Alabama is one of 10 states that have not expanded Medicaid coverage. The other nine are Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin and Wyoming. Most people know that expanding Medicaid is a controversial political football, but very few know why.
To understand the issue, we need to go back to 2010, when the Affordable Care Act (ACA), aka “Obamacare,” was introduced. Sir Alec Issigonis, the designer of the British Mini automobile, once said that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. Well, we can think of the ACA as a sort of camel. In order to bring all the stakeholders to the table – none of whom wanted to play with each other – concessions had to be made with the health insurance industry, the health care interest groups, such as the American Medical Association and the American Hospital Association, and other interested parties like AARP.
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