Obamacare Momentum Spreads as Even a Georgia Republican Argues For Medicaid Expansion

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Georgia state Sen. Chuck Hufstetler has broken with his party by admitting the truth. The Republican refusal to expand Medicaid in places like Georgia is hurting their states.

Video:

A few choice quotes from Hufstetler’s nearly 10 minute presentation:

I fought the Affordable Care Act and believe the program as a whole is detrimental to our country. The individual mandate, which I hoped would be invalidated by the Supreme Court, was not. But President Obama has given so many waivers that, for all practical purposes, it’s gone.

…

I believe this transfer of wealth is going to hurt Georgia as numerous studies by Kaiser, the University of Georgia, and Georgia State have pointed out. Our stance is hurting our state, but we’re not lowering the federal deficit. I just don’t believe that it’s consistent, after sending the Medicaid Financing Act last year to the Department of Community Health and the executive branch – that we now want to take control of Medicaid expansion, as we go into recess for the rest of the year, without a single hearing on Medicaid expansion in the last two years….

I am concerned that my party is going to lose thousands of health care workers and independent voters over this. The majority of Georgians do oppose Obamacare, but six out of 10 believe we ought to expand Medicaid. There is a difference between the two.

Hufstetler was the only Republican to vote for the Medicaid expansion bill, which passed 35-19.

What that state senator was expressing was a bit of common sense. Red states that are refusing to expand Medicaid are hurting their own citizens, costing their taxpayers money, and denying themselves needed funds for strictly political ends. States that don’t expand Medicaid are putting their healthcare system under the gun. They cost themselves millions of free federal dollars.

At least one Republican has awakened to the political reality that the ACA isn’t going anywhere, and that Republicans are only harming themselves and the uninsured in their state by refusing to expand Medicaid. The ACA is helping the economy to grow. It is leading more personal income and spending. The ACA is helping to fuel a boom in the healthcare sector of our economy.

Anybody who wants to miss out on all of this for the sake of political symbolism is an idiot who doesn’t your vote in November.

Republicans are starting to wake up to the fact that fighting against the popular parts of Obamacare could  cost them their jobs.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association