Attempts To Thwart Obamacare Now On State Level

Now that Republicans have been unable to stop Obamacare nationally, efforts to do the same are taking place in various red states. Far-right politicians are going after more moderate ones in an attempt to harm them politically if they are at all supportive of the new law.

…in Virginia’s capital, conservative activists are pursuing a hardball campaign as they chart an alternative path to undoing “Obamacare” — through the states.

One leading target is Emmett W. Hanger Jr., a Republican state senator from the deeply conservative Shenandoah Valley, who prides himself on “going against the grain.” As chairman of a commission weighing one of the thorniest issues in Virginia politics, whether to expand Medicaid under Mr. Obama’s Affordable Care Act, he is feeling heat from the Republican right.

His openness to expansion has aroused the ire of Americans for Prosperity, the conservative advocacy group backed by the billionaire industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch. Dressed in emerald green T-shirts bearing the slogan “Economic Freedom in Action!” its members are waging what the senator calls “an attempt to intimidate me” in Richmond and at home…

The state-by-state strategy represents a split from the course pursued by Heritage Action for America and its sister organization, Heritage Foundation, which drove the “defunding Obamacare” movement that led to the recent government shutdown. In an opinion article published Friday by The Wall Street Journal, Jim DeMint, the foundation president, made no apologies. “Obamacare will now be the issue for the next few years,” he wrote.

And millions are being spent on a no-win effort to stop established law in the states.

Americans for Prosperity has spent millions in states around the country, including Arkansas, Florida, Ohio, Louisiana, Michigan and Pennsylvania, to run the kind of aggressive campaign that it is now waging here in Virginia, where much will depend on the governor’s race. The Democratic candidate, Terry McAuliffe, who leads in the polls, favors expansion. The Republican candidate, Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, is opposed.

Maybe once they figure that they’re losing elections, like they’ll likely do in Virginia, maybe they’ll start acting sensibly. Or not.

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.