SCRANTON TIMES-TRIBUINE EDITORIAL: …Under Obamacare, the federal government pays 100 percent of the cost for three years, and 90 percent of the cost thereafter, of expanding Medicaid to cover low-income workers who earn too much for conventional Medicaid but not enough to buy their own insurance. It’s a great deal that has been embraced by several other Republican governors, including Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey. Thus, substantial federal benefits to cover low-income workers and ensure payment to health care providers will begin flowing into New Jersey this week, but not into Pennsylvania.
Rather than accepting the straightforward federal proposal, Mr. Corbett has concocted a complex hybrid that needlessly would funnel federal money through private insurers while contradicting the very purpose of the federal initiative. It would impose significant premiums on enrollees, even though the federal plan was created to help people who can’t afford premiums. It also would require proof that unemployed enrollees are seeking work, even though the Labor Department says there are 2.9 available workers for every available job.
Failure to expand Medicaid also contributes to rising premiums for covered Pennsylvanians, because the costs of treating uninsured people are rolled into hospitals’ and doctors’ costs that show up in insurance rates… (more)
