Krugman again.
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The Medicaid Two-Step
AUGUST 17, 2015 9:40 AM
The estimable Charles Gaba notes the latest in Obamacare denialism; OK, say the usual suspects, maybe the number of insured Americans has risen, but it’s mainly because of Medicaid expansion. As he says, this is only shocking if you consider Medicaid recipients somehow not worth counting, because, um, well.
Actually, however, this is an even worse argument than Gaba indicates. You see, before the ACA went into effect the very same people loudly insisted that expanding Medicaid was worthless, because instead of insuring more people it would mainly crowd out private insurance, making only a small dent in the number of uninsured Americans.
And maybe the Medicaid expansion has in some cases led people to drop the private coverage they would have had otherwise. But the number of uninsured has dropped sharply, especially in Medicaid expansion states. So if there was crowding out, it was more than offset by the expansion in private coverage due to the other features of Obamacare.
The point is that even aside from the facts that Medicaid is real insurance and Medicaid recipients are real people, the whole “but it’s just a Medicaid expansion” claim is outrageous coming from people who insisted just the other day that expanding Medicaid wouldn’t work.
So will the Medicaid-won’t work claim be dropped? Of course not. No anti-Obamacare argument ever is. These are people completely untroubled by cognitive dissonance. |
