The evidence is piling up that opting to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act makes a lot of sense. The arguments for New Jersey joining 20 other states that represent well over half the nation's population include:
- It would provide health insurance and decent health care to about 375,000 New Jersey adults -- or about 30 percent of the state's uninsured population.
The arguments against choosing to expand Medicaid are hard to find, but seem to boil down to these three:
- Life is uncertain and there is no air-tight guarantee that the federal government will live up to its pledge to foot most of the bill.
We'll agree that we live in an imperfect world, so the first two objections are noted. On the third, it is worth considering that four Republican governors have recently joined the ranks of the Medicaid expanders, despite the seemingly solid party opposition voiced during the Republican presidential primaries last year. The fact that Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona is one of them should be a source of political cover to Gov. Christie.
Gov. Brewer is the quintessential hard-right, Tea Party-beloved Republican. Among her credentials:
- She called a special session of the legislature to authorize Arizona joining the class action litigation to find Obamacare unconstitutional (Gov. Christie did not join his 21 Republican colleagues in the suit).
Needless to say, Gov. Brewer surprised many with her decision to opt in to the Medicaid expansion. Her statement could be easily modified by Gov. Christie:
"My concerns about the Affordable Care Act are well-known, but it is the law of the land. With this expansion, New Jersey can leverage [nearly] more than $8 billion in federal funds over four years, save or protect thousands of quality jobs and protect our critical rural and safety-net hospitals.
. . . . New Jersey's tax dollars would simply be passed to another state - generating jobs and providing health care for citizens in New York, Maryland, Connecticut or any other expansion state.
With this move, we will secure a federal revenue stream to cover the costs of the uninsured who already show up in our doctor's offices and emergency rooms.
Under the current system, these costs are passed along to Arizona families. Health care premiums are raised year after year to account for expenses incurred by our hospitals as they provide care to the uninsured.
This amounts to a HIDDEN TAX estimated at nearly 2 Thousand dollars per family, per year. On top of this, New Jersey's budget sends $700 million in charity care to cover a part of the costs of uninsured patients -- we could save many of these dollars.
If Gov. Brewer can buy into state savings, support for safety-net hospitals, protection and creation of jobs, an infusion of federal funds and health care for struggling citizens, so can Gov. Christie.