"Youthful Republican brain trust helps governor miss the boat on Medicaid expansion" [View all]

[WorseBeforeBetter]

Love the little "brain trust" dig. Keep hammering...

The inexperienced young ideologues helped Gov. McCrory reach a policy decision so irrational that it is difficult to see how the best interests of North Carolina were ever considered. The choice not to expand Medicaid eligibility to the state’s uninsured working poor defies logic given its disastrous effects on such key areas as access to health care, job creation, and the overall growth of the state’s economy.

The consequences of not implementing the Medicaid expansion quickly are catastrophic. We have one of the weakest state economies in the nation as measured by our persistently high unemployment rate. The Governor and General Assembly turned down an estimated 25,000 new jobs in the health care industry which were all but guaranteed by the medical expansion. These jobs run the gamut from nurse’s aides to doctors and they would have been located in all 100 counties.

The continued failure to expand Medicaid will rob our economy of billions of dollars in lost federal revenues while denying hundreds of thousands of low income workers health insurance coverage. These uninsured citizens are not welfare recipients. The rejected income guidelines would have provided coverage for wage earners making $15,400 per year for a single person and $31,800 for a family of four. These low-wage and part-time workers are now left mostly uninsured and ineligible for Medicaid. They number about 494,000.

All North Carolina taxpayers are being penalized by not expanding Medicaid. This is because federal tax funds earmarked for our state will now flow to other states which elected to comport with federal law. Gov. McCrory chose to join the nationwide GOP rebellion and to reject expanded Medicaid for mostly ideological reasons.

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William C. Crawford is a social worker, photographer, and writer living in Winston Salem. He has forty years of experience in Medicaid and health care. He formerly taught public policy at the UNC School of Social Work.

http://www.citizen-times.com/article/20130914/OPINION07/309140002/Youthful-Republican-brain-trust-helps-governor-miss-boat-Medicaid-expansion?nclick_check=1