This week the Senate passed Senator Buttrey\u2019s SB405, Medicaid expansion, after it was blasted to the floor from the Finance and Claims committee before it could be voted on last Friday. Why? The bill would have missed transmittal to the house and been D.O.A. Lucky for Buttrey his oversight was saved by moderate Republican friends and Democrats in the Senate; the same friends\u00a0who supported SB289 in stealing a part of your first amendment. The bill was then heard and subsequently passed, accepting zero amendments. Buttrey himself stated there were amendments but they would be stuffed into HB2 due to cost. AKA hiding the fiscal impact in a much larger budget bill. His idea of transparency wouldn\u2019t past muster in even Clinton’s administration.<\/p>\n
SB405 expands Medicaid to just over half of the Governors\u2019 70K people for roughly the same cost. So what gives? Who knows, devils in the details. The bill pays for work force development that takes from TANF funding and gives coverage to able bodied adults in an attempt to train them to work. This training is optional. Buttrey care has those on the plan paying a monthly premium and if they miss a payment it\u2019s taken from their tax return. At $16,000 per year or less you will have a hard time making premiums, let alone get a tax return and be penalized for not paying — this means those premiums won\u2019t ever be collected. Buttrey calls this \u201cSkin in the game,\u201d which Republicans generally would be happy to support.\u00a0Buttrycare’s provisions, however, are impossible to enforce and thus meaningless\u00a0. By the end of 5 years it is projected this bill will cover just over 40k people with the Feds picking up 90% of the tab, down from 100% the first year. What happens if Federal funds dry up? The premium payer pays more, which they can\u2019t afford, or the taxpayers pick up the tab. We all know that no politician will take away an entitlement.\u00a0All of this doesn’t even mention that\u00a0hospitals are still only getting 40 cents on the dollar, yet clambering to support SB405.\u00a0It is inevitable\u00a0that in future sessions\u00a0hospitals and Democrats will\u00a0come back asking for the other 60 cents. \u201cWhen you\u2019re starving, half a loaf of bread is better than none\u201d said one hospital executive during the Governors bill hearing.<\/p>\n
The bottom line is Buttrey Care is a farce, an extension of Obama Care as defined in the Federal bill, and required for full implementation of the Federal Act. SB405 gives moderates cover as being able to compromise, the Governor what he wants in the bill, and Democrats a win in 2016 or Buttrey et all. What\u2019s the difference really?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This week the Senate passed Senator Buttrey\u2019s SB405, Medicaid expansion, after it was blasted to the floor from the Finance and Claims committee before it could be voted on last Friday. Why? The bill would have missed transmittal to the house and been D.O.A. Lucky for Buttrey his oversight was saved by moderate Republican friends […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coppercommando.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coppercommando.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coppercommando.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coppercommando.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coppercommando.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.coppercommando.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coppercommando.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coppercommando.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coppercommando.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}