Congress, which has voted more than 50 times to repeal the Affordable Care Act, is like a 5-year-old that throws a tantrum because Mommy wouldn't buy him candy at the grocery store... and then continues the tantrum until he's 10. The healthcare industry has largely ignored the tantrum, because it's common knowledge that the House does not have the votes for a veto-proof repeal. However, this pouting and kicking and wailing has spilled over to their cousins, the 16 state governors who have resisted expanding Medicaid as political retribution for the federal government enforcing the ACA as law.
When tolerating the screaming child makes it seem acceptable for other children to have a tantrum, too, it's time to stop tolerating it.
Sixteen states have rebuked the federal government's requests to expand Medicaid. That sentence alone defies logic and sanity, so let's put it in plainer terms: the federal government is offering states more money to care for its residents who can't afford healthcare, and governors are saying, "No, we don't want the money."
Typically, governors scream at the federal government when Congress passes laws that are unfunded mandates, where the states have to foot the bill for a new program they didn't have a vote in passing. In this case, they are turning down free money, and they aren't doing so because they have enough of it. They are turning it down because they are still protesting the passage of the ACA, which was signed by President Obama five years ago.
Now, politics can be a very divisive part of the American experience. Many a family gathering and longtime friendship have been tarnished by political disagreements between loved ones, so taking sides can be a very dangerous thing for leaders and C-level executives in the healthcare industry. In other words, it's understandable why so many have stayed silent on the ACA and Medicaid expansion for so long.
However, when you consider that healthcare stakeholders spend nine figures annually to lobby Washington, that veneer of political neutrality on the ACA and Medicaid expansion becomes very thin.
The bottom line here is crystal clear: Patients who need care are suffering, and the institutions that provide that care deserve to be reimbursed for it, especially when the money already exists. The only people standing between them and the money are the duly-elected partisans who are placing politics above patients, retribution above reimbursements.
It's time for the industry's leaders to speak in one clear, clarion voice to say, "The ACA is the law, and Medicaid expansion helps people."