Voters should know who’s holding up their health care

[phkrause]

With one week remaining before the March 31 deadline for health coverage this year, a Republican filing a lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act has become a familiar, if tiresome, sight.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/k...6985_story.html

[joeb]

This is a joke. Harry Reid has deep-sixed every bill the Republicans have passed in the House. He refuses to bring any bill from the House to a vote in the Senate. So, just how are the Republicans holding anything up? It's an impossibility when Reid won't let any bill from the House come to a vote in the Senate.

The same specious reasoning used to pass Obamacare is used in this article. It's impossible to add hundreds of thousands of people to a social welfare program and have the costs of that program go down. The expanded Medicaid program is paid for by the Feds for 3 years. After that the states that have implemented it will have to pay for it out of their own pockets, so governors who say it will hurt their state budgets are exactly correct. It does increase costs whether it's paid for by the Feds or the states. It's just that after 3 years the states will be liable for 100% of those costs. So what if it decreases costs for the state for 3 years? That doesn't make it a budget neutral program for the state after the 3 years are up. Then it's a huge expense that the states just can't afford.