States refusing the Medicaid Expansion to Obamacare fiscally irresponsible
NPR reports a fact that should be used by every politician running in a state that did not join the Medicare Expansion to Obamacare (ACA). The politicians in those states have been proven fiscally irresponsible.
The 22 states that didn’t expand Medicaid eligibility as part of Obamacare last year saw their costs to provide health care to the poor rise twice as fast as states that extended benefits to more low-income residents.
It’s a counterintuitive twist for those states whose governors, most Republicans who opposed the Affordable Care Act, chose not to accept federal funds to extend Medicaid to more people.
A Kaiser Family Foundation survey of Medicaid directors in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., showed that those that didn’t broaden coverage saw their Medicaid costs rise 6.9 percent in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30. The 29 states that took President Obama up on his offer to foot the bill for expanding Medicaid saw their costs rise only 3.4 percent.
That modest increase in Medicaid spending in the expansion states came even as the rate of Medicaid participation rose 18 percent, three times as much as the states sitting out.
Until Americans begin to penalize politician who put their ideology and intransigence over the well-being of their citizens, nothing will change. The bombs must be voted out.