It’s well understood that Medicaid badly wants reform.  My own view is to give it back to the States by reducing Federal fund transfers to them until the transfers are zero, which also would eliminate Federal strings jerking the States to do everything the same way, the Federal way.

There are lots of paths to that end, and there are a number of other reforms that would help the situation at least a little.  The House plan for repeal and replace of Obamacare, the first step of which was the American Health Care Act, has one such step, the repeal of Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion.

Expanding State participation in Federally provided—with those strings attached—funds—expanding Medicaid—as a number State governors have done, is not one of those reforms.  Not even for Republican governors.

Sixteen GOP governors represent states that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, and they are generally loath to see the program cut back.

Nobody forced these persons to mainline the Federal funds drug. They stuck that needle in their veins and addicted themselves, with no outside pressure at all.

These guys are badly mistaken, and they’ve only made things worse for the constituents for whom they claim to work.

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, one of those 16, thinks the expansion is just peachy keen; he’s still riding the high from his needle.  He says that “600,000 Michiganders have gained coverage and the state’s hospitals have saved about $300 million.”

What he’s carefully ignoring, though, is how much money Michiganders and those hospitals sent to the Federal government in various taxes and fees to contribute to 49 other States’ Medicaid program participation.  How many of those Michiganders could have been helped and how much money could Michigan’s hospitals have saved had the State kept those monies, instead?  How much would those Michigan citizens and those Michigan hospitals have benefited, had they been able to keep their money—their money, not the State or Federal government’s money—instead of paying all those taxes and fees to the Federal government?