September 22, 2017

At the end of her show last night, Rachel Maddow had some actually breaking news:

...all Medicaid directors from every state in the country, all 50 states, have now just come out against the Republican bill to repeal Obamacare. This is the National Association of Medicare Directors, the directors from every state.

Talking Points Memo fleshed out the story:

Matt Salo, the executive director of the NAMD, told TPM that while it’s nearly impossible for his members to achieve “lock-step unanimity” on anything, especially major, controversial pieces of legislation, the board “felt the concerns were strong enough and universal enough that this was an important message to say on behalf of their peers.”

The Medicaid directors’ association is the latest stakeholder to come out against the Graham-Cassidy bill that Congress may vote on by the end of the month, joining with insurers, hospitals, doctors, medical groups and Republican and Democratic governors who oppose the legislation’s deep cuts to Medicaid and weakening of protections for people with pre-existing conditions.

In particular, NAMD notes that under the bill, states would have only two years to completely redesign their health insurance systems and more than half of them would be dealing with a deep funding cut at the same time.

Rachel chatted with Lawrence O'Donnell as she handed over coverage to his show.

LAWRENCE O'DONNELL: Block granting is the Republican dream for decades. This is the closest they have come.

RACHEL MADDOW: And the directors of Medicaid, the largest insurance program and provider of any kind in the country are now screaming bloody murder about this, all 50 states.

O'DONNELL: You find out how well Medicare and Medicaid actually work because you can talk about it, either way, depending on how much time you have. Here's what you would like to do better in Medicare. Here's what you would like to do better in Medicaid. You find out just how valuable they are and mean to people and state governments when you try to take any piece of them away.

I was glad to see the segment end with Maddow's reminder that Graham-Cassidy is a Republican bill being negotiated so that it will pass with only Republican votes and that it is a partisan bill coming from Republicans. That gets lost in the conversation way too often, I'm looking at you, Chuck "the mess in Washington" Todd.

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