Here's why Republican Governors are refusing free money.

Because it's not free! Nothing is ever free if you don't know that by now you need to start opening your eyes. So just to bring you up to speed if you don't continuously read my blog (which you should) I recently wrote a piece about the Presidents press conference last week. His closing comments on the ACA were trying to guilt republican governors into taking money from the federal government to expand medicaid. At first glance you may be outraged that republican governors would deny coverage to millions of Americans. Here's the breakdown, there is this formula called FMAP Federal Medical Assistance Percentage. The Federal Government traditionally spends $57 for every $43 the State spends on medicaid. The expansion will be funded 100% by the Fed for the first 3 years. Which is great today and maybe next year or 3 but by the time 2020 rolls around the Federal Government only plans to fund 90% of states medicaid expansion expenses. Not to mention the Fed's are under a lot of pressure to decrease their budget so who knows if they will even be able to cover that much of the cost.

Thats not the only problem with Medicaid. Prior to Obamacare there were many people that were eligible to sign up for medicaid and never took the time to. In the past you would need to schedule a meeting in person, show many forms of ID and the process was a pain. Now the sign up is fast and simple, you don't need to be there in person and they are expanding the service to more people. The Fed will cover the cost of expansion for the first three years. After that the states will be more and more on their own to cover costs associated with the Medicaid expansion. Making the sign-up faster and easier is a good thing but, it brings us to our next problem.

To put the icing on the cake here we have the "Woodward effect". Anyone that was previously eligible for medicaid prior to the expansion will NOT receive the 90-100% government funding. They will receive the traditional FMAP 57-43 ratio. There are some states that have less than 50% of the people eligible for for Medicaid signed up. Florida & Texas being 2 of them, there is no way States would be able to finance this increase in the participation of Medicaid.

So now everyone can stop thinking the Republican governors are refusing government funding out of "Political Spite". They are refusing money because the President has yet to come up with a solution that will be affordable and not force the states to burden its people with heavy taxes to balance these costs.

"If you think healthcare is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free"
-P.J. O'Rourke

EVERA. Everyone should feel this good about healthcare.