Ellington

"There is never free money when it comes to government programs. Who do you think pays for free government programs? It's simple, the taxpayers."

—Mississippi House Speaker Philip Gunn in a June 15 Clarion-Ledger guest column titled "Principles above politics: Medicaid expansion too costly for state."

Why it stinks: Gunn managed to pack his editorial with just about every conservative argument against expanding Medicaid to uninsured Mississippians under the Affordable Care Act. From using the highest possible costs from one conservative report to saying the private market can do it better than the government, Gunn's arguments simply fall flat.

Telling taxpayers that they pay for government programs, though, is treating citizens like dumbasses. Of course, taxpayers pay for government programs.

What Gunn doesn't say, though, is that Mississippi taxpayers are already paying the costs for the government to provide medical care to those who can't afford it through the most expensive way possible. Emergency rooms are the only medical options open to thousands of uninsured Mississippians and millions of Americans every day. Taxpayer money subsidizes hospitals every time a patient without health insurance goes to an emergency room for a problem that might have been much cheaper to treat before it became an emergency. The uninsured go there because they have no other choice.

Who pays for that? It's simple: the taxpayers.