Fact-Check: Rand Paul's Obamacare Story Doesn't Ring True
Fact-Check: Rand Paul's Obamacare Story Doesn't Ring True
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/01/rand-paul-son-kentucky-automatically-enrolled-medicaid
Sunday, during an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC's This Week, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) told a wild tale about his son's trouble with Obamacare. Paul claimed that one of his sons (the Pauls have three—William, Duncan, and Robert) was enrolled in Medicaid in Kentucky against his will. The senator briefly flashed a blue-and-white insurance card before launching into a diatribe about his son's travails: "We didn't try to get him Medicaid…They automatically enrolled him in Medicaid," Paul said. "For a month they wouldn't talk to us because they said they weren't sure he existed. He had to go down to the welfare office, prove his existence, then, next thing we know, we get a Medicaid card."
Paul then extrapolated from his son's experience to make a general point about Kentucky's health exchange: "Most of the people in Kentucky are getting automatically enrolled in Medicaid."
Conservative websites latched onto Paul's claim as the latest example of Obamacare's failures. There's one problem, though: Paul's story doesn't make sense. No one is being automatically enrolled for Medicaid in Kentucky, says Jill Midkiff, communications director for the state's health department. "We're not automatically enrolling people," Midkiff explains. "People have to actually go and apply." The Affordable Care Act allowed states to automatically add residents who already receive other social services, such as food stamps and other health programs, to the Medicaid rolls. But Kentucky chose not to take advantage of that provision of the law. The state is notifying some residents of their eligibility for Medicaid, but Paul's son would have needed to actually apply for Medicaid in order to receive a Medicaid card.
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Rest at the link. Plus his oldest is only 19. Why isn't he on his parents insurance?
= new reply since forum marked as read
Clearly somethings are wrong in this story. One of them is really obvious:
Rand has been so indoctrinated by his father that he believes that the government is evil and there are always evil intents - so much so that he flies off the handle and foams at the mouth before a national audience (with an air of certainty) without considering that he ought to do some fact checking, first.
And who is "they"? For a month they wouldn't talk to us.... He had to go to the office to prove he existed..." Which office and what were you all (as in "us"
trying to get "them" to talk to you about?
