Show Me the Votes: ObamaCare on the Ballot Today in Missouri

Today, Missouri voters will vote on Proposition C, the nation’s first statewide referendum on Obamacare.

The measure–based on the American Legislative Exchange Council’s model Freedom of Choice in Health Care Act now proposed in 42 states–challenges the individual mandate, a key provision of the new federal healthcare law that requires people to have health insurance or pay fines by 2014.

Predictably, special interest groups and their big-government allies have launched a full-scale assault on Proposition C and the concept of health care freedom.

But as the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”

Let’s look at the most common accusation launched by Proposition C opponents and why the Show Me State would benefit from a little truthtelling.

The Missouri Hospital Association charges that, without a requirement to purchase health insurance, people will become “freeloaders” who impose their costs on taxpayers and clog emergency rooms.

Although the cost of treating the uninsured is borne by those of us with health insurance, researchers estimate these costs to be just 2-3% of overall health spending.

And the most recent study from the National Center for Health Statistics shows that people on Medicaid–a program that, thanks to Obamacare, will add 300,000 Missourians to its rolls–are more than twice as likely to visit the emergency room than the uninsured.

What Proposition C opponents don’t tell you is that so-called “freeloaders” will continue to show up in the emergency room with or without a mandate. Massachusetts, a state that imposed an individual mandate in 2006, has seen its ER use climb by 17% since the law was enacted.

One Massachusetts survey reported that although the newly-insured had insurance coverage on paper, 90% of them did not have access to care from a non-ER provider. The Massachusetts Medical Society reports that the average wait to see a primary care doctor is 36 days.

But let’s pretend that Proposition C opponents are right, and that an individual mandate would eliminate “freeloaders” from our healthcare system. The problem is that Missourians will still be paying for the freeloaders with massive government subsidies to purchase the required insurance.

Thanks to Obamacare, a low-income family of four can qualify for more than $20,000 in government subsidies to purchase coverage in the new health insurance exchanges–which means increased federal taxes for Missourians.

This doesn’t include the $524 million that Missouri must pay to expand its Medicaid program or the countless taxes and costly regulations contained in the new law.

Missourians know that mandates just don’t work, and that hospitals who get favorable tax treatment to care for the poor shouldn’t shift those costs to taxpayers and businesses.

Looks like the only “freeloaders” are Proposition C opponents who know that forcing you to purchase health insurance will increase government power–and their bottom line.