THE MEDICAID MISFIRE, PART 2: GIVING COOPER EVERYTHING HE WANTS ON POLICY AND POLITICS

In Part 2 (for Part One go here) of the ‘Medicaid Misfire,’ Carolina Partnership for Reform lays out why Republican proposals of compromise (Carolina Cares/Healthcare for Working Families) on the issue of Medicaid expansion merely give Governor Roy Cooper and the Democrats a double win in their pursuit of Bigger Government and Socialist Policies.

From the Carolina Partnership for Reform:

So not only does the State House’s new Medicaid Expansion plan put an enormous amount of trust in Roy Cooper and his NCDHHS bureaucrats, it’s a win-win for the governor on both policy and politics.

Consider these facts:

The state’s share of ObamaCare expansion will be paid for by premiums the new Medicaid recipients will supposedly pay. Only they’re a mirage: The bill specifically exempts anyone claiming a “financial hardship.” And Roy Cooper’s bureaucrats who can’t abide the idea of personal responsibility and premiums to begin with will define “financial hardship.”

Instead, ObamaCare expansion calls for an “assessment” on hospitals. An “assessment” is just another liberal euphemism for a new tax on hospital visits that will be passed on to working people and seniors, who will pay it through higher hospital bills when they get sick. And let’s be honest: the cynical left-wing mob that is pushing ObamaCare expansion in North Carolina wants to knock out the Conservative majority in the 2020 General Assembly election far more than it wants to pass Medicaid expansion.

Unbelievably, Republicans voting for this plan will be giving them both the liberal big-government policy they want and the sword to slay them with in the 2020 elections, when they’ll run devastating political attack ads targeting key senior voters in like this one bashing Republicans for voting for a new tax on hospital visits.

Another big con in the ObamaCare expansion we’re supposed to applaud is the claim recipients will face a work requirement. The truth is federal courts have repeatedly struck down Medicaid work requirements.

And the Indiana work requirement – held out as a model for North Carolina – qualifies a recipient for benefits with less than an hour of work a day!

The bottom line here is pretty darn simple:

Conservatives who vote for ObamaCare expansion are voting to take 200,000 people off of real, private market health insurance plans so they can sign up for free government health insurance at taxpayers’ expense – government healthcare paid for with a new tax on hospital visits.

Another blow against self-reliance. Another tax hike that will increase the cost of healthcare. Another step down the Road to Serfdom. Because as President Ford said, a government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take everything you have.

It’s a political and policy plan Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and especially Roy Cooper, would love.

But is this really the right political and policy move for the Conservative majority in the legislature?