Here & There Column 7-10-12

 Another Tax ? & Medicaid Problelms

  Folks, it's not getting any easier to understand government and now we have been told that the ObamaCare bill does not apply to members of Congress and that the Supreme Court ruled that the bill is constitutional and the individual mandate to purchase insurance falls under Congress' authority to tax and that ObamaCare constitutes a tax.

  The high court did what Congress was afraid to do and called ObamaCare a Tax.

  Another tax when the majority of our residents are daily, weekly and yearly being pounded over the head that government must increase taxes because of mandates, etc, etc,

  Keep a close watch on this one......under the national health care law states now take an option granted by the Supreme Court to make major decisions about their Medicaid programs.

  Millions of lower income people could still be left without medical insurance under the ObamaCare law if states take an option granted by the Supreme Court and decide not to expand their Medicaid programs.

  Decisions made by those in power at Albany could have direct effect on Sullivan County and the entire state of New York. If Albany decides not to expand their Medicaid programs the mandate to Sullivan County could be the same or less, if the decision to expand Medicaid then this would have a huge effect on county government and taxpayers,  

  Medical experts now say that the Supreme Court has completely defanged the Medicaid expansion as called for in the new healthcare law because the way Medicaid  works is the federal government pays for a little more than half of each state's Medicaid program and the state kicks in the other half.

  The federal government can only condition the new Medicaid money because they are offering to pay for portions of the expansion.

  Some 26 states successfully sued to overturn the Medicaid expansion mandate and this somewhat gives us an idea of how many states will refuse their Medicaid expansion.....we are not too sure which way New York will go.

  A  lot of homework has to be done by all taxpayers in regard to the ObamaCare law and we find it a shame that lower income and elderly could be badly hurt with new Medicaid regulations.