Reply to Rejecting Medicaid

Lauren does a good job at organizing her argument. She begins by stating the issue at hand, which is that “the Supreme Court decided last month that under the Affordable Care Act, the expansion of Medicaid should be optional.” However, this wording is slightly off in saying that “Medicaid should be optional.” The Supreme Court actually made the decision allowing states to block Medicaid growth without a penalty.

Next, Lauren focuses on Rick Perry, the governor of Texas. She explains that Rick Perry finds that expanding Medicaid is a direct violation of the Constitution and Texas’ “founding principles of limited government.” After research, I found this statement to be true; however, Lauren does not provide an embedded link to her quote, and I was unable to accept it as being credible unless I researched the statement for myself.

Lauren then elaborates that according to Rick Perry, the program would not result in neither more affordable care nor better “patient protection.” However, Lauren failed to provide an embedded link for this quote as well.

Lauren then states that Perry’s “confident and defiant decision is good,” but she does not elaborate on how it is good. Instead, she states, “We can’t help but notice some major flaws in it.” I found this to be rather confusing. I wish she would have provided some examples as to how Perry’s decision is good, and then, pointed out that there are, however, some flaws.   

Lauren’s next paragraph states, “Another question is that would it end up costing less if the uninsured Texans were relying on emergency rooms every time with something as minor as the common cold?” I found this sentence hard to decipher. I do not understand where the information came from or how it comes to that conclusion. Again, an embedded link would have been helpful.

Finally, Lauren points out that Perry needs to “suggest ways in which he is going to deal with the negative effects of his decisions.” I agree that Perry does not do a good job of addressing how he will deal with the negative effects. However, explaining what the negative effects are would be beneficial in Lauren’s article. For example, according to an article in the Dallas Business Journal, “rejection of Medicaid expansion in Texas will shift costs to the privately insured, increase uncompensated care expenses and raise mortality rates, all while more uninsured patients crowd North Texas emergency rooms.”

Overall, Lauren makes solid points; however, she lacks making her article credible. Citing her sources would have made this blog more beneficial for the reader.