TPM…
House Democrats are demanding that some Republican governors, including Texas Gov. Rick Perry, provide the documents behind their decision to reject Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion.
House Oversight ranking member Elijah Cummings (D-MD) sent requests Wednesday to Perry, Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) and North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R).
“In order to better understand the basis for your opposition, I request that you provide … copies of any state-specific analyses, studies, or reports that you ordered, requested or relied on to inform your decision,” Cummings said in the letters.
He specifically asked for how much funding the states would forgo by rejecting Medicaid expansion, how much the states themselves would have had to pay, how many jobs would have been created with Medicaid expansion, and how many residents would have to forgo “preventive services and other medicare care” without expansion…
Minority Democrats have no subpoena power, and it’s not clear whether the governors will voluntarily comply with the request
I can almost bet if Georgia’s governor, Nathan Deal, had received one of these requests, he would not comply. Deal staunchly opposed the expansion and says the Federal Government will back out of the funding costing the state billions that would go to education (wink, wink.) Rural hospitals in Georgia are getting financially squeezed without this funding and in the past two years four rural hospitals have closed with as many as ten more will follow. This is an election year and Gov. Deal is having some extreme ethics issues as of late. In case he doesn’t get elected this November, the legislature last spring passed a law that any Medicaid expansion will have to be approved by the legislature preventing his opponent, Jason Carter, from accepting the expansion if elected.
I doubt any of the governors will comply at all; the minority party has no subpoena power. But, if any of them do, I can bet there is going to be some serious pretzel logic presented…
House Democrats are as idiotic as House Republicans are with their demands. The biggest Democratic fools in the House are Pelosi, Hoyer and the clownish Cummings. Boner has nothing on this bunch when it comes to stupid moves.
I think that this was help Democrats in a state like I live in where there has been no expansion, Imhotep. Certainly Jason Carter (Dem running against Nathan Deal) needs to beat this drum very hard, especially south of what we call the gnat line, i.e. South Georgia. This is the area area of the state that is plagued with some of the highest rates for health insurance in the nation with a huge population that lives in poverty. They really need this bad.
Anecdotally, I have talk to members of local Chambers of Commerce from South Georgia and refusing the expansion is not helping them bring business into there areas. Much potential, but, South Georgia is vanishing and is more and more getting boarded up.
I think this may help get out the vote and also with the threat of impeachment…
This isn’t stupid, it is good (mid term) election year politics…
their… sorry.. 🙂