Live from Music Row, Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the studio for another edition of Crom’s Crommentary.
CROM CARMICHAEL:
Michael, an interesting article in The Wall Street Journal that merits more discussion. And the title of it is “The Government Staff Healthcare, Health Insurance Takeover.” So I’m just going to quote a few little statistics, which is also very hard on the radio, so I urge our listeners to try to bear with me here.
{The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services] estimates there are 5.2 million fewer uninsured Americans than in 2020. Yet Medicaid roles during the pandemic swelled by $24 million. Did you know that? I did not know that. That’s an increase of 34 percent.
So now you have essentially three times that many. Almost 75 million Americans are now on Medicaid. Why are so many people on Medicaid when the unemployment rate has reached near-record lows?
Biden loves talking about how low the unemployment rate is. Well, when people go to work, they’re not supposed to be on Medicaid. They can’t be on Medicaid and also be working once they make above a certain wage.
But the Family First Corona Relief Act, passed in 2020, barred states from removing people from becoming eligible for the Medicaid roles during a public health emergency. Well, Biden keeps extending the public health emergency and he continues to do it.
And as long as that’s continued, people can remain on Medicaid. Many large businesses are perfectly happy for their employees to be on Medicaid because then they don’t have to pay for it and it’s free.
Annual Medicaid spending has increased by $198 billion. That’s a year during the pandemic. And it’s Biden’s goal to keep it that high. So when you hear these silly things coming from Democrats claiming we’re going to reduce the deficit, the only reason the deficit is going down now is those tax revenues from middle-class Americans, the very people that Biden says he’s not going to raise taxes on, they are skyrocketing because of inflation.
If your wages go up $6,000 to $8,000, that only keeps you equal to inflation because you’re having to pay about 35 percent of that in one form of tax or another. You’re actually going backward dramatically.
But the federal government is going forward. My last comment. Annual Medicaid and Obamacare spending has increased by about $230 billion during the pandemic. That comes up to $44,000 per newly insured American. Forty-four thousand dollars.
Listen to the Crommentary:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Isn’t the real objective to force everyone to be “served” by government-controlled medicine? I am past sick and tired of the unending expansion of Medicaid.