Virgil Dickson, of Modern Healthcare, reminds us that government is allowed to rethink bad decisions, even when they relate to welfare entitlements:

Democratic lawmakers in Oregon are considering ending the state’s Medicaid expansion in an effort to address a $1.6 billion budget shortfall.

The state’s Ways and Means committee, which includes both senators and representatives, suggested cutting Medicaid expansion in an effort to curb Oregon’s $1.6 billion budget deficit.

As Kevin Mooney pointed out in this space in 2012, the Medicaid expansion was implemented in Rhode Island through administrative action and with little debate.  It was just assumed that we would and should do it.

It’s been a disaster.  In a policy brief from the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity, we expected one in four Rhode Islanders to be on Medicaid by 2020.  Instead, we’re already nearing one in three and increasing every month.  Medicaid enrollment exploded as soon as the expansion and the health benefits exchange (HealthSource RI) came online, and it’s reaching the point that the exchange is shuffling its own paying customers onto Medicaid, undermining its own business model.

Legislators should admit that the expansion was a mistake and repeal it.