Ideology is weird

As NPR's Julie Rovner explains here, all those Republican governors who were yelling "Big gummint" and refusing to accept the Medicaid expansion just might change their minds and follow the example of Arkansas. It turns out Republicans just might go along with letting the federal government cover more of their citizens if the money is used to buy the people private insurance.

Now, I don't think anybody can come up with a good reason why that's perfectly okay, whereas having the state Medicaid program pay their bills is not. Oh yeah -- it means the private insurance company gets to take a cut of the money. But as far as Ayn Rand and Grover Norquist are concerned, it's still money stolen from the makers for the benefit of the moochers. Or rather, from the trust fund babies for the benefit of the toilet scrubbers and line cooks, as far as reality is concerned, which rather seems the other way around.

The real difference is, of course, that insurance execs will get bigger bonuses, a portion of which they will donate to Republican candidates. Ain't democracy wonderful.