Can Texas afford Rick Perry?
Posted: Thursday, February 28, 2013 4:00 am
Texas taxpayers who can count may be starting to wonder how much of Gov. Rick Perry they can afford.
In the name of good, businesslike government, Perry says he’s planning to spurn the opportunity for Texas to expand Medicaid under Obamacare, the new federal Affordable Care Act. In Texas, going along with the act would add about 1 million Texans to the medical insurance rolls.
But Perry says accepting it might make people feel dependent, getting things from the government. So, apparently to protect the right of 1 million Texans to remain without health insurance, Perry says he’ll turn down a federal deal that would insure those people for three years with the feds picking up the entire tab.
After that initial period, for the next several years, the feds would pay 90 percent of the cost if the state would put up 10 percent.
This isn’t chump change. For a cost of about $15 billion over 10 years, Texas would draw down about $100 billion in federal money.
And what happens if we don’t take the deal? Well, Texans will continue to pay their federal taxes. The money that otherwise would have been sent to Texas under the Obamacare Medicaid expansion deal will instead be sent to other states that are participating.
In other words, Texans will pay taxes to support Medicaid expansion in other states, but not in Texas. That factor was a big one in some other Republican governors who opposed Obamacare deciding to have their states accept the Medicaid deal.
more
http://www.news-journal.com/opinion/mcneely-can-texas-afford-rick-perry/article_bfaef686-fc30-5d90-98b4-78ca2c3b99ac.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
