Rachel Maddow exposes anti-democratic Missouri Republicans as they refuse to abide by citizens’ vote for Medicaid Expansion.
Rachel Maddow exposes Missouri Republicans on Medicaid Expansion
In August of 2020, Missouri citizens passed a constitutional amendment to force the adoption of the Medicaid Expansion of the Affordable Care Act. It did against the objections of their state Republican politicians.
As the Missouri Legislature meets this year, they are refusing to honor the law. House Republicans have blocked the funding several times. In other words, the party that claims to be the one that follows the Constitution, the one that is all about Law and Order, like the insurrection on January 6th, refuses to honor their order to follow the law.
In the clip, Rachel Maddow dismantles the completely undemocratic Republican failed orthodoxy. The Republican Party has given up on democracy as the masses leave their draconian policies.
According to NBC News,
The state House Budget Committee voted on partisan lines, 20-9, late last week to drop $130 million for Medicaid expansion from the budget of Gov. Mike Parson, also a Republican. The House is expected to pass the budget in the coming days, sending it to the state Senate.
The $130 million would have secured a federal match of about $1.4 billion to pay for the program and bring 230,000 Missourians earning less than $18,000 a year under the health care coverage beginning July 1. The state would also get an additional $1 billion over the next two years to help implement the program.
Now Missourians are left to wonder whether the Legislature will fulfill the will of its voters only by stretching the state’s Medicaid program to the financial breaking point. Because expansion is an amendment to the state constitution, the state will still have to provide those additional 230,000 Missourians with Medicaid coverage — it will just have less money for Medicaid services.
Understand this. States are simply responsible for paying 10 percent of the cost if they accept the Medicaid Expansion of the Affordable Care Act. Not accepting it means 230,000+ Missourians are left without healthcare, and the state is responsible for 100% of that financial impact.
Missouri Republicans are willing to be fiscally irresponsible, inhumane, and unlawful for ideological reasons. They are willing to leave at least $1.4 Billion on the table. The economic impact would be even harsher. Their dereliction must not go unpunished.