Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett has lately been getting credit in the political press for being one of those Republican governors coming around on the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. Advocates for the underprivileged can't understand why.
They're right to wonder. Corbett's "Healthy Pennsylvania" plan, which was released for public comment this week, is a sham. It would reduce health benefits for many of his neediest citizens and impose punitive conditions on their coverage. It requires waiver approval from the federal government that's almost certain to be refused, because some of its provisions are in flagrant violation of federal law. And even if it were approved, Corbett waited so long to put his plan together that it probably couldn't be implemented until 2015. In the meantime, 500,000 of his citizens will be medically uncovered.
"He's being very disingenuous," says Joan Alker, executive director of the Center for Children and Families at Georgetown University. "He knows a lot of this proposal is not approvable" under federal law.
Corbett's proposal shows that many Republicans still aren't done posturing with their citizens' lives, even as some have done the right thing--among them Gov. John Kasich of Ohio and Jan Brewer of Arizona. Some GOP governors, like Rick Perry of Texas and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, seem determined to take their neediest citizens all the way down--they're not budging on their refusal to expand Medicaid coverage.
Corbett wants to have it both ways. He intends to masquerade as a feeling governor intent on bringing healthcare to the masses at practical cost. But beneath the fancy dress lies a cynical politician who knows his plan isn't practical. If it gets rejected he'll blame the Obama administration. "We tried," he'll say. "But they blocked us." Don't be taken in.
Pennsylvania isn't serious about expanding Medicaid. How do we know? - latimes.com
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