Posted on 05/16/2016 6:54:15 AM PDT by Olog-hai
Despite bitter resistance in Oklahoma for years to President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, Republican leaders in this conservative state are now confronting something that alarms them even more: a huge $1.3 billion hole in the budget that threatens to do widespread damage to the state’s health care system.
So, in what would be the grandest about-face among rightward leaning states, Oklahoma is now moving toward a plan to expand its Medicaid program to bring in billions of federal dollars from Obama’s new health care system.
What’s more, GOP leaders are considering a tax hike to cover the state’s share of the costs. […]
Despite furious opposition by conservative groups, Republican Gov. Mary Fallin and some GOP legislative leaders are pushing the plan, and support appears to be growing in the overwhelmingly Republican Legislature. Details have not been ironed out, but the proposal is based on an Indiana program that received federal approval. …
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
[Republican Gov. Mary Fallin and some GOP legislative leaders are pushing the plan]
Ok, she’s out as Veep possibility....
Grab us some o’ dat FREE MONEY before the house comes crashing down and we get Single Payer.
I wonder how long they expect “Bummercare” to last, anyhow — this might be being contemplated as a stopgap until something saner takes its place.
But it wasn’t free, it was robbed from them (and everybody else).
This is how the Welfare State expands. They either can’t (by mandate) or aren’t willing to cut spending so they go for the easy fix — “free” federal money. Its “free” in the way that a drug dealer gives a junkie some “free” drugs to get him hooked on the dealer’s supply. It doesn’t stay free for long.
Fill a budget gap with somebody else’s money in the short term.
Nail head/Hammer
Stupid is as stupid does
They’re dealing with the Sheriff of Nottingham as best they can until a Robin Hood comes to rescue them.
We should just end this and make it unconstitutional for the feds to dole out money to the states.
If we as conservatives really believe in states rights,then states should be able to stand on their own financial feet.
It’s not about healthcare It’s about destruction and power grabs
We have 80 million now on Medicaid/CHIPS. The vast majority of people who now have health insurance under Obamacare is due to expanded Medicaid. 40% of doctors don't accept Medicaid patients because the reimbursement rate is so low.
Medicaid is a single-payer system. It is the transition from Obamacare to a single payer system for everyone. Medicare and Medicaid are single-payer systems. It is only a matter of time before we go to a single payer system for everyone.
If this is so, we need to stop the feds from taking that money in the first place.
At the very best, forgetting the socialism moral hazards, this is a wasteful route.
The Feds (us) already pay for 50% of the regular Medicaid costs for each state. What happens to Medicaid if the Feds stop paying the 50%?
The same thing that happens to any other federal Ponzi scheme.
Which means Dr. Atlas will shrug.
The rest of the world was able to tolerate socialized medicine because America was the safety valve. But what is the safety valve for the safety valve?
Hopefully if we get a President Trump, he will hammer and hammer and hammer on this. The real answer for the poor who are poor by misfortune, not choice, is traditional private charities.
SS has been running in the red since 2010.
Take the immediate federal money and guarantee thereby in the not too distant future a much larger hole in the budget and total economic failure for the state. Republican politicians have absolutely no concern for anything past the current year or their next elections.
This might end up resulting in federal income taxes going down while state taxes (sales, property, and/or income) went up.
Of course federal money would continue to go to support federally owned property and institutions such as national parks and federal offices.
I would even be in favor of eliminating federal funds for freeways. It seems to me that the federal highway system has been built out as far as the environazis will allow us to build it. Any more freeway building can be done on a state-by-state basis.
If states were to regain ownership of their dams, freeways, etc. then it would be easier for them to threaten to secede. Whenever Texas threatens to secede the feds are always bringing up the "fact" that Texas highways are federal property and the feds would have to be reimbursed.
Not the case if the states owned most of what was in the state.
Just a pipe dream obviously, but better than the nightmare of centralization we are currently being subjected to.
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