New version of "Green eggs & Ham" from CPAC and right on it !!!...

Gov. Terry-Mac continues the road trip instead of working in Richmond...

Our Governor Terry McAuliffe continues his road trip across Virginia pushing for a massive expansion of Medicaid instead of working with the Legislature in Richmond on a sensible and sustainable solution. Last week he was in Augusta County at Augusta Health and the local media dutifully covered the event, but just like the mainstream media covering Obama's roadtrips & grandstanding events, failed to ask hard questions or provide further details and facts to the issue they are reporting on...

The NewsLeader reported this on Terry-Macs last visit but instead of asking how this expansion will be paid for it decided to make the Republican as the bad guys without providing valid concerns brought up by the GOP House:

The Democratic governor flew to Wise County on Tuesday to meet with doctors, hospital officials and low-income residents who don’t have health insurance.
McAuliffe asked them to press their state lawmakers into supporting a plan proposed by the Virginia Senate to accept federal Medicaid dollars and expand eligibility for the publicity financed health insurance program.
The county is in the heart of coal country and is in one poorest regions of the state.
Leaders of the GOP-controlled House of Delegates are staunchly opposed to Medicaid expansion, saying it would likely hurt the state’s long-term economy.

Fortunately Republican House Delegate Christopher Stolle has provided important and valuable information in his piece printed here in the Pilot

Last week, the House of Delegates and the state Senate approved separate budgets for the 2015-2016 biennium. The difference between the two was an incredibly low $40 million, or less than one-half of 1 percent of the General Fund budget items to be negotiated by the House and Senate. Yet there is talk of a Washington-style shutdown of state government.
A shutdown would mean schools, cities and counties, roads, public safety and other core responsibilities of state government would have their funding delayed or reduced.
The reason for a shutdown would be the state Senate's 23-17 vote to include in its budget a provision called "Marketplace Virginia," a private insurance exchange that would allow the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.

At Gov. Terry McAuliffe's urging, the Senate has unilaterally abandoned the MIRC agreement and put funding for state programs at risk.
We all want high quality, affordable and accessible health care for all Virginians. We disagree on how that should be accomplished.
Medicaid covers about 1 million Virginians and has grown 1,600 percent over the past 30 years. It makes up more than 22 percent of our budget and continues to grow at an unsustainable rate, threatening to crowd out other key services.
The price of expansion has varied by as much as $3 billion over the past two years. No one really knows how much it will cost the state to expand. We do know, however, that without dramatic reforms, adding 400,000 individuals is fiscally irresponsible. Please visit mirc.virginia.gov for presentations on Medicaid reform efforts.

Delegate Stolle brings up a very important fact and a question that the local media(s) should be bringing up at every "Grandstanding" stop made by our Governor....

McAuliffe has stated that Virginia is too dependent on federal dollars and that the impact of federal cuts and sequestration undermines Virginia's economic vitality. Yet he maintains we need to take more federal dollars for Medicaid. Expansion without reform would only increase the state's over-reliance on borrowed money from Washington

The entire piece by Delegate Stolle is very good and should be read by every Virginian citizen so to hear the facts & issues not being reported by much of the VA media. It can be found here.

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If VA government shuts down it will be on Terry-Mac...

The local media is reporting that the Republicans in the House are requesting Governor McAuliffe a special session to hammer out a valid and workable Medicaid solution and allow a budget to pass and keep Virginia operating. It is reported that both sides are close to a budget approval but need more time to modify and agree on a plan for Medicaid expansion. One of the main issues being that Federal money from Washington would get the expansion up and running but that money will run out in the future and leave Virginian's picking up the extensive tab in the future. The House GOP has called for an audit of the present Medicaid system to identify and fix existing problems before this massive expansion as well as determine how to pay in the future any expansion.

If Terry-Mac plays the familiar game of allowing the government to shut down and then blame it on the Republicans as President Obama has done in the past, it will be obvious that Terry-Mac is at fault, not a leader, agenda driven, and does not care about the citizens of Virginia....




