Among those measurable reasons: when more poor people have coverage, hospitals will have less "uncompensated care," a misnomer because hospitals charge paying customers--and their insurers--substantially more just to cover the cost of care they provide to people who don't have the means to pay.
Another compelling reason why many Republican lawmakers ultimately supported expansion is that if they didn't, the federal taxes paid by state residents toward expansion would go to places that did enlarge their Medicaid programs.
As the Arizona bill was on its way to Brewer, she said in a statement that "it will extend cost-effective care to Arizona's working poor using the very tax dollars our citizens already pay to the federal government."
It may take a while, maybe even a few years, but I'm betting that lawmakers in the states that are saying "no thanks" now--even "hell no"--will eventually come around, despite what surely will be continued opposition from the Tea Party wing of the GOP. They will figure out at some point that it makes no sense for their fellow Floridians or Texans, for example, to be paying with their taxes for the coverage of folks in Arizona and Michigan.
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