After Years of Trying, Virginia Finally Will Expand Medicaid

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Virginia’s House of Delegates voted to approve Medicaid expansion during the regular 60-day legislative session that ended in March. But the Senate, whose members were not up for re-election last fall, remained opposed. Lawmakers failed to pass a state budget then because of the issue.

“That is debt, and I have four kids who are going to be having to pay for that for the rest of their lives,” Senator Amanda Chase, a Republican from Chesterfield, said of the federal funds spent on Medicaid expansion, explaining her vote against it on Wednesday. “It’s not just a fiscal burden, but it’s not the best solution for people who want real, quality health care.”

The turning point came in April when State Senator Frank Wagner, a Republican from Virginia Beach, said he had changed his position and would support Medicaid expansion, joining one other Republican, Senator Emmett W. Hanger Jr. of Augusta, and all 19 Senate Democrats. Mr. Wagner changed his mind after a work requirement was added to the plan.

State Senator Ben Chafin, another Republican, also voted for Medicaid expansion on Wednesday.

“I came to the conclusion, for me and my district, that no just wasn’t the answer any longer,” Mr. Chafin. who represents an economically struggling district in southwestern Virginia, said on the Senate floor. “Doing nothing about the medical conditions, the state of health care in my district, just wasn’t the answer any longer.”

The approval did not come without last-minute drama: Thomas Norment, the Senate majority leader and steadfast opponent of Medicaid expansion, tried unsuccessfully to block it in the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday, and again on the Senate floor on Wednesday, when he pushed to pass a version of the budget that did not include it. Instead, a substitute budget including amendments that allowed for Medicaid expansion, offered by Senator Hanger, was approved.

Virginia’s plan would tax hospitals to generate revenue for the state’s 10 percent share of the roughly $2 billion annual cost.

The state currently has one of the most restrictive Medicaid programs in the country, covering mostly children and disabled adults. Childless adults are not eligible, and working parents cannot earn more than 30 percent of the federal poverty level, or $5,727 a year.



Source : Nytimes