Several Republican governors reversing position on Obamacare Medicaid expansion

[Craig234]

The Affordable Healthcare Act wants to expand Medicaid to states. For constitutional reasons, it cannot mandate this, but it offers to pay nearly the entire costs of doing so to incent the states to do it (this is paid for from a deal with hospitals, where a fund reimbursing them for emergency room care for people who can't pay is reimbursed, eliminating money from that while increasing hospital profits by increasing the number of people insured.)

(I'm not providing the exact reimbursement amounts to avoid having to provide links to the ACA provisions to 'prove' them, but they are common knowledge).

Many Republican governors proclaimed that in their complete opposition to Obamacare, they would not be accepting these large amounts of money for their states.

This was unfortunate for their citizens. Many people in great need - pregnant women, children, the disabled - now without coverage would benefit from the Medicaid.

Now, several of those governors have reversed themselves and will accept the care.

Notably, Florida governor Rick Scott just did so; his campaign was largely based on not participating in Obamacare.

His explanation included that he lost a parent late last year and it somehow sensitized him more to people's needs.

The Republicans still not planning to accept the subsidies appear to mostly be those who have been speculated to be 2016 presidential possibilities.

This thread is just to note the issue is going on, how unfortunate it is that so many will pay such a price for right-wing politics, and the positive that several have changed course.

 

[Mxylplyx]

Pretty sad that politics and ideological principles take priority over the health and welfare of their constituents, even if they do view them as the "takers" that they shouldn't worry about. I think many of them realize that once Obamacare goes into full effect, it will look pretty bad when neighboring states achieve near universal care while their state lags far behind just so a politician could score some political points.

It's also pretty bad that a politician openly admits that it took the death of his own parent to wake up to the hardship of others. I think this is a problem many conservatives face. Willful ignorance and dismissal of the hardships of others until it hits close to home.

 

[DrPizza]

I can't remember which one of the governors said it, but I believe one of them summed it up with something like, "how civilized a nation is, is judged by how it treats and takes care of its weakest and poorest members."

 

[K1052]

I always thought this was pretty much inevitable regardless of the bluster surrounding the supreme court case and the election. In the end I will be surprised if any states end up holding out indefinitely.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

I can't remember which one of the governors said it, but I believe one of them summed it up with something like, "how civilized a nation is, is judged by how it treats and takes care of its weakest and poorest members."

Gandhi channeling the spirit of Fabius the Delayer

 

[Mxylplyx]

I always thought this was pretty much inevitable regardless of the bluster surrounding the supreme court case and the election. In the end I will be surprised if any states end up holding out indefinitely.

Texas seems to take a bit of pride in the fact that they have the highest rate of uninsured in the country.

 

[zinfamous]

I can't remember which one of the governors said it, but I believe one of them summed it up with something like, "how civilized a nation is, is judged by how it treats and takes care of its weakest and poorest members."

I wanna say Truman because Universal Healthcare was his baby, and was therefore the first to suffer under the duplicitous yet effective stigma of "socialized medicine."

But I think this is all inevitable in the end. States that fail to adopt this will simply be left behind. Hopefully, we can soon work on repealing the mandate portion and putting a solid noose around the Insurance Industry.

 

[techs]

The people who wrote the Act were not dummies. While they were hampered by many outside groups, one thing they planned on was that states could choose not to opt in. Remember that many federal programs are only voluntary and that states choose to opt in only because the feds give the states money for it.

Once hospitals were faced with either having to absorb the cost of uninsured patients versus having them insured thru the ACA the hospitals and thier business associates lined up to tell Republican governors what to do.

 

[Mxylplyx]

I wanna say Truman because Universal Healthcare was his baby, and was therefore the first to suffer under the duplicitous yet effective stigma of "socialized medicine."

But I think this is all inevitable in the end. States that fail to adopt this will simply be left behind. Hopefully, we can soon work on repealing the mandate portion and putting a solid noose around the Insurance Industry.

The entire system falls apart without the mandate. Without it how to you prevent someone from waiting til they get sick before opting to buy insurance? You can only take so many measures to force an insurance company to not behave like an insurance company before the whole system collapses. Of course if we did the sensible thing and just extended medicare to all this crap wouldn't be necessary, but preventing a vast array of profiteers from getting their cut of your health care dollars is just Un-American apparently.

 

[sactoking]

The people who wrote the Act were not dummies. While they were hampered by many outside groups, one thing they planned on was that states could choose not to opt in. Remember that many federal programs are only voluntary and that states choose to opt in only because the feds give the states money for it.

Once hospitals were faced with either having to absorb the cost of uninsured patients versus having them insured thru the ACA the hospitals and thier business associates lined up to tell Republican governors what to do.

I disagree strongly with the italicized sentence for practical reasons that are much too lengthy to list here.

I disagree with the bolded sentence, there have been many articles relaying the fact that the drafters never conceived that a state wouldn't be forced to expand Medicaid, which is why we're now stuck with the 100% FPL conundrum.