Kentucky’s House Minority Leader Jeff Hoover announced today that Kentucky should join the roughly 10 states that are choosing to opt out of the expansion of Medicaid to more individuals under the Affordable Care Act.
Under the new law, from 2014 through 2016 the federal government would pick up the tab for the additional millions gaining coverage under Medicaid, at no cost to the states. From 2017 through 2019, the federal government would pay for over 90 percent of this coverage, with the state paying 10 percent from 2020 on.
Last week’s Supreme Court ruling upheld the constitutionality of the law but ruled that states can choose to opt out of the Medicaid expansion. Hoover claims that these additional costs that Kentucky will pick up will hurt the state’s already weak budget, causing other programs and services to be cut.
But Hoover and his friends in the House GOP also cite someone else to back up their claims:
“House Republicans point to numbers from the Urban Institute that show 400,000 uninsured Kentuckians who earn less than 138 percent of the federal poverty level would be eligible for Medicaid under the expansion.”
So I guess the Urban Institute must know their stuff, if House Republicans are citing the think tank.
And what exactly does the Urban Institute say about how the ACA Medicaid expansion will bust the budget of Kentucky’s state government, obviously leading to either tax increases or cuts in education and other government services?
Not so much. Actually, the Urban Institute says Kentucky and all but four states will save money with this reform. While costs will indeed go up for all states ($547 million in Kentucky) by 2020, what Hoover neglects to mention is how much states like Kentucky will actually save by certain patients’ care moving to the fed’s responsibility on payment (mental health, long-term home care, pregnant women), and most importantly, the dramatic reduction in “uncompensated care” — essentially, reducing the amount of money that the state must pay hospitals to reimburse them for providing emergency services for the previously uninsured.
Taking a conservative estimate on Kentucky’s potential savings, the Urban Institute (KY GOP approved) expects Kentucky to save anywhere from $140 million to $828 million by 2020.
So according to the Urban Institute, the dreaded Obamacare Medicaid expansion will bring to Kentucky:
- additional coverage for around 400,000 low-income Kentuckians
- an additional $140-$828 million dollars saved in the state budget
The horror!
Additionally, the number of uninsured adults earning less than 133 percent of the poverty line in Kentucky is expected to decrease by 57.1 percent under this expansion. Where does that rank among all states? No. 1.
Gov. Steve Beshear has not made up his mind yet on whether to go through with the Medicaid expansion. But if Rep. Hoover thinks that the Urban Institute is a good reference for the facts on this matter, by all means, we suggest the governor check out those numbers.
6 Comments
I 100% support Rep. Hoover in his fight to keep this insane health care expansion out of Kentucky and his stance not to contribute to the bloat of the federal government.
Rep. Hoover didn’t need the Urban Institute to tell him dropping the eligibility line for Medicaid below another 400,000 Kentuckians would add 400,000 Kentuckians to Medicaid’s rolls. And “fixing” the problem of a relatively small amount of unpaid medical expenses by blowing up our public indigent care budget and destroying what’s left of our health insurance industry is a lot like the little old lady who swallowed a horse, to catch the cow, to catch the goat, to catch the dog, etc. when she would have been better off stopping after she swallowed the fly. Allow doctors to write off charity work and end government’s attempts at regulating health care and much of what we call our health care crisis will take care of itself.
The biggest problem is addiction. Democratic and Republican politicians are addicted to the power and campaign contributions they get from either maintaining the status quo or making it worse.
The CBO projects that Obamacare will reduce the deficit. It does this through a mix of tax revenue and cost-cutting, as well as through the educational loan portion of the Act. The act will save the states money and not increase the federal deficit. Oh, and by the way, the ACA was designed by CONSERVATIVES back in the 90′s to limit government’s role in health care and keep health care in the private sector. I still don’t get why those on the reactionary right are so mad about getting what they wanted.
Beshear should implement this expansion because it’s the right thing to do, and it saves money.
Anyone opposed to the expansion ought to be able to look into a future without the expansion and read the stories of those who will surely perish without it. They are effectively in favor of murdering people.
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If we could get the corporate welfare queens off the KY taxpayers’ dole.. we might be able to offer health care to those in KY who some (the morally righteous crowd) think don’t deserve it!! Oh, wait, GOP still pushing their ‘get sick and die quickly’ plan. And, Dems, well they seem bent on disguising ‘care’ as padding the pockets of middlemen claiming to ‘manage’ healthcare for KYians. WOW, appears to be a lose-lose for thousands of KYians without health care. It’s ironic that KY politicians reward the corporate hacks who are poisoning our food, water & air supplies then work overtime so that those they allow to become sick from the poisoning can’t get health care.