Post by pavel on Apr 29, 2016 0:09:11 GMT -6
Here we go again. Another group of Oklahoma families will lose their health insurance plans thanks to the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare. The nation’s largest health insurer, UnitedHealth Group, is pulling out of our state due to unsustainable costs. Meanwhile, Oklahoma legislators once again are flirting with President Obama’s Medicaid expansion plan.
It seems a political lifetime ago when, in 2010, nearly 65 percent of Oklahomans voted to reject as much of Obamacare as possible. Bowing to the will of voters, state politicians refused to partner with the Obama Administration on an exchange website or to expand the medical welfare program known as Medicaid.
Both decisions worked out well. The Obama Administration’s health care.gov website was an embarrassment, but several state efforts failed outright. In the most egregious example, Oregon spent $300 million on a state exchange before shutting it down and admitting that not a single person was ever able to sign up at the “Cover Oregon” website.
The results of states expanding medical welfare are more subtle and harmful. When the federal government created Medicaid in 1965, benefits were available only for people who were blind or “permanently and totally disabled” or for poor families with children. Obamacare aimed to force states to accept a dramatic expansion of Medicaid to include able-bodied, working-age, childless adults and people with incomes above the poverty level. The federal government pays most of the costs for the first few years, but then shifts those costs back onto state taxpayers.
Read more: www.enidnews.com/opinion/obamacare-flounders-expansion-considered/article_1bd13541-1fa0-53c3-baf5-f5ed0f0a12ad.html
It seems a political lifetime ago when, in 2010, nearly 65 percent of Oklahomans voted to reject as much of Obamacare as possible. Bowing to the will of voters, state politicians refused to partner with the Obama Administration on an exchange website or to expand the medical welfare program known as Medicaid.
Both decisions worked out well. The Obama Administration’s health care.gov website was an embarrassment, but several state efforts failed outright. In the most egregious example, Oregon spent $300 million on a state exchange before shutting it down and admitting that not a single person was ever able to sign up at the “Cover Oregon” website.
The results of states expanding medical welfare are more subtle and harmful. When the federal government created Medicaid in 1965, benefits were available only for people who were blind or “permanently and totally disabled” or for poor families with children. Obamacare aimed to force states to accept a dramatic expansion of Medicaid to include able-bodied, working-age, childless adults and people with incomes above the poverty level. The federal government pays most of the costs for the first few years, but then shifts those costs back onto state taxpayers.
Read more: www.enidnews.com/opinion/obamacare-flounders-expansion-considered/article_1bd13541-1fa0-53c3-baf5-f5ed0f0a12ad.html