Affordable Care Act Case Study

Josh Castle Texas, Medicaid, and The Affordable Care Act Castle 1

Medicaid was put into action by the Social Security Act in 1965 and is designed to give free health insurance to individuals or families that cannot help themselves, or simply do not make enough money to afford private insurance. People that qualify for this program are those that have low-income, families and children, elderly, pregnant women, and people with disabilities. Though this program already covered a large amount of people different states made different qualifications which would make some people ineligible. These people were mostly individuals whose annual salary was too high to qualify for Medicaid, but too little to afford private insurance, and this is what …show more content…
"Over the next decade, if Texas continues to reject Medicaid expansion, the state will miss out on $100 billion in federal funding that would otherwise have flowed to the state to provide medical care for their low income residents." (Norris, 2015). This money is mostly made up of our taxes, so the government would basically giving it back to us to help pay the hospitals that have to charged uninsured people. Saying no to this is almost the same as giving the federal government money and when they offer it back we say no thanks. That money could have helped out thousands of people and made hospital/ER visits cheaper for everyone. Instead of receiving all of that money, Texas residents are still paying money in their taxes to pay for other states that are expanding medicaid. "Over a decade, Texas residents will pay $36.2 billion in federal taxes that will be used to pay for Medicaid expansion in other states." (Norris, 2015). If we were to get that 100 billion dollars we could put the excess of that, whatever is left over after we cover the uncompensated hospital bills, to paying off some of those expenses. Governor Rick Perry argued "How can they give us 100 billion dollars with the country as in debt as it is?" (Perry 2013). The 100 billion dollars comes collectively from our taxes and premiums as it is so, as previously stated, that money would just be coming back to us instead of losing

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