Many of them are my own. One day, I expect, Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo will join in the laughter at his own expense. The ripple effect will be deeply felt β and not only by the poor.
With approximately , Nevadans using Medicaid health care access, much of the working class relies on it as well. Their physicians and related health providers will be hit hard, too. The state already suffers from a shortage of doctors. Imagine what may happen when they stop getting paid.
They get treated at the local emergency room and by first responder firefighter paramedics. With all that, Lombardo is bound to be busy these days balancing the human needs, the financial costs and the political ramifications.
How can you plan for Godzilla? But I see what he was getting at. The Medicaid matter is a big problem. A big, big problem. From his perspective, too big a problem to fix at the state level. It relies on funding from the top down. The fact a cut this deep would double the number of uninsured in the state was part of the ugly, if unspoken, calculus.
Lombardo could do something, of course. Call it out of character for him, but he could be among the first of what promises to be a line of governors from red and blue states alike to stand and speak publicly with, enunciation and not equivocation, on this issue. Like seeing Godzilla in the side-view mirror, this object is closer than it appears. It sounds like a lot, but I expect it will be a footnote compared to the figures that will fly in the months ahead. Lombardo has a real test of character coming.
