GOP-Led States Threaten To Turn Down Medicaid Expansion

Florida Governor Rick Scott says his state will not take part in the Medicaid expansion program under President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. (AP)

Gov. Rick Scott of Florida became the latest Republican governor to say his state will not take part in the Medicaid expansion program under President Obama’s Affordable Care Act.

The expansion extends coverage to Americans making 133 percent of the federal poverty line – about $13,000 for an individual or $25,000 for a family of three. The expansion was supposed to provide coverage for up to 17 million Americans.

Stuart Altman, professor of health policy at Brandeis University’s Heller School, stopped by our studios (and roof deck) at WBUR in Boston. (Jesse Costa/Here & Now)

In last week’s Supreme Court ruling, the justices said the states could opt out of the expansion without losing other Medicaid funding (which the Obama administration had threatened to withhold from states not taking part in the expansion).

Scott and governors from Wisconsin, Louisiana and South Carolina, also said they have no plans to set up state health insurance exchanges. Those exchanges would allow individuals to purchase health insurance eligible for federal subsidies.

The New York Times reports it now appears the federal government will have to run the exchanges in one-third to half of all states in 2014.

Guest:

Stuart Altman, professor of health policy at Brandeis University’s Heller School and author of “Power, Politics and Universal Health Care: The Inside Story of a Century-Long Battle”

We welcome comments from all of our listeners. Post below. Please stay on topic and be civil. Comments may be moderated by us, but you are solely responsible for the content of your comments.

MD

Why don’t we merge all the govenment plans into one? Medicare, Medicaid, VA and IHS? Would that not decrease overhead and end double dipping? All the programs would have the same coverage.
- http://profile.yahoo.com/YI7JPHPR4F6T2PALUHX4CXUHWQ It
  
  And this one big program should be what covers the Senators and Representatives.
http://profile.yahoo.com/YI7JPHPR4F6T2PALUHX4CXUHWQ It

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Seraphaeme

To witness the Republicans governors cut their collective noses to to spite their collective faces would indeed be funny, if it were not for the fact that the working poor –as usual — will bear the disastrous consequences of these ideologues’ fatuous behavior.
- http://profile.yahoo.com/YI7JPHPR4F6T2PALUHX4CXUHWQ It
  
  The working poor will just get bigger because it is the working middle class that pays for this. You should have taken a few less English classes to teach you those fancy words and sat in on a Economics class.
FedUpProgressive

I cannot swear on this forum, but conservatives; I ask you, what
in the #@*%, @*#^$, #$*&^ is wrong with you!?!?!?! Seriously.
You didn’t want a single payer system, you wouldn’t let us provide a public
option. Your precious Heritage Foundation came up with the mandate system, aka
the no free rider rule, and you got it in a grand bargain, and you have been
whining about it ever since. Now some of your governors don’t want to go along
with the expansion of Medicaid? You want to repeal and replace? With what
exactly? With nothing basically. With the STATUS QUO, obviously. That’s what
CONSERVATIVES want, isn’t it? Keep things the way they are, or better yet,
regress back to the way things were in the good old days.

Why, why, why do you insist over and over again on, whether
in health care, education or virtually any social issue to go with the, “me
first, screw poor people” philosophy? Do you realize that virtually every other
economically developed country and dozens of less developed countries provide
some form of universal health care, available to everyone, regardless of their
ability to pay? Do you realize that this is the CIVILIZED thing to do? Do you
realize that your entire worldview in economics and politics is UNCIVILIZED and
morally bankrupt? I pray for the day that Conservatism withers and dies from
the political sphere.

I asked a republican friend, back in 2009, what’s wrong with
a single payer system? Besides calling it “socialized medicine” his answer was
simply, we can’t afford it. The US is the largest economy in the world. We are
basically the richest per capita besides maybe Luxembourg or Switzerland. The problem
is that the wealth is very unevenly distributed. Our Gini coefficient puts us
in the same tier as the Central African Republic, not Spain or Japan. We could
afford the best universal health care system in the world. The only problem is
that the 1% are too greedy and powerful to let it happen. And also they are
really good at using specious arguments and wedge issues to win over enough of
the middle class.
- http://profile.yahoo.com/YI7JPHPR4F6T2PALUHX4CXUHWQ It
  
  Everytime the government increases spending it is a tax on the middle class. The rich and idustry lobby and get laws so they do not pay. So the middle class foots the bill for the poor only spreading the distance between the middle and upper class. Your “Progressive” party of Democrats is just as responsilbe for this increase in the weath of the rich as the Republicans are!
mouse

I wish we could see some numbers on this. How much is it going to cost the states to continue to care for poor people in emergency rooms? How does that compare with what it will cost them to expand Medicaid?

Although I will admit, the actual economics don’t seem to matter nearly as much as spiting the President.