Republican Governors May Refuse Health Care Insurance/Medicaid to Newly Eligible Low Income Individuals

Putting Political Partisanship Above Health Care for People – It’s the Republican Way

As a result of the Supreme Court decision on expanding Medicaid to individuals not previously covered, states were given an ‘opt-out’.  States which do not want to provide Medicaid eligibility for some low income people may do so without endangering federal funding for the existing Medicaid program.  This loophole has prompted some Republican Governors to suggest that they will deny coverage to the newly eligible.

Three Republican Governors Have Spent a Career as Public Employees with Government Paid/Subsidized
Health Insurance - We Are All Waiting to See When They Go Get Private Coverage

The new program will initially be paid for by the Federal government, and eventually only a small portion of it will be paid for by the states.  But this gives Republicans opposed to health care for people who cannot afford it an opening.

But already, governors in Kansas, Nebraska and South Carolina, among other states, have said they would have difficulty affording even the comparatively small share of costs that states would eventually have to pay.

Gov. Dave Heineman of Nebraska, a Republican who is chairman of the National Governors Association, indicated that he was against expanding Medicaid eligibility.

“As I have said repeatedly, if this unfunded Medicaid expansion is implemented, state aid to education and funding for the University of Nebraska will be cut or taxes will be increased,” Mr. Heineman said.

This is, of course, a ridiculous position.  Uninsured people are not left to suffer and die in the streets, they receive minimal medical care, and it is paid for by the insured citizens through higher insurance costs and higher medical costs.  The ‘cost issue’ is simply a device by which Conservatives want to deny health care to the low income groups. 

One interesting thing, of course, is that all of these Governors are career politicians.  They have all spent years on the public payroll.  And they have all received incredibly expensive high quality health care insurance paid in large part by the taxpayers and provided by and sponsored by government. 

In short, they wish to deny to others what they themselves take as their own entitlement.  That in itself is almost as abominable as the act of keeping people from access to affordable health insurance out of spite, meanness, hatred and political gain.