Nebraskans Rally for Medicaid Expansion near the State Capital in Lincoln
Nebraska's new Republican Governor Pete Ricketts shows that he represents big money over the will of Nebraska voters. In a recent editorial in the Kearney Hub, Prof. Allan Jenkins pointed out that the Governor misrepresented the results of a study http://www.nebraskahospitals.org/ done for the Nebraska Hospital Association and AARP by he and Prof. Ron Koncency. The synopsis accompanying the study gives the following overview of the findings:
• “Over the next 10 years, Nebraska can, conservatively, avoid $1 billion in unnecessary state spending
• AND draw in more than $2 billion in federal Medicaid funding during the next five years if lawmakers approve The Medicaid Redesign Act, LB472.
• The resulting economic activity, estimated at $5 billion, would generate enough state revenue to offset the costs of expanding Medicaid”.
The Governor has been “mischaracterizing” the data in this report to justify not expanding Medicaid coverage to low income workers in Nebraska. He repeated former Governor Heinemann's tropes that the Medicaid expansion is an entitlement that the state cannot afford. However, Prof. Jenkins points out that both governors are wrong. "Medicaid expansion is not an entitlement transfer, it is infrastructure spending. The money does not flow to low-income Nebraskans; it flows to health care providers."
Most importantly, the study shows that Medicaid Expansion would help to keep rural Nebraska hospitals open. Prof Jenkins points out that " One third of Nebraska’s rural hospitals have unsustainable operating margins, largely from bad debt associated with caring for the uninsured." Medicaid expansion would alleviate this problem.
The real reason Gov. Ricketts wants Medicaid expansion stopped is his fear that the additional 77,000 Nebraskans who would get affordable health care would become 77,000 new Democratic voters--enough the sway future state-wide elections. He and his Republican cohorts feel that the ACA will have the same effect on the electorate that Medicare has had since it was implemented in 1965 by President Lyndon B. Johnson.
It is a sad state of political affairs when political “hardball” trumps the health of thousands of Nebraskans and deprives the state of much needed federal financial assistance for its struggling rural health care industry.
Prof. Jenkins' editorial can be read here:
http://www.kearneyhub.com/...