Studies Indicate Obamacare’s Medicaid Expansion Bought Democrats Votes

Forcing taxpayers to subsidize people’s health insurance increases the recipients’ voting registration, turnout, and likelihood of voting Democrat, says a New York Times article covering three recent studies. Among childless adults allowed to tap into Medicaid in Oregon in 2008, voter turnout subsequently increased 7 percent. Another study found 3 to 4 point higher voter registration in counties that expanded Medicaid.

While the Times said it’s impossible to know the overall political effects for sure, “the people eligible for Medicaid expansion tend to be poor, single adults, a demographic more likely to be Democratic-leaning. And the Oregon study showed bigger voting effects in more heavily Democratic parts of the state.” The effect fades after the election directly following an expansion of government redistribution, which provides yet another reason beyond ideology Democrats are so keen to keep increasing our welfare state.

The Times’ report suggests some utterly clueless potential explanations for this effect. Since healthier and wealthier people are more likely to vote, goes one, by making people more healthy and wealthy, perhaps Medicaid also makes them more likely to vote!

Yet Medicaid leads to inferior health outcomes. Medicaid also has a higher proportion of people with heath problems that are the result of lifestyle choices rather than genetics or accident. Just ask a doctor how likely it is that his Medicaid patients smoke compared to his middle-class patients, or to compare the rates of soda and junk food intake between the two. So no, new Medicaid patients aren’t likely to be suddenly voting more because they’re more healthy and wealthy.

Or perhaps, the Times suggests, new Medicaid recipients simply vote in higher numbers because getting Medicaid put them in greater contact with government. If that were probable, getting busted for speeding or attending public school ought to also make you more likely to vote, but neither is true (private school graduates are more civically engaged). (Read more from “Studies Indicate Obamacare’s Medicaid Expansion Bought Democrats Votes” HERE)

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