Gov. Rick Snyder
Gov. Rick Snyder (R-MI) takes the award for biggest Obamcare flip-flop among Republican governors. Just
last year Snyder didn't think Medicaid expansion was going to be good for his state, with a bullshit line about how it would be taking people out of great emergency room care to something else. Yes, that makes no sense. But Snyder isn't a complete dummy, and he realized—in this election year—that he had to reverse course and take the expansion.
Now facing an extremely tight race, and hoping that the voting population of Michigan has short memories, Snyder is bragging about the program's success.
LANSING — Gov. Rick Snyder on Tuesday touted Michigan's successful Medicaid expansion as part of his re-election bid, saying 63,000 more low-income adults have signed up than projected this year, with 3 ½ months left. […]
His embrace of a key component of the federal health care law roiled conservative activists. But Snyder's campaign is hoping expanded Medicaid's appeal among the broader electorate helps him in November.
Snyder is veering sharply left, taking a chance that more voters will reward him for doing the right thing than Republicans will punish him. It's a pretty good reflection of just how much the landscape on Obamacare has changed for the 2010 class of Republican governors. Elected by the extreme tea party masses on pretty much one thing and one thing only—Obamacare—they're discovering how hard it is to run against something that's working. This race shows more than any that there just isn't any teeth left in attacking Obamacare. It also means that Snyder isn't going to be able to use the fact that Democrat Mark Schauer, his opponent, voted for Obamacare when he was in the House.
Meanwhile, Schauer can remind voters of Snyder's tea party past. That and the fact that, "it took him a long time to get [expansion] done. It cost the state $600 million or so," in lost Medicaid money alone. Schauer is not going to let Snyder claim this political win.
Please give $3 today, to help Mark Schauer take his state back.