Some ND Legislators Clearly Apprehensive About Vote For Obamacare Expansion Of Medicaid

“I attended a Legislative Forum Sunday night and this was distributed to us,” a reader told me in an email last night attaching the document below which was apparently written by Rep. Alan Fehr (R-Dickinson). “I asked why ND was one of only 6 who are considering signing up for this and was told that every state has to–it is law.”

That last isn’t true. North Dakota doesn’t have to expand Medicaid. In fact, one of the few things won in the lawsuit against Obamacare which the State of North Dakota joined was the right to turn down this Medicaid expansion. Rep. Fehr also claims in his document that there’s a sunset provision in the law, which protects the state from having the federal government drop the cost of this on our head. Which is ludicrous. As Rep. Al Carlson pointed out at the end of the floor debate over the expansion, the legislature has never gone back after expanding a program like this.

To those of you who buy that the legislature will roll back this expansion years hence for tens of thousands of new employees, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.

But it’s interesting that at least one legislator is going back to his district to meetings with constituents with a pre-written defense of his Medicaid vote in hand and ready for distribution. That speaks to some serious dissatisfaction among voters over the vote.

Here’s the statement: