Williams Tea Party

Greetings fellow Arizonians: 

When the voters passed Prop 204 in 2000, Arizona’s original Medicaid expansion was suppose to be paid for fully with tobacco money. In fact, the estimated costs and number of people on the program turned out to be four times greater (400%) than the estimates. We currently have about 1.3 million Arizonians on Medicaid (aka, AHCCCS), at a federal and state annual cost of about $8,000 per person and about one-half (1/2) of a Billion Dollars in costs to Arizona taxpayers.

Now Governor Brewer and the Democrats want to expand Obamacare Medicaid by another 400,000 people, which could cost Arizona hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars in just a few short years. Brewer has not asked the federal government if Arizona can keep our current Medicaid system in place unchanged, but has stated publically that we cannot.

Some facts about NOT doing the expensive Obamacare Medicaid expansion:

Our Congressmen, including Gosar and Schweikert, have stated that there is no federal money budgeted for the Obamacare Medicaid expansion

This is not an expansion of good healthcare, but it is an expansion of big government and higher financial profits for big healthcare companies, paid for with more borrowed federal debt (currently almost $17 Trillion) for our children and grandchildren to repay

There is no rush to implement the expansion, except for political reasons

Governor Brewer’s “circuit-breaker” to end the Obamacare Medicaid expansion (when the federal government stops funding it as promised) will not work; Arizona may be left holding the bill, and our state may become bankrupt if we are forced to pay for this expensive Obamacare expansion

The Supreme Court’s Obamacare ruling stated that the federal government cannot force Arizona to expand Medicare and that it cannot punish us if we choose not to expand; so if HHS refuses to allow us to keep our current Medicaid system, we can sue the federal government and we will win

Medicaid is a poor delivery of healthcare, and does not have enough doctors for the current 1.3 million patients, let alone 1.7 million

Medicaid only pays our doctors about 60 cents on the dollar, so there are not enough doctors willing to take the reduced rates, and those that do typically must rush patients through the system

A much better delivery of healthcare for our poor (with better health outcomes) and better financially for our doctors would be the Federal Exchange program, where patients would have federally-subsidized private insurance, instead of a government-run healthcare system

Please ask everyone you know to help the Arizona State House Republicans this week defeat the big government spending and the expensive ($2+ billion per year) Obamacare Medicaid expansion that was passed in the Senate budget last Thursday.

We have at least 6 (or more) House Republicans that may vote with the Democrats for the expansion, so we need all the grassroots efforts that we can get (including a rally of folks with signs at the Capitol in Phoenix) in order to influence and pressure those members to vote with our conservative Republican caucus.

Please contact Governor Brewer and all of the House Republicans and leadership, but especially put the pressure on House Representatives:

Frank Pratt fpratt@azleg.gov
T.J. Shope tshope@azleg.gov
Heather Carter hcarter@azleg.gov
Kate Brophy McGee kbrophymcgee@azleg.gov
Doug Coleman dcoleman@azleg.gov
Ethan Orr eorr@azleg.gov

Contact info here.

Call their offices and send emails voicing your polite but steadfast opposition to big government expansion and spending and the expensive Obamacare Medicaid expansion.

This is truly an important, historic pivotal week for holding-back the Obama agenda here in Arizona, but we cannot do it without your help!! 

In Liberty,

Arizona State Representative Bob Thorpe, LD-6

bthorpe@azleg.gov