On being a bore for a good cause

I didn't always agree with the late writer and critic Christopher Hitches, but the guy could sure write. And read. One lesson I took several years ago from his book Letters to a Young Contrarian is that sometimes you may need to become a bore for a good cause.

And to me, preventing some of the human damage that repeal without replacement of the Affordable Care Act is a pretty good cause. In today's Gazette-Mail, there's an article by Natalie Schreyer about the damage that would do to Medicaid patients. This includes the cuts that would happen if the program is block granted.

If that's not enough, the nonpartisan Commonwealth Fund released a report about the job impact of repeal without replacement. As FamiliesUSA summes it up, they estimate that it could lead to the loss of 2.6 million jobs, mostly in the private sector. The report also found that:

• States will experience a $2.6 trillion reduction in business output
• States will see a $1.5 trillion loss of gross state output from 2019 to 2023
• State and local government will also lose about $48 billion in tax revenue

The report found that West Virginia alone could lose 16,000 jobs in 2019.

You can find the report here.