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Six years ago, the Supreme Court rejected Obamacare’s plan to force states to expand Medicaid or lose all funding for their existing Medicaid program. Instead, the court left it to the states whether to expand it.

As Chief Justice Roberts put it: “Congress may not simply conscript state agencies in the national bureaucratic army, and that is what it is attempting to do with Medicaid expansion” … even though it does not have “the power to transform (Medicaid) so dramatically.” He reminded the states that they “are separate and independent sovereigns. Sometimes they have to act like it.”

Wise counsel, and Idaho was among the states that followed it, despite Obamacare’s lure of 100 percent “free” federal money to cover the cost. By now we know that those federal monies will shrink to 90 percent by 2020 and can be expected to drop more because of our astronomical federal debt.

So Medicaid expansion will be a budget buster, as we’ve already seen in states that adopted it. For Idaho, adding 62,000 to 78,000 new Medicaid enrollees (the numbers vary depending on who you talk to) would mean serious funding cuts for schools, roads, and public services — or tax increases. Are we willing to go down that road to expand Medicaid for working-age, able-bodied, childless adults, most of whom do have options for affordable health care?

On Nov. 6, please vote no on Proposition 2. It simply puts more adults on a welfare program that is a fiscally irresponsible, unsustainable key component of Obamacare.

CRAIG CANEPA

Hope