NPR examines Texas’ cost for refusing the Medicaid Expansion to Obamacare
Texas refused to accept the Medicaid expansion to the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare. In the process Texas is throwing away over 100 billion dollars that could be used to provide healthcare to its poor and indigents. On quarter of the uninsured in the United States are Texans. In effect every year that they refuse it, they are sentencing thousands of Texans to death.
One hopes Texans will listen to the following NPR piece. They must force the hand of the immorally and fiscally incompetent Republican politicians that are hurting them.
Texas Loses Billions To Treat The Poor By Not Expanding Medicaid, Advocates Say
When the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government could not compel states to expand Medicaid programs, many Southern and Midwestern states opted out. One quarter of the uninsured live in Texas.DAVID GREENE, HOST: We’re digging deeper into the debate over the Affordable Care Act. A key part of that law has been expanding Medicaid to extend health coverage to more uninsured adults. Mostly it’s working-poor Americans who don’t make enough to participate in the health insurance exchanges.
RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST: In all, 29 states have expanded Medicaid. But when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that the federal government could not compel them to do so, many Southern and Midwestern states opted out.
GREENE: And one of them is Texas. A quarter of low-income adults without insurance in this country live in Texas – more than a million people.
What is the Medicaid Expansion to Obamacare?
ObamaCare Medicaid Expansion is one of the biggest milestones in health care reform. ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion expands Medicaid to our nation’s poorest in order cover nearly half of uninsured Americans. However, a change to the law will leave millions of working families without coverage by 2016.
You can sign up for Medicaid and CHIP 365 days a year. You may qualify for free or low-cost care through Medicaid based on income and family size ($16,105 individual $32,913 for a family of four in 2015). If you think you are eligible for Medicaid, you can sign up for Medicaid now (you can even get coverage retroactively if you qualified but didn’t enroll).
If your state did not expand Medicaid and you have been denied Medicaid coverage, you are exempt from the mandate to obtain insurance and won’t owe the fee. If you apply for a hardship exemption at HealthCare.Gov, you will qualify to shop for catastrophic coverage.