Uwe Reinhardt, an economist at Princeton, has just written a great
article comparing governors and state legislatures who have turned billions of dollars in Medicaid assistance and expansion to private sector CEOs and boards of directors who refuse to put a product on the market that could make them a windfall profit.
Of course no private sector corporation or corporate leader would refuse billions of dollars of revenue. But 24 states have refused billions of dollars in Medicaid money to cover everyone in their states who have income less than 138 percent of the poverty level.
Studies have shown us that states that take the extra billions in Medicaid and join the federal exchange, the Affordable Care Act is working just as it was intended to work. Many, many more people are getting healthcare.
Even 74 percent of Republicans who get healthcare through the Affordable Healthcare Act like it! Doctors and hospitals get more patients and revenue, raising employment.
But the states where radical right-wing ideology or hatred of poor and working people prevent governors and policy makers from accepting the federal windfall, they still pay taxes and other states benefit. It is the height of idiocy.
That is just one of many reasons that we in Pennsylvania are so committed and fighting so hard to defeat Governor Corbett and working so hard to elect a progressive Governor Wolf.
The stakes this fall in so many states could not be higher.
• We can no longer let the Koch Brothers buy politicians and policy.
• We must protect the health of our people.
• We can no longer allow the destruction of the labor movement.
• We can’t stand for any more cutbacks in education and the dumbing down of America.
• We can’t let this country keep marching towards plutocracy and oligarchy.
If you live in Pennsylvania or any other state I’ve just described, all of us need you focused right now on November elections.
Photo source: www.plutocracyfiles.com