By Dusty Weber, Hamilton
Why should someone who works and cannot afford insurance pay for the insurance of someone else who does not work at all? Continuing to fund Medicaid Expansion with tax revenue from Montana’s struggling workers lacks real compassion.
Try not to confuse Medicaid with Medicaid Expansion. Medicaid already covers profound disabilities and people who truly cannot enter the work force. Medicaid Expansion on the other hand is a deceptively named redistribution scheme that takes taxpayer money to give healthcare to nearly 100,000 other Montanans; many of which are perfectly capable of working if they were not being rewarded for not working.
Offering a prize for not working will never raise people out of poverty or out of the cycle of addiction. Social programs, no matter how good the intentions, often harm many of the very people they intend to help by rewarding them for lack of change. Real compassion would be rewarding a single mom who sacrifices time away from her kids at a second job or rewarding a dad who loves his family so much he endures a job he hates. Real compassion would be for legislators to quit finding creative solutions to “capture income” from Montana’s working poor with new and increased taxes.
Some Republicans calling themselves the “Solutions Caucus” are even bragging about economic benefits of continuing this redistribution program. What? Of course some industries would benefit in the short term; i.e. even bank robbers have to spend the loot somewhere. However, when has taking from more productive individuals and giving to less productive individuals ever provided long term economic benefits?
Are these rogue Republicans so egocentric they actually believe punishing workers for the benefit of rewarding able-bodied nonworkers is a solution? That sounds like a Venezuelan solution to me.