Reuters news service in a dispatch today cites Gov. Scott Walker as among Republican governors and presidential hopefuls who seek to dismantle the Affordable Care Act while sucking tens of millions of dollars from the "Obamacare" federal funding teat -- $69 MILLION, in Wisconsin's case. Wow. What a terrible law. KA-CHING!
In maintaining his contrary positions on Obamacare, Walker adds to his pedigree as a sort of especially twisted Batman comic-book villain, flipping a figurative coin and figuring out which side he should take in any political situation. Only he's a super Two Face, in that he often opts to take both sides simultaneously.
In this paradoxical approach, Walker joins another Wisconsin Republican, U.S. Senator Ron Johnson, who calls Obamacare the worst law in his memory yet himself just signed up for health insurance coverage under it. Like Walker, Johnson has filed futile, mostly PR-driven lawsuits to stop the law, and, if he could, says he would repeal it wholesale even though he's taking advantage of it for his personal benefit. Now there's a man of principle!
Here's an excerpt from the Reuters dispatch describing anti-Obamacare Walker's particular Obamacare fund grab. See the link below for the full story including other Republican governors:
Walker's administration has accepted at least $69 million through Affordable Care Act grant programs, according to a Reuters analysis - a figure that does not include programs that the U.S. Health and Human Services Department says existed before the law took effect. It also excludes grants that went to state universities or other entities not directly under Walker's control.
During that period, Walker returned $38 million that his Democratic predecessor [Jim Doyle] had secured to set up a state-based insurance exchange, and turned away hundreds of millions of dollars to help expand Medicaid. He expanded the state's own Medicaid program to cover more residents without federal money, in part by moving 80,000 participants onto private insurance plans subsidized by Obamacare.
Walker's explanation for his fiscally imprudent Medicaid expansion (which was accompanied by other, roughly equal cuts in the program): He didn't trust that the federal funds would actually be made available -- even though he trusted the feds to send hin $69 million for other Obamacare programs.
Go figure. And be sure to figure in the hundreds of millions that are now being covered entirely by state taxpayers because of Two-Face Walker's inconsistent politics.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/01/us-usa-election-obamacare-exc…