By Duane Krowen, Victor
Sarah Palin was right, she said that Obamacare would lead to death panels that would have the power to withhold healthcare, and lead to deaths of some people. And it has. But the death panels aren’t in Washington, they are in the state governments that refuse to expand medicaid,
including Montana.
The reasoning for not expanding medicaid is that it will cost taxpayers more money, but as things are now Montanans are already paying for the programs with federal tax money, and getting nothing back. Like it or not, we have already bought and paid for the program. There are no refunds or returns. We own it. Not using it would be like a spoiled teenager refusing to use the new car his parents bought for him because he didn’t like the color. It’s blue. I wanted red. And do I really have to start buying some of my own gas in three years?
Another argument is that medicaid expansion could cost Montana taxpayers more money, even though federal money pays for all of the first three years and ninety percent after that. We are turning that deal down. If car dealers offered to lease pick-ups for free for three years, and ninety percent of normal payments from then on, their lot would be bare in a day and people would line up to get the next one in no matter what color it was.
Montanans are already paying for medicaid expansion once in federal tax money. We may not like it or many other things our tax money is spent on, but that is part of the unwritten contract that we enter into with the United States when we become American citizens, a contract that can only be broken by renouncing that citizenship and leaving the country.
To add insult to injury, we are not only paying for medicaid expansion once, but twice. Because people without insurance who would be on medicaid use emergency rooms for health care, and have medical bills they can’t possibly pay, the cost for their services are passed on to anyone else who pays for medical service through payments or insurance premiums, whether those are part or employee benefits or medicare supplements or something else.
Now some in Helena are proposing a partial medicaid expansion paid for by transferring funds, which is another way of saying stealing funds from education, bridges, roads, or maybe a new sewer system for Culbertson because we won’t accept our money back from the federal government.
Montanans, we are being robbed of millions of dollars, and a few of us are being killed. This is Montana. Where are the Vigilantes?