Megyn Kelly was hanging her blue bonnet on the Medicaid Expansion ruling by the Scotus --
Roughly speaking, the Foxcaster gleefully painted this as a WIN for ACA-foes. She carefully explained that the ruling 'took away the Federal stick to force states to expand their Medicaid to include the uninsured poor ...'
In other words, 'states still will get the Federal carrot (their existing Medicaid funding) without having to increase their health care services, unless they choose to do so.'
Happy days are here again for the Republican Healthcare Plan advocates, as Alan Grayson so adeptly put it:
"Don't get sick!" -- especially if you're poor. It will make Megyn's day, if you do.
Not being one to simply take spokescaster Kelly's word for it, I decided to do a little digging ...
Supreme court ruling on healthcare law -- live coverage
by guardian.co.uk
[...]
10.33am: The court's ruling on the Medicaid expansion makes today's decision somewhat reminiscent of the Arizona immigration ruling -- the court has left a depth charge inside its decision.
The Medicaid expansion would have offered health insurance coverage to 16 million people. Now states apparently can make up their own minds whether or not to accept the expansion -- and that means if Florida, Texas and other big states knock it back, then there will be millions of Americans who will miss out on the benefits of the healthcare reforms.
10.29am: On the Medicaid expansion: the court has ruled that the government can only offer a carrot in terms of higher funding, but not the stick of taking away all of a state's Medicaid funding.
States have complained that the expansion costs them money, despite the extra funding they'll receive. Now they can turn down the expansion, which offers the expansion of coverage to mainly low income people without health insurance.
[...]
10.23am: There's a big silver lining here for Obamacare opponents. Here's the majority opinion on the Medicaid expansion, as written by Roberts:
Nothing in our opinion precludes Congress from offering funds under the ACA to expand the availability of health care, and requiring that states accepting such funds comply with the conditions on their use. What Congress is not free to do is to penalize States that choose not to participate in that new program by taking away their existing Medicaid funding.
That means that states that refuse to accept the federal government's expansion of Medicaid can't be penalised by the government -- the status quo remains.
That's actually a tricky decision, and it can be read as a defeat for the Obama administration. It puts the ball back in the court of the states that – for whatever reason -- want to reject the Medicaid expansion, which is a key part of the reform's attempt to expand healthcare coverage.
[...]
And therein lies the rub. How DO we motivate red-packed states to do the right thing?
And accept Federal Money to insure ALL their people? ... even indigent, even the chronically unemployed, even the homeless?
Well, two unavoidable words still come to mind ... "Emergency Room."
Too bad the poor, can not easily leave those states, that are still free to ignore them, as they may see fit. As if they don't really exist.
Happy days are here again for those who put their own greed, above basic human compassion -- thanks to that Roberts "little gift" tucked away for the conservative me-first status quo.
Megyn Kelly must be giddy with her schadenfreude by now. Not that she would know what that even means.