GOP governors seek leeway on Medicaid expansion

[alp227]

Source: Washington Post

Republican governors are ratcheting up pressure on President Obama to scale back a key provision of his health-care law.

In a recent letter to Obama, 11 governors asked for a meeting “as soon as possible” to negotiate for greater control over their Medicaid programs.

Among other things, the governors want the option of expanding Medicaid — the state-federal program for the poor and disabled — in a much more modest way than envisioned in the law.

“To make any health care reform truly successful, [the administration] should let states do what they do best — innovate and tailor solutions to the needs of their citizens,” the governors wrote. The letter was signed by Jan Brewer of Arizona, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Rick Scott of Florida, Robert F. McDonnell of Virginia and the governors of Iowa, Maine, Mississippi, Ohio, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/gop-governors-seek-leeway-on-medicaid-expansion/2012/12/08/80ab2e72-3e52-11e2-ae43-cf491b837f7b_singlePage.html

[atreides1]

1. Translation

What they say:

“To make any health care reform truly successful, should let states do what they do best — innovate and tailor solutions to the needs of their citizens,”

What they mean:

"We want to use this money to ease our budget woes, even at the cost of lives. And we don't like the idea of you getting any credit for anything."

[freshwest]

6. +1

[wercal]

13. Kansas

In yesterday's news, Kansas has already gotten an exception to psuedo privatize.

[alp227]

14. welcome to DU!

[hrmjustin]

15. Welcome to DU and I hope you enjoy the site.

[jwirr]

19. It is well known that this kind of action will cause the poor to leave the state. This especially

happens when the poor are on the borders of their states and can move into a state that has a better program. Both Iowa and South Dakota have used weaker programs to dump their poor into the Minnesota programs. I know - been there and done that many years ago.

I also remember that was one of the reasons why we moved from state run AFDC programs to federal programs - state run programs often discriminated against minorities. When uniform federal laws were put into place much of this ended.

[AnnaLee]

2. Do they know how stupid that sounds? I'd be embarrassed to say such stuff in the WH.

If States were so innovative they would have tailored a solution to the health care problems for their citizens long ago. They are the ones that approve insurance and insurance increases. The intervention at the federal level was necessitated by the negligence at the State level. I say this because the Governors say they can do it themselves. Duh, why aren't Democratic Governors joining this? Aren't they innovative too?

[freshwest]

7. Thank Gawd we got a Democrat. We were spared a lying Republican November 6th.

[AllyCat]

17. Good point. Wisco had a great system. Then Walker got in their

and started hacking away at it. Now he wants a bye from the law.

[southern_belle]

28. +1 Thank You -

[Panasonic]

3. Just set up the damn exchange and kwityerbitchin

Not that hard to do.

[dballance]

4. How about, "NO" go f yourself

rather than you continuing to do everything you can to f your citizens?

[benld74]

5. Hows about seeing a plan HOW you intend to tailor it to fit your citizens?

[jwirr]

20. Good point. Waivers are granted only after the state proposes a plan for a BETTER program not one

that refuses to improve the program.

[former9thward]

21. They don't need waivers.

The Supreme Court decsion which so many praised gave the states the right to reject Medicaid expansion without penalty.

[jwirr]

23. Thanks I did not know that.

[bluestateguy]

8. No. We are not going to give blank checks to the likes of Jan Bewer, Rick Scott and Scott Walker

so they can turn around and give the money away in tax cuts.

No.

Better to just try and get some of these otherwise Medicaid eligible people covered in the exchanges.

[freshwest]

9. Whoa! Texas isn't on this list? I thought Ricky refused altogether, but...

I'd love to see him eat some crow and sign up.

[former9thward]

22. This is about Medicaid expansion not the exchanges.

Two different issues. TX rejected the state exchanges.

[freshwest]

24. Tell us what Ricky is going to do with Medicaid, then. That's mostly federal funding.

[former9thward]

25. Why don't you tell us what "Ricky" is going to do.

Since you seem to be on a first name basis with him. I have no idea what TX is going to do about Medicaid. I was only pointing out the issue of state exchanges and the issue of state expansion of Medicaid are two different things.

[freshwest]

26. I had forgotten your position. Thanks.

[LeftInTX]

29. You wouldn't think Rick Perry would do the right thing?

Of course not!!!

Maybe he was a few weeks ahead of his state sovereign gubner friends?

http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2012/11/29/texas-rejects-obama-administration-exchange-medicaid-expansion

[freshwest]

30. You got that right, thanks for the link on how they're related:

In the Supreme Court’s June decision which upheld the constitutionality of Obama’s health care law, the Court also found states have the right to reject the law’s Medicaid expansion without losing their current federal funding. Perry noted in his letter that expanding Medicaid would mandate the admission of millions of additional Texans into the already unsustainable Medicaid program, at a potential cost of billions to Texas taxpayers, Davidson said.

Um, so the governor wants MILLIONS of Texans to have NO health insurance. Guess they just don't count as human beings to Ricky.

“ObamaCare takes things like Medicaid and transforms them into something else. The Medicaid expansion is designed to go hand-in-hand with the state exchanges,” Davidson said. “You go to an exchange and they tell you what programs you qualify for and if you can’t afford to pay, then they qualify you for Medicaid. This creates another welfare entitlement.”

Had to toss in the memes entitlements and welfare. Ricky believes his pals are entitled and gives them corporate welfare.

What a prince among men. Thanks.

[rainin]

10. Remember when Obama acted in good faith with Republican Governors on Welfare to Work Requirements?

Republicans turned that around and accused Obama of ending the work requirement for welfare recipients. That got endless play by several republican candidates including Mitt Romney (if I recall correctly). Anyway, fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice... The republican governors have gall.

For those who don't remember, I found this on Politifact:

Clinton said in his convention speech that the Obama administration "agreed to give waivers to those governors and others only if they had a credible plan to increase employment by 20 percent, and they could keep the waivers only if they did increase employment."

That's an accurate recap of the planned changes to Temporary Assistance to Needy Families. By granting waivers to states, the Obama administration is seeking to strengthen welfare-to-work efforts by letting states try different approaches based on their residents’ needs. That’s important too -- the waivers would be considered for individually evaluated pilot programs. HHS is not proposing a blanket, national change to welfare law.

The waiver offering was spurred by requests from several governors, including Republican governors, and Sebelius explicitly stated that only requests that "demonstrate clear progress" toward enhancing employment will be approved by HHS.

Clinton’s statement is accurate. We rate it True.

[DhhD]

11. Texas may use it to subsidize health insurance companies by lowering copays. Its back to

privatization not nationalization of health care. It will hurt the poor; the very ones that were supposed to be picked up in to the social net of care.

GOP = Moving Backward.

Obamacare = Moving Forward.

[Bozita]

12. Go fuck yourselves, GOPers! The election's over. You lost. Get over it.

[AllyCat]

16. Weasel words. Tailor the "benefits" to their citizens means

not providing anything because they don't care about citizens that don't contribute thousands to their campaign coffers.

[David__77]

18. They already have "leeway." They don't have to expand it.

They will then forgo the federal funds to support expanding it, of course.

[doc03]

27. GOP governors wanted more leeway in work requirements for welfare,

remember what happened "Obama took work requirement out of welfare."