Once again, poor people are the political footballs
by digby
This is depressing:
Nearly two out of three low-income Americans who are eligible for Medicaid coverage under Obamacare may not actually get those health benefits next year, according to a new analysis from the Associated Press. Those people are likely to miss out because states across the country are still refusing to expand the public insurance program.
Since each state may now decide whether or not to participate in Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, the health law’s goal of extending coverage to 30 million uninsured Americans has been thrown into question. Drawing on figures from the Urban Institute, the AP finds that 9.7 million of the 15 million adults who qualify for Medicaid coverage under the expansion live in states that are refusing to implement that policy.
This Medicaid expansion was the one true single payer piece of the Health Care Reform and the main reason why progressives were unable to fight effectively in the negotiations. How do you walk away from 15 million new people who will have government funded health care when all is said and done? Now it looks like it will only be 5.3 million to start --- which isn't nothing. That's a lot of people, a bunch of them right here in my state of California. So huzzah for that. And the conventional wisdom says that most of the states will eventually change their minds so this is hopefully only temporary.
But still, it's just sad. Once more, the poor are the political footballs and the liberals who advocate for them are the goats, at least for the time being. What a pathetic comment on our political priorities.
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