A lot of money is being left on the table by the states that are not expanding Medicaid at this time. Don Taylor has the details at Same Facts:
According to an analysis I have done using Kaiser Family Foundation data–in 2016 alone–the 24 expanding states will receive $30.3 Billion additional federal dollars, while those not expanding will forego an additional $35.0 Billion they could have had (the fence sitters have an aggregate $15.2 Billion at stake in 2016).
Ten billion here, ten billion there, and sooner or later, we’re talking about some real money. This is why I think by the end of the decade at least 46 states will take Medicaid expansion funds even if they go the private option route like Arkansas or find some other way of not calling it an Obamacare funded Medicaid expansion.
Hill Dweller
The stupid semi-private medicaid option is the result of the Republicans’ privatization fetishism, not cost-effectiveness. It will actually cost their citizens more money and give them lesser care.
Comrade Dread
Their political ancestors would be ashamed of these louts for turning down free money.
ranchandsyrup
How much for one rib?
Belafon
@ranchandsyrup: A woman.
shelly
Purity of ideology over their constituents welfare. Always!
ranchandsyrup
@Belafon: That’s a messed up exchange rate, but who am I to dispute it?
Omnes Omnibus
Scott Walker turned down money for high speed rail construction in Wisconsin. He later asked the US DoT if he could have the money for highways; they said no. He isn’t expanding medicaid either.
ETA: This is what they do.
cleek
$35B = 1/15th of the annual DoD budget
Hill Dweller
@Omnes Omnibus:
Walker also changed the qualifications for the medicaid in the state, leading to thousands being kicked off it.
Republicans are vile people.
Mino
@Hill Dweller: Trying to shoehorn the private sector into any federal program is a mission. Neo-liberals are guilty of the same thing.
Keith G
In an earlier thread, I was lamenting how the Democratic Party does not seem to be vigorously fighting for the poor. Here in Texas, what I am not hearing and what I am not seeing is an organized assult by the Democratic Party on those who are actively preventing the poor from getting adequate medical coverage.
There are statistics and narratives that show the real world folly in these decisions. The lack of an organized, top down push back against the false Republican narrative in this case means that they get to define the terms and establish what seems to be (for the under informed) the truth.
Belafon
@Keith G: This is Texas. I’m kind of surprised the Democrats here have a working website.
Violet
@Keith G: When is the last time the Democrats have actually fought for the poor? Didn’t Clinton sign welfare cuts into law?
I think one of the best argument at the moment is pointing out that people who work in fast food live off of food stamps. Those companies are not paying their fair share. They’re moochers. That’s an argument that gets through to people.
Belafon
@Violet: Here’s a trick food places pull as well: If you see a tip jar at some place like the yogurt shops, it means they are paying the employees less than minimum wage.
mai naem
After watching the Texan Reps ask Sebelius and the CMS head yesterday really assholish questions, I think the strip from Texas to Mississippi needs to secede. I want to say go all the way to Floriduh but I figure Floriduh and Jawjah need an opportunity to rehabilitate.
Keith G
@Belafon: I hear ya. Still, national action from the leaders for Democratic Party would be a very good thing and would be very welcome. It would not only help in Texas, but it would help all over the nation. The Democratic Party I grew up in had voices such as Humphrey, McGovern, and Mondale. They helped write and fight for some of the very legislation that is in peril today.
Those voices are gone and sadly have not been replaced.
Another Bostplainer
None of this matters because, 1) Obama lied about getting to keep your plan, 2) Obama is making you change your plan and taking away your choice to buy shitty insurance. 4 Pinocchios and all that.
catclub
Since most of it pays for health care for poor people, it is counted as nothing to the GOP leaders that run the red states.
My hope is that the people who own hospitals in those states can light a fire under the GOP to get that money.
Botsplainer
http://valleywag.gawker.com/facebook-wants-to-track-your-mouse-cursor-1454992442?rev=1383151721&utm_campaign=socialflow_gawker_facebook&utm_source=gawker_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow
“Respect my privacy!”
/dudebro
Ash Can
I have to wonder if the flip side to all this refusal to cooperate with Washington and take the damned money and expand state Medicaid is people in Republican states (other than in those surrounded by other Republican states) seeing their neighbors across the state line having a much easier time with health care, and that the only thing their state’s grand and courageous stand against DC did was kick them in the shorts. It’s not going to happen overnight, to be sure, but it sure seems to me it could happen down the road.
fuddmain
@mai naem:
Hey, Florida went for Obama twice.
Of course, we also put Uncle Fester in the governor’s mansion. He’s about as popular as herpes, so that mistake should be rectified in the next election.
Higgs Boson's Mate (Crystal Set)
The Republicans act on the phrase “The poor ye shall always have with you.” the same way that they act on the phrase “Government doesn’t work.”
Belafon
@Keith G: I agree with you there. I wish the national party would focus on Texas next year. I think even making the state maroon would have ramifications across the country.
Scott S.
@mai naem:
Why do you want to give the wingnuts exactly what they want?
Make ’em stay in the Union, make them do the right thing, make them watch as their own residents turn against them. Don’t give them the opportunity to fuck over actual American citizens because the wingnuts hate black people.
Any advocacy for secession is treason, that’s what I think.
Belafon
@fuddmain: Hey, don’t badmouth herpes. It’s at least the gift that keeps on giving.
