AFP-NE Vows to Mobilize Grassroots Activists to Defeat Medicaid Expansion Initiative

Jul 5, 2018 by AFP

High costs, increased taxes follow Medicaid expansion grassroots group says

LINCOLN, Nebr. – Americans for Prosperity-Nebraska (AFP-NE), the state’s leading free-market grassroots organization, commented today on the Medicaid expansion petition obtaining the necessary requirements to be placed on the November ballot. AFP has long been opposed to the expansion of Medicaid under Obamacare that will add hundreds of thousands of able-bodied, working age adults to an already broken system.

“Expanding Medicaid is not what our state needs. This proposal will make a bad problem worse by further straining a broken Medicaid program that already struggles to provide quality health care services for Nebraska’s most vulnerable citizens,” said Jessica Shelburn, AFP-NE State Director. “We should be reforming Medicaid to make it work better for our most vulnerable populations, instead of exposing our state to massive tax increases and cuts to essential government services. AFP will now mobilize our grassroots activists to educate citizens on the harms this proposal will cause and work to defeat it in November.”

Background:

Medicaid was intended to help just the most vulnerable Americans like the elderly and the disabled, but its expansion to able-bodied, childless, working-age adults would create an unsustainable burden on taxpayers and crowd out resources for those truly needy populations.

Last year, reports showed the Medicaid program experiencing numerous problems, including unpaid claims and state behavioral health services being jeopardized.

Medicaid is simply not cost effective. Researchers from MIT, Harvard, and Dartmouth found that Medicaid recipients only receive about 20 to 40 cents of benefit for every dollar spent on Medicaid. Insurance companies, not low-income citizens, are the biggest winners of Medicaid expansion. Kaiser Health News recently reported that Medicaid insurer profits more than tripled in 34 states and the District of Columbia after Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion.