Half of all New Mexicans now on Medicaid and Medicare

Albuquerque Business First ^ | Aug 22, 2014 | Dennis Domrzalski

[george76]

Since October, 155,000 New Mexico residents have joined the state’s Medicaid rolls, pushing total enrollment to more than 630,000, or nearly a third of the state’s population.

On top of that, 410,000 New Mexicans are enrolled in Medicare, the federal health care program for the elderly. Together, total enrollment in those two federal programs are more than 1 million, or half of the state’s 2.1 million population.

...

“It’s shocking, and when you add that to the outmigration of people and the lack of economic growth, it’s almost an incentive to stay poor,” said retired University of New Mexico economics professor Allen Parkman.

Paul Gessing, director of the Rio Grande Foundation, a free-market think tank in Albuquerque, said the Medicaid figure was distressing, especially considering that 20 percent of the state’s population is on food stamps.

“It’s sad, and one of the things we should look at is that a lot of folks in New Mexico would be better off not being here. That’s the harsh reality,” Gessing said.

...

Nationally, 59.5 percent of Americans got health insurance through their employers in 2011

[palmer]

All part of the plan. Nationalized medicine will make the VA look like an elite Hollywood clinic. Private clinics will always be around for people with money, and the rest of us will be on a waiting list just to get a worthless $3/month pill.

[MulberryDraw]

outmigration of people and the lack of economic growth

but expanding Medicaid with Obamacare was supposed to be a boon to the economies of states that did it.

[Doctor 2Brains]

I’m fond of patting myself on the back for my first ever political realization 25 years ago: The welfare state will kill us, NOT the Russians, or any commies, or the Muzzies, or nuclear war, or anything else. Even Reagan managed to put ABSOLUTELY NO DENT WHATSOEVER in the welfare state. NOT ONE SERIOUS CONTENDER POL, NOT ONE, has ever vigorously pushed for even cutting back on the welfare state. Maybe Ryan has, actually. I’m not sure.

[Disambiguator]

“It’s sad, and one of the things we should look at is that a lot of folks in New Mexico would be better off not being here. That’s the harsh reality,”

I came to the same conclusion, which is why we left there 8 years ago. New Mexico is turning into California.

[newfreep]

The utopia of leftism!

[Don Corleone]

it’s almost an incentive to stay poor,

Which of course is Obama's plan for fundamental change.

[hal ogen]

It should be interesting to watch when the state has to fund the whole thing after the Fed money runs out. LIBs are such destructive subhumans.

[OneWingedShark]

The way to put the welfare state into check is to enforce budget constraints; the way to enforce budget constraints involves a Constitutional amendment to:
(a) remove the Congress's power to regulate the Dollar's value,
(b) define the Dollar's value in terms of a real, physical commodity [e.g. gold],
(c) ensure that the amount in b cannot be tampered w/ via the Congress's control of weights and measures,
(d) invalidate and prohibit "unfunded liabilities" [or any obligation laid upon the states w/o funding]
(e) define the debt limit in terms of the physical commodity [i.e. the United States shall assume no debt which shall cause the total obligations of the United States to exceed 110% of the gold in the treasury], and finally
(f) cause compulsory loss of position and retirement benefits for the confiscation of the commodity in b.

[SeeSharp]

after the Fed money runs out.

They will never run out of money. They'll just keep print it, gradually robbing everyone of their savings and diminishing their wages.

[oblomov]

Are we certain that we don’t want to repatriate this state?

[servantboy777]

Cloward-Piven strategy.

Socialist agenda designed to overwhelm the current system causing a collapse with the ultimate goal of ushering in a new form of governmental system.

Now for the bad news...It’s working y’all.

Now more bad news...Republicans are actively participating and or at the very least, complicit.

The two party system is dead folks. We are being sold a bill of goods. Don’t believe it?

Take a gander at the latest headlines from the republican camp. Romney/Ryan team up once again to promote Ryan’s book advocating amnesty.

Mississippi senatorial incumbent begins pushing the virtues of immigration reform after winning primary.

[Awgie]

ObamaLand...Where the BIG GOVERNMENT ELITE get Richer and more entrenched by eliminating the pesky indepedence-liberty minded Middle Class, while replacing them with a perpetually impoverished government-dependent lower class, who simultaneously disdain their ruling class masters while jealously guarding their subsistance level existence by continually voting for them.

[VRW Conspirator]

The utopia of leftism!

It is a utopia...for the leftist elites. They want a permanent underclass because that means they will be the permanent ruling class.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

And to think, from my birth till I went in the Military we never had health insurance. Survived just fine.

[SoConPubbie]

100% of Illegal Aliens are receiving huge amounts of Social Services.

Don’t let the headline fool you.

They live here because they get free stuff payed by your taxes.

[GOPJ]

Hey, it’s not like our country is dead broke and we’re borrowing millions every hour just to stay afloat...

[GladesGuru]

New Mexico has been a Democratic state for a long time.

[PGR88]

No one thinks about how fiat money and politicized interest rates support the nanny state - and change society in 1000 ways

End the Fed, and conservatives will no longer need to fight (and lose) so many battles with progressives

[98ZJ USMC]

Even Reagan managed to put ABSOLUTELY NO DENT WHATSOEVER in the welfare state.

That is correct. However, Ronaldus was backstabbed by the (D)Marxists on a deal to eliminate the Dept. of Indoctrination in return for a tax hike. Got the tax hike.

There was no way he was going to get anything through that Congress reforming Welfare, or the state itself. They fought the SS age rise tooth and nail when serious reform and tighter rules would have gone a long way to fixing it.