On Fox News’ “Special Report” columnist Charles Krauthammer said
it was “honorable” for Florida Governor Rick Scott to recommend the
state buy into the Obama health law’s Medicaid expansion, despite
Scott’s earlier opposition. In truth Scott’s decision is venal and
short sighted. If the Florida legislature agrees to expand
Medicaid, it will doom Florida to bankruptcy and Floridians to
enormous state tax hikes in the coming years. The expansion will
add 42% to the state’s Medicaid enrollment.
Packing the Medicaid rolls is Obamacare’s primary way of dealing
with the uninsured. The law lays out a red carpet for politicians
to expand their state’s Medicaid programs, adding richer benefits
and many more enrollees. The health law promises the federal
government will pay 100% of the cost of the expansion until 2018,
and then 90% of the cost thereafter. That’s a 9-to-1 match.
In the past, states have set eligibility rules based on what
state budgets can handle. This expansion puts the feds in control,
and it’s way beyond what states can afford.
That’s why this red carpet invitation is a trap. The federal
government usually breaks its promises. What will happen then? It’s
inconceivable that states will be able to undo the expansion and
reduce the burden. Taking back entitlements is generally a
political impossibility. Instead state taxpayers will be clobbered
with huge new bills.
Despite this obvious peril, the red-carpet invitation has
enticed even such conservative governors as John Kasich of Ohio and
Jan Brewer of Arizona, an outspoken critic of President Obama and
his health plan.
Earlier this month, both governors stunned the nation by
announcing that they will participate in Obamacare’s Medicaid
expansion. Brewer said it would “inject $2 billion” into the
state’s economy.
Brewer’s statement is typical of what politicians have done in
the past. To most politicians, Medicaid is a verb. It means spend,
spend, spend and then bill the federal government for part of the
tab. In the past, that corrupt thinking led state politicians from
both parties to spend excessively as a way of doing exactly what
Brewer said, bring federal dollars into their state. The incentive
then was the federal government matching spending 1 to 1. Imagine
how much more wasteful Medicaid spending will be when the reward is
9 to 1. Watch as these politicians Medicaid everything in
sight.
Not all governors are hurrying to the party. Wisely, 13 have
refused and another 14 are reserving decisions. Kudos to the
holdouts, including Texas Governor Rick Perry. Accepting the
invitation would expand Medicaid enrollment 57% in Texas.
Last summer, a bipartisan State Budget Crisis Task Force,
chaired by former New York Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch and former
Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, warned states not to be
lured by the Medicaid expansion’s pot of gold. It’s a mirage, the
report cautioned. Any future Congress can undo the commitment.
Every deficit reduction plan being discussed in Washington, D.C.
includes abandoning that 9-to-1 match soon, the Task Force warned.
States that expanded Medicaid to comply with the Obama health law
will be plunged into fiscal disaster.
Medicaid is already consuming a third or more of many state
budgets. States would literally have to stop funding roads, public
schools, and other essential services to pay for Medicaid.
Counting on venality to triumph over wisdom, President Obama is
assuming most governors —Republicans as well as Democrats — will
ignore this danger and opt for the Medicaid expansion.
If more governors capitulate, another health program will fall
entirely under federal control, state politicians will be tethered
to the president and his minions in the Medicaid bureaucracy, and
taxpayers’ dollars will be lavished on anything politicians can
Medicaid. That’s a verb, you know.
Photo: UPI
