States that have benefited most from Obamacare elected Republicans who oppose health reform

States that have most benefited from federal health reform were the ones on Tuesday that overwhelmingly supported Republican candidates who oppose Obamacare, Margot Sanger-Katz reports for The New York Times.

"Arkansas, Kentucky and West Virginia—states that saw substantial drops in the proportion of their residents without insurance—all elected Republican Senate candidates who oppose the Affordable Care Act," Sanger-Kate writes. "Control of the West Virginia state House of Delegates flipped from Democrats to Republicans. And Arkansas elected Republican supermajorities to both houses of its legislature along with a Republican governor, a situation that could imperil the Medicaid expansion that helped more than 200,000 of its poorest residents get health insurance."

Oddly, it was no surprise that Republicans won in those three states, Sanger-Katz writes. In fact, many people who only have health coverage because of Obamacare remain strongly opposed to President Obama and his administration.

"Republicans were the favorites in many of these races, and polling has shown that health reform had faded as a decisive issue for many voters," Sanger-Katz writes. "Counties that showed the biggest gains in insurance coverage were more likely to be strongly Republican-leaning than Democratic based on their 2012 presidential votes, according to an Upshot analysis of data from Enroll America and Civis Analytics. That pattern appears to have held." (Read more) (NYT map: For an interactive version click here)