Have some MORE Medicaid! (The kids and grandkids will be picking up the bill.)
He won the governor’s race in the middle of the night by the hair of his chinny chin chin. But Roy Cooper has put the pedal to the metal in an all out race to the far-left lane that has Rob Schofield and Chris Fitzsimon swooning orgasmically.
Cooper has rounded up an awful lot of the co-conspirators in the Easley (indictment) and Perdue (failure) administrations to help him out in his four year spending spree. First on the list? Medicaid:
Gov. Roy Cooper plans to take immediate executive action aimed at expanding Medicaid, defying a state law and setting up a confrontation with the Republican-dominated state legislature.
Addressing a group of business leaders at an economic forum on Wednesday morning, the Democratic governor who was sworn into office on New Year’s Day said he would file an amendment to the state Medicaid plan by Friday – which would allow hundreds of thousands more people to sign up for government health insurance.
The amended plan would expand Medicaid as outlined in the federal Affordable Care Act and would have to be approved by the federal government. But Cooper has only about two weeks until President-elect Donald Trump, an adamant opponent of the law dubbed Obamacare, takes office. Trump has vowed to get rid of it.
Under Medicaid, the state and federal governments pay medical costs for low-income families and individuals.
State leaders have refused to expand Medicaid coverage to more North Carolinians under the Affordable Care Act. The Republican-dominated legislature went so far as to pass a bill which became law in 2013 that bars the executive branch from expanding the program.
Cooper said in a news conference following his talk that the law impinges on “the core executive authority of the governor to accept federal funds to look out for the health of the people.”
And where is that “core executive authority” spelled out? (He couldn’t be making more stuff up now, could he?) MORE:
[…] Cooper said he would rather avoid a dispute, adding he hopes legislators “will be receptive or at least let us do it without trying to stop us.”
But Republican leaders in the General Assembly said they are working to stop an expansion. Senate leader Phil Berger, an Eden Republican, said legislative leaders will send a letter to Congress and federal Medicaid officials asking them to deny Cooper’s request.
“Just days into his term as governor, Roy Cooper already intends to violate his oath of office with a brazenly illegal attempt to force a massive, budget-busting Obamacare expansion on North Carolina taxpayers,” Berger said in a statement. “Cooper is three strikes and out on his attempt to break state law: he does not have the authority to unilaterally expand Obamacare, his administration cannot take steps to increase Medicaid eligibility and our Constitution does not allow him to spend billions of state tax dollars we don’t have to expand Obamacare without legislative approval.”
Don’t be so sure about something like the law stopping Cooper & co. They’ve done well judge-shopping to find fellow law school grads on various benches across the country who simply make stuff up to aid the Left’s political agenda.
Even the leftist Politifact and our leftist lame duck president admit that Medicaid has been one of the biggest deficit drivers at the federal level. The federal money in ObamaCare was only short-term. The feds would throw money they don’t have at the states for a few years, and then states would be stuck trying to find money they don’t have to keep footing the bill.
North Carolina already has some of the most generous Medicaid benefits in the country — covering all but TWO of the optional services authorized by Medicaid. The claims about refusing Medicaid expansion leaving hundreds of thousands out in the cold and uninsured are FALSE.
Medicaid is already rife with cost overruns, fraud and abuse. Governor McCrory had a point about at least waiting until we get our house in order before trying to take on even more. But the supporters of the new regime are not interested in good fiscal practices. They care more about using other people’s money to shove even more people deeper into dependency on government services.
Cooper should be impeached and removed from office if he takes this illegal act in violation of state law.
This Medicaid expansion does not expand ”government insurance”. It expands a welfare giveaway program, and one that the state and local governments would have to pay part of the cost of.
But Medicaid is likely to change dramatically anyway. Obamacare will soon be history, and it is likely that the whole Medicaid program will be block granted to the states.
Too bad the House doesn’t have the 2/3s necessary….and there aren’t that many blue dogs left who might cross the aisle to help out.
So typical of a liberal progressive thug — subvert the law, enforce only those laws that you believe in or sue until you get your way. Such despicable behavior — and the GOP had better come out swinging and do everything to stop this overreach quickly or it will set the stage for the next painful 4 years. Which leads me into my next point — go away Pat McCrory. If the rumors are even remotely true that you are considering a run again, please think again. Your squishy leadership and knife into the backs of conservatives who elected you are reasons why YOU are no longer in Raleigh. Now we have to muddle through 4 painful years thanks to you. Step aside, old man. It is Dan Forrest’s time.
This is why we don’t need lawyers as elected officials except attorney general. So good ole Pat saves the state 2 billion and now Cooper can’t wait to throw it away. Lawyers are great at litigating but not necessarily governing. I predict Buddy Roy will be a one termer.
“Cooper said in a news conference following his talk that the law impinges on “the core executive authority of the governor to accept federal funds to look out for the health of the people.””
lol, the Governor can do whatever he wants so long as he’s got “good intentions”, eh?
Yeah, I guess that “is” how socialism (and Democrats) operate…