Do Trump, Matt Bevin Share Healthcare Views? Kentucky’s Medicaid Slams To A Halt
Donald Trump has certainly put out several ideas about what he would do if he was elected as president of the United States, but is Trump as off-the-chain about healthcare as newly elected Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin?
After only two months with Bevin in office, Kentucky senators have banded together to let voters know they feel threatened by Bevin. Their cry for help in the March 28 edition of the Courier-Journal includes their devastation over Bevin’s fatal move with shutting down the Kynect system that has subsequently left thousands of Kentuckians without Medicaid coverage.
According to their opinion piece, in the past two weeks, the canceling of Kentucky’s Kynect Medicaid access system has caused “massive, potentially catastrophic results.”
The Kentucky senators opposing Governor Matt Bevin state, “Thousands of Kentuckians have received letters requesting information already provided, been denied services by their doctors because their policies are unknowingly canceled, and refused life-saving medications at pharmacies because their medical cards are invalid.”
This means that people in Kentucky could be dying or becoming sick because of Governor Bevin’s actions, but would Donald Trump do the same thing nationwide if he gets elected?
So far, it does not look that way, but nothing Trump ever says is set in stone. Nevertheless, Donald Trump’s scattered ideas for healthcare thus far seem humane compared to Matt Bevin’s anti-Kynect measures.
Although he was silent for most of the month of March on the healthcare issue, Donald Trump announced on March 30 that one of the three most important aspects of government are “healthcare, national security, and education,” according to a March 30 report from Healthcare IT News.
In the past, Reuters stated around March 2 that Trump wanted to create a “Block Grant Program” for Medicaid. Trump went as far as saying, “We must also make sure that no one slips through the cracks simply because they cannot afford insurance” which is something Matt Bevin may not be considering.
Around March 3, a physician, Dr. Marc Siegel, took on Trump’s plan and reported he was looking forward to Trump’s healthcare plan that he had recently defined, according to FOX News.
Among the things this doctor said Trump would improve under the current Obamacare model included “spiraling premiums, limited access to providers, high deductibles that hamstring poor and middle-class patients and heavy federal subsidies and related tax hikes.”
Contradicting the idea that Trump would be overturning every aspect of Obamacare, Forbes clarifies that Trump’s “block grants” plan for each state was very similar to the one Obama already has in place and states the following.
“[G]iving states flexibility to administer Medicaid isn’t a new idea because administrations from Obama through both Bushes to Reagan have granted waivers of all kinds.”
Other anti-Obamacare writers took on Donald Trump’s healthcare plan and some even said Trump would make Obamacare more expensive for the national deficit.
For example, on March 10, Weekly Standard also wrote about Trump’s healthcare ideas with detailed descriptions about how Trump’s plan was either similar to or needed more money to operate than Obamacare.
Despite their opposing ideas about Obamacare, the one healthcare issue that Matt Bevin and Donald Trump can agree on is “punishing women” for having abortions if the procedure is outlawed.
Although that sounds like strong language to many, these were Donald Trump’s exact words, and CNN reports that he later backtracked around March 30 stating “women who obtain abortions are victims and that doctors who perform the service are the ones who should be punished.”
Over in Kentucky, Matt Bevin has also been working diligently to file lawsuits against agencies that provide legal abortions such as Planned Parenthood, according to WDRB.
Regardless, if Trump is elected, at least Americans can be thankful that he does not share Matt Bevin’s reckless healthcare ideals.
On March 28, the Courier-Journal printed an opinion piece where the author shows a long list of ways that Matt Bevin has been ham-handed with governing Kentucky, and how the state’s healthcare system was now “on life support.”
In the end, Matt Bevin and Donald Trump may need to pay less attention to abortion and more to other forms of healthcare because the press may not ignore a real-life body count in Kentucky incurred from denying sick people medications under Medicaid.
While the impact of canceling the Kynect Medicaid access system in Kentucky might lead to actual deaths, Bevin has his eyes on other proposed laws that seem to place a heavy focus on getting Kentucky lawmakers to ban abortion.
So far, Bevin has gotten a fifth “informed consent” abortion law to pass in addition to the four anti-abortion laws proposed such as “Abortion, clinic standards, SB 212,” “Abortion: Ultrasounds, SB 152,” “Abortion: Planned Parenthood, SB 7,” and “Abortion limits: HB 257.”
[Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images]
