Virginia’s top Democratic leaders call for acceptance of federal Medicaid money
Virginia's top Democratic leaders - the governor and two U.S. senators - said Thursday it's time for Republican legislators to stop blocking the expansion of Medicaid in the state under the federal health care law.
In a rare joint phone call with reporters, Gov. Terry McAuliffe and Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine used the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Medicaid program to make their case.
After failing in 2014 and earlier this year to persuade the GOP-controlled General Assembly to accept hundreds of millions in federal Medicaid money available under the Affordable Care Act, the trio say that 2016 will be different. They argue that a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June removed any doubt that the law is here to stay.
The high court affirmed a key provision, saying the federal government can provide subsidies to help poor Americans buy health insurance.
"Now that the Supreme Court has finally ruled... let's bring this money home and provide the health care," McAuliffe said.
Virginia is one of 19 states that has declined funds to expand Medicaid. Supporters say the state is losing out on hundreds of millions of federal dollars raised through the Affordable Care Act, money that would make some 400,000 Virginians eligible for health coverage.
Kaine noted that when Medicaid became law in 1965, there was similar resistance.
"A number of states chose not to embrace Medicaid... and sort of fought against it," he said, adding that within seven years, all but one state joined the program. The last was Arizona, which joined in 1980.
Warner said Medicaid expansion is working in states that have accepted it.
Virginia and other resisting states with GOP legislatures or governors can "see the sky has not fallen on those states who have gone ahead and done Medicaid expansion. It makes an enormous amount of sense," Warner said.
McAuliffe said if Democrats can win back control of the state Senate in the November elections, it will help negotiate the expansion with the Republican-controlled House.
GOP legislative leaders remain opposed to expansion because the cost of providing Medicaid is growing rapidly, and they argue it won't be affordable for the state or federal government, said Matt Moran, spokesman for House Speaker William Howell, R-Stafford County.
"Medicaid should be reformed, not expanded," Moran said in an email. "Virginia can neither afford the long-term costs of expansion, nor count on the federal government to foot the bill forever."
