Governor Brewer repeatedly justifies her decision to expand Medicaid in Arizona from 100% of the FPL (federal poverty level) to 133% by stating the following:
“Arizona voters have TWICE approved making childless adults who earn less than 100% of the federal poverty level eligible for the state’s Medicaid program, the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS). “
Here is the publicity document as presented to Arizona voters back in 2000. Ballot Proposition 204 – Healthy Arizona
"Proposition 204 expands eligibility for the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS) for persons who are uninsured and have annual incomes less than 100% of the federal Poverty Level (FPL). The Proposition dedicates revenues from Arizona’s settlement with tobacco companies as the funding source for the expansion of the AHCCCS program. The initiative also specifies that 6 programs enacted by Proposition 203 in 1996 be funded from the tobacco settlement monies."
Funds from the tobacco settlement ran out pretty quickly, and hit the General Fund. The reason was because every projection that was promised in Prop. 204 was grossly underestimated by "the experts." Please see the attached document titled “Medicaid Expansion: We Already Know How the Story Ends.”
Do you think it’s possible that the current Medicaid Expansion to 133% of FPL will follow the same pattern as you see what happened the last time it was expanded in the year 2000?
This is what Governor Brewer doesn’t talk about:
1) Enrollment of low-income parents in Arizona’s Medicaid expansion is nearly three times what was projected.
2) Enrollment of childless adults in Arizona’s Medicaid expansion is nearly three times what was projected.
3) Childless adults cost more than twice as much as low-income parents in Arizona’s Medicaid expansion.
4) Arizona’s Medicaid expansion has cost four times what was originally projected.
5) Arizona’s Medicaid expansion did not reduce the rate of uninsured. The uninsured rate increased.
Who Shows up in the Emergency Rooms?
Consider item #5 when you hear Gov. Brewer say: “….because when citizens without insurance get sick, they show up in our emergency rooms where hospitals are required to care for them.”
Also consider this: Many of the people who show up in emergency rooms are on Medicaid! Why? Because it takes so long to get an appointment. What will happen when Governor Brewer’s Medicaid Expansion adds another 300,000 or 400,000 Arizonans to the rolls? Doctors aren’t flooding to Arizona to take care of these patients. In fact, there is already a doctor shortage, and it will get worse.
Governor Brewer claims that the Medicaid expansion is not Obamacare.
She’s right. It’s worse than Obamacare. Medicaid expansion is actually taxpayer-paid socialized medicine. It is critical to Obama’s true goal to completely kill private insurance companies and go to a single-payer system. See The Employer Mandate Delay: A Path to Single-Payer.
Single-payer proponents no longer use the term “public option,” since the public has clearly and consistently opposed it. It is now called “Medicaid expansion,” which avoids the use of the unpopular term “single payer” to describe taxpayer-funded healthcare.
Governor Brewer will kick 300,000-400,000 new Medicaid Expansion eligibles off the plan if Obama lies.
Gov. Brewer states in one of her missives: “If federal reimbursement rates drop below 80% of the entire program costs, Arizona’s new law will AUTOMATICALLY terminate.” Allow me to complete the sentence….and we will kick 300k – 400k Arizonans off the plan.
She has also stated: “But I cannot emphasize enough that kicking 63,000 Arizona citizens currently enrolled in AHCCCS off of health care—including those in the middle of cancer treatment—would have been disastrous for Republican’s chances at the polls in 2014.”
Her concern is for Republican’s chances at the polls in 2014? Not for people in cancer treatment, and certainly not for nearly half a million Arizonans who she’s willing to kick off the plan if the federal government doesn’t keep its promise of massive amounts of money flowing to Arizona!
Arizona Rep. Warren Petersen (LD12) has advised that those 63,000 people will not be kicked off. He has stated that both Senate President Andy Biggs and House Speaker Andy Tobin are on record confirming that.
Governor Brewer calls her Medicaid Expansion "pro life."
“It’s pro-life….. it’s saving lives, it is creating jobs, it is saving hospitals,” Ms. Brewer said in an interview from her office in the Capitol’s executive tower, where she conducts what she often describes as “the people’s business.”
“I don’t know how you can get any more conservative than that,” she said, in an article in the New York Times titled Arizona Republicans are at odds on Medicaid.
The truth is that the Medicaid expansion will dramatically increase the number of preborn deaths in Arizona. See Arizona Rep. Steve Smith begs Republicans: Don’t drasticaly increase abortions in Arizona.
Governor Brewer kicks her conservative base to the curb
Gov. Brewer has written “…the citizens of Arizona overwhelmingly support my Medicaid restoration effort.” Bruce Ash was correct in his analysis of the sinking popularity of Governor Brewer and her detestable Medicaid restoration effort. In a 7/22/2013 radio program (Buckmaster KVOI), he states that Gov. Brewer made a grave mistake not only in pushing the Medicaid expansion, but also in the way she did it. “This is not what Republicans elected Republicans to do.” She used raw political power to get what she wanted, insulting and ridiculing her conservative base.
Chuck Coughlin is one of the people who orchestrated her position from the very beginning. His and her disdain of the grassroots conservatives in Arizona is obvious. Again, from the NY Times article:
“Ideologues have their agendas,” said Mr. Coughlin, who orchestrated the push to get the Medicaid expansion through the Legislature, “and the part of the party that’s taking issue with the governor right now is all made up of ideologues."
Here is our ideology, Mr. Coughlin. You might want to share this little booklet with Governor Jan Brewer. It’s the Republican Principles and Platform.