Bill Straub: McConnell, Paul stubbornly ignore facts while pushing ahead efforts to dismantle Obamacare

WASHINGTON – Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Rand Paul often seem to possess a sense of humor that makes the Grim Reaper look like Mel Brooks, yet it appears they are gaining inspiration from, of all things, Monty Python.

Specifically, the two Republican lawmakers, and others in the GOP Dead End Club, look to be taking their cues on the Affordable Care Act – aka Obamacare – from Python’s riotous “dead parrot’’ sketch, where John Cleese attempts to return a deceased bird he purchased earlier because “it is no more.’’ Michael Palin, the pet store clerk, brazenly and witlessly, rejects Cleese’s assertion, insisting that the lifeless avian is “only resting.’’

In this case, McConnell and Paul have assumed the persona of the dense shop clerk who remains steadfast in his position despite convincing evidence that said parrot is “definitely deceased.’’ Obamacare, by all reasonable measures, has proved successful beyond all expectations. Yet they persist in spewing the line that it has been a tragic failure and must be killed – even though they have proposed nothing to take its place.

McConnell called the law “a national nightmare’’ and led the charge in the upper chamber to repeal it, a move that proved temporarily successful – temporary only because President Obama wasted no time issuing a veto and the Louisville lawmaker doesn’t have the necessary votes to override.

“Obamacare is a direct attack on the middle class of our country,’’ McConnell said. “It’s a partisan law that puts ideology before people and hurts many of the Americans it was supposed to help,’’ comparing the law to “a train wreck.’’

Meanwhile, back in the commonwealth, shiny, new Gov. Matt Bevin already has taken steps to shutdown kynect, the on-line marketplace created as a result of Obamacare that provides Kentuckians with an opportunity to compare and contrast available health insurance policies so they can determine the policy that best fits their needs.

Bevin, shortsighted as ever, plans to direct shoppers to the marketplace operated by the federal government, which likely will offer fewer options and, thus, increase personal costs, which he then, undoubtedly, will blame on Obama.

And, please, let’s not forget our boy from Bowling Green, the man who won’t be president, who refused to sit at the kids’ table and eat his peas after being relegated to the second team in the most recent Republican presidential debate, who characterized Obamacare as “a job-killing disaster.’’

The assessments from McConnell and Paul are close to delusional and easily thwarted. Yet they and others continue to run the old “who are you going to believe – me or your own eyes?’’ scam, assuming the persona of Professor Harold Hill from “The Music Man.’’

Their gambit has proved frustratingly effective. A Gallup Poll released in November 2015 shows that nationwide 44 percent of those questioned approve of Obamacare while 52 percent disapprove. The law is probably less popular in Kentucky – where the president compares unfavorably to Christian Laettner – even though almost 110,000 purchased private plans through kynect last year and about 400,000 have benefitted from Medicaid expansion under the program.

Since the law was adopted in 2010, Kentucky has seen its uninsured rate decline by 55.9 percent. Not exactly the sort of failure rate McConnell keeps referring to. But let’s look further.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported that 11.7 million individuals signed up for marketplace coverage during the program’s first two open enrollment periods and that 12.2 million more were enrolled in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program as of March 2015. Coverage gains were largest in states, like Kentucky, that expanded Medicaid.

In assessing the data, the Journal for the American Medical Association concluded that Obamacare’s first two open enrollment periods “were associated with significantly improved trends in self-reported coverage, access to primary care and medications, affordability and health. Low-income adults in states that expanded Medicaid reported significant gains in insurance coverage and access compared with adults in states that did not expand Medicaid.’’

That, by the way, is what McConnell refers to as “a national nightmare.’’

Leave us proceed.

Studies firmly establish that health insurance premiums, which McConnell and other foes insist are bankrupting the middle class, are far below initial forecasts. Implementation of the law, funded through taxes and spending cuts, is projected to cost better than $100 billion less than anticipated.

In late December, the Office of the Actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services revised its estimate of national health care spending growth for 2013, placing it at 2.9 percent – the lowest level since the Eisenhower years, which occurred before the creation of Medicaid and Medicare. Meanwhile, Research funded by the Commonwealth Fund and published earlier this month in Health Affairs showed that in Kentucky, which expanded Medicaid, individuals who failed to fill a prescription because of costs fell by almost 10 percent more than in Texas, which turned its back on expansion.

The share of those struggling to pay medical bills in Kentucky, according to the report, fell by nearly 9 percentage points more than in Texas while the share of adults with chronic conditions receiving regular care in the commonwealth increased by nearly 12 percentage points over the Lone Star State.

And yet another study found “only limited evidence’’ that the Affordable Care Act’s coverage provisions and employer mandate would lead to an increase in part-time employment despite dire warnings from the law’s foes. The researchers, Asako Moriya, of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and Professor Kosali Simon of the Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs said they did not find increases in 2015 “in the probability of working either 25–29 hours or fewer than 25 hours per week.’’

Some train wreck.

After vilifying a successful program that has literally aided hundreds of thousands of the folks they’re supposed to represent, neither McConnell nor Paul have developed an Obamacare alternative to Obamacare, something that they can at least say achieves everything the law promises and then some.

Of course they could have done that while the law was being developed, working with the administration and the then-Democratic majority in the Senate to address any concerns they might have. But no, this is politics McConnell style, opposing Obama initiatives at every turn simply because they’re offered up by the Democratic president, regardless of the misery spread across the commonwealth.

Of course perhaps they prefer the pre-Obamacare system, depriving the more than a half-million Kentuckians of the coverage they gained under the law.

Talk about train wrecks.

Washington correspondent Bill Straub served 11 years as the Frankfort Bureau chief for The Kentucky Post. He also is the former White House/political correspondent for Scripps Howard News Service. He currently resides in Silver Spring, Maryland, and writes frequently about the federal government and politics. Email him at williamgstraub@gmail.com.