COVID-19 & Healthcare

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

if our ideological extremist Tea-Publican Governor and legislature say no to the expanded Medicaid provisions of the Affordable Care Act, they are also saying no to economic stimulus and job creation. You read that right.

Sarah Kliff at Ezra Klein's WonkBlog reports Medicaid’s stimulative effect:

Here’s one factor governors may want to weigh as they consider participating in the health law’s Medicaid expansion: Study after study has found that federal Medicaid dollars spur economic activity beyond the initial investment.

Researchers find that a dollar of Medicaid spending increases spending both in the health-care sector and in other industries.

“For every dollar that a state spends, federal funding filters through the state economies,” says Robin Rudowitz, associate director for the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured. “That tends to go both into health service vendors as well as other sectors.”

Medicaid acts as a stimulus in two ways. First, increased federal spending on health care can, in tough budget times, free up state dollars for other spending. Medicaid spending can also ripple through the private sector, stimulating increased employment that leads to higher household spending.

Rudowitiz recently reviewed 29 state-level studies of Medicaid’s stimulative impact. Across the board, she says, “it was pretty consistent that Medicaid spending did generate economic activity.”

* * *

One recent study found that every $100,000 in stimulus dollars increased employment by 3.8 job years. Each stimulus dollar had a multiplier of 2, meaning that every $1 of Medicaid spending resulted in a $2 increase in gross domestic product.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Neoconfederate "states' rights" Tenthers who are Tea-Publican Governors and legislators, like we have here in Arizona, are threatening not to participate in the "expanded Medicaid" provisions of the Affordable Care Act on ideological grounds. "We hate Obama! We hate the federal guvmint!"

They also object to covering more people under expanded Medicaid on the ground that it will cost taxpayers too much money. This is code for access to medical care is a privilege, not a right, and should be rationed according to the ability to pay. Medical care is only for those who can afford it. If you can't afford it, the GOP healthcare plan is simple: "Let them die!" How this comports with their alleged Christianity, I don't have a clue.

The first three years of expanded Medicaid is 100% covered by the federal government. Thereafter, the state share would gradually increase to around 10%. Suzy Khimm at Ezra Klein's WonkBlog has this important factoid. The truth about Medicaid’s cost to states, in three charts:

What would happen to state budgets if all states went ahead with the Medicaid expansion? The Congressional Budget Office says that it would increase state spending on the program by $73 billion by 2022—the equivalent of a “2.8 percent increase in what states would have spent on Medicaid from 2014 to 2022 in the absence of health reform,” the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities explained.

That said, this is an aggregate look at the expansion: the budgetary impact on states will vary considerably, depending on how far a state has gone already to cover its low-income residents. The Urban Institute has a state-by-state breakdown of the impact, available here. (.pdf).

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Let's take a trip in Mr. Peabody's WABAC machine (or the hot tub time machine for those of you not old enough to remember Mr. Peabody), all the way back to 2010. Remember when Tea-Publicans ran for Congress saying they wanted to "repeal and replace Obamacare"?

The Tea-Publican House proposed and passed "Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act" (H.R.2) in 2011, which promptly died in the Senate. Tea-Publicans have scheduled another symbolic vote to repeal "Obamacare" on July 11 when Congress returns from its 4th of July recess, which will also promptly die in the Senate.

What Tea-Publicans have not done is propose any alternative healthcare plan (that may be because "Obamacare" is their plan, until they attached Obama's name to it and disavowed it). Tea-Publicans and Willard "Mittens" Romney have been loathe to divulge any details of a "replacement" healthcare plan.

That is because the "replace" part of "repeal and replace Obamacare" was always a lie. They never had any intentions of replacing it with anything. They are happy with the status quo of our broken healthcare system.

The GOP and Mittens do, however, have the Tea Party healthcare plan: "Let them Die!" Remember during the "Survivor – GOP Presidential Primary" debate when Wolf Blitzer asked Ron Paul about how "society should respond if a healthy 30-year-old man who decided against buying health insurance suddenly goes into a coma and requires intensive care for six months — are you saying that society should just let him die?" To which the Tea-Publican audience responded with an enthusiastic "YEAH!" followed by laughter. Audience at tea party debate cheers leaving uninsured to die | Yahoo! News.

This is the replacement healthcare plan from the GOP and Mittens, folks — "Let them Die!" Remember all that crazy talk fom the Tea Party and their Queen, the Quitta from Wasilla Sarah Palin, about "death panels"? Well they are the "death panels" (a bit of psychological projection on their part).

Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Those Tea-Publicans, always given to hyperbolic exaggeration. They have to describe everything in apocalyptic terms that just makes them look foolish. Ezra Klein debunks the latest GOP lie: No, ‘Obamacare’ isn’t ‘the largest tax increase in the history of the world’ (in one chart): Since the Supreme Court decision, Republicans have been … Read more

By Michael Bryan

I opined that Obamacare being sustained by the Supreme Court may have been a victory for conservatives in the long term. I discovered someone who laid out the case more eloquently than I ever could, Dr. Marcia Angell, a senior lecturer at Harvard Medical School, who recently posted at HuffPo. Her views are required reading, so I have reposted here in entirety. Enjoy:

The Supreme Court's decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, puts me in mind of the old proverb: Be careful what you wish for. Democrats on a victory lap should watch their step, because John Roberts may have given Mitt Romney a gift. The impact on the health system will be much smaller than the political fallout, because with or without Obamacare, the American health system will continue to unravel — quickly if Romney is elected, slowly if Obama is re-elected.

First the policy, then the politics: