Arkansas Wants To Strip People Of Obamacare Coverage

Last year, Arkansas was one of the states to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. This year, they look to be the first one to take away Medicaid benefits from people who have gotten used to receiving them.

The revanchist Republicans are setting up their state, one of 25 to expand Medicaid this year under the health care reform law, to be the first to strip Obamacare coverage from people who already have it. Arkansas expanded the program, using a unique privatized model, under the tutelage of Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe and with the support of most GOP leaders in the legislature. But a cohort of conservative lawmakers believe they now have enough votes to block funding for the expansion during the legislative session that starts next week.

People who have started taking medication and seeing doctors will have to stop.  There is a certain cruelty to this that goes above and beyond the refusal to grant benefits in the first place.

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.