Indiana Gov. Pence Expanding Medicaid

NewsMax ^ | 16 May 2014 12:08 PM | Melanie Batley

[SoConPubbie]

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence has joined a growing list of Republican governors using Obamacare as a way to expand Medicaid.

Pence announced Thursday a blueprint of conservative reforms to extend health coverage to a larger share of low-income residents, some of which already have been adopted by other red states, Politico reports.

Pence said his proposal was "the kind of health reform that puts working Hoosiers in the driver's seat," according to Politico.

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The plan outlines a number of specific proposals including:

• placing enrollees in private insurance instead of traditional Medicaid;
• requiring some participants to pay modest premiums;
• conditioning enrollment for some on paying into a health savings account;
• encouraging unemployed or underemployed beneficiaries to pursue work;
• attempting to limit overuse of emergency rooms.

Pence's office appeared to want to avoid allowing the move to be billed a victory for Obamacare, instead couching it as an extension of an existing state program.

The Obama administration, nevertheless, welcomed the move as a victory for the new healthcare law.

"We are encouraged by Indiana and Gov. Pence's commitment to helping cover more of the state's uninsured population through the Healthy Indiana program and look forward to seeing his proposal," Emma Sandoe, a spokeswoman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told Politico. "In Indiana, it would mean coverage for thousands of additional Hoosiers."

The proposal will face a 30-day state review before a final review by CMS. If approved, it would release billions of dollars from the Affordable Care Act to the state to help cover an additional

[SoConPubbie]

	"If we must have an enemy at the head of Government, let it be one whom we can oppose, and for whom we are not responsible, who will not involve our party in the disgrace of his foolish and bad measures." - Alexander Hamilton "We don't intend to turn the Republican Party over to the traitors in the battle just ended. We will have no more of those candidates who are pledged to the same goals as our opposition and who seek our support. Turning the Party over to the so-called moderates wouldn’t make any sense at all." -- President Ronald Reagan "A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice." - Thomas Paine 1792 "It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men." - Samuel Adams "If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams

[entropy12]

Another compassionate conservative in the mold of Bush-43.

[Mr. Lucky]

The substance of the plan doesn’t support the headline.

[onedoug]

obamacare is communism, plain and simple. The RINO’s paradise.

[kabar]

You mean that Pence is not going to expand Medicaid under Obamacare that increased eligibility levels to 138% of the Federal Poverty Line ($23,550 for a family of four) and have the Federal government cover the additional costs for the first three years and after which, the feds will pick up 90%?

So exactly what is Pence proposing if not that?

[Menehune56]

Another so-called conservative throwing in with the “If you can’t beat em join em” club. The new code word for Pence will be “pragmatic.”

[hinckley buzzard]

Pence is doing something similar to what Kasich has done in Ohio. Medicaid is contracted out to three private companies.

[SoConPubbie]

So exactly what is Pence proposing if not that?

Exactly.

Pence is STILL getting the money to pay for his expanded coverage from US the taxpayers.

Just another shell game by someone who doesn't have the backbone to stand up and JUST SAY NO!

[kabar]

Pence is doing something similar to what Kasich has done in Ohio. Medicaid is contracted out to three private companies.

It's called Medicaid expansion under Obamacare. The feds pick up 100% of the additional costs for those Medicaid applicants become eligible under the new rules of 138% of poverty levels for three years and 90% until 2022. Of course with the federal government bankrupt, there is no guarantee that the rules won't be changed if the feds don't have the money.

What they are finding under Obamacare is that the number of those enrolled under Medicaid has increased both under the old criteria and the new criteria. As a result of those who would have been covered without the expanded Obamacare criteria, the states must pick up about 50% of the costs as they do now for those covered under the old rules.

And guess what, the federal taxpayers pick up the tab. There is no free lunch.

[buckalfa]

"Another so-called conservative throwing in with the “If you can’t beat em join em” club. The new code word for Pence will be “pragmatic.”

I wonder if the pragmatism is motivated by pressure from Indiana's doctors and hospitals. You know, threat of litigation by these groups and the withholding of their campaign cash? Doctors and hospitals want their share of the Federal largess too!

[Aevery_Freeman]

TANSTAAFL - Agreed. But Republican Governors can let DemonRat-ic Governors leave the tip.

< /SARC>

[kabar]

Medicaid reimburses doctors and hospitals less than Medicare. 40% of doctors don’t accept Medicaid patients.

[Gipper08]

Boy you are working overtime. Pence has zero conservative credentials. Unless he is circumventing federal law this is obamacare -medicaid expansion. Certainly it is a new entitlement for middle class hoosiers that would be better off in the free market...certainly this is a multi billion dollar welfare program to be paid with hundred of billions in tax dollar interest payments over the next 40 years