Superb job by Washington Post reporter Laura Vozzella in pulling together her story in today’s paper, “Puckett’s Senate exit undid McAuliffe’s secret plan for Medicaid expansion.” Basically, it’s a blow-by-blow account, with fascinating quotes and details, of how then-Sen. Phil Puckett’s resignation from the Virginia State Senate contributed (or did it?> to killing Gov. McAuliffe’s attempt to expand Medicaid unilaterally. I definitely recommend you read the entire thing, but here are a few highlights that jumped out at me.
*Gov. McAuliffe’s voice mail message to former Sen. Puckett after it became clear that Medicaid expansion was dead: “Hey Phil? Terry McAuliffe. I want you to know we just lost the vote, 20 to 19, in the Senate. Medicaid is done. I hope you sleep easy tonight, buddy.”
*”McAuliffe desperately needed Puckett in the Senate to take the daring step of expanding Medicaid on his own, using budget language the Democratic governor hoped to sneak past Republicans.”
*This incident, and the anger/bitterness it engendered, “are likely to make it more difficult for McAuliffe to work with a GOP-controlled legislature to get anything done during the remainder of his term.”
*New information: “Even as McAuliffe’s aides were spinning Puckett’s resignation as a sign of nasty Republican dealmaking, they were working desperately to strike a deal of their own to keep Puckett in the Senate – to protect a secret plan to pass Medicaid expansion without direct legislative approval.”
*Gov. McAuliffe “has given a colorful account of their conversation in recent social settings, according to two people he separately regaled. The tale begins with McAuliffe begging the senator to stay and ends with him wishing aloud that Puckett ‘rot in hell.'”
*Whether this whole scheme to expand Medicaid unilaterally would have worked is highly dubious, regardless, as the Republican-controlled House of Delegates still would have vehemently opposed it. Regardless, after “Bull Elephant blogger Steve Albertson, spott[ed] the language and warn[ed] that it was a loophole McAuliffe might try to exploit,” the last nail was definitely hammered into the coffin.
In the end, of course, the substantive – and tragic – thing about all this is simple: 400,000 Virginians will NOT receive health care coverage due to Republicans’ don’t-bother-us-with-facts, ideological and political opposition. And billions of dollars of our own tax dollars will NOT flow to Virginia’s economy thanks to the right wing. So, yes, Gov. McAuliffe has every right to be angry at “Benedict Puckett” and the Republicans, as do the rest of us. Not sure about “rotting in hell” for anyone, but how about we vote as many of these folks out of office next November? (actually, we can start by electing Kathleen Murphy in a few weeks to fill Barbara Comstock’s vacated House of Delegates seat)
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