Your Opinion: Kehoe, GOP resist Medicaid expansion

Dear Editor:

The primary article of faith in Republican and conservative circles is the ACA must die. To achieve this objective the strategy has been to use every weapon at their disposal including deception and deceit, sabotage and subterfuge and every legislative weapon at every level of government that exists within our partisan system. The job-killing, debt-ridden health care act according to the CBO, the non-partisan arbiter, has repeatedly judged both assertions false.

The failure of the website was an embarrassing reality in the roll-out but intrinsically the website was a tool not affecting the true value in the underlying legislation.

That resistance in Missouri is defined by the adamant refusal of the Missouri Senate including Sen. Kehoe to consider Medicaid expansion. Their objections include doubt that the federal government will meet its portion of the obligations involved. This objection is based solely on their faith that the national Republican Party will win the presidency and the Senate by 2017. That is five years in which 801,665 Missourians will hope they don't get sick.

Of course, the other objection is to the fiscal viability of the legislation which indicates that they refuse to accept the non-partisan judgment of the CBO. Such distrust mates well with their hostility to the value of government but denying the possibility of a legitimate arbiter subverts a core foundation to nationhood.

The history and probable future of Kehoe and his fellow Republican senators demonstrates that resolve. They have made ever effort to impede navigators from conducting their business in Missouri, including requiring background checks which is inherently problematic considering their identifiable resistance to any expansion of the same requirement for weapon purchases.

Essentially, this Medicaid posture indicates that Kehoe cares nothing for the 7,700 constituents in Cole County who do not have insurance coverage, 3,165 of whom would be Medicaid eligible. The constituents for the rest of the senator's district are 1,885 and 770 in Osage; 1,553 and 723 in Maries; 4,196 and 1,964 in Miller; 3,502 and 1,665 in Morgan; 2,393 and 1,021 in Moniteau; and 2,204 and 1,023 in Cooper.

Senator, that is 23,433 citizens needing navigators and 10,330 meeting the Medicaid definition. Those numbers represent real people who rely upon you taking their fundamental concerns to heart.

Respond as you would if Versailles, Eldon and California suddenly were denied coverage. Being scattered does not release you from your responsibility to them.