Captain Obvious
05-04-2015, 01:58 PM
http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2015/05/01/bribing-people-their-own-money
On Tuesday Florida Gov. Rick Scott announced he is suing the Obama administration (http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/28/us-usa-florida-medicaid-idUSKBN0NJ2NZ20150428), claiming its unwillingness to extend $1 billion in federal funding for a program designed to help low-income Floridians is an attempt to coerce the state into expanding Medicaid.
The state argued that federal healthcare officials cut the funding as a way to coerce Florida into dropping its refusal to expand Obamacare for the working poor in Florida.
Florida’s Republican leaders and the Democratic Obama administration are deeply split over $51 billion available over 10 years to expand Medicaid coverage to some 1 million Floridians under the Affordable Care Act, the formal name for Obamacare.
“The president, once again, is overstepping his authority, this time by trying to force Florida to expand Medicaid through the Affordable Care Act,” Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement announcing the lawsuit.
“The federal government is trying to do precisely what the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Constitution prohibits it from doing: forcing states to expand Medicaid by threatening to cut off funding for unrelated programs,” she added.
In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Obama’s signature healthcare law but ruled that each state could decide on the law’s expansion of eligibility for Medicaid.
Bondi argued it was unconstitutional for the Obama administration to now try to use the Low Income Pool (LIP) as a “bargaining chip” to force Florida to accept the Medicaid expansion.
It’s honestly amazing how far the country has gone away from the principles of federalism and how dependent states have become on federal tax dollars to function. In other states that have expanded Medicaid under Obamacare (http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2015/4/29/states-find-savings-through-medicaid-expansion), state legislators and agencies are shifting dollars to other programs instead, viewing the program as offering billions in “revenue gains.” But what happens when the share of state taxpayer money earmarked for Medicaid increases in the future? Those “revenues” will shrink, and the funding for these programs will have to be replaced – which effectively means taxes and fees will have to be raised or the programs shut down.
What Florida reveals is the danger of having health care dollars flow through Washington in the first place. It is no way a problem if Vermont wants to have a single-payer health care regime if Vermont is the state that must pay for this experiment. What is a problem is when taxpayers in other states must pay for the decisions made by state officials they did not elect and programs they did not approve. The practice of taxation without representation is now a nationwide problem again.
-- Benjamin Domenech
On Tuesday Florida Gov. Rick Scott announced he is suing the Obama administration (http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/28/us-usa-florida-medicaid-idUSKBN0NJ2NZ20150428), claiming its unwillingness to extend $1 billion in federal funding for a program designed to help low-income Floridians is an attempt to coerce the state into expanding Medicaid.
The state argued that federal healthcare officials cut the funding as a way to coerce Florida into dropping its refusal to expand Obamacare for the working poor in Florida.
Florida’s Republican leaders and the Democratic Obama administration are deeply split over $51 billion available over 10 years to expand Medicaid coverage to some 1 million Floridians under the Affordable Care Act, the formal name for Obamacare.
“The president, once again, is overstepping his authority, this time by trying to force Florida to expand Medicaid through the Affordable Care Act,” Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement announcing the lawsuit.
“The federal government is trying to do precisely what the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Constitution prohibits it from doing: forcing states to expand Medicaid by threatening to cut off funding for unrelated programs,” she added.
In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Obama’s signature healthcare law but ruled that each state could decide on the law’s expansion of eligibility for Medicaid.
Bondi argued it was unconstitutional for the Obama administration to now try to use the Low Income Pool (LIP) as a “bargaining chip” to force Florida to accept the Medicaid expansion.
It’s honestly amazing how far the country has gone away from the principles of federalism and how dependent states have become on federal tax dollars to function. In other states that have expanded Medicaid under Obamacare (http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2015/4/29/states-find-savings-through-medicaid-expansion), state legislators and agencies are shifting dollars to other programs instead, viewing the program as offering billions in “revenue gains.” But what happens when the share of state taxpayer money earmarked for Medicaid increases in the future? Those “revenues” will shrink, and the funding for these programs will have to be replaced – which effectively means taxes and fees will have to be raised or the programs shut down.
What Florida reveals is the danger of having health care dollars flow through Washington in the first place. It is no way a problem if Vermont wants to have a single-payer health care regime if Vermont is the state that must pay for this experiment. What is a problem is when taxpayers in other states must pay for the decisions made by state officials they did not elect and programs they did not approve. The practice of taxation without representation is now a nationwide problem again.
-- Benjamin Domenech