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NPR focus...

For the last two days I have had the car radio tuned to NPR news just to see where their focus is at this time. Yesterday they started off reporting that North Korea had fired two SCUD missiles and it was in violation on the United Nations resolution. See how well those UN resolutions work. NPR News spent about 12 seconds on that report then went on to about 10-12 minutes talking about how there is a election in Texas and the Republican incumbent has 6+ “Tea Party” challengers...

This morning NPR News started off with “mentioning” that Syria is behind schedule in their destruction of their chemical weapons as per another resolution. NPR News then went on to spend again much more time on the “Tea Party” challenge in Texas...

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If no budget next week be sure to ask where Terry-Mac was...

As mentioned in a prior post, VA Governor Terry McAuliffe was at the medical center over in Fishersville meeting with the staff and taking the opportunity to "Grandstand" in front of the reliable local press. Terry-Mac was trumpeting his desires for Virginia to jump onto the ObamaCare Medicaid bandwagon so to get that "Free-money" that we all deserve...

Turns out here in a release from the Republican House Leadership:

 “The Virginia General Assembly has only seven days to complete its budget work on time. House negotiators offered to work through the weekend, including today, in order to iron out the final differences between the House and Senate budget proposals, which are separated by less than one-tenth of one percent. But, Senate budget conferees declined that request and Governor Terry McAuliffe would rather grandstand than govern." 

But it seems our local-media-watchdog friends failed to do some research and report to us that the Augusta Health center where Terry-Mac was grandstanding actually had a 23% profit margin in 2013...  Most of those "Evil-Rich" corporations that all our Liberal friends howl about only make 6-10% at best and they are called "GREEDY" at every opportunity !!! 

 “Today the Governor is visiting the most profitable hospital in the Commonwealth. Augusta Health reported $64,470,310 in net revenue in 2012 and a 23 percent net operating margin in 2013. Augusta Health’s operating margin is higher than any other hospital in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The President and CEO of Augusta Health, Mary Mannix, was paid over $600,000 in 2011. Now, Governor McAuliffe is asking Virginia taxpayers to take a gamble on Medicaid expansion in order to offset cuts coming as a result of the Affordable Care Act – legislation that American Hospital Association wholeheartedly endorsed."... 

Remember this next week if in fact we don't have a budget and think about what your Governor (D) was up to....   No worries, I will remind you.....



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Terry-Mac and the Obama tactic....

Last night I caught the 11pm local Newscast crooning all over Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe who was at the Augusta Medical in Fishersville pushing his efforts to ram through a Virginia version of "ObamaCare" Medicaid plan...

Like Obama, Terry-Mac is traveling the State instead of staying in Richmond and working with all of the other "Electeds" that the citizens of Virginia sent them there to do the "People's work"...

Local newspapers did their duty covering the Gov as he made his rounds at the medical center and held a meeting with administrators and of like minded people. Terry-Mac did his grandstanding and I am sure it was a good show for those looking to get the "Free Money" from the Federal government in Wash DC, but is it really ever "Free"...

But I should not be to hard on our local media for they did also cover the three local Delegates from the Valley that held a public meeting just down the road in response to the Governor. These Delegates brought up the very good point of how will the expanded Medicaid program be paid for by Virginians once that "Free money" starts to go away? The House has brought forth plans to audit and fix the broken Medicaid system that wastes millions each year to fraud and theft as shown here but the Governor instead wants to push through Obama's plan as soon as possible. 

McAuliffe said he is open to compromise and wants to sit down with legislators and figure out a solution. Admitting the possibility that the proposal could get more expensive, he said, “Why would we not want our sickest Virginian’s to get in [to the Medicaid program] and be paid for 100 percent by the federal government?
Quote provided by the NewsVirginian

Here Terry-Mac mirrors his friend Obama by stating the obvious and indisputable fact that nobody wants to provide help to our sickest Virginian’s while appealing to those who love the idea of "Free" stuff from Washington. But at the same time he ignores the question of how "Virginian's" will pay for this program in the future.....

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