Winners And Losers In The Obamacare Game

An interesting breakdown of which states would stand to gain the most from health care reform...and which states would have the most to lose.

Here’s how our categorization of states works—we classified states as “High Benefit” if the percentage of uninsured is above the national average and as “Low Benefit” if the rate is less than the national average. We then classified states by whether they would be “High Cost”—the top half of the distribution—for each of the financing approaches.

As Exhibit 1 shows, the states most likely to “win” as a result of health care reform are Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Utah. All of these states have a relatively high number of uninsured and all are in the bottom half of states in terms of cost under both financing mechanisms. States with a high proportion of uninsured residents also included Arizona, Florida, Nevada, Texas, and Wyoming, but those states are above average in terms of the costs they would bear under each financing option.

Among the states most likely to “lose” are Delaware, Nebraska, and New Hampshire as well as the District of Columbia. Each of these states has a relatively lower-than-average proportion of uninsured residents, and each would fall in the “High Cost” category under either of the financing options. There are four states—Alabama, Indiana, Michigan, and Rhode Island—that while also “Low Benefit” are “Low Cost” as well.

Notice a trend here in the groups of states that are winners under this breakdown (those states that would gain a lot of coverage and not have to pay a lot for it), and those who are losers (those states that would not gain a lot of uninsured covered and would have to pay more for those fewer uninsured)?

It’s interesting to examine the distribution of states’ winner-loser status relative to political alignment. Support for reform has been restricted to Democrats, with only one Republican House member supporting reform and all Senate Republicans opposing. When we examine the seven states most likely to be winners under reform, we see a combined split in their Senate delegations of twelve Republicans versus two Democrats. The three states most likely to lose under health care reform are collectively represented by four Democrats and two Republicans. When we add in the group that would be losers under the income-tax option, the split becomes even stronger, with these states being represented by eighteen Democrats and four Republicans.

The overall pattern therefore shows a curious alignment: States with the most to gain under health care reform are overwhelmingly represented by Republicans, while those states likely to do worse are much more likely to have Democratic senators.

Ding ding ding ding!

Stop and think about this.  The states that have the most to gain from health care reform legislation are overwhelmingly red states with Republican Senators.  Likewise, those who are going to have to pay are blue states and D.C. and as a result, if you were trying to reverse the slide of the Democrats in the South, you'd want to pass health care reform.  If you're a Republican, you would try to do everything you can to convince your constituents that this would be the most vile and evil legislation ever conceived.

There's nothing curious about it.  It's designed this way.  It's something good and beneficial for the Dems, and 100% political to the GOP.  It really is that simple.  They don't care if you live or die.  They just want your vote.