State Leaders Should Be Ashamed Of Themselves

You’ve really got to wonder whether South Carolina legislators, who refused to accept billions of free federal Medicaid dollars to expand the program for Obamacare, ever actually talked to poor people who would benefit.
Witness the heartbreaking, front-page story in The New York Times (“Insurance rolls to rise in state fighting plan,” Sept. 7) that showcased a Florence woman who doesn’t qualify for Medicaid and can’t afford to see doctors about two heart stents and a leg wound.
“If I could get Medicaid, I’d be the happiest person on earth,” Brenda B. Culick told the Times.
But she can’t.  She doesn’t qualify, despite a household income of just $1,200 a month.  Why?  She’s not disabled and she doesn’t have dependent children.
When Obamacare starts signing up people for new health insurance next month, more than 400,000 people above the federal poverty level could get health insurance through a federal exchange, which will offer subsidized coverage in South Carolina through four federally-facilitated programs, each with different components that have met federal muster.
Federal officials hope that lots of those who sign up will be uninsured young people, a relatively healthy population whose subsidies and premiums will help pay for those with more chronic conditions.  Those who qualify for federal subsidies through the Affordable Care Act include people whose adjusted household incomes range from the poverty level to four times that amount.  The more they earn, the less they’ll get in subsidies.  People who earn more than four times the poverty rate can purchase coverage through the exchange if they wish.
In addition to this pool of people who will get coverage through the exchange, there are about 170,000 people in South Carolina who currently qualify for Medicaid, but don’t get it because they aren’t enrolled.  State officials reportedly are working to ensure those people get signed up.
Unfortunately because of the way the law works, the people who most need health insurance — people whose household incomes are below poverty level — are shut out thanks to S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley and the majority of the state legislature after they refused to accept the billions of free federal dollars to expand Medicaid to the truly poor.
In other words, they played politics with the lives of Brenda Culick and more than 200,000 people like her.  Why?  Despite what they say, it’s because they don’t want Barack Obama and his health insurance policy to be successful.  They’re not ostriches with their heads covered in the sand.  Instead, these so-called state leaders are actively working against South Carolina’s poor.  And who benefits?  Other states, which will share more of the free Medicaid money that the federal government is spending to make the health insurance system better.
S.C. Hospital Association officials says what’s happened to South Carolina’s poor has created a new coverage gap of more than 207,000 people in 40 counties.  Soon-to-be-updated Census data may show the number is really closer to 300,000 people.
Face it.  These people are in a poverty trap.  They don’t qualify for Medicaid because their income is too low and they don’t have children or a disability.  And to rub salt in the wound, they can’t get a subsidy because they don’t make enough money to be slightly above poverty.  Furthermore, if their employers cut their work hours to less than 30 per week, the employers don’t have to provide coverage under the rules of Obamacare.
Take a hypothetical case of a low-paid vendor who makes minimum wage ($7.25 per hour) and works 28 hours per week, instead of 40.  The employee would earn $203 weekly, which is $10,556 annually.  The federal poverty level for a one-person household is $11,490.   If that person worked 2.5 hours more per week, he or she would earn slightly more than the poverty level — and would qualify for the federal subsidy.
South Carolina lawmakers who opposed Medicaid expansion should be ashamed of themselves.  And the hundreds of thousands of voters who will be impacted by their rash, hardhearted politics should remember next year at the polls.
 
Andy Brack is publisher of Statehouse Report.  He can be reached at:  brack@statehousereport.com.