Living in small-town Georgia made me realize something about the national healthcare debate that I had misconceived before.
Before, I assumed conservatives thought that when it came to healthcare, the government should never mess with private markets. Instead, I learned that conservatives just want the federal government to stay out of healthcare.
State intervention, on the other hand, is still up for debate.
This was once made especially clear to me when a legislator explained his outrage that health insurers were only willing to cover certain types of chemotherapy, and not others. His solution was to pass a law mandating insurance companies to cover all forms of chemotherapy in the state.
I thought this was a curious stance, given his steadfast opposition to Obamacare, a hallmark of which are mandates requiring insurers to cover more procedures and people than they otherwise care to.
But I realized that this stance came down to a distrust of federal intervention — not a blind trust in the profit-first mindset of private insurance companies.
I still think it's wrong for states like Georgia and others to refuse federal funds that would expand access to Medicaid for hundreds of thousands.
But at least I see now that there are more guiding principles driving their decision-making, and not a petty desire to undermine Obamacare.