Incomplete Medicaid Discussion (Re: Texas Gov. Perry rejected Medicaid Expansion)

Recent Texas politics commentary by Shamina Dhuka reads like an unbiased news story at first: "Texas Gov. Perry rejected Medicaid Expansion". Ultimately though, I think my classmate goes on to finish off her piece with rather strong yet unsubstantiated claims on the topic of Medicaid expansion under Obamacare.

Dhuka spends the bulk of her post recalling Governor Perry's decision to deny Medicaid expansion, but then she leans toward supporting move by pointing out that Perry seems to be in good company - Perry joins "South Carolina’s Nikki Haley, Wisconsin’s Scott Walker and Florida’s Rick Scott in rejecting to implement the [medicaid expansion]." It was disappointing to see Dhuka's post end right when it started getting interesting.

Dhuka went so far as to claim that the federal government had fabricated data that shows Texas has a higher percentage of uninsured residents than any other state in the country. Dhuka says that the federal government does this because it does not like Texas and that she is sure that the data is wrong because "According to Gov. Perry, Texas has some of the finest health care system in the nation." While I doubt that the independent Kaiser Foundation analysis has any major holes (it literally relies on Census Bureau data collected from self-reporting respondents), I think Dhuka's argument could have been seriously strengthened if she'd cited strong counter-analyses.

Dhuka could have also chosen to address some of the issues most Medicaid expansionists have raised: Texas already limits its Medicaid program compared to other states, Texan employers simply do not sponsor health coverage, Texas insurance rates are unregulated to the point that coverage is prohibitively expensive, and Texas has a larger immigrant population that needs insurance coverage. Additionally, I think Dhuka should have addressed the costs of choosing to reject rather than accept Medicaid expansion: the Affordable Care Act reduces federal funding for states' uncompensated care costs in order to account for Medicaid expansion which means that Texas will actually be forced to have to substantially increase spending anyway.

In short, I think my classmate's opinions on Perry's decision to reject Medicaid expansion are interesting, but I think her arguments leave a lot to be desired.