Wyoming politicians, who support Medicaid Expansion, advocate for expansion saying that (1) the federal government will grant Wyoming a “trigger” which will allow Wyoming to shut down the expanded portion of Medicaid if the “trigger” is reached, and (2) if Wyoming does not expand Medicaid the money hardworking Wyoming taxpayers sent to Washington will be given to states that do expand Medicaid. Neither justification for expansion is accurate.

…to learn more of how the Country/States have experienced Medicaid expansion follow this link.

The Federal Government does not grant “triggers” and there isn’t a pot of money earmarked for Wyoming that, if not used, will go to another state. The money sent to states that expand Medicaid has to be printed. Our federal government’s growing debt (now approaching $20,000,000,000,000 http://www.usdebtclock.org/ is not sustainable.
Please go to this link for more specific information.

Now that some time has passed for states that expanded Medicaid, what was to be the panacea for them is proving to be anything but. Here are just a few examples:

• The actual % of people who are insured is going down…see here the Louisiana overrun with enrollments
• Medicaid patients receive severely limited access to doctors and health care, ultimately leaving them with worse health outcomes. http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/obamacares-medicaid-expansion-limits-medical-choices
• A recent survey of ER physicians show that emergency department use was on the rise, despite the goal of Medicaid expansion to prevent that. http://newsroom.acep.org/2014-05-21-ER-Visits-Up-Since-Implementation-of-Affordable-Care-Act
• Uncompensated care for Pennsylvania’s 171 acute care hospitals increased by $22 million (http://www.post-gazette.com/business/healthcare-business/2015/05/21/Many-Western-Pennsylvania-operating-in-the-red/stories/201505210072) and in Minnesota unpaid hospital bills have gone up $80 million https://www.minnpost.com/glean/2015/06/unpaid-hospital-bills-havent-decreased-medicaid-expansion
• Under Medicaid and Medicaid Expansion if you are diagnosed with cancer, the Medicaid system will determine if your cancer is worth treating. That’s right folks. You will have government insurance, but get a cancer diagnosis, and if the treatment cost numbers do not add up correctly, your cancer will not be treated. Effectively, your “free full coverage” Medicaid insurance will not pay for life saving treatments if you need them. See CA article here

You may recall Ohio’s Governor, John Kasich, visiting Cheyenne a couple of years ago encouraging Governor Mead and our state legislature to expand Medicaid. Here is an update on Ohio: Kasich’s Medicaid expansion has cost taxpayers $7 billion http://watchdog.org/259967/kasichs-obamacare-expansion-cost-taxpayers-7-billion/

…Update: Ohio’s Obamacare expansion: Ohio Medicaid expansion costs sailed farther past Gov. John Kasich’s projections in March, as total spending on the program topped the $7.5 billion mark

Expansion cost $411 million last month, making March the most expensive month yet. For the past six months, expansion costs reported by the Ohio Department of Medicaid averaged $394 million — dwarfing other state programs.
Kasich’s budget office reported $312 million in primary and secondary education expenditures, $186 million in higher education expenditures, and $170 million in justice and public protection expenditures in March. The governor predicted that adding working-age adults with no kids and no disabilities to the Medicaid rolls under the 2010 federal health law would cost $14 billion from 2014-20. Actual spending puts Kasich’s Obamacare expansion on track to cost $28.5 billion by 2020.

What we need in Wyoming is a Wyoming solution not a one-size fits all federal government program which has only created more issues and rising costs for the 32 states that signed on.

A Wyoming physician designed an excellent Wyoming based program which he proposed to our legislature. Why then have we only been told about the federal government’s solution?