I agree. But we could have just had a massive increase in medicaid, and that would have accomplished everything Obama was hoping for. Even hardcore conservative libertarians like me have always supported medicaid and have no problem increasing it. But what's the rest of obamacare have to do with medicaid? Nothing. It is all between him and the insurance company.
There are a number of cost projections done by economists. You can look them up on the internet if you want details. Some of these studies are mentioned in the article cited. Take your pick. Virtually all of them show a wash for costs, with the additional revenue and savings making up for the States 10% contribution by 2020. Note how slowly the State contributions are being phased in. There will be more than enough time to make adjustments where appropriate! Let's assume the worst and in 2020 a few States actually realize a loss of a few million dollars. What they will have achieved in the worst possible cases that any one can reasonably project is providing access to routine health care for hundreds of thousands of their residents at a trivial cost to any States that didn't meet projections, assuming there are any. Penalizing everyone in a State because of political bickering over what is highly unlikely, according to economists, to happen five years down the road is insane. No matter what State you live in you are going to be paying for medicaid expansion. I hope you have enough common sense to want to get some benefit for your tax dollars!!!
oh no my friend. "states" now mean the State. So it don't matter what a republican governor do, he is covered. Supreme Court says so.
Your point is well taken, and well stated as far as I'm concerned. There is plenty wrong with O'bamneycare. Expansion of medicaid is NOT one of them. These Republican fools need to get a grip. Frankly they are insulting all of us. They must think we are idiots.
It's called democracy. Just like Obama famously taunted republicans, elections have consequences. Responsible states have wisely chosen not to recklessly expand medicaid programs, which go almost entirely to obama voters in any case. The federal subsidies are akin to a drug dealer giving away heroin. Once hooked, the users are not going to be able to suddenly stop any more than a state could cut off medicaid after the federal subsidies cease.
Yeah, what state wouldn't want to have this problem.... SALEM, Ore. (AP) - Amid the embarrassing collapse of Cover Oregon, the state's failed health insurance enrollment website, then-Gov. John Kitzhaber and lawmakers found solace in an unrelated success - a massive hike in enrollment in the Oregon Health Plan. The Health Plan is Oregon's Medicaid program, and as hundreds of thousands of people became newly eligible last year under President Barack Obama's health care law, most of them signed up. In the first year, enrollment was 73 percent higher than anticipated, according to data from the Oregon Health Authority. The bill will be soon be coming due, however, as the state begins sharing the costs. The Affordable Care Act said the federal government would cover 100 percent of medical costs only until 2017, when its share would begin dropping to 90 percent.... THE COSTS The 2013 report estimated that the Medicaid expansion would cost the state $217 million in the 2017-2019 biennium, the first full two-year budget cycle in which the state begins shouldering some of the costs. The Oregon Health Authority now projects it will cost $369 million, about 70 percent more. By 2020, Medicaid's share of the total state budget is projected to grow from the current 6.2 percent to nearly 10 percent. The figures assume the federal government doesn't change the state's share of the price tag and that Oregon doesn't take other actions to reduce the cost of Medicaid, such as reducing payments to doctors. http://www.katu.com/news/local/Oregon-underestimated-Medicaid-expansion-price-tag-317361511.html
The Left in the form of the Federal Govt is only too happy to screw over States and the public sector. Billary mandated that anybody that came to an ER had to be treated. They didn't provide any funding however. That resulted in the closing of 80+ hospitals in California alone. Now that formerly uninsured sickies can get health care and don't use the ER for their primary care the Left is saying that hospitals are doing better financially under Obamacare...
so how does this reconcile with what you were just pushing Piezoe? are these republicans fools in Oregon... There seems to be a reality disconnect between what you are saying and this reality? how come?
I will have to disagree with you on this. In states that implemented the Medicaid expansion - on average 70% more people signed up than they projected. This is leading to a minimum of $50M yearly amount over budget post-2017 even in the least populated states. You can make a case that the Medicaid expansion is worth it from a social perspective or is offsetting other costs, but at this point no one doing the math can doubt that the critics of Medicaid expansion were completely correct in their assertions that the Medicaid expansion would run greatly over-budget post-2017 and cause state budget problems.