According to all the polls leading up to last Tuesday’s gubernatorial election in Kentucky, Republican businessman Matt Bevin wasn’t supposed to have a chance. This was the same Matt Bevin who had launched a lamentably unsuccessful primary campaign last year against Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and was treated by much of the press in the state (OK, technically the commonwealth) as a loose cannon who couldn’t be taken seriously.
But Mr. Bevin pounded away at ObamaCare. And if you’re wondering why, since that’s ostensibly a national issue, you might recall that the whole idea of ObamaCare was for states (or in this case, commonwealths) to set up their own exchanges for people to buy and sell ObamaCare-approved policies.
Kentucky was one of the few who chose to do so, under the leadership of Democrat Gov. Steve Beshear. And didn’t go so well, either for Beshear or for this year’s Democrat gubernatorial nominee Jack Conway, as the Wall Street Journal reports:
The national press had made Kentucky a showcase of the Affordable Care Act, touting Democratic Governor Steve Beshear’s state-run exchange, KYnect, and his Medicaid expansion. The local results weren’t so cheery. Two-fifths of Kentucky hospitals have had to cut services due to soaring Medicaid costs.
Thousands of residents lost the health-care plans they liked, and most insurers on Kynect are increasing premiums by double-digits. In terrible timing for Mr. Conway, the Kentucky Health Cooperative, the largest insurer on the ObamaCare exchange, imploded in October, leaving 51,000 residents without coverage.
Mr. Bevin hammered away at all this, promising to shutter Kynect, hand the mess back to a federal exchange, and limit the Medicaid expansion. The Republican Governors Association dropped a late $2.5 million ad blitz on ObamaCare, quoting Mr. Conway as saying he “would have been proud to vote for” the bill had he been in Washington. Other ads tagged Mr. Conway for continuing to support a law that is “hurting Kentucky families” and for failing as Attorney General to join the national lawsuit against ObamaCare.
Kentucky voters held Democrats responsible for their complicity in a health insurance boondoggle
So in essence, Kentucky voters held Democrats responsible for their complicity in a health insurance boondoggle that’s cost a lot of them more money and left a whole lot more of them without coverage entirely. Even if voters did think Matt Bevin had drawbacks as a candidate, they still trusted him more than the people who not only created this ill-conceived ObamaCare exchange but refused to change course when things were clearly not going well.
There’s something important for Republicans to recognize here, whether we’re talking about national candidates or those at the state and local level across the country. Democrats always run by promising free stuff, and Republicans are historically skittish about telling the voters, no, they’re not going to promise free stuff. ObamaCare is a perfect example of what happens when the government tries to give everyone free stuff and economic reality has the nerve to show up. The economic models that formed the basis for ObamaCare were absurd fantasies. They never had any hope of working, but Democrats insisted on implementing them anyway and the result has been disaster. Republicans in Kentucky simply pointed that out: Kentuckians would have been better off if the federal government had left health care alone and just let people get their own coverage with their own money, or continued getting it through their employers under the terms that were in place. (And yes, a lot of things about the pre-ObamaCare system needed changing, but they didn’t need the changes ObamaCare brought about.)
The Republican message here should be simple: Nothing is really free, and when someone tells you that you’re going to get something for free, there will always be a price to pay. If there’s not a flat-out catch, then you can be sure the economic twisting that was necessary to give you the free stuff will cost you down the line in some other way.
People are better off buying what they want, from where they want, with their own money that they earned themselves. That is an empowering message and Republicans delivered it effectively this year in Kentucky, despite what the polls and the media said.
So I ask you Republicans across the country: You believe that message too, right? That’s why you’re Republicans, isn’t it? Then say it! It works. And yes, people are smart enough to both believe and understand it. They just need to hear you say it, and they’ll elect you just like they elected Matt Bevin.
According to all the polls leading up to last Tuesday’s gubernatorial election in Kentucky, Republican businessman Matt Bevin wasn’t supposed to have a chance. This was the same Matt Bevin who had launched a lamentably unsuccessful primary campaign last year against Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and was treated by much of the press in the state (OK, technically the commonwealth) as a loose cannon who couldn’t be taken seriously.
But Mr. Bevin pounded away at ObamaCare. And if you’re wondering why, since that’s ostensibly a national issue, you might recall that the whole idea of ObamaCare was for states (or in this case, commonwealths) to set up their own exchanges for people to buy and sell ObamaCare-approved policies.
