All Hands On Deck!

Governor Brewer is considering a very costly expansion of medicaid. Below is the counter argument. Please contact Governor Brewer http://www.azgovernor.gov/ and urge her to abandon the expansion:

"The most important issue in the Medicaid expansion is the human cost. If Arizona were to expand Medicaid, it would railroad at least 250,000 Arizonans into a low-quality, government-managed health insurance system. Medicaid patients not only have worse medical outcomesthan patients with private insurance, but often have worse medical outcomes than low-income persons without insurance -- even when they have the same medical conditions. Please go to http://tinyurl.com/gottliebwsj to learn more about this important issue.

But the proponents of the expansion are also trying to do an end-run around Prop 108, the most important taxpayer protection ever passed by Arizona voters. Thanks to Prop 108, the Arizona Constitution requires a two-thirds majority of the Legislature to raise taxes. But Medicaid expansion proponents want to allow unelected bureaucrats at AHCCCS to raise state taxes (mainly hospital bed taxes) by $369 million over the next three years -- without a two-thirds vote of the Legislature! If Legislators use a simple majority to delegate to bureaucrats the authority to impose gigantic taxes on hospital patients, they will kill Prop 108 and destroy its protections for Arizona taxpayers. If that happens, we will blame those Legislators -- not the lawyers and judges who help them carve out a gigantic loophole in Prop 108. (Americans for Prosperity Email 02/18/13"