[StBernard] In Case You Missed It - Obamacare is Anything but Compassionate

[Westley Annis]

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT 
Bobby Jindal: Obamacare is Anything but Compassionate


Obamacare Is Anything But Compassionate

Governor Bobby Jindal
February 9, 2014
Politico Magazine
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Excerpts:

The verdict is in, and it's not good: Obamacare is rippling through the U.S.
economy with vast implications for American prosperity.

On Friday, we learned that the Obama economy has hit stall speed, with a
paltry 113,000 jobs added in January.

Two days earlier, we learned the president's health care law is discouraging
Americans from working, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan
Congressional Budget Office. The report makes for bracing reading. The law
will reduce the labor supply by the equivalent of 2.3 million full-time
workers, the CBO says - up from an estimated 800,000 just three years ago.

.

Obamacare's Medicaid expansion doesn't just discourage work; it also
prioritizes coverage for able-bodied adults over the needs of persons with
disabilities. That's a dirty little secret the Obama administration and its
liberal allies, in their rush to expand government-funded health coverage to
millions more Americans, won't tell you. And it's yet another reason why
states should resist the siren song of the administration and its leftist
supporters, who plan to spend 2014 persuading them to embrace the expansion.

.

In other words, Obamacare's incentive structure places a greater emphasis on
expanding coverage to these able-bodied adults - the vast majority of whom
could be working or preparing for work - than helping the individuals with
disabilities Medicaid was initially created to serve.

That's not compassionate - just the opposite, in fact. So while the
president's advisers ask why states aren't expanding Medicaid under
Obamacare, I have another question for President Obama: Why is expanding
Medicaid to cover millions of working-age Americans a bigger priority than
giving access to hundreds of thousands of people with disabilities waiting
for care?

.

Obama has defended his health care law by stating, "We are a compassionate
nation"- implying that the millions who oppose it are not. That's as wrong
as it is insulting. A law that gives Americans with low income additional
incentives not to work and prioritizes able-bodied adults ahead of persons
with disabilities demonstrates a fundamentally flawed definition of
"compassion."

I firmly believe that government has a responsibility to ensure an effective
safety net for the least fortunate among us. But we can't be everything to
everyone, and we still haven't met the needs of our most vulnerable. That's
why I'm going to make my priority expanding access to better services for
older Louisianians and those with disabilities. I only wish the president
would do the same.

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