Comment Re:Obamacare exists because... (Score 1) 288
However -- because of the Supreme Court decision in the Obamacare case, the Medicaid expansion is voluntary for the states, and half the states (mostly Republican) refused to expand it. So in those states, poor people really are stuck. They do get kicked out of hospitals and get left to die of treatable conditions. http://www.texasobserver.org/a...
I live in one of those States that refused to expand Medicaid. I live in Idaho. I don't think we could have afforded to do it. Because of another Court case a few years ago, the State of Idaho now has to pay for education in Idaho out of the General Fund. It used to be mostly funded by property taxes at the local level, but now it is funded by Sales Tax at the State level. We also have a Constitutional requirement in Idaho to balance the budget every year. Approximately 60% of the State budget is now Education. Every other State Agency has seen their budget slashed by about 30% over the past 10 years.
And then the Federal Government orders the State to massively expand Medicaid. My State just doesn't have the resources to do it. It isn't because people don't care, we just don't have the income. 90% of the Students in my School District are on free or reduced lunch. Median Family income in my town is $31,000 per year. 20% of the people in my community live below the poverty line. There isn't a whole lot of room to add more taxes to expand another Government program.
If our State was doing better economically, there would be more support for expanding Medicaid. But we are all suffering. The idea of having to pay even more taxes is daunting.
The truly poor still have access to Medicaid in Idaho. The program didn't go away. It just didn't expand it to people above the poverty line.