Revealed: the wealthy conservative groups behind fight to wreck Medicaid
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/05/texas-thinktank-attacking-health-insurance-medicaid
On April 1, Texas's most powerful elected officials gathered at the state Capitol to rail against Medicaid. In a packed press conference room, with protesters shouting outside the door, Republican governor Rick Perry, lieutenant governor David Dewhurst, and US senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz made clear to reporters that Texas – the state with the nation's largest uninsured population – wouldn't expand the program that provides health insurance to the poor and disabled.
Under the Affordable Care Act, the federal government would have largely paid for Medicaid to cover an additional 1.5 million Texans. But the state's Republican leaders instead called for the federal government to "block grant" Medicaid, giving them a lump sum of money to run the program as they see fit. Dewhurst compared expanding the current Medicaid system to drug addiction.
The group that organized the press conference and supplied the policy prescription was the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), an influential thinktank funded largely by rightwing foundations, corporations and wealthy Texans. TPPF has been instrumental in preventing increased spending on Medicaid and other social welfare programs in Texas. Perry, Cruz, Cornyn and other politicians frequently turn to TPPF to help make the intellectual case for reducing government involvement in healthcare. The press conference was part of TPPF's multi-year strategy to remake Medicaid in accordance with free-market principles. The thinktank would later claim credit for helping block Medicaid expansion in Texas under Obamacare.
The fight to kill Medicare and Medicaid continues.
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