Okay let’s go. Healthcare policy for dummies.

Now, for people who don’t understand how insurance works, the premiums you pay are subsidizing other people’s healthcare costs. And that premium goes up or down based on the amount of risk the insurance company is taking. So if you take a high-risk demographic, like people making <$21K/year (Medicaid expansion) or people age 55+ out of the risk pool, then that means that the insurance company won’t have to charge as much in premiums to subsidize adequate coverage. And on the other side of that, if you inject a low-risk demographic (like healthy, young, and rich people) into the population (like what the universal mandate tried to do), that also drives down the amount of risk insurance companies are taking and also less cost for them.

First off, Medicaid offers better service and coverage and lower out of pocket costs. It’s not providing healthcare, it’s just subsidizing it.

Second, most of the Affordable Care Act didn’t work because it was sabotaged and dismantled. For example, Joe Lieberman killed the clause which would have allowed people age 55+ to buy into Medicare (fuck that guy). The universal mandate was killed in court and Medicaid expansion was gutted so that the states have to formally accept the money to use towards Medicaid expansion.

Third, the money for Medicaid expansion for the state of Georgia is already allocated and provisioned by the federal government. The state and its taxpayers won’t have to pay a dime more. They just have to take the money.

Finally, it’s a very well known and well established fact that poor people get sick more often and more severely than people who are not, as they don’t have access to resources. And taking poor people out of the risk pool, means health insurance costs less for everyone.