Residents of the Bluegrass State like Kynect, “the name Beshear smartly gave [the marketplace] in the run-up to the launch,” writes Brill.
But ask them if they like Obamacare, and their story changes: “Polls consistently report that voters in Kentucky approve of Kynect, even if they voice disapproval when asked about Obamacare. Again, Kynect is Obamacare.”
The fact that Kentuckians like Obamacare in theory, but not Obama, or anything with his name on it, has led to a predicament for two Senate challengers, who are fighting one of the most closely watched Senate races in the country. Incumbent Sen. Mitch McConnell is a staunch opponent of the law and has called for its repeal. Four days after the state exchange’s successful launch, Sen. McConnell joined with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to attack the governor over the launch in a Kentucky-Inquirer op-ed (selected quotes taken from Brill’s article):
“The governor likes to tout his so-called discounts for health insurance…What he won’t tell you is that most Kentuckians won’t receive them … As so often happens when our friends on the left set out to fix a problem, their ideas, however well-intentioned, end up hurting the very people they sought to help. That’s just what we’re seeing with Obamacare.”
Yet, recently McConnell has quieted a bit on the anti-healthcare reform front. “McConnell— who is in a hard-fought race to retain his Senate seat — is no longer writing op-eds attacking the health-reform law. He’s not talking much about it at all,” writes Brill.
His attempts to separate himself from his dislike of the law hasn’t gone so smoothly in recent months. At a news conference in May, he called the state exchange “disconnected” from Obamacare, causing the Washington Post to publish, “What did Mitch McConnell mean when he suggested the Kentucky state exchange was ‘unconnected’ to Obamacare?”
Brill gives more detail on the May gaffe:
“Responding to a reporter’s question about the apparent success and popularity of the law in his state, he said that while he still wanted Obamacare to be repealed, he saw no reason people getting their new coverage from Kynect would have to lose it.
When I asked McConnell campaign spokeswoman Allison More to clarify how people could keep Kynect if the subsidies and Medicaid expansion provided by Obamacare were repealed, she insisted that I put the questions in writing. I did, but I never heard back except to get a boilerplate statement a week later that McConnell “supports replacing it [Obamacare] with commonsense reforms that actually lower costs for patients.”
While one might think Democrat challenger Allison Grimes has it easy as a supporter of the law, you’d be mistaken. “While Obamacare may not help McConnell or hurt Grimes, it is not likely to generate the same kind of partisan loyalty for Obama and Democrats generally that Medicare and Social Security did,” writes Brill.
Remember, half the residents don’t like Obamacare, despite liking Kynect. As such, Grimes has also had to distance herself from the Affordable Care Act, at least in its “Obamacare” form.
“Apparently sensitive to the popularity of the law among those benefiting from it but worried about supporting anything linked to Obama, she has said Obamacare should not be repealed and taken away from Kentuckians but that changes should be made. However, she hasn’t specified what those changes would be,” writes Brill.
The narrative writes itself. A Red state. A Red governor, who did something very Blue, but is loved for it. A Red senator, the 4th-longest serving Republican in the senate, who doesn’t quite know how to handle the fact he supported a law, the impact of which most of his residents like. A shiny, young blue challenger, who can’t embrace the law too much or risk seeming just too blue.
It will be the race to watch in November, and I’ll be glued to the news to see how their references to the Affordable Care Act and Obamacare change as the race draws nearer.
Perhaps the best political bet for both of them is to try to move the conversation away from healthcare and toward other hot issues in the state, like coal production and gun laws.
But then again, would anyone in Washington care? In the Red state that beat Obama at enacting a very blue law, it’s healthcare that’s interesting and most closely watched.
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