The Republican mayor of Bellhaven, N.C. has been pushing for his state to expand Medicaid under the health care law, and argues that failing to do so will cost the GOP in the 2014 elections.
Mayor Adam O’Neal places at least some of the blame for the closure of his town’s hospital on the state’s failure to expand Medicaid. He is making a 273 mile trek on foot from North Carolina to Washington, D.C. to call attention to the hospital’s closure, Blue Virginia reported.
Vidant Health purchased the Pungo District Hospital in 2011, but then ended up closing the facility, which had been designated a critical care center.
“We’ve had our health care stolen,” O’Neal said during a speech in Woodbridge, Va. on Saturday, adding that Vidant makes millions each year even though it’s a non-profit. “It’s immoral for a company to take health care away from people and keep your non-profit designation.”
O’Neal argues that North Carolina’s failure to expand Medicaid hurts hospitals in poor areas because they are missing out on federal reimbursements for providing care for those without insurance.
“We need to stop playing politics with this,” he said. “I’m afraid that my Republican colleagues in North Carolina are going to get killed this fall because of Medicaid expansion. There’s 500,000 people in North Carolina that could have insurance coverage the next 2 years and not cost the state a dime, and the state’s not accepting that. Now, if you’re representing the citizens, how can you not do that?”
Watch O’Neal’s Saturday speech:
H/t Raw Story
It should, but it will only be an issue if the Democrats make it one, and Democrats in red states seem to be loath to connect themselves with the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and thus with Obama. Will any Democrat in a state like North Carolina have the courage to link him- or herself with the
niblack man in the White House?The GOTP has really painted themselves into a corner. How can you be for and against something at the same time?
Oh, right it is possible if you are crazy.
Obvious answer: your “Republican colleagues” are not “representing the citizens”.
They’re representing sociopathic, corporate One-Percenters who don’t give a rat’s ass about useful vidiots duped into Foxnesia each election cycle.
This is one admirable man!
I have a feeling this is a sign of things to come…
The Medicaid refusals are resulting in hospital closures, particularly in smaller towns/rural areas, exasperating an already tough situation. As the pain to red state officials like this mayor increase, more and more of them are going to start peeling off of the ideological tract.
After all, its one thing to be against a law that isn’t implemented…but now we are talking real money.