The GOP’s Fatal Infatuation
Once the governors took expanded Medicaid payments, they were hooked.
What an irony it is that one of the Republican arguments made now for preserving ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion is the opioid crisis. Even after the Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that Medicaid’s expansion was optional, some Republican governors got hooked on the promise of federal cash flow to the horizon.
.. Medicaid has become most states’ second biggest budget outlay, behind K-12 education.
.. Medicaid “works” only if no one notices it’s robbing Peter to pay Paul. The Peters getting robbed to make Medicaid work include doctors who are supposed to serve this population.
.. Medicaid paid physicians on average 66 percent of what Medicare paid for services, down from 72 percent in 2008.
.. Medicaid is already a fiscal ruin and lowest-common-denominator medicine. Advocates say it’s better than nothing for the poor or uninsured, but well-controlled studies put even that claim in doubt.