Yadda-Yaddaying Medicaid

Shorter Tyler Cowen: if you set aside the most egalitarian parts of the ACA, it is less egalitarian than you probably think.

In fairness, when he finally gets around to discussing the Medicaid expansion — which really should be the centerpiece of the discussion given his argument, rather than an afterthought — he at least mentions that the expansion has covered many fewer people than anticipated because it was re-written by John Roberts, a point critiques from the left tend to omit. But the point is also inconsistent with the “nobody knows how to address inequality” thrust of the post. The re-writing of the Medicaid expansion (justified with unprecedented and ludicrously incoherent reasoning) was not some inevitability. And the resistance of red states to the expansion will teach an important lesson to the next Democratic legislative majority: make Medicaid a federal program.

Meanwhile, we may be getting a very vivid illustration of the egalitarian benefits of the ACA in Kentucky.
…Dean Baker has more.