Mitch McConnell was in Shelby County on Monday, spreading his unique brand of truth about the Affordable Care Act, calling it a “federal government takeover” of health care, along with this whopper about possible Medicaid expansion in Kentucky:
McConnell told about 50 employees and volunteers at Jewish Hospital Shelbyville that the health-care reform plan, dubbed “Obamacare” by Republicans, would mean that 400,000 more people in Kentucky would be eligible for Medicaid — and that after three years, Congress will shift costs to the states.
“Don’t look for us to pick up 100 percent of the new Medicaid eligible in perpetuity,” McConnell warned them.
If McConnell had bothered to read the law (we assume he has, and just doesn’t care) or read LEO (ditto), he would know that this is completely false, as the federal government would pick up 100 percent of the tab the first three years, and then pick up 90 percent by 2020. Not zero, 90.
Rep. John Yarmuth, who called out McConnell’s health care lies in a blistering, point-by-point letter to him in April, told the C-J’s Joe Gerth that Mitch has simply given up on telling the truth on this issue:
But U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth, who voted for the reform law, defended it in a later interview. “It is clear to me that McConnell hasn’t read the law,” he said.
*****
McConnell said health insurance reform would create a system similar to the British heath care system that he says limits care and rations services.
Yarmuth said McConnell was mistaken. “Those statements are pretty much hyperbole and indicate he doesn’t know anything about our system and he doesn’t know anything about the British system and he certainly doesn’t know anything about the affordable care act,” Yarmuth said.
“He just says stuff that is only intended to scare people and inflame them and not to inform them.”
At McConnell’s shotgun Tea Party marriage ceremony yesterday, he added this whopper:
“If the government ever gets its clutches on all the health care of all 306 million Americans — which it will have if Obamacare stands — the government controls the most important concern we all have: our health and the health of our family, handed over to a centralized government.”
And to Mitch we say…