Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is going to need some answers.
Meet one of the
millions of white, employed Southerners who are most likely to lose health insurance if the Supreme Court strikes down the part of Obamacare that provides financial help to customers buying on the federal exchange. She's
Erin Meredith, a 37-year-old fifth generation Republican in Texas, who was opposed to Obamacare as just another government handout, she told
The Washington Post. Then she got divorced and lost her health insurance. Her job doesn't offer insurance. She was also diagnosed with a rare blood disorder that was leaving her with headaches and fatigue and potentially life-crippling medical bills. At a friend's urging, she checked out Healthcare.gov. For $89 a month, she has coverage.
Now that she has coverage, she doesn't want to lose it. "I can still feed my kids and put gas in my car," she said. "I'm not trying to go to Cancun or carry a Michael Kors bag. I drive a 2009 Mazda, and I'm just trying to make it in my little apartment and not be on government assistance."
She has an important question of her state's political leadership in the event the Supreme Court rules against her.
"If they're not going to participate in Obamacare and I'm not going to have these financial benefits, which will force me to pay $220 a month for coverage, do you know if Greg Abbott, our governor, has any plan to offer something comparable?" Meredith asked in an e-mail. "I understand and support his efforts to put Washington back in its place. I just don't want that to come at the cost of hard-working Texans and their ability to maintain medical coverage."
That, ladies and gentlemen, is the question that the
8.2 million people who are going to lose their health insurance want their Republican leadership to answer. (As far as Abbott goes, his spokesman chose not to answer that question when the
Washington Post reporter asked it.) To make matters worse for Republicans, their states
have seen the highest enrollments in this second year of Obamacare, meaning there will be lots more people who have shiny new affordable health insurance that they might not be able to pay for by the end of the year. That means millions more demanding to know what they're going to do about it.
So far, they got nuthin'. And it seems like some of them are just fine with that and don't see any problem with kicking the can down the road until after the next election. They seem to be under the impression that their constituents aren't smart enough to figure out who to blame if that happens.
Ms. Meredith's pointed question to her Republican governor should be enough to convince them otherwise.
