A Fact Checker Responds To Mitch McConnell’s Dishonesty On Obamacare

In response to the issue discussed yesterday where Mitch McConnell simultaneously opposed the Affordable Care Act and supported Kynect, the computer exchange set up in Kentucky as part of the Affordable Care Act, Glenn Kessler exchanged email with Jesse Benton, McConnell’s campaign manager. Benton made some absurd statements such as that,  “When Obamacare is repealed, Kentucky can choose to continue Kynect or alter it in a way that makes the best sense for Kentuckians.” As discussed yesterday, Kynect cannot exist without Obamacare.

Benton also tried to separate the benefits of the expanded Medicaid program from the Affordable Care Act:

Medicaid existed before Obamacare and will continue to exist after repeal. Kynect is not Medicaid. It is a state administered exchange that provides a marketplace for private insurance plans.  While some 300,000 Kentuckians discovered they were eligible for Medicaid through Kynect, they do not purchase private insurance through the exchange; they are enrolled in the state-administered program.

The expansion of Medicaid is another aspect of the Affordable Care Act, with the federal government paying the bulk of the cost of this expansion. If Obamacare is repealed, there would not be either Kynect or the expanded Medicaid program which many in Kentucky have benefited from.

Benton also claimed that people in Kentucky “would move back to HSA’s and other higher deductible plans they had pre-Obamacare to receive a higher quality of care.” However there were no previous plans for most of these people as 75 percent of the newly insured in both Medicaid and the exchange were previously uninsured. High deductible plans and HSA’s work well for upper income individuals, but they are not a good solution for those with lower incomes who cannot afford to pay high deductibles or place money in HSA’s.

Kessler concluded:

McConnell appears to have accepted the Medicaid expansion that has been so embraced by his state’s residents, while drawing a distinction with the Obamacare health plans sold on the statewide exchange. Given that three out of four of the newly insured in Kentucky ended up on Medicaid, that probably makes political sense—and also is newsworthy.

But the history of individual state exchanges shows it is not credible for McConnell to suggest that the state exchange would survive without the broad health-care system constructed by the Affordable Care Act, such as an individual mandate and subsidies to buy insurance. Given the popularity of the state exchange, McConnell appears to want to offer out hope it would continue even in the unlikely case the law was actually repealed. That’s likely not a tenable position, and we will pay close attention to McConnell’s phrasing on this issue in the future. The senator is clearly trying to straddle a political fence; when doing so, it’s easy to lose your balance.

I do find it strange that Kessler decided to review the exchange with the above conclusion “rather than a traditional fact check.” These statements from McConnell and his campaign manager are clearly dishonest. Kessler has declared statements which were far more ambiguous to be dishonest in the past. I do applaud his decision to concentrate on reviewing the facts as opposed to jumping to awarding Pinocchios, but hope that this new policy applies to both parties.

In related news, a new Wenzel Strategies poll (a Republican pollster with a reputation for a strong pro-Republican “house effect”) has Mitch McConnell leading Democratic challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes by 47 percent to 44 percent. The closeness of the race is encouraging but it is hard to see Kentucky voting in a Democratic senator.