In case you missed it, the Arizona Executive and Legislative branches are embroiled in a battle over expanding Obamacare’s Medicaid program in Arizona. Here is the latest Friday poll gauging our reader’s position on this issue. Votes are scheduled in the Arizona House next week.

Survey reveals Arizona entrepreneurs’ deep skepticism of federal funding promises

PHOENIX, Ariz., May 14, 2013—In a poll released today by their leading association, small-business owners overwhelmingly oppose the high-stakes effort at the Arizona State Capitol to expand Medicaid coverage to all Arizonans at or below 133 percent of the federal poverty level as envisioned by the federal health-care law.

The recent survey conducted by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB/Ari...

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Survey reveals Arizona entrepreneurs’ deep skepticism of federal funding promises

PHOENIX, Ariz., May 14, 2013 — In a poll released today by their leading association, small-business owners overwhelmingly oppose the high-stakes effort at the Arizona State Capitol to expand Medicaid coverage to all Arizonans at or below 133 percent of the federal poverty level as envisioned by the federal healthcare law.

The recent survey conducted by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB/Ariz...

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To all Arizona taxpayers and health care consumers:

When it comes to the fiscal costs and human damage of expanding Medicaid/AHCCCS under ObamaCare, we know that things will turn out badly.  How do we know?  Because we’ve been there, and we’ve done that.  Here is what past experience, here in Arizona and elsewhere, tells us about the proposed expansion:

1)   The Medicaid expansion will cost much more than projected.
2)  The expansion may do nothing to help low-income Arizonan...

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It turns out thatGovernor Brewer might be okay with that, according to a story in Friday’s Star. The expansion of Medicaid, which would add 300,000 people to the Arizona Healthcare Cost Containment System, is being held hostage by a small group of ‘right to life’ legislators.

“No funds for Planned Parenthood or we’ll sink Medicaid expansion.”

Planned Parenthood is a primary source of family and health services of all sorts to women (and men) who might otherwise go without. The result...

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By Anita Christy

The governor’s plan to add more than 300,000 Arizonans to the Medicaid rolls will do nothing more than facilitate and expand Obamacare. Voters clearly expressed their will to reject implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) via Proposition 106 in 2010.

If this expansion goes through, nearly one-fourth of all Arizonans will receive free taxpayer paid medical care. This isn’t a “safety net” for the poorest citizens. It is an incentive program for socialized medicine....

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Reposted from AAPSonline.org

The public relations campaign to support Medicaid expansion frequently uses testimony by patients with serious medical conditions who have lost their private insurance. It is assumed that once they qualify for Medicaid, they will easily get their chemotherapy, hepatitis c treatment, or defibrillator battery replacement.

“The messages talk only about coverage, not care,” states Jane Orient, M.D., executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Sur...

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Dr. and Senator Kelli Ward

Since January, many of us at the State Capitol have been trying to determine a common sense way to approach reliable health care for our neediest citizens. It is clear that a full expansion of our Medicaid program to 138% above the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) will add 400,000 patients or more to an already overloaded system. After carefully studying this complex issue, I have determined the plan is unsustainable and potentially harmful to hardworking Arizona taxpayers....

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Extravagant claims are made about the benefits of expanding the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS), the state’s Medicaid program for lower-income residents.

But where is the evidence?

Arizona will purportedly get 15,000 new jobs. Really? Will some businesses please come forward and announce that once AHCCCS is expanded, they will put out “Hiring Now” signs? What kind of jobs, exactly? More peopl...

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