And since you “know it all”, do please further enlighten us on the advantages of caving to that part of the Obamacare mandate (ruled unconstitutional) for the states to greatly expand Medicaid to put millions of uninsured into Medicaid under Obamacare. In this instance, apparently the Feds say they will, for now, give you money (that they don’t have) for the expansion, but it’s clear that later, you will be on your own.
Perry’s point: the Medicaid system is broken. You should not, and he will not, greatly expand a broken system. Down that road, whether under Obamacare or under anything, is bankruptcy. His point: the states need wavers that allow them to design their own programs for the poor. His point: as in Texas’ refusal to set up an Obamacare state exchange, do not co-operate with Obamacare, period.
The poet has well written: “Do not go gentle into that good night; rage, rage against the dying of the light”.
The point was, why did FL, AZ and OH buckle to Obamacare when, as Perry said, down that road leads to bankruptcy
This raises a question: if Medicare expansion grows a "broken" system that takes us down the road to bankruptcy, what was Medicare doing before?
Rick Perry has had over a decade as Governor of Texas; at any time, he could have completely opted out of Medicare. If he's right about it, why hasn't he gotten out completely?
And since you “know it all”, do please further enlighten us on the advantages of caving to that part of the Obamacare mandate (ruled unconstitutional) for the states to greatly expand Medicaid to put millions of uninsured into Medicaid under Obamacare.
Sure.
Let's say you're the Governor of Florida, and you notice that your state spends $2.8 billion a year covering care for uninsured people. You also know that you can cut that by 25%-50% by taking a federal grant. If you really hate the idea of taking federal money you could consider other options. (And let's be clear, we're talking about taking more federal money, on top of the billions that they've been happily taking for years.)
You could sit back and do nothing. The Feds will come in and set you up an "insurance exchange" (after all, why would you want to run your own state when you can delegate to the Feds?). The idea of the exchanges is to use market forces to lower the cost of insurance. Of course, if you punt the Medicaid expansion, all of those people will get subsidized policies from your state exchange. This huge base of artificial demand will stifle competition and cause insurance rates in your state to be higher than normal.
So, the bottom line of rejecting the Medicaid expansion is that the people who were buying insurance before are now paying more.
I think Rick Scott understands all of this from his years of business experience. I'm not so sure about career politician Rick "I can't remember the third thing" Perry.