Editorial: Building better health care against dead-end opposition : Stltoday

Editorial: Building better health care against dead-end opposition : Stltoday

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Here in Missouri, the lost cause has been carried by Republican Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder. On Monday, he shamefully urged Missourians to stay away from the insurance marketplace scheduled to open for business next week.

“I would hope there would be active resistance to this law — that people would not sign up,” Mr. Kinder said.

So here’s the state’s lieutenant governor asking residents to act against their own interests in making it difficult for the federal insurance exchange to work. This would be the same Mr. Kinder who has been employed in government for the past 20 years enjoying the benefits of health insurance that taxpayers have subsidized.
Does he offer an alternative suggestion for the 800,000 Missourians who do not have health insurance?
Of course not. He’s just grandstanding. His frivolous lawsuit to challenge its implementation failed. But he thinks opposing Obamacare is some kind of salve for a political career that he ran into a ditch with personal problems.

Mr. Kinder and his fellow dead-enders have made Missouri one of the toughest places in the country to get an exchange up and running. State workers were prevented from setting up a state exchange or helping the federal government create one. Heedless obstructionism is a way of life for these folks.