I argued that Capito would vote for the Senate version of Trumpcare. Today, I'm not as sure. I think what would really make Capito happy would be for enough Koch-backed, Tea Party-types to come out against the bill to kill any hope of passage. As a result, the vote wouldn't be taken and consequently she wouldn't have to commit. But those conservative senators may only be positioning themselves for a deal that would make the bill even "meaner" in which case she may have to vote for something that is even more destructive to West Virginians. If you watched any non-Fox cable or network television today, the news media's agenda appeared to be focused on the obvious results of this version of Trumpcare: the worsening of the opioid crisis on the non-Fox news channels this morning and today's terrible score from the CBO on the networks' nightly news.
What's Shelley been saying about healthcare?
Not much. Capito's webpage has stated nothing beyond her non-committal Thursday press release in which she noted that she was reviewing the legislation:
using several factors to evaluate whether it provides access to affordable health care for West Virginians, including those on the Medicaid expansion and those struggling with drug addiction.
Her Twitter account appears to be focused on her attempts to bring broadband to rural West Virginia.
As I finish writing this, MSNBC's Rachael Maddow is doing a segment on Trumpcare that featured the six protesters arrested earlier today at Capito's office in Charleston as well a video of Pastor Janice Hill who confronted the senator three days ago about her daughter with cancer who would not be alive if she had not been on Obamacare.