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Title: Perry ‘Proudly’ Refuses Health Care To 1.2 Million Low-Income Texans
Source:
RAWSTORY
URL Source: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/07/ ... 1-2-million-low-income-texans/
Published: Jul 9, 2012
Author: Stephen C. Webster
Post Date: 2012-07-09 14:56:53 by Brian S
Keywords: None
Views: 7217
Comments: 17
In a statement published Monday morning, Texas Governor Rick Perry (R) “proudly” declared that he will decline to implement key tenets of the Affordable Care Act — a move that will see his state forgo an estimated $164 billion dollars in federal aid and leave over 1.2 million low-income Texans, who would have finally been eligible for health care, helpless and uninsured. “This is a fiscally stupid decision on the part of Rick Perry,” Texas Democratic Party spokesperson Rebecca Acuña told Raw Story. “Texas would be one of the states that gets the most money from the federal government and the Medicaid expansion would have provided health care to more than a million Texans. It’s… It’s very sad that Rick Perry is willing to play politics with the health of Texans, and that’s exactly what this decision is.” With his announcement, Perry becomes the sixth governor to refuse implementing a key aspect of the Affordable Care Act: the Medicaid expansion and the state-based health care exchanges. Republican governors in Florida, South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana and Wisconsin have made similar decisions, but Texas is by far the biggest. Perry would seem to be inviting a political free-for-all thanks to the relative size and power of the Texas hospital industry, which absorbed more than $4.6 billion in unpaid emergency medical costs in 2010. While not seeing it as a cure-all, Texas hospitals largely praised the Affordable Care Act for dramatically expanding health care options for poor people, who are ultimately paid for by others who carry their own insurance. Nearly 25 percent of Texans — 6.5 million people — do not have health insurance, including more than 1.2 million children, and the state’s health care system ranks last in the nation overall. While citing some problems with the health reforms, the Texas Hospital Association praised the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the law, noting that it will see more than 4 million people across the state finally obtaining health insurance coverage. An additional 1.2 million still uninsured would have gotten health care through the Affordable Care Act’s expansion of Medicaid, according to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (PDF). That same commission predicted that expansion would send an estimated $164 billion tumbling into the Texas health care system between 2014 and 2023, spurring massive job creation and reducing the drag on working peoples’ insurance premiums. In a letter to Health and Human Services Director Kathleen Sebelius (PDF), Perry opined that giving poor people health care and setting up exchanges that make health insurance cheaper are both “brazen intrusions into the sovereignty of our state.” “I stand proudly with the growing chorus of governors who reject the [Affordable Care Act] power grab,” Perry wrote. “Neither a ‘state’ exchange nor the expansion of Medicaid under the Orwellian-named PPACA would result in better ‘patient protection’ or in more ‘affordable care.’ What they would do is make Texas a mere appendage of the federal government when it comes to health care.” He added that Medicaid is “broken” and “already financially unsustainable,” and that in his view an expansion “would threaten even Texas with financial ruin.” “Rick Perry’s announcement is both cruel and negligent,” the Texas Democratic Party retorted in a media advisory. “No person with a speck of intelligence would turn down billions in federal dollars that would be a boon to our economy and help Texans. But then again this is Rick Perry. Rick Perry could’ve brought billions in federal dollars to Texas, reduced the rate of the uninsured and improved the quality of life for Texans. Rick Perry’s Texas solution is to let Texans stay ill and uninsured. That is not a health care plan.” The state of Texas has the most restrictive Medicaid program in the country, requiring that a family of three make no more than $188 per month to qualify. Under federal rules administered by the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid would be expanded to 133 percent of the poverty level, covering an additional 1.2 million Texans under the program. That would cause a 46 percent increase in Medicaide enrollment — which the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation (PDF) estimated would cost the state 3 percent more in 2019 than it currently pays – and the federal government would have picked up the rest. A recent study of people on Medicaid in the state of Oregon found that the program boosted their health significantly, and that they were less likely to borrow money or be sent to collections agencies over medical bills. Instead of implementing the Medicaid expansion and setting up a statewide exchange, Perry’s decision will see the federal government implementing Texas’s exchange instead, and leave millions without any care at all. Other significant portions of the Affordable Care Act will be put into place no matter what — like requiring insurance providers to take people with preexisting conditions. The Act also helps to close the “donut hole” in President George W. Bush’s Medicare Part D plan by sending seniors rebates for their prescription costs; requires at least 80 percent of health care premium payments be spent on actual health care; lets young adults under 26 stay on their parents’ health plans; provides contraception and birth control free of charge; eliminates lifetime coverage limits; restricts how quickly health insurance rates can be increased by private companies; and mandates that preventative care be covered for free.
