The Texas legislature has just authorized payment of $4.5 billion in Medicaid (which they left out of the original 2012-2013 budget to balance the books in 2011). That means the state is currently paying $4.5 billion every two years for the current (and inadequate) Medicaid program it has -- or about $22.5 billion over a decade. But if they expanded the Medicaid program under Obamacare, they could cover over a million more people and only pay $15 billion over the next decade -- a saving of about $7.5 billion. Does this make fiscal sense? What ever happened to the Republican idea that government should be fiscally-responsible and not spend more money that is necessary? Why would they want to spend more money to cover less people?
Politics Magazine
The Texas legislature has just authorized payment of $4.5 billion in Medicaid (which they left out of the original 2012-2013 budget to balance the books in 2011). That means the state is currently paying $4.5 billion every two years for the current (and inadequate) Medicaid program it has -- or about $22.5 billion over a decade. But if they expanded the Medicaid program under Obamacare, they could cover over a million more people and only pay $15 billion over the next decade -- a saving of about $7.5 billion. Does this make fiscal sense? What ever happened to the Republican idea that government should be fiscally-responsible and not spend more money that is necessary? Why would they want to spend more money to cover less people?
