A brief that I wrote for the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity describing the reasons that Rhode Island should opt out of the Medicaid expansion and health benefit exchanges of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) refers to “dependency portals.” That is, the exchanges will be used to draw new enrollees into other welfare programs, like food stamps and cash payments.

Here is the audio (presented as a captioned YouTube video) in which RI Health & Human Services Secretary Steven Costantino, Health Benefits Exchange Director Christine Ferguson, and Lt. Governor Elizabeth Roberts describe their first-in-the-nation intention.