Healthcare

GOP Governors Want That Sweet Medicaid Expansion Money Now

Written by SK Ashby

Here's another monkey in the wrench for congressional Republicans who want to repeal Obamacare as quickly as possible.

Republican governors and congressional Republicans held a closed-doors meeting last week where a group of governors who refused to expand Medicaid under Obamacare told their congressional counterparts that they'd like to expand Medicaid now that President Obama is gone.

Some Republican governors chose to expand Medicaid, recognizing that giving healthcare to hundreds of thousands of people is good business and politics, but another group, which includes Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, are only now expressing interest in it.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker notably turned down more than $500 million for his state. Determined to win over conservative voters for his presidential bid, he doubted the federal government would keep its word to cover 100 percent of expansion costs in the first three years, and 90 percent over the long term. [...]

But with Republicans, backed by President-elect Donald Trump, pursuing repeal of the law, Walker and others GOP governors are asking specifically for the Medicaid money, and fewer rules for spending it.

Of course they want it now. The president is no longer black.

Medicaid expansion under Obamacare was distributed equitably, meaning accepting the funds carried with it rules stipulating that you cannot discriminate against or enrich specific organizations, businesses or individuals with it. Republican governors want the authority to do all of those things. They want the authority to discriminate against Planned Parenthood while distributing more money to religious-based services. In Scott Walker's case specifically, he wants the authority to impose more work requirements for those who qualify for Medicaid.

The GOP could probably please the greatest number of people by retaining Obamacare's expansion of Medicaid while giving governors more control over how the money is spent, but there's no way they can do that if they also repeal the taxes included in Obamacare.

At some point, the GOP will have to choose between cutting taxes for millionaires and billionaires or funding healthcare. I'm pretty sure they'll chose the tax cuts.

Obamacare -- the Affordable Care Act -- was a sprawling complex law that took two years to pass because it was crafted to pay for itself while covering the greatest number of people possible. The law's progenitors waded through a swamp of lobbyists, craven congressmen, and interests that both opposed the law and wanted a greater piece of the pie. You can't replicate or replace that process in two months.

If the GOP repeals Obamacare and doesn't pass an adequate replacement, over 700,000 people here in Ohio alone will lose their coverage. Millions more across the country will lose theirs, and along with it a millions of jobs will vanish.

There's so much more you could say about this.