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Government is not reason; it is not eloquence. It is force. And force, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.“
–George Washington

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is argument of tyrants.It is the creed of slaves.”
–William Pitt in the House of Commons November 18, 1783

“The appropriation of public money always is perfectly lovely until some one is asked to pay the bill..” –New York Herald Tribune, August 5, 1930.

In early April Gov Snyder at a press conference,”

As his self-imposed budget deadline approaches, he listed the expansion and transportation funding as two of his top priorities.

“I think you’ll see an increase in activity from what we’ve had. We are going to continue to step up activity in terms of having the discussion, because Medicaid expansion is a good thing for Michiganders….that his administration has been meeting with both legislators and staff on the Medicaid expansion issue and would be ramping that up in the near future.”

The future is NOW.

It’s been reported that the Governor is putting other issues on the back burner to push the Medicaid expansion to legislators, thumb screws or promises.

So we NEED to do some “Informing” of our own and contact our Reps and Senators and let them know:

“WE DO NOT WANT A MEDICAID EXPANSION.”  Simple

However, Below are some facts that you may use if you so desire that refute Gov. Snyder’s position to expand Medicaid

1. The Medicaid Expansion is vital to the success of Obama Care

2. Always FOLLOW THE MONEY

3. Any state savings are TEMPORARY

4. Medicaid is a broken,costly taxpayer dollar sucking program that is terrible health care.

1. The Medicaid Expansion is vital to the success of Obama Care

In his article, “Did the Supreme Court Ruling Render the Health Law’s Finances Untenable?” Chuck Blahous warns that the court’s change of the Medicaid-expansion provision makes ObamaCare much less sustainable and practically guarantees its failure: “Much attention has been given to the argument that without the individual purchase mandate, other parts of the health care law would become unworkable. Much less attention has been given to the fact that without the states forced to be on board with the Medicaid expansion, the law’s health exchange subsidies might be fiscally unworkable. The Supreme Court may have just set in motion of chain of events that could lead to the law’s being found as busting the budget, even under the highly favorable scoring methods used last time around.“

2. FOLLOW THE MONEY

So like ANYTHING in politics, someone is going to benefit from policy.  I met a very smart gentleman a few weeks ago that said to me,” Medicaid isn’t socialism for the poor, its socialism for the powerful” BINGO! Who benefits from the Medicaid Expansion? BIG HEALTH

Hospitals, insurers and drug companies have lobbied in state capital after state capital, leaning on Republicans until they agreed to create insurance exchanges or expand Medicaid as Obamacare prescribed…..One driving cause has been the business lobby — specifically the health-care lobby…..They’ve hired every lobbyist they can get….pro-exchange health-industry companies also poured money into legislative campaigns. Comb through the campaign finance disclosures …Republicans tend to drop their opposition to big government when big business pushes them hard enough.“ The Examiner Washington formerly http://m.washingtonexaminer.com/tim-carney-health-industry-pushes-gop-states-toward-obamacare/article/2523136/?page=1&referrer=/politics

All one has to do is look through the Medicaid supporters to identify “Big Health” in Michigan

3. Any state savings are TEMPORARY

From that same press conference Gov Snyder said, “It’s a human case, too; it’s not just a fiscal case. ….said Snyder. “And that translates into dollars and cents, …

A fiscal windfall in the near-term, perpetual losses thereafter

“There’s plenty of reason to disagree. It’s true that the state is likely to enjoy a short-term fiscal windfall if it expands Medicaid. But by 2020, the expansion will sink into the red, and lose money for the state thereafter….Gov. Snyder likes to call himself “one tough nerd”—it’s even his handle on Twitter—but it’s hardly tough to saddle Michigan taxpayers with perpetual deficit spending in order to collect a windfall while you’re in office.

Snyder insists that he will sock away a portion of the near-term windfall to pay for future spending, but the history of entitlement programs should make us skeptical of that promise. Both Social Security and Medicare accumulated substantial surpluses in their early years, only to incur losses later on. The savings were not put away for a rainy day, but rather were frittered away on other priorities.”

Obamacare Medicaid Expansion a ‘Roach Motel?’

In the short term, accepting the expansion will save states money, thereby allowing politicians to spend more on other programs. In Michigan, it will free up around $200 million in next year’s budget (half of which Gov. Snyder wants to put in a “lock box” to cover higher state costs the expansion begins to impose starting in 2017).  This temporary loot is the “attractive nuisance” that has caused previously anti-Obamacare Republican governors like John Kasich and Rick Scott in Florida to become implementation collaborators.

