Rick Perry's Refusal to Expand Medicaid Could Cost Businesses $400 Million

[TexasTowelie]

Rick Perry's resistance to expanding Medicaid is proving to hurt Texas in new ways every day. This time, it's related to massive employer tax penalties.

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In Texas, employers will have to pay federal tax penalties between $266 and $399 million annually - far more than any other state. Florida, which is positioned to be hit with the next-highest amount of penalties, would receive fines of up to $253 million at most.

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In Texas, over one million Texans are stuck in the Medicaid coverage gap - people whose incomes are too high to qualify for Medicaid but too low to qualify for subsidies. And it's now up to employers to cover them.

If employers offer insurance that is not affordable to the group in the Medicaid coverage gap, they may have to pay up to $3,000 in federal tax penalties per employee. While the federal government would have paid 90 percent of costs of the Medicaid expansion, the burden for coverage is now falling on employers - and the price tag isn't cheap.

The complete article is at http://www.burntorangereport.com/diary/14756/rick-perrys-refusal-to-expand-medicaid-could-cost-businesses-400-million .

[JoePhilly]

1. The GOP is not good at math or economics.

[Gothmog]

2. We need to mobilize the voters affected by this decision

This is a horrible decision.

I love the concept of trying to motivate the voters hurt by this decision. Texas Democrats have a program called "Texas left me out" that seeks to motivate these voters http://www.democraticunderground.com/107813898

[northoftheborder]

3. Yes, you are right. Get the information out to people affected, and get them to vote.