I don't think I've personally had this problem since I was maybe eight years old. And, it had been my assumption that it was only found in children. However, this debilitating phobia seems to have found a home among susceptible adults in the Republican Party.
I don't have to look very far. My own governor, Mike Pence, clearly has an advanced case which can be seen in his refusal to accept Expanded Medicaid. To fully understand this, you need to be aware that prior to 2014, States received subsidies called Disproportionate Share Hospital Payments. It was understood that hospitals had to pick up the cost when they cared for uninsured patients. It was assumed that hospitals could absorb some of these costs. However, the special payments were designed to keep the uninsured cost from getting too burdensome if a given hospital happened to be in an area with higher than normal numbers of uninsured. That's the way it used to be. But, under Obamacare, these DSH Payments are reduced since most of these uninsured are expected to be picked up under Expanded Medicaid. If you didn't understand that these payments would be reduced there were plenty of people willing to explain it to you, such as this Kaiser Family Foundation article from 2013:
How Do Medicaid Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) Payments Change Under the ACA?
The statute requires annual aggregate reductions in federal DSH funding from FY 2014 through FY 2020.
They also have a nice chart in the linked brief that shows just how much this reduction will be for each year. It shows that the cuts get bigger and bigger after 2014 meaning that DSH Payments will get smaller and smaller. This money doesn't vanish; it gets shifted over to Expanded Medicaid. If you need a different analogy, it's like trying to hold onto your 8-track tape player, Beta video recorder, or laser-disc player. 8-track was displaced by cassette tape, Beta lost out to VHS, and laser-disc was made obsolete by DVD. The same thing is happening now with the old DSH format losing out to Expanded Medicaid. It's not a bad deal since the Federal Government foots all of the cost through 2016 and 90% of the cost after 2020.
Governor Pence claims that he has an alternative plan, one that is guaranteed to be free of cooties:
Gov. Mike Pence, feds unable to reach deal on Medicaid expansion.
Indiana's hardcore Republicans were not convinced though and viewed with it suspicion. Fearing that it too might be crawling with cooties, they have been opposed to it. In fact, the fear of cooties in Indiana was so bad that Indiana was one of only four states including Arkansas, Louisiana and Maine that actually cut back on eligibility for regular Medicaid in 2014.
The main problem though is that Pence's "plan" isn't really a plan. All it would do is continue the old high deductible insurance policies that people had before Obamacare while claiming to bolster this with Health Savings Accounts. I would have to assume that this phobia is affecting his ability to count since, if you couldn't afford these things before Obamacare, there is no reason to think you could afford them now.
Unlike Pence, there are others who can still count. This isn't just about moving money from DSH to Medicaid expansion; there's a lot of new money too. The budget for 2016 puts $35 billion into Expanded Medicaid. The portion of this that might go to Indiana is considerable:
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, whose mission is improving health care, has estimated that Indiana hospitals will lose out on almost $1 billion in Medicaid payments in 2016 if Indiana’s Medicaid program does not expand.
And, I'm guessing that if RWF can still count then so can Indiana's hospitals. And, I doubt they are very happy. Thus far, the numbers show that Expanded Medicaid is working for the states that have adopted it:
States Expanding Medicaid Saw Costs Rise Less Than Non-Expansion States
Unlike Ebola which has yet to kill a single American citizen, the fear of cooties has overrun 21 Republican states and caused the rejection of Attorney General nominee, Vivek Murthy, when the NRA suggested that he too might have cooties:
After Blocking Surgeon General Nominee, Republican Blames Obama For Surgeon General Vacancy
Senator Mitch McConnell is also deeply affected by this issue:
Mitch McConnell’s puzzling claims on insurance in Kentucky, post-Obamacare
“Kentucky Kynect is a Web site. It was paid for by a $200-and-some-odd-million grant from the federal government. The Web site can continue… with regard to Kynect, it’s a state exchange. They can continue it if they’d like to. They’ll have to pay for it because the grant will be over.”
The Federal grant was in fact Obamacare money, but Senator McConnell was well aware that admitting any connection between KyNect and Obamacare might cause other Republicans to accuse him of having cooties. So, he avoided that at all cost.
The latest casualty though was Florida Governor Rick Scott. Right before the debate, he panicked when he realized that former Governor Charlie Crist's electric fan might potentially blow cooties in his direction.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott stalls debate over opponent's fan
If this continues, it might become necessary to appoint a Cootie czar.