Creative Common
When it comes to resisting the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, no one's fought more aggressively than Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) to deny benefits to their constituents. It's likely to cost their respective states dearly, but for both governors, a far-right ideological agenda trumps all other considerations.
Many have assumed that they'll fold in time, especially when it comes to Medicaid expansion, not because of public demand or pressure from struggling families in need of care, but because their in-state health infrastructure will simply not tolerate leaving so many resources on the table. We're already seeing some of this pushback.
As Jay Hancock reports today at Kaiser Health News, two groups of powerful interests are preparing to pressure Perry if, come next year, the state really does decide to opt out of the Medicaid expansion. One group is the hospitals that, absent the Medicaid expansion, will be bearing the cost of charity care even as they cope with declining revenue from other resources. The other group is private insurers, who see the growing Medicaid population as a huge profit opportunity and have been investing large amounts of money to prepare for it.
With world-renowned medical institutions such as the University of Texas and a large part of its Medicaid coverage handled by private insurers such as Amerigroup, the state's health industry is "just behind oil and gas" in size and influence, said Vivian Ho, a health economist at Rice University. "Given how much Amerigroup has to gain from a Medicaid expansion in Texas, they may be one of the most effective organizations to lobby Perry and the state legislature to fund the expansion."
It's unfolding in South Carolina, too.
A showdown is looming between Gov. Nikki Haley's administration and South Carolina's politically powerful health care industry over Haley's decision to forgo more than $13 billion in federal funds intended to extend health coverage to low-income residents.
The S.C. Hospital Association and most hospitals in the Charleston area want the state to take the money to expand Medicaid, the state and federally funded health insurance program that covers primarily low-income mothers, children and people with disabilities.
Here's the thing: Perry and Haley find it fairly easy to ignore a whole lot of voices when it comes to health care. Patients' advocates? Low-income families? Religious groups? Federal officials? Pundits and wonks? They shrug their shoulders and move on.
But for a sitting governor to ignore the needs and demands of their own hospitals is tougher, and probably unsustainable.
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It's only a matter of time before they buckle under the pressure. I wonder what they will say when they buckle? It might take awhile, but I'd bet they will change.
You give them too much credit. They are egomaniacs and wont buckle just because they are wrong and outvoted. They prove once more that republicans do not serve the people.
And if the governors get the koch bros, et al, to make up those funds, no problem.
You know, I am entirely on the side of the hospitals here but it is hard to feel too much sympathy for them. Yes, many of the medical systems came out in favor of the PP-ACA, but I just don't recall the level of involvement in advocacy -- in TV ads, in Op-Eds -- that the opponents had. If they had used their immense credibility as the actual care providers to stand up to a lot of the rabid right-wing nonsense when it mattered, right wing governors may not feel so emboldened (or required) to take these stupid positions today.
Well we must remember that hospitals are for the most part profit driven private enterprises which naturally oppose regulation of any kind. If they were truly bound by the hippocratic oath rather than bound to hypocritical oafs....
Campaign contributions or the lack thereof from the health insurance industry is quite persuasive.
The question is whether Perry and Haley really believe they'll put their money behind Democrats if they opt out. Merely declining to contribute isn't going to move Republicans in the Citizens United era because they'll always be crazy old rich white people to fill the till. The only thing that will move them is the prospect of money flowing to Democrats.
And, frankly, most of the big money corporatists don't seem to care that the economic policies favored by Democrats would be better for their companies than those favored by Republicans. They'd all rather rule in Hell than serve in Heaven.
So this rogue's gallery of incompetent right-wing hacks would rather see their own constituents die and get terminally ill due to a lack of health insurance than break with their party's hateful brand of incorruptible intransigence and demonic opposition to President Obama. This is political malfeasance and governing malpractice on a grand and deadly scale. America cannot move forward so long as partisan fools like Rick Perry or Piyush Jindal are sabotaging he country and playing games for political gain. Maybe it didn't work with Scott Walker, but surely at least one of these morons is ripe for a recall...
Well, Gov. Goodhair has no problem putting people to death, so what is a few more in his book. Only when these lobbying groups completely back Perry and Haley into a corner will they relent. Then they will probably spin in some way to make them look like it was their idea all along.
Death Panels = Insurance Companies
Too narrow in focus. The Rethuglican Party is the main and biggest death panel of all.
+ governors who decline the opportunity to have health care extended to the less fortunate.
I still think they'll take the money, but who cares? If the good voters of Texas and South Carolina and Louisiana see fit to have morons and halfwits and peabrains as their governors, I say more power to them. If they really wanted better health care, they would vote them out and replace them with someone who cares about that issue.
The providers would go bankrupt. Doctors, hospitals, and emergency care corporates need that money to meet the demand in their local communities. The healthcare crisis is that great.
If they don't get it, I wouldn't want to be either one of these governors or members of their families in a medical emergency. They and members of their conservative state caucuses would most certainty be barred from the doors of any medical center. They would be ushered out to the curb with an asprin, bandaid, and a prayer.
You don't shut down the medical industrial complex in a community and tell executives that they must operate without the federal funds provided in the ACA when the rest of the industry throughout the country have those monies. Profits trump ideology any day in this country and especially in red states.
Watch these Republican superstars fold without a whimper. They're not so brave when it comes to walking on political quicksand.
Don't give Goodhair too much credit. He gets enough money from other sources that he doesn't need the health industry. And he enjoys putting it to little people. It comes from being a CT (Corps Turd - a member of the TAMU Corps).
It'll be great fun to see if some of these HMO/PPO hospitals start running - "Our Governor is wrong" ads in newspapers and on billboards.
(oh please please please....)