Mississippi spurning

摘要

Barack obama's health reform was supposed to bring universal health coverage to America on January 1st, 2014. It won't. To understand why, consider states such as Mississippi. Terry Brown, a Republican state senator there, stood before his colleagues on June 28th, as they lounged in summer poplin and seersucker. They had assembled to decide whether Mississippi would expand Medicaid, the public health programme for the poor, as Obamacare urges. That day Mississippi said it would not. "I don't want Mississippi to be a part of that train wreck," said Mr Brown. Obamacare aims to extend insurance to the poor in two main ways, both starting in 2014. First, it required states to offer Medic-aid to all those with incomes of up to 138% of the federal poverty level, or $15,856 for an individual. (At present Medicaid must cover only some poor people, such as pregnant women.) The federal government and the states usually share the cost of Medicaid. But Obamacare would pay for the expansion through 2016, with the feds' share falling to 90% in 2020.