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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 15.
#3. To: Brian S (#0)
It would take a deaf, dumb, blind, and very stupid person not to see this type of journalism for what it is, YELLOW, that relies on sensationalism and lurid exaggeration to attract readers. This (article written by Webster) is the inflammatory babblings of an irrisponsable leftwing yellow journalist, Stephen Webster , who in this article, exploits, distorts, and exaggerates the news to create sensations and attract and/or inflame readers. Pathological liars don't know any other way of reporting news! jmho! Murron ~ Rick Perry: “I’m always intrigued with the concept that there’s free money out there. We don’t trust this administration, and we don’t trust Washington, D.C. to be able to deliver health care in our states. If they trusted us, they would basically block grant it back to the states, and we would do a substantially better job than what you’re going to see with these exchanges and with the expansion of Medicaid.” Texas Gov. Rick Perry Refuses To Implement ‘Obamacare’ Texas Gov. Rick Perry said Monday he will not implement ‘Obamacare’ provisions such as the Medicaid expansion and the insurance exchanges. The decision could mean that Texas ultimately loses an opportunity to cover half of its uninsured residents and relinquishes to the federal government more control over its health care system. After informing the Obama administration of his intentions in a letter, Perry went on Fox News to explain his position. “If anyone had any doubt, we wanted to put it clearly to bed that Texas wasn’t going to be a part of expanding socializing of our medicine,” he said. “So we’re not going to participate in any exchanges. We’re not going to expand Medicaid.” One in four Texans are uninsured, the highest rate of any state. The Medicaid expansion would cover 49.4 percent of uninsured Texans by 2019, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. The program is broadened to cover Americans within 133 percent of the poverty line — currently the eligibility for a working Texan parent cuts off at 27 percent. The federal government will cover the full cost of the first three years and pay 90 percent thereafter. Perry joins other GOP governors — including Florida’s Rick Scott, South Carolina’s Nikki Haley and Wisconsin’s Scott Walker — in refusing to implement the Affordable Care Act. The Supreme Court upheld the law but said the federal government may not cut off a state’s Medicaid funds if they turn down the expansion. If a state refuses to set up the insurance market exchanges, the federal government does it for them. “I’m always intrigued with the concept that there’s free money out there,” Perry said. “We don’t trust this administration, and we don’t trust Washington, D.C. to be able to deliver health care in our states. If they trusted us, they would basically block grant it back to the states, and we would do a substantially better job than what you’re going to see with these exchanges and with the expansion of Medicaid.” Internal Republican politics make it difficult for Perry and other governors to implement the Affordable Care Act even when it benefits their states. That political incentive is strong enough to compel cash-strapped governors to turn down money from Washington and give the federal government more control over their state’s health care system. Perry, who ran a failed campaign for the Republican presidential nomination this cycle, chafed when asked on Fox what his decision means for the quarter of Texans who are uninsured. “We’ve got some of the finest health care in the world,” he said. “So the idea that this federal government, which doesn’t like Texas to begin with, to pick and choose and come up with some data and say somehow Texas has the worst health care system in the world is just fake and false on its face.”
Yeah, just keep on spouting your 3rd grade babble... Where the fuck do 'you people' come from one has to wonder? {{{chuckle}}}
If this is the best you got as a comeback to the article I posted as a rebuttal to the trash you posted, then this 3rd grader just stumped your sorry ass!
Why anyone would continue reading your incoherent tripe beyond the second sentence is a mystery to me. Please continue your babble however. I will never discourage 'stupid on parade' as it provides a chuckle and helps lift the spirits. Now I'm starting to figure out why you are referred as 'mammy' by some on these forums. :)
And I suppose everyone here by now know why you are the resident 'NAZI SNITCH BITCH'? NO? Then let's introduce them to the REAL 'Brian S'..k? But not here, I think you deserve your own tread.
Please, by all means and I do hope you realize I would be honored.
There are no replies to Comment # 15. End Trace Mode for Comment # 15.
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#5. To: Murron (#3)
irrisponsable?
#7. To: Brian S (#5)
"Yeah, just keep on spouting your 3rd grade babble...Where the fuck do 'you people' come from one has to wonder?"
#13. To: Murron (#7)
#14. To: Brian S (#13)
Now I'm starting to figure out why you are referred as 'mammy' by some on these forums.
#15. To: Murron, But not here, I think you deserve your own tread. (#14)
But not here, I think you deserve your own tread.
Replies to Comment # 15.
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