Under latest health-care bill, red states would benefit disproportionately

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Retweeted by David Fahrenthold: https://twitter.com/Fahrenthold

Under latest health-care bill, red states would benefit disproportionately

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Under latest health-care bill, red states would benefit disproportionately

By David Weigel September 20 at 6:00 AM

The latest Republican proposal for curtailing the Affordable Care Act was assembled with such haste that it may get a vote before a full cost estimate is finished. But it is not a new idea.

At its core, the bill introduced by Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) would implement a decades-old conservative concept, capping the amount that taxpayers spend on Medicaid and giving states full control over the program. As he’s sold the legislation to conservative governors and activists, Graham has described it as a possible triumph for federalism, and a way to end the progressive dream of universal health care managed from Washington.

“Let’s get back to the basics of being conservative,” Graham said in a Saturday interview with Breitbart News. “We take the money that we would spend on Obamacare in Washington, and we block grant it to the states.”

What’s new, thanks to the Affordable Care Act, is a discrepancy in state-by-state funding that would be flattened out by the block grants. Most states used the ACA’s funding to expand Medicaid; some Republican-run states, liberated by the Supreme Court’s decision to make the funding optional, did not. As a result, 14 of the 15 states that would stand to gain from block grants are run by Republicans; Democratic megastates including California, New York and Massachusetts would lose billions of dollars, a feature both Graham and Cassidy have talked up to conservatives.
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David Weigel is a national political correspondent covering Congress and grassroots political movements. He's the author of "The Show That Never Ends," a history of progressive rock music. Follow @daveweigel

[bigbrother05]

1. The way the GOP implemented (or didn't) Medicaid expansion under ACA

is the primary reason that so many in Red states think ACA is a failure. No new funding in those states meant that they saw no significant benefits to themselves or families.

Any state that participated with ACA programs saw the good of the program and will be hurt by any GOP plan.

[MFM008]

2. ALASKA

They have esentially crafted a bill to get the vote of the senator from Alaska.
P E R I O D.

[agincourt]

3. They'll screw the blue states,

the red states will get more money, it will look like the system is working and repigs will keep being sent back to DC. After a while they will cut the block grants little by little each year and viola, the repig 1% get their tax cut that they couldn't get from the other bills.

[raccoon]

4. Then if this thing passes, Blue States, you ought to SECEDE. (LOL sort of) nt