GOP Controlled States Refusing To Expand Medicaid Will Lose Billions

Sadly, a number of GOP controlled states put sabotaging what they call "Obamacare" ahead of the welfare of hundreds of thousands of their citizens who lack meaningful healthcare coverage.   It's the height of stupidity because the uninsured will eventually end up at non-profit hospitals which will have to write off huge amounts of billings for the uninsured and then jack up pricing for everyone else to recoup the loses.  The cretins in the GOP base are simply too stupid to realize they are already paying for the uninsured except it's in the least cost effective manner possible.  And no one among the GOP elected officials has the balls to tell the lunatic party base that they are idiots.  And that's not even considering the hypocrisy of claiming to honor Christian principles while throwing away thousands of individuals as if they were trash.  Oh, but then one must remember than many of the uninsured are minorities and to the racist GOP base apparently do not count as really human.  It's disgusting.  A piece in Think Progress looks at the situation.  Here are highlights:

The GOP-controlled states who continue to resist expanding their Medicaid programs under Obamacare are making a short-sighted financial decision, according to a new analysis from the Rand Corporation. The 14 states whose governors have indicated that they won’t accept the optional Medicaid expansion will lose out on $8.4 billion in federal funding while leaving an additional 3.6 million Americans uninsured.

The federal government currently pays for about 57 percent of the cost of each state’s Medicaid program — but under Obamacare, it will pick up the total cost of expanding the program to cover additional uninsured Americans, gradually reducing that federal contribution to 90 percent. That increased federal funding, as well as the savings that result from fewer uninsured patients unable to foot their medical bills, could ultimately save all 50 states as much as $18.1 billion a year by Rand’s estimations.

“Our analysis shows it’s in the best economic interests of states to expand Medicaid under the terms of the federal Affordable Care Act,” Carter Price, the study’s lead author, explained in a press release. “State policymakers should be aware that if they do not expand Medicaid, fewer people will have health insurance, and that will trigger higher state and local spending for uncompensated medical care.”

And Rand’s $8.4 billion figure could actually be an underestimation. The study focused on the 13 states that have already flat-out refused to participate in Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion as well as another state, Iowa, that is pursuing an alternative to the policy. But it didn’t include the six states that are leaning toward rejecting the Medicaid expansion — Alaska, Kansas, Nebraska, Utah, Virginia and Wyoming — which could also end up losing money if they officially decide against expanding their public insurance programs. 

Nevertheless, stubborn Obamacare opponents in red states are still refusing to cooperate with any aspect of health reform — even at the expense of their most vulnerable constituents. Some of the nation’s most highly-uninsured states have resisted extending health coverage to additional low-income Americans simply to make a political statement against the health reform law.