Dean contrasts his support of Medicaid expansion

NASHVILLE — Democrat Karl Dean is running his first comparative television ad in his general contest with Republican Bill Lee in which Dean contrasts his support for Medicaid expansion in Tennessee against Lee’s opposition.

“Imagine burning $3.8 million a day,” Dean says in a voice over in the 30-second spot as an image of money burning in a fireplace on appears on screen. “Well, Tennessee has been doing that for years. Right now our tax dollars go to Washington to help other states pay for health care.”

Dean, Nashville’s former mayor, says the next governor “should fix problems like this. I’ll expand Medicaid and bring our tax dollars home. I’ve stood next to Bill Lee when he’s been adamantly opposed to expanding Medicaid — even though it means more shut-down hospitals and higher costs on hospitals. We can fix this. It’s just common sense.”

Rural health care has been a big issue in rural Tennessee where 11 hospitals have closed in the last several years. Advocates pin blame on the Republican-led General Assembly’s refusal to go along with current Gov. Bill Haslam, himself a Republican, and his Insure Tennessee proposal to expand the program under federal funds available under the federal Affordable Care Act.

Lee, a Franklin businessman, told reporters in Lexington earlier this month that he doesn’t believe expansion of Medicaid, operated here as TennCare, will help stem the closing of rural hospitals and address problems in rural health care.

“I think we have a health-care system that’s fundamentally flawed,” Lee said. “So we really have not addressed lowering costs” through expansion.

He said he believes “one of the things we got to do is look at a model that’s not [currently] working. Rural hospitals are closing because our model is not working, and our system is fundamentally broken. So when we can address the costs of health care, then we can address coverage and access to every part of Tennessee and particularly rural Tennessee.”

Lee said his policy prescription is to “look at health outcomes to lower costs. Eighty percent of the cost of health care is associated with primarily chronic, preventable disease. So when we look at health and address health, then we begin to lower the cost of health and that allows more people to have access to it.”

Haslam, who is supporting Lee in the governor’s race, sought in 2011 to extend Medicaid coverage to an estimated 280,000 low-income working adults. It went nowhere in its first Senate committee, controlled by fellow Republicans. A last-ditch effort by Haslam to resurrect the plan during this year’s legislative session went no where.