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GOP's Medicaid Expansion Plans Encounter Growing Skepticism
Newsmax.com ^ | December 29, 2014 | Joe Himelfarb

Posted on 12/30/2014 11:40:57 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks

While states debate expanding their Medicaid programs under Obamacare, they're wrestling with a looming 2017 deadline — when their taxpayers begin paying for the cost of the expansion.

Beginning in 2014, states that agree to expand Medicaid to persons with incomes of up to 138 percent of the poverty line will have the federal government pay 100 percent of the cost. But beginning in 2017, the federal share will fall to 95 percent, and it drops to 90 percent in 2020.

This has officials — many of them in Republican-dominated states across the country — worried that they will not be able to avoid the spiraling costs.

"It's not like we have $78 million sitting on the shelf," Utah state Rep. Jim Dunnigan, a Republican skeptic of Medicaid expansion, told The Washington Times.

In Utah, Republican Gov. Gary Herbert is touting Medicaid expansion as a way to expand health insurance to 58,000 additional people in his state. But Herbert and other GOP governors looking to expand the program are laboring to find ways to offset the additional costs their taxpayers would have to pay.

Some of the governors talk of imposing cigarette taxes or fees on hospitals that stand to gain from Medicaid expansion.

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence proposed his own Medicaid expansion plan in May, saying it would be financed through a fee on hospitals and revenue from cigarette taxes.

In Tennessee, Republican Gov. Bill Haslam is pushing his own two-year pilot plan, Insure Tennessee.

Haslam, elected chairman of the Republican Governors Association last month, said that the program would not be a financial burden because hospitals have promised to pay any additional costs, and that it would be ended if the federal government or the hospitals failed to keep their commitments.

(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Indiana; US: Tennessee; US: Utah
KEYWORDS: aca; billhaslam; garyherbert; gop; gope; medicaid; medicaidexpansion; mikepence; obamacare; ppaca; republicans; rinos

1 posted on 12/30/2014 11:40:57 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

The disgusting sum of Obamacare is:

Expansion of Medicaid
bribes to state pols up front to implement it
bailout guarantees to crony insurance companies to ensure their compliance
heavy taxes on private employers, small businesses and private health plans


2 posted on 12/30/2014 11:52:52 AM PST by PGR88
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Some of the governors talk of imposing cigarette taxes or fees on hospitals that stand to gain from Medicaid expansion.

..........................................................

Tax cigarettes. Wonder why they didn’t think of that before?

Tax sick people, another jewel.

And this from a “republican”.


3 posted on 12/30/2014 11:54:47 AM PST by Graybeard58 (1Timothy, 5: For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

The GOP is introducing single payer.

For now, its for poor and working class folks.

They’re doing what Canada’s Progressive Conservative Government did with the Health Care Act in 1984.


4 posted on 12/30/2014 11:56:20 AM PST by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever)
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To: 3D-JOY; abner; Abundy; AGreatPer; Albion Wilde; AliVeritas; alisasny; ALlRightAllTheTime; ...

Any governor, regardless of party, who accepts the Medicaid expansion funding from the Federal Government, which is over 18 trillion dollars in debt, is cray-cray.

PING!


5 posted on 12/30/2014 11:58:18 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (The mods stole my tagline.)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Progressives are bad enough, but Progressive Republicans just make me want to scream. I would rather chew on tin foil for a year than vote for any kind of Progressive.


6 posted on 12/30/2014 12:00:58 PM PST by navyguy (The National Reset Button is pushed with the trigger finger.)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
It makes a kind of sense. The Feds are pulling large sums of money from state taxpayers. Without Medicaid expansion, those funds aren't going back into the state economy. The solution? Claw that money back by backing Medicaid expansion. The state Chamber of Commerce obviously backs it - there's no incremental cost for its members. Now, if the state promised to increase business taxes to fund it come 2017, there'd be howls of protest. Between Chamber of Commerce and white working class support, it's pretty clear why Medicaid expansion is a given in GOP states. It might even expand the GOP majority, and offset its reputation as the party of plutocrats.

The problem, of course, is the cost of all this. As one commenter stated earlier, quoting a British naval officer, the National Health Service (Britain's Obamacare, instituted right after WWII) ate the Royal Navy.

7 posted on 12/30/2014 12:08:09 PM PST by Zhang Fei (Let us pray that peace be now restored to the world and that God will preserve it always.)
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To: Zhang Fei

OH Governor John Kasich told his party to stuff it, I’m going to expand medical coverage to people who usually vote for Democrats.

It paid off big time since he carried every blue collar county in OH and demographics where people made less than $30,000 year. It didn’t seem to hurt him at all in November.


8 posted on 12/30/2014 12:14:29 PM PST by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
The Medicaid expansion and drug addiction have some things in common:

The drug dealer (federal government) gives you (the state) a taste for "free" (the initial price is nothing). Once you (the state) get hooked on the drug (Medicaid), the dealer (federal government) begins charging you (reduces what the dealer gave you for free). End result: over time you pay more and more for the drug and more citizens of your state are addicted to the drug (Medicaid).

Example using South Carolina.

9 posted on 12/30/2014 12:21:51 PM PST by upchuck (Too much ME, not enough G.)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Haslam lets the truth slip there.

GOP Governors were pressured into this by hospital systems, who could not restrain their greed at the thought of the additional “free money” on the table.

Joke will be on them when the system collapses and we go Single Payer as per the actual plan.


10 posted on 12/30/2014 1:02:51 PM PST by Buckeye McFrog
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To: goldstategop
OH Governor John Kasich told his party to stuff it, I’m going to expand medical coverage to people who usually vote for Democrats. It paid off big time since he carried every blue collar county in OH and demographics where people made less than $30,000 year. It didn’t seem to hurt him at all in November.

The problem we had, before Obamacare, was that price discrimination that favored corporate monopsonies* made it horrendously expensive for individuals and small businesses to buy insurance. The only way to eliminate these monopsonies was statewide or Federal legislation dismantling them, basically preventing health insurance companies from giving preferential pricing to large corporations. This squeeze on non-union blue collar workers is what led to Obamacare. The GOP's unwillingness to dismantle these monopsonies (which would have forced up health insurance costs up for major corporations) is one of the factors that led to the groundswell of popular support for this hideously inefficient and expensive new government program that is embodied by Obamacare. Health insurance premiums simply got too out of control for individuals not working for a large corporation to afford.

* Health insurance companies are another monopsony that needs to be broken up. Hospitals give preferential pricing to insurance companies. Uninsured walk-in patients pay far higher prices than insurance companies for treatment. While there are people who welsh on their medical bills, plenty pony up in full, including probably a substantial chunk of the white working class.

11 posted on 12/30/2014 1:18:07 PM PST by Zhang Fei (Let us pray that peace be now restored to the world and that God will preserve it always.)
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