SUBSIDY HONEY POT CAN’T LAST FOREVER
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion was unconstitutional. Liberal justices Breyer and Kagan pointed out that the expansion transformed Medicaid from a program of care for the neediest among us to means of achieving universal health coverage. This ruling gave the individual states the freedom to choose not to expand Medicaid.
These liberal stalwarts explained that Obamacare transformed Medicaid into something that “is no longer a program to care for the neediest among us.”
The Supreme Court ruled that the Affordable Care Act’s expansion mandate was coercion exceeding the Constitution’s limits on federal spending powers. This was the first such holding in the history of the republic.
The major reason states don’t want to participate is that, rather than help members of society emerge from poverty, new Medicaid is set up to be a permanent Washington-run, price-controlled health system, with no flexibility for the states.
These are documented facts, Mr. Iliff (letter, Oct. 15), not personal beliefs. I would rather trust Mrs. Butler’s view (Oct. 11) of Medicaid expansion than that of John Kasich, who has proven his disdain of being honest with the Ohio citizens. The fear that Ohioans should entertain is of Kasich and government-controlled health care.
The feds are dangling the promise of paying for all the costs of the new beneficiaries, for the next three years. This subsidy honey pot can’t last forever. The promise of the federal government fully funding Medicaid expansion is a pipe dream. Eventually the states will be left holding the bag.
If the purveyors of Medicaid were serious about helping the genuinely less fortunate, they would repair its current dysfunctions by eliminating the fraud and frivolous spending. They would seek to reform Medicaid, freeing millions of already accessible dollars, rather than expand the program. Thus, many legitimate folk would have the care they so desperately need.
Factually, the purpose of this tentacle of Obamacare, Medicaid expansion, is not helping the parents of children, but instead single childless adults. Ultimately, socialized medicine will be the end result, which will further impede medical assistance to not only the needy, but everyone.
Diann Risner
The Findlay 9.12 Project