October 6, 2015
by Nick Novak
This column was originally published by The Washington Times.
At a campaign stop in Florida a couple days ago, Hillary Rodham Clinton didn’t focus on her “mistake” of using a private email server to send classified information as Secretary of State or the fact that nearly two-thirds of the country thinks she is neither honest nor trustworthy.
Instead, she decided to bash Republicans for making the smart policy decision of rejecting the Obamacare Medicaid Expansion.
“In Florida, as many as 650,000 could have gotten coverage under Medicaid,” the former first lady told the group at Broward College. “Fewer people without insurance means fewer people who get preventive care, more visits to the emergency room. It makes no sense economically.”
She tried to hit her opponents hard with that one, but unfortunately for Mrs. Clinton, she couldn’t even get that regularly rehearsed talking point right. In fact, emergency room visits spiked in states that expanded Medicaid in comparison to those that did not.
Also, while on the topic of economics, taxpayers don’t fare so well under the expansion of Medicaid – a program whose health outcomes are no better than for those without health insurance.
Medicaid is actually making it harder for taxpayers to get a good deal for the money they hand over to government. A new study from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University shows that Medicaid spending “is crowding out spending on other major state programs, most notably education and transportation infrastructure.”
Continue reading at WashingtonTimes.com.