I asked on Twitter for policymakers’ expressions of harm caused by Medicaid.
https://twitter.com/afrakt/status/880095018849009664
By email, Andrew Goodman-Bacon came through in a huge way. The bullets below are a lightly edited version of what he sent me, shared with his permission. (For the record, Medicaid does not cause harm. More about that soon.)
- The Sommers/Epstein paper surveyed governors and found that five of those who opposed expansion felt that Medicaid was a “broken program that harms its beneficiaries.”
- Senator Ted Cruz has said that Medicaid hurts health care access
- In one of Tom Price’s recent testimonies he said ,“Medicaid is a program that has, by and large, decreased people’s ability to access care.”
- Speaker Paul Ryan comes close on pg 24 of “A Better Way
- A Healthy Indiana report (notably produced by the Pence administration) cites Roy and LaPar, but doesn’t go all in on the “harms” claim
- Here is the American Action Forum saying “harm”
- See also, this brief from a policy shop in MI, this brief from a policy shop in NC, and this brief from a policy shop in PA
- Here is ALEC citing that study, although not going so far as to say patients will be “harmed”
To these, I will add this quote of Representative Bill Cassidy (via Aaron) and this op-ed by Seema Verma (via Adrianna). Note: I have not looked through everything in the above list. If you find errors or have more contributions, let me know.
