Obama: States Refusing More Healthcare Socialism Out of “Political Spite”
Posted By Philip Hodges on Apr 19, 2014 | 49 Comments
Obama expressed frustration at GOP governors for not expanding their respective Medicaid programs. He said that since expanding Medicaid would be perfectly free, the only reason they’d refuse is because of political spite (as if Obama has never acted out of political spite):
“This does frustrate me — states that have chosen not to expand Medicaid for no other reason than political spite. You got 5 million people who could be having health insurance right now at no cost to these states — zero cost to these states — other than ideological reasons they have chosen not to provide health insurance for their citizens.”
Everyone knows deep down that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Someone somewhere is paying for it. Even if Obama really was telling the truth this time (kind of like the boy who cried wolf) that the feds would cover all the costs and it would cost the states nothing, it’s still taxpayer money that’s paying for it.
But that’s going out on a limb in assuming that he’s even telling the truth.
The feds (through taxpayer money) might cover the benefit costs of states’ expanding Medicaid programs, but they’re not going to be covering the costs associated with administering the programs themselves, which for some states could cost hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars. And those costs would be up to the states to cover.
So what would happen if some of these Governors decided to go ahead with expanding their Medicaid rolls by a million or two beneficiaries? They’d either have to raise taxes to cover the administrative costs, or they’d have to cut from some other programs that they’re spending on. Or a little of both.
To use some of the liberals’ talking points against them, why are they so opposed to education? Why do they hate early childhood development programs and special education? And why do they want to strip universities of their state funding? Here’s Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman on why he didn’t want to submit to Obamacare’s “optional” Medicaid expansion requirements:
“I have repeatedly voiced opposition to expanding Medicaid because it is too expensive. It will cost millions of state taxpayer dollars to fund an expansion of Medicaid. If you include your federal tax dollars, it will cost billions of taxpayer dollars.
“The reality is that expanding Medicaid means less funding for state aid to education, early childhood programs, special education, the University of Nebraska, Chadron State College, Wayne State College, Peru State College and Nebraska’s six community colleges. Implementing the required parts of Obamacare already will cost the State of Nebraska more than $200 million dollars in state general funds over the next six years.”
It’s not out of political spite that they haven’t expanded their welfare programs to meet the overreaching mandates of the Obama administration. Liberals say it’s because these red states hate people and children and want no one to have access to “affordable” healthcare (as if liberals just love children to death). Maybe it’s that these governors don’t want to have to submit to yet another government-mandated program that they’re going to have to pay for anyway through increased taxes. The irony here is that the only one guilty of political spite is Obama in his blaming Republicans for their supposed “political spite.”
Read more at
http://lastresistance.com/5471/obama-states-refusing-healthcare-socialism-political-spite/#5HudP2shtKLYaIOX.99