Given Michigan’s legislative term limits, the temptations are even stronger for our legislators to accept these pieces of Obamacare silver, since many will no longer be in office when the higher costs hit. Alas, there are no term limits on the burdens Michigan taxpayers will have to carry for decisions made today that are very likely irrevocable in the future.

Take Ohio for example: According to the governor, the health care lobby, and socialized medicine advocates, these costs would be worth it because they would secure billions per year in new federal funds from a government already $16.7 trillion in debt.

Where would the new federal funding come from? “Don’t worry about it” might be the answer of Medicaid expansion proponents, if Ohio’s press even bothered to ask.

According to HPIO, the PPACA Medicaid expansion would “Strengthen Ohio’s economy by bringing in federal resources that have already been set aside for Medicaid expansion, creating tens of thousands of jobs within the state’s borders.”

HPIO did not explain how a federal government that has run $1 trillion deficits each year since President Obama took office can “set aside” billions per year into perpetuity without even passing a budget since before PPACA was written.”

Speaking of the Federal government…Moody’s currently rates the US government Aaa with a negative outlook  

Maybe Gov. Snyder has been watching Kaish’s, “How To Push Medicaid for Dummies”

From Media Trackers ...“Kasich falsely insisted that Ohio’s promised federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) funding for expanding Medicaid will be sent to other states if Ohio rejects the expansion….. The Ohio Channel has the governor’s entire speech; watch the segment in question to see Kasich pressure legislators by inaccurately asserting their rejection of Medicaid expansion would not prevent any of PPACA’s new spending.”

4. Medicaid is a broken,costly taxpayer dollar sucking program that is terrible health care.

“In 1987, Congress projected that Medicaid – the joint federal-state health care program for the poor – would make special relief payments to hospitals of less than $1 billion in 1992. Actual cost: $17 billion”  U.S. Health Plans have History of Cost Overruns

From our article “2013 ObamaCare in MI and More!”

In Michigan,according to the governor’s budget (formerly/http://grassrootsmichigan.com/?page_id=2535), Medicaid is 85% of the HHS budget!

According to the Kaiser Health Foundation Medicaid and CHIP stats

• Michigan has 20% of her total population enrolled in Medicaid (2009)
• Michigan’s Medicaid spending from 1990 -2010 has increased 8% ranking her as 23rd in the nation for Medicaid spending. In contrast our Midwestern neighbors Indiana has increased 5% and Illinois 6.6%
• The state of Michigan spend $3,153,326,988 (2010) compared to $1,454,600,107 in Indiana and was the 9th highest in the country

“It’s a human case, too; it’s not just a fiscal case. It’s about people’s real health,” said Snyder.

Medicaid Is Bad Coverage — Access to health insurance is not the same as access to health care.

Coverage for the poor should not be synonymous with poor coverage

Medicaid is the worst health insurance coverage in the country, and yet Obama Care did nothing to fix its many problems.

• Take access to physicians.  The Texas Medical Association published a survey showing that the number of Texas doctors willing to accept new Medicaid patients has declined from 42 percent in 2010 to 31 percent in 2012, in large part because Medicaid pays doctors so little.
•   For various reasons Medicaid beneficiaries often go to the emergency room instead of a family doctor. 
• In addition, Medicaid drug formularies limit the poor’s access to many beneficial drugs.
• And,Currently, nearly one-third of doctors (formerly/http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/31/8/1673.abstract) are unwilling to take new Medicaid patients; For children, it’s even worse—the GAO reports about 79 percent of doctors accept all privately insured children as new patients, compared to about 47 percent for children in Medicaid and CHIP[2]; and
• Consequently, emergency room use is at least 50 percent higher formerly for Medicaid patients compared to those with private coverage (or, for that matter, those without coverage).[3]

[3] Based on randomly assigning 10,000 people to Medicaid coverage in Oregon, found there was no statistically significant difference in ER use between those newly enrolled in Medicaid relative to the (largely uninsured) comparison group. That is, giving such individuals Medicaid did not affect their ER use one iota!

Disincentives to work under Medicaid. Work Disincentives, Still Crazy After All These Years

And for your final consideration: Bottom line?  It doesn’t matter what race, sex, or socioeconomic group you belong to, entitlement programs are incentives for you to behave badly, make bad decisions, and place the burden to pay for those bad decisions on the shoulders of others.  In short, they undermine self-reliance and personal responsibility. Congratulations! She’s Having His Baby . . . and You’re Paying for It!