Voting Resources
Medicaid Expansion Would Cost Everyone
Bravo to Governor Rick Perry for refusing to move ahead on the Medicaid expansion requirements in the misnamed “Affordable Care Act,” AKA “ObamaCare.”
According to the Texas Public Policy Foundation, of the 6.5 million uninsured in Texas, fewer than 10% of Texas’ uninsured would benefit from expanding Medicaid to everyone at 133% of the Federal poverty guidelines. ObamaCare has no requirements other than annual income. The law won’t allow asset verification or take into account beneficiaries’ willingness and ability to work.
Texas uninsured numbers include nearly 1/3 that are illegal aliens, about 40% who earn more than $50,000 a year, and about 1/4 who are already eligible under Medicaid and CHIP. None of these people would be eligible under the expansion. Many are young and healthy, not convinced they need to spend their money on insurance, anyway.
The cost of expanded Medicaid, much less the rest of Obamacare, would require increased taxes, overt and hidden, on everyone. Sure, for two years, the Federal government is supposed to “pay” for the 10% of Texas’ uninsured added to the expanded Medicaid. But it won’t pay for that 25% of uninsured that are already eligible and it won’t cover illegal aliens or “the working poor.” And after 2 years, the Federal money goes away, leaving Texas with the bill.
Even though Washington can print paper money, the government doesn’t have any money that it doesn’t take in taxes. The cost is not just what is collected by the IRS, it comes in the loss of value of the money and assets we earn or already have. Obamacare, and the Stimulus before it, are sold by the Left as a classic take-from-the-rich “redistribution of the wealth.” However, it also costs non-taxpayers and the working poor and middle class by the harm it does to our economy and the increase in cost of necessities. As well as inevitably rewarding those who are unwilling to fend for themselves, they punish everyone who lives paycheck to paycheck as well as the “wealthy.”
