Indiana Gov. Mike Pence this week announced the expansion of the Healthy Indiana Plan, which would qualify hundreds of thousands of Hoosiers for Medicaid via the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.
The proposal will undergo a 30-day review in Indiana before it is submitted to the federal Centers for Medicaid and Medicare for final approval.
The following statements from health care policy experts at The Heartland Institute – a free-market think tank – may be used for attribution. For more comments, refer to the contact information below. To book a Heartland guest on your program, please contact Director of Communications Jim Lakely at [email protected] and 312/377-4000 or (cell) 312/731-9364.
“Mike Pence’s decision to embrace Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion and collaborate with the creation of a new permanent welfare entitlement for able-bodied adults is unacceptable and irresponsible.
“While Pence extracted a few compromises from the Obama administration – unlike fellow Medicaid-expanding governors Chris Christie and John Kasich – these amount to little more than magic beans. In an attempt to protect the Healthy Indiana Plan, Pence was willing to sell out his principles and undermine every principled governor who has stood against Obamacare despite the pressure brought by politically powerful interests who stand to benefit from an influx of new taxpayer dollars. Make no mistake: Pence is implementing a plan that raises taxes, grows government, and disincentivizes work.”
Benjamin Domenech
Senior Fellow, Health Care Policy
The Heartland Institute
[email protected]
703/509-1741
“Pence’s health care plan is just like his supposed rejection of Common Core, which ended up basically accepting that horribly flawed system under a different name. His plan is good in not formally expanding Medicaid, but it unnecessarily weakens the market and patient-power elements of former Gov. Mitch Daniels’s Healthy Indiana initiative.
“Pence is trying to split the difference between two diametrically different approaches, which won’t improve the state’s health care market. Expanding the system while weakening fiscal safeguards is a very bad idea.”
S.T. Karnick
Director of Research
The Heartland Institute
[email protected]
312/377-4000
The Heartland Institute is a 30-year-old national nonprofit organization headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Its mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems. For more information, visit our Web site or call 312/377-4000.
S. T. Karnick is a senior fellow and director of publications for The Heartland Institute.
Benjamin Domenech is the founder and publisher of The Federalist and a senior fellow at The Heartland Institute.
