[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

arg!!

Conservatives are such assholes! They are rejecting expansion of Medicaid to the poor (without children) potentially, 17 MILLION people, because the states will have to contribute money. It is true, states like California are short unimaginable amounts of money, $25 BILLION in California alone, $8 BILLION in Illinois.. BUT

It is pure fearmongering by the conservatives. The states already have to pay staggering sums of money to cover emergency room and clinics which are subsidized by the state and federal governments for the uninsured poor. Right now millions of people, myself included, receive medical treatment from small, urgent care facilities and also wasted and expensive emergency room visits for more routine kind of care. IF these people were insured through Medicaid, they would no longer be having to use emergency rooms, and the subsidies would decrease. In the long run, it will be much much cheaper to extend insurance coverage to the poor and working poor then to continue to subsidise an inefficient safety net. Then again, conservatives have different set of priorities, it benefits businesses for there to be tens of millions of working poor without resources, they tend to work for cheaper wages ; )