Be wary of Medicaid expansion
Consider these figures: $12,490 = $240.19 per week, the minimum you must make to qualify for help with health insurance through the Affordable Care Act. $49,960 is the max you can make to still receive tax credits.
$12,756 = $245.31 per week, the maximum you can make to qualify for Insure Oklahoma, which is free. The requirement is that you must be working.
$17,236 = $331.46 per week, the max you will be able to make to receive free health care if Medicaid expansion passes in Oklahoma.
There's distinct differences among these sets of numbers.
The ACA was created to make insurance more affordable. It requires that you have a job, and as you can see the max is a liberal amount.
Insure Oklahoma is funded by a tobacco tax to help with and encourage companies to offer group health insurance. It also serves as a bridge for individuals who may be between jobs or making too little while looking for a better job. You must be a working adult.
Medicaid (Soonercare), as it stands, already provides coverage for children, adults with children, the elderly and the disabled. Medicaid expansion is a misguided idea at best and a potential financial catastrophe at worst.
The people who say “it's our money” fail to show you the other side of the coin. It's not just financially
irresponsible, but it creates an ethical dilemma. People draw confidence and self-esteem from working. Anything that encourages people to work less is dangerous for our society. It creates an unhealthier population, both physically and mentally. Financially, it places more of a financial burden on the state, which will increase dramatically when the federal government inevitably pulls back from its share of the burden.
At this moment, there's no funding mechanism for the expansion. That means it either comes from a tax or from another state agency. Gov. Stitt has talked at length about turning us into a Top 10 state, and the amount of money in our Rainy Day Fund and additional money put back is a great example of a serious effort being made for financial stability. An expansion of Medicaid slows that process.
It won't take long for education groups and state agencies to complain about the lack of funding they receive, and then what? Encouraging people not to work creates a massive burden on everyone. If you're a school teacher or a state employee, you should not support a disingenuous ploy to get short-term money at this risk of our long-term fiscal foundation.