Well how about these apples:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/...
In an interview with National Journal last week, Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, expected to be effectively unopposed for the Republican nomination for the open U.S. Senate seat in West Virginia, had some of the kindest words yet for one of Obamacare's key provisions from a GOP candidate.
"Coverage is great and having more people covered is excellent," Capito said of the expansion. She included a number of caveats -- she's concerned about long-term costs -- but she simultaneously acknowledged that repealing Obamacare is likely an unachievable goal and that aiming to improve the health care reform law while keeping people insured is a preferable pursuit.
"Hopefully, when I get to the Senate and we begin to make changes in the Affordable Care Act, that we will be able to find a way through tax credits and subsidies to keep folks in that insured area," she said. "And then, as they move up and we grow the economy -- because of better policies we're putting forward -- once they move up they're able to move out of that category, maybe in a more gradual fashion than one day you're on, one day you're off."
Capito's borderline heresy likely has a very pragmatic source: Medicaid expansion is a pretty good deal for her state. With the federal government covering all of the expansion costs for the first three years and 90 percent thereafter, the Kaiser Family Foundation projects that 116,000 West Virginians would be covered by the expansion by 2022.
In a state with 268,600 uninsured residents, according to Kaiser, that's a significant breakthrough. Capito seems to have calculated that, although the race leans in her favor, according to the Cook Political Report, she can't be seen as proposing to strip newly obtained health coverage from her low-income constituents. The top Democratic in the race also staked out support for Medicaid expansion in a statement. - TPM, 1/27/14
I'll give Capito this: it's a smart move. She's a Republican running in a red state but she knows her home state, which is run by Democrats, won't accept the Tea Party ideology:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/...
Capito has the freedom to speak out because she has no serious opponent for the GOP nomination. While conservative activists, most notably the Club for Growth, made some early noise about challenging her from the right, she's now on a glide path through the primary.
"We can't keep getting in circular firing squads," Capito said Thursday. "I think that's useless."
Her lack of a primary foe could pay off, as Capito can start moving to the political center right away in a state that most believe is a must-win if Republicans are to retake control of the Senate in 2014.
Capito's likely Democratic opponent, West Virginia Secretary of State Natalie Tennant, is set to file her paperwork on Friday. And Democrats are determined not to let Capito define herself as anything but a creature of Washington and the unpopular House Republican majority. Justin Barasky, a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said that Capito has "consistently supported the reckless and irresponsible Washington special interest agenda" that led to last fall's shutdown and the suspension of long-term unemployment benefits this month.
Capito said she admired women GOP senators who bridged the partisan divide in 2013, citing Murkowski and New Hampshire's Kelly Ayotte in particular.
"The women in the Senate and how they're brokering agreements and reaching across party lines... as a fellow woman, I look at it from afar and I think I know where they are," Capito said. "They've just reached the breaking point, like you do with your family when your kids are fighting—when you sort of look at them and say, 'That's enough. We're stopping this right now. We're going to find a solution.' I think that's a real credit to them in the Senate, and I'd like to be a part of that." - National Journal, 1/23/14
But if the Tea Party didn't have a candidate or pose a real threat, one has to wonder if Capito would truly be in favor of Medicaid expansion. I doubt that she would. Capito's opponent, Secretary of State Natalie Tennant (D. WV), has always been a supporter of expanding Medicaid in West Virginia:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
The Dem candidate for Senate, Secretary of State Natalie Tennant, has criticized Obamacare, arguing that premiums are too high and choice too limited. She has not said whether she would have voted for it, claiming she’d have brought “more West Virginia values” to the debate over passage.
But Tennant does not support repeal, and she supports the Medicaid expansion. A Tennant campaign spokesperson emails me this:
“Natalie supports West Virginia’s decision to expand Medicaid so that West Virginia tax dollars don’t go to provide health coverage for people in other states.”
Tennant supports the expansion as fiscally responsible (which is easier than calling for the expansion of a government program for the poor). But Tennant has also stressed that as the mother of a child with a pre-existing condition, she “understands the anxiety associated with not having access to affordable health care.” - Washington Post, 1/21/14
And Tennant has vowed to campaign in all 55 counties, so she's been able to tell voters of her support for expanding Medicaid:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
"I'm running to put West Virginia first," Tennant said in a statement. "That's why I'm taking my campaign directly to the people of West Virginia to make their voices heard."
Tennant announced her campaign for Senate in September of 2013. She ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2011, and previously worked as a television anchor and businesswoman. She is also known for becoming West Virginia University's first female Mountaineer mascot. - Huffington Post, 1/6/14
If you would like to get involved with or donate to Tennant's campaig, you can do so here:
http://natalietennant.com/