Posted on 05/23/2013 4:09:44 PM PDT by mdittmar
The state of Texas is turning down billions of federal dollars that would have paid for health care coverage for 1.5 million poor Texans.
By refusing to participate in Medicaid expansion, which is part of the Affordable Care Act, the state will leave on the table an estimated $100 billion over the next decade.
Texas' share of the cost would have been just 7 percent of the total, but for Gov. Rick Perry and the state's Republican-dominated Legislature, even $1 in the name of "Obamacare" was a dollar too much.
"Texas will not be held hostage by the Obama administration's attempt to force us into this fool's errand of adding more than a million Texans to a broken system," Perry said.
(Excerpt) Read more at northcountrypublicradio.org ...
ObamaCare shafts the lower middle class by forcing millions of them onto Medicaid—an already overburdened system—rather than providing the comprehensive health care Obama promised. This is all a bait-and-switch scam to get states to expand their programs with promises of federal funding which will dry up in a few years. Kathleen Sebelius begging, threatening and extorting money out of the health care industry to pay for TV commercials is an omen not lost on the Texas legislature.
Most of the billions would have gone to paper pushing clock watchers anyway.
> The state of Texas is turning down billions of federal dollars that would have paid for health care coverage for
1.5 million poor Texans.
1.5 million illegal aliens.
Nail meet head.
Every Democrat political group in this nation and Cental American nations are focusing on the Democrat takeover of Texas politics within a generation.
At the state and local levels, acts like this by the Texas GOP will hasten the collapse of Texas as a GOP leaning state.
I’m not saying I disagree with the Texas GOP stance.
I’m saying they had better create a robust, common sense, well crafted and highly publicized line of reasoning and spread it wide and far to Texas voters, or the principled choice they made here will be the party’s doom.
By taking the limited money, they have to dramatically expand the acceptance criteria FOREVER. It’s like the Race to the Top grants of a few hundred million dollars one year while obligating you to spend hundreds of millions implementing and supporting CSCOPE for years.
Bump!
/johnny
bttt
The House GOP has no choice but to let ObamaCare implode DURING the frontloaded premiums period between now and 2017, and we all better pray and work our tails off to make sure the non-corrupt GOP in the House maintain a constant House majority between now and Omnibus Appropriations Bills in 2016 for the 2017 Budget, or all these states that blocked Medicaid expansion are going to be madhouses of populist demagoguery at levels unseen in the US since the Marxists showed up in the urban US cities in the 1890s.
The aftermath of the ObamaCare implosion could coincide with the raising of the FedReserve interest rates, at which point all hell will break loose as double digit numbers of American families are thrown into bankruptcy/poverty levels. Which in total might see a majority of households below the ObamaCare’s qualifying level of 300% of the poverty level.
At that point, the Texas GOP will beg the FedGov for Medicaid expansion, at a much worse bargaining position than at present.
Texas GOP (and other states’ GOPs) are playing with fire.
Guess what the mindless voters will choose.
/johnny
1.5 million current poor would qualify for the expanded Medicaid program in Texas.
After an amnesty, the number would what, increase 50%, 100%, 150%, and costs would skyrocket.
www.hhsc.state.tx.us/medicaid/reports/PB9/PinkBook.pdf
The Medicaid Numbers
Medicaid as a percentage of Texas budget, SFY 2011: 26 percent
Percentage of Texas Medicaid budget spent on children, SFY 2011: 33 percent
Dollars spent on Texas Medicaid, FFY 2011: $29.4 billion
Double the number of poor through Medicaid expansion,
Double again the number of poor again by Amnesty, ...
and 104% of the Texas Total Annual Budget will go toward Medicaid.
Great. Tennessee also turned down the expansion (weak-kneed governor Bill Haslam knowing the General Assembly would not have backed him) and the Florida legislature slapped down Rick Scott’s attempt to implement the expansion there.
I’m not sure what the total breakdown of nonexpansion vs. expansion states is now but I do know the expansion states will rue the day they agreed to it in a few short years.
Most of those 1.5 Million “Poor Texans” are Illegal invaders. We should spend that money to round them up and ship every last one of their skanky asses back to Mexico.
You’re confused, the future taxpayers’ will rue the day their prior Legislators voted for expansion,
The current Legislators will be retired from office and working on their next grafting schemes,
and the future wealth transfer tax recipients will be overjoyous and do everything possible to maintain the program. Future Legislators will latch onto this program with both hands to demagogue their way into office on the backs of low information voters.
And you expect us Texans to care about “populist demagoguery”?
“...the Texas GOP will beg the FedGov for Medicaid expansion”
I believe you need a refill of your psychotropic drug. You are from New Jersey so there are likely many bottles available of your particular psychotropic drug.
“Texas GOP ... are playing with fire.”
After you take your drug, post on a Democrat website where you will be more comfortable to accept Hussein's communist healthcare.
The collapse of the GOP is eminent, the worst this will do is hasten it, as you say.
The best it will do is draw a clear distinction between them and the democrats, and maybe embolden other GOP states to follow its lead. Which really is the only hope for the survival of the GOP, and to defeat this legislative perversion.
No $hit.
“You’re confused, the future taxpayers’ will rue the day their prior Legislators voted for expansion”
You’re right, of course. “States will rue” was too broad because, as you note, the leeches will be well pleased and the buy-my-votes-with-taxpayer-money politicians will be enjoying their ill gotten government retirements.
Kind of like drug dealers giving product away for a while to set the hook - then you pay dearly.
God Bless Texas for refusing to spend other peoples’ money!
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