Yatsuno
@fuddmain: Governour Voldemort wanted the Medicaid expansion because they could make it a private concern run by his wife. The legislature told him to fuck off becuz FREEDUMB!!! and Lex Luthor had a sad. This won’t change until Crist gets back in as a Dem and the leg gets more Dems for him as well. I bet Florida expands within a couple of months after that.
boatboy_srq
@Belafon: oh, SNAP.
Omnes Omnibus
@Belafon: I think both of our states will get significant national focus next year. Breaking Walker and “bluing” Texas would both be huge.
johnny aquitard
@Omnes Omnibus: This. That fucker Walker. 800 million turned down because Shut Up. This at a time when the economy was bottoming out. And then same for ACA exchanges and medicaid expansion.
This asshole cut off the noses of his constituents to spite Obama’s face. And his supporters, noseless but content in the belief Those People didn’t get any more free stuff on their dime, love him for it.
Charlie Pierce described Walker as “the twice-elected goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to manage their midwest subsidiary formerly known as the state of Wisconsin.”
He’s right. It’s that twice-elected part that makes that a particularly ugly truth.
Cliff in NH
I guess it’s how they pay for shutting down the govt…
Sir Laffs-a-lot
I think by the end of the decade the entire country will be enrolled in a single payer form of Medicare with supplemental plans atop; so do most inudstry pros I know; OCare is a (messy, and painful) transition designed to get everyone enrolled and some control on cost inflation and ins companies.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@Keith G: @Violet: Depends on which poor we’re talking about. Are we talking about a) the shiftless-and-won’t-work-an-honest-day’s-job poor or are we talking about b) the poor people who are poor because of having to pay the way of the people in category a?
Because those are two entirely different constituencies that can’t be appealed to the same way.
Big R
@Belafon: A good rule of thumb, but (for example) Starbucks doesn’t do this. They pay minimum wage or better, and still put out a tip jar.
If you’re going to sell out to your corporate overlords, Starbucks is a pretty good one to do it to.
Omnes Omnibus
@johnny aquitard: I disagree with the twice elected bit. He survived a recall – it’s not the same as being re-elected.
jonas
@Hill Dweller: Exactly. Tennessee tried this scheme a few years ago and it was a complete debacle.
Mnemosyne
@Sir Laffs-a-lot:
As far as I can tell, this is the ultimate goal. But be prepared for the breathless Democrats are killing Medicare! smears from both the right and the left before it’s all done since any Medicare-for-all type of system would have to stop the weird split we have where only people over 65 (with a few exceptions) are eligible.
Sir Laffs-a-lot
@Mnemosyne of course; cable news needs it’s ratings and the Sunday “Meet the Republicans” needs bullshit fodder.
rikyrah
@Hill Dweller:
Evil mofos, the entire lot.
Higgs Boson's Mate (Crystal Set)
As long as the Wrong Kind of People don’t have coathangers on which to roast sparrows and the Right Kind of People do the Republicans will continue to be elected in some states.
NR
@Hill Dweller: You could say the same thing about the ACA. But it wasn’t the Republicans’ privatization fetish that caused that, it was the Democrats.
NR
@Sir Laffs-a-lot: I can’t tell if you actually believe this or if you’re just shilling. The latter is unethical, the former… is downright scary.
Trollhattan
Wow, great piece. Was just noting to a friend who’s predicting ACA’s demise, that once red-staters observe the program up and running in the self-adminstered states, they’re going to start asking their own elected officials why they’re not in on the action. Texas, with the nation’s largest pool of uninsured, might be where the prarie fire begins.
I didn’t know the dollar disparity was this enormous.
Rock
This is pretty bad press:
http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2013-10-30/area-residents-upset-soaring-insurance-cost-projections.html
I somehow find it more damning in a local paper than in, say, the Times. Any opinions on how good the reporting is?
Gene108
@Violet:
Violet says:
October 30, 2013 at 1:37 pm
johnny aquitard
@Omnes Omnibus: You’re right, it’s not. But pretty close. Call it elected once, reaffirmed once.
I expect Walker to be re-elected, barring him getting fingered by this on-going investigation (yeah, as if) or his running for president.
Walker’s politics of resentment plays well outside the cities of Madison and Milwaukee.
As Ms. A noticed when she first came to Wisconsin from her native California and after living in Hawaii, “This is the whitest place I’ve ever lived in.” It is indeed which I think is why Walker’s and the GOP’s with their palimpsest of racial fear and resentment works well enough despite Wisconsin’s history of progressiveness.
Omnes Omnibus
@johnny aquitard:
When I was in high school a friend of the family came up to visit from Chicago on a weekend when a major cross country meet was being held in my home town. Since it was only a couple of blocks away and my family seldom got to see me run, they all came over to watch. The Chicagoan remarked that it was the biggest group of white people he had ever seen. Oddly, this was about the time the Hmong were first starting to arrive. My hometown went from 99.7% white (the one AA family and the three NA ones) to over 10% Asian in 10 years.
FWIW I am still hopeful that Walker loses next year.
Mnemosyne
@johnny aquitard:
@Omnes Omnibus:
When my grandmother died about 10 years ago, I was driving through the North Shore (northeast Chicago suburbs) with my younger cousin, who had been born and bred in northern California.
At one point, she turned to me and said, “I have never seen so many white people in one place in my life.”
Mnemosyne
@Rock:
I strongly suspect that a lot of insurance companies are taking this opportunity to upsell their existing customers to gold or even platinum plans without telling them that they have other options. It would be nice if reporters would actually do some reporting and find out if that’s what’s happening, but so far the reporting is all, Well, this is what the insurance company told us, and they never lie, so it must be Obamacare’s fault!