Is striking down Medicaid expansion the new normal?
States weighing their Medicaid-expansion options may need to place their plans on the back burner. For the most part, the 22 states that have yet to take advantage of funding to expand Medicaid have one thing in common, reported Governing: Republican-controlled legislatures eager to strike down the proposed programs.
Tenneesse is a prime example. In December, Gov. Bill Haslam (R) announced the state's alternative to Medicaid expansion, Insure Tennessee. Haslam did not hold back while campaigning for the program: Business lobbies backed the proposal, and hospitals even agreed to finance the state share of the program, noted Governing.
This wasn't enough. After two days of hearings last month, a state Senate committee dismissed the proposal for a second time; a House committee didn't even bother hearing the case. This marked the first time a Republican governor had pushed for healthcare expansion, only to have it seemingly erased by a GOP-controlled legislature, according to Governing.
"The governor is disappointed in the vote but glad Insure Tennessee had a chance to be heard in two different Senate committees during regular session," Haslam spokesman David Smith said in a statement, reported the Times Free Press. Smith added that "the issue has not gone away, and [Haslam] will continue to work to find a way to cover more Tennessean."
Similar situations play out elsewhere. Alaska Gov. Bill Walker (I) faces legislative upheval as well as strong opposition from some state residents. "The Alaska Medicaid program is barely functional," John Laux, a healthcare consultant in Alaska, told KTVA.com. "How are you going to build an addition to a house that already has a cracked and faulty foundation?"
Then there's Georgia. The state has mulled expanding Medicaid to more than 500,000 residents using the "private option" Medicaid expansion model that Arkansas pioneered. Again, the issue at hand is political: Over the past two years, Georgia Democrats have proposed pro-expansion bills that the GOP-controlled Assembly has mostly ignored, reported Kaiser Health News.
For more:
- here's the Governing article
- check out the Times Free Press piece
- read the KTVA.com story
- here's the KHN article
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