February 3rd 2019 Newsletter
Medicaid Expansion Raises it's Ugly Head Once Again
Stitt's First Chance to Show Conservative Values
Falling got the crap kicked out of her over Obama Care and one of it's key components; increasing Medicaid to tens of thousands of working people. Her own chief of staff said so in an email along with blaming the Tea Party for the beating. But Fallin was wise enough to know that the issue would resonate with conservatives in the state and having the Tea Party beating her did not bode well for the next election so she folded in 2012 much to the dismay of the liberals and donor class.
Seven years later and we are seeing Governor Stitt facing the same pressures and claims of easy money that is being thrown away, one billion dollars per year according to the other side.
But in the end expanding Medicaid is expanding welfare to people that should and could carry their own weight if the government refused to do things for them. Much is made of the coverage gap, those too poor to qualify for the Obama Care subsidies but making too much to get Medicaid with their welfare package. Using the other sides data, there are 84,000 Oklahomans in this financial state, 51% are non Caucasian, 76% of them are adults without dependent kids, 42% are women, and 53% have one other person in the family that does work a job.
If we did expand Medicaid, another 142,000 Oklahomans would become eligible for Medicaid, 58,000 more than are currently in the coverage gap. Around 40,000 of them might start making enough to qualify for the Obama Care subsidies. But that is normal, people's financial states change constantly and most are increasing their wages each year through wage increases, inflation, or learning better skills or getting better paying jobs.
The problem is that nearly every single state that has expanded Medicaid saw the number enrolled jump 150% more than expected. Free medical care, why wouldn't the leeches of society not grab on to that? Given a choice of actually working a real job that had benefits, shelling out some of their wages to pay their own medical costs, or staying in that dead end job if they even had a job seems pretty attractive to these sorts.
Medicaid was sold to U.S. Taxpayers as a safety net for the most vulnerable, pregnant mothers, kids, elderly, and the disabled. Nothing wrong with that as long as it is basic care that the lower income taxpayers can afford to pay for. The problem is that Obama Care allows people earning 138% of the poverty level to get on Medicaid instead of paying their own way. That creates the moral hazard of not trying to do better at work in order to keep the meager government benefits they already have.
Worse, Medicaid is nearly one third of all state spending, 30% of the 18.2 billion we spent in 2018. Expanding Medicaid means adding at least 50% more or 48% of the state budget, getting close to the 55% we spend on education. Cannot everyone see this problem, 78% of our state budget going to education and welfare medical costs? And they want to take that to 93%? Impossible of course, they would have to raise massive new taxes or fees in order to cover that 50% increased Medicaid spending.
And that is just the state pittance, the federal budget picks up the rest.
Governor Stitt has said that he is opposed to the expansion of Medicaid but there is pressure from unions and we might see a state question on the ballot in 2020. These unions are health care workers and the State Chamber of Commerce has long held onto the Holy Grail of getting health insurance costs off their company payrolls so they along with the liberals will be allies with the unions.
One of the lies used to sell Medicaid expansion is the claim that government spending creates economic growth. But if Oklahoma expanded Medicaid it would cost .9 billion dollars at the federal level and .1 billion at the state level. We will be told that spending a billion dollars of tax money will invigorate the states economy. The real truth is that this billion dollars must first be taxed out of the private sector and re distributed, diverting much needed cash from investments or paychecks which itself will certainly slow economic growth in the state. Yes, the 142,000 new Medicaid recipients would be better off but the rest of us would be that much poorer. And with now free health care, expect the new recipients to use more of it and expect everyone's medical costs to skyrocket as the increase in patients creates a competition for available services and creates a vast profit increase for medical providers and hospitals. Why else would they push the issue if not to make more money?
Some will argue that Medicaid can control prices as they set the cost of medical services they pay. Does anyone really think that the doctors and hospitals and medical supply companies would support a plan that takes paying customers and turns them into welfare recipients unless they benefited handsomely at the end?
In the end expanding Medicaid means slowing economic activity, expanded taxation, and fewer jobs being created. Hopefully the Republican leadership and Governor Stitt won't fall for the rosy predictions and will reject Medicaid expansion and focus on getting people back to work instead of making their poverty more comfortable.
