Virginia to Take Counterrevolutionary Measure

Apparently hundreds of thousands of Virginians will be receiving the imaginary benefits of Barack Obama’s neoliberal bailout of the health insurance industry:

The Virginia state Senate voted Wednesday to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, with four Republicans crossing party lines to join all Senate Democrats in backing the move. The House of Delegates, which already passed a version of Medicaid expansion, will need to vote again to make expansion a reality, but the odds now seem overwhelming that Virginia will become the 33rd state to expand Medicaid (Washington, DC, has also expanded).

That’s big news for about 400,000 poor and near-poor Virginians who will gain access to affordable health insurance, and a big deal to the state’s health care providers, who’ll get an injection of clients and money — an important topic for residents of rural areas writ large since expansion helps ensure that hospitals can stay in business, which helps even people who aren’t directly assisted by Medicaid expansion.

In political terms, expansion is a huge victory for the state’s Democratic governor, Ralph Northam, who made expansion a key campaign priority, and for the many Democrats who swept into the state legislature last November and came extraordinarily close to securing a majority in the House of Delegates.

Let us also spare a moment for the Virginians who needlessly suffered, were bankrupted, and in some cases died because the Supreme Court chose to engage in an exercise of incoherent empty formalism not compelled by any text or precedent.  At least none of these sacrifices were in vain —  if the ACA’s changes to Medicaid had been treated like every previous change to Medicaid and every other exercise of the federal spending power in American history before 2012, the state capital in Richmond probably would have spontaneously combusted as federalism was permanently dissolved.

…UPDATE: LOL

He’s consistent, give him that.