Right-Wing States Reject Medicaid Expansion

Click here for an article in The American Prospect entitled The Cruelty of Republican States in One Chart, by Paul Waldman.

Obamacare was never intended to cover the poorest people; it was expected that those would be covered by Medicaid. Eligibility for Obamacare doesn't kick in until 133 percent of the poverty level, $31,321 for a family of four. However, individual states define eligibility for Medicaid very differently.

In more liberal states, these levels are fairly high; for instance, Massachusetts gives Medicaid to families up to 133 percent of poverty, New York up to 150 percent, and Minnesota up to 215 percent. But in conservative states, the levels are far stingier; as someone in the Times article says, "You got to be almost dead before you can get Medicaid in Mississippi."

So the liberal states already cover people whose income doesn't rise to the level where Obamacare kicks in; conservative states, not so much.

For instance, in Alabama, you can't get Medicaid if your income exceeds 23 percent of the poverty level, or $4,500 for a family of three. Just think about that for a second. Do you think you could find a place to live, pay your bills, and feed your family on that income? But the state of Alabama says if you're that rich, you can afford to buy health insurance. In Texas ... only families under 25 percent of the poverty level, or $4,894 for a family of three, will be eligible for Medicaid. I'm guessing that's about what Rick Perry spends on boots every year.

Obamacare offered the individual states help by paying the Medicaid costs for those people left in limbo -- with incomes too low to qualify under the federal Obamacare rules, yet not covered by state Medicaid rules -- by funding Medicaid for those people 100% for the first three years, with the states picking up more of the cost thereafter, on a sliding scale, until several years from now, when the federal government would pay 90%; the state would never have to pay more than 10% of the cost of making these millions of low-income people eligible for Medicaid.

Click here for an article on america.aljazeera.com entitled States' refusal to expand Medicaid leaves millions uninsured:

According to data analysis released by The New York Times Thursday, as many as 8 million people will remain outside of health care coverage envisioned under the terms of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare, because they live in states that have refused extensions to Medicaid, the national health insurance program for the poor.

Currently, 26 states — all with Republican governors or Republican-controlled legislatures — have thus far declined Medicaid expansion, leaving the health care situation of millions of uninsured people unchanged.

By contrast, in the 24 remaining states (plus Washington, D.C.) that are going ahead with Medicaid expansion, more than 8.7 million people are expected to be newly enrolled, according (PDF) to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

I find it inconceivable that states would refuse such generous amounts of federal assistance to make 8.7 million poor people eligible for Medicaid, but apparently it is more important to these conservative states that they hinder and impede the implementation of Obamacare, and make it less effective, than it is to cover millions (1.8 million, in the case of Texas) of their poorest citizens.

Anyway, check out the graph in the story in The American Prospect which shows which are the cruelest Republican states.