Opponents of accepting the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid option frequently justify their opposition by claiming the federal government will renege on its commitment to fund the expansion. Despite the fact there is no evidence to back up that claim, they run around making it just the same.  (It’s about as preposterous as saying the sky is falling when an acorn falls on your head.)

“Do we really believe Washington is going to keep its promise?” said Nicole Riley, Virginia state director of the National Federation of Independent Business.

“That commitment is not going to be there and taxpayers all across America will be on the hook,” said Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker on Fox News Sunday earlier this year.

“The notion that the federal government is going to keep matching Medicaid spending at this level is a notion that is just a faulty premise. It’s going to get cut,” House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan said while stumping for a Virginia gubernatorial candidate last fall.

Now Ryan is trying to make that statement a self-fulfilling prophecy. His proposal to repeal the Medicaid expansion and block grant Medicaid funding would shift costs to states and leave millions of uninsured in its wake. According to CBPP’s Edwin Park, repealing the ACA’s Medicaid expansion means that 13 million people would lose their new coverage or no longer gain coverage in the future.  In addition, the large and growing cut in federal Medicaid funding from the block grant would almost certainly force states to sharply scale back or eliminate Medicaid coverage for millions of low-income people who rely on it today.  If Chairman Ryan’s vision becomes a reality, states and those who rely upon Medicaid may feel like the sky is really falling.  Seems rather extreme to go to such lengths just to say I told you so.