15 Governors Will Not Participate In Obamacare

Now as many as 15 Governors around the nation have indicated they will not participate in Obamacare – and will refuse to take billions of dollars to extend Medicaid health insurance to more poor people in their states. Medicaid expansion is a critical component of President Obama's health reform law – and if executed could extend health insurance coverage to more than 17 million low-income Americans across the nation, at no cost to state governments for the first few years. But rather than taking the money, which hospitals in the states desperately need, more than a dozen Republican Governors are making a political calculation to oppose Obamacare rather than find ways to cover the uninsured. Meanwhile, Democratic Governors do plan to take the money and extend Medicaid coverage – setting up a possible future scenario where masses of poor people may soon be flooding into blue states to get health insurance that was unavailable to them in red states. President Obama hoped the debate over health reform would end after the Supreme Court's ruling last week. However, it looks like it's just beginning.