Conservatives love to paint the Affordable Care Act subsidies as "free stuff," and if you're unlucky enough to get into a conversation with them over it, they're happy to dismiss you by laughably telling you they're paying for your health insurance! Obamacare moocher, you!
Unfortunately, conservative politicians and some of their "assistants" in the media are happy to misinform the general public as to exactly how the ACA works (some even have no idea themselves, but that doesn't keep them from spreading the ignorance far and wide.)
The truth of the matter is, if the U.S. Supreme Court decides to destroy ACA subsidies, the impacts won't be limited to those who will lose their subsidies. Such a ruling against the ACA would snowball in several directions like raising premiums for everyone, and increased costs to cover emergency rooms which are the only alternative for many without insurance.
In Florida, where Rick Scott and the Republican legislature have refused to set up a state exchange and Medicaid expansion, the impacts will be devastating if the ACA virtually goes away.
Despite some lawmakers who voiced concerns as the legislative session opened this week, there are still no plans to expand Medicaid this year, leaving those falling into the "Scott gap" without affordable health insurance to fend for themselves.
It should also come as no surprise that Rick Scott's State of the State speech this week made no mention of Medicaid or health care at all. In fact, he recently told a conservative group that if the Supreme Court destroys ACA this summer, adding millions more Floridians to the list of the uninsured simply because he and the GOP refused to expand Medicaid and set up a state exchange, that's not his problem.
As disingenuous and cruel as that statement is, it isn't his problem. But he did his part to cause the problem. After all, he built his career on fighting against affordable and fair health care, and he's made a nice profit at the same time. When his former company tossed him out after they received the largest fine in history for Medicare fraud, he walked away with a golden parachute. Then he went on to purchase a seat in the Governor's mansion, where he's proceeded to keep even the poorest individuals he's supposed to work for from gaining access to any kind of health care, with an assist from the GOP. Is he making a profit from that too at Floridians' expense? We have no way of knowing, since his investments are walled off from public view in a blind trust.
So if millions more who lose insurance under a SCOTUS ruling against the ACA join those already uninsured in the Florida Medicaid gap, it will be a huge costly problem for the rest of us, from literally dying without health insurance to skyrocketing costs for the insured, just to name a few. And yes, misinformed conservative apologists will lose right along with the rest of us. They just won't find out until it's too late.
Meanwhile, Rick Scott and the Republicans really couldn't care less.
Cross posted at Beach Peanuts