If you had any doubt that Obamacare is a huge subsidy/trough for the health care industries, just look at the big health lobbyists take the offensive when State governors say they will refuse the scheme to increase Medicaid. This would cut into big health’s plans to cash in on increased government funds!
The New York Times reports,
Republican officials in more than a half-dozen states said they opposed expanding Medicaid or had serious doubts about it, even though the federal government would pick up all the costs in the first few years and at least 90 percent of the expenses after that. . . .
In writing the law, Congress assumed that the poorest uninsured people would gain coverage through Medicaid, while many people with higher incomes would receive federal subsidies to buy private insurance. Now, poor people who live in a state that refuses to expand its Medicaid program will find themselves in a predicament, unable to obtain either Medicaid or subsidies.
That potential gap will probably lead to ferocious statehouse battles in the coming year, as states weigh whether to accept billions of dollars in federal aid to pay for expanded coverage.
The health care industry, sensing the skepticism in some states, is preparing a campaign to persuade state officials to accept the money for coverage of the uninsured. . . . [emphasis AVN]
Page 2 picks up the theme,
Health care providers who treat low-income patients strongly support the expansion of coverage.
Richard J. Umbdenstock, the president of the American Hospital Association, said that hospitals around the country would lobby for the Medicaid expansion. “If states do not avail themselves of this opportunity,” he said, “the federal money will go to other states, and hospitals will be left with large numbers of the uninsured.”
Translation: “Hospitals will not have a guarantee for easy money.”
Nancy M. Schlichting, chief executive of the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, said she “absolutely will lobby” for the expansion of Medicaid. She said she expected Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican, to support the expansion, but she added, “he may have trouble” getting it through the Michigan Legislature.
