Medicaid Expansion

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, I rise today to highlight the urgent need for 24 States to expand Medicaid for the 5.7 million Americans who fall into the Medicaid gap.

Among those excluded are 435,000 cashiers, 341,000 cooks, and 253,000 nurses' aides. These hardworking Americans should not have to choose between groceries and medicine or between rent and a doctor's visit.

On behalf of all Alabamians, I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to my colleagues, Representatives Butterfield and Johnson, for heading up the State Medicaid Expansion Caucus, of which I am a proud member.

It is painfully unsettling that the 24 States not expanding Medicaid are the very States where the concentration of those living in poverty and without health care is the most acute. The 24 States that have rejected Medicaid expansion are home to over half of the Nation's population, but 68 percent of the poor, uninsured, Blacks, and single mothers. These constituents have the highest burden of illness and costs to our entire health care system.

The 235,000 Alabamians and 5.7 million Americans who fall in the coverage gap are our most vulnerable citizens. About 60 percent of the Nation's uninsured working poor live in these 24 States.

These individuals pay their taxes, they work hard, and they contribute to our community. Our government should support them in return. To not expand Medicaid for these hardworking Americans is reckless disregard for their dramatic needs and their important work that they do in our community.

Expanding Medicaid is not only a moral imperative, but an economic imperative as well. There is not a State in the country that will benefit from its refusal to accept Federal dollars provided to them to expand their Medicaid program.

Alabamians need jobs, and they need health care. Without raising a cent in taxes, my Governor and State leaders can achieve both job creation and health care coverage by expanding Medicaid.

The facts are clear. There is not an economic development investment in Alabama's history that would provide the State with 35,000 new jobs like Medicaid expansion would. Our State leaders cannot be honest with their constituents in arguing that they are interested in economic development while turning down $375 million a quarter.

In the State of Alabama, the income ceiling for Medicaid in its current form for a family of three is $3,560 annually. That is less than $10 a day for a family of three. This is the lowest Medicaid income ceiling in the country. So families that earn a mere $15 a day are left behind when it comes to being able to afford access to affordable health care.

While I understand the political realities in which we operate and in which my Governor operates, I do not understand the shameful neglect of our most vulnerable constituents, our rural hospitals, and our fragile economy that is presented in our State's refusal to accept Medicaid expansion.

Our most sacred responsibility to serve our constituents shall not be examined and instituted through such a dangerous partisan lens. With each day that my State of Alabama delays expansion, more of our constituents are unable to work due to unrelated health conditions.

Americans who are both impoverished and sick should not have to wait one more day while our State leaders play political football with this urgent issue.

This is why I am so proud to stand with my colleagues in the State Medicaid Expansion Caucus today in sending a clear message to our State leaders that enough is enough. We need to expand Medicaid now for every State in the Union.

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