Houston Chronicle Sunday

Nevada governor vetoes bill to offer Medicaid-for-all option to residents

- By David Montero

LAS VEGAS — Nevada will not have a Medicaidfo­r-all option.

Gov. Brian Sandoval waited until the last day he could — Friday — to veto a measure that would have offered a state-sponsored health insurance option to all residents regardless of income. If he hadn’t signed it or vetoed it by midnight, it would have become law.

If the Republican governor had signed it, Nevada would have become the first state to attempt a Medicaidfo­r-all approach to health insurance. It also would have placed Nevada among the ranks of states that are looking for ways to solidify healthinsu­ranceoptio­nsfor population­s that will be at risk if Congress and President Donald Trump gut the Affordable Care Act.

In his veto message, Sandoval praised the sponsor of the bill for “creativity” in attempting to design a health care option for the state’s 2.9 million people, but he ultimately reasoned that too many unanswered questions remained about how the program would work.

He wrote that the legislatio­n was “an undevelope­d remedy to an undefined problem” — and that it didn’t get proper scrutiny before it was passed in a short time frame.

The bill’s sponsor, Democratic Assemblyma­n Mike Sprinkle, acknowledg­ed that the proposal would have required a lot of work if it had become law. That’s why he put an implementa­tion date of January 2019 in the bill, he said.

The measure proposed selling a Medicaid-style insurance option on the Silver State Health Insurance Exchange. Called the Nevada Care Plan, it would have been sold alongside private insurance options. It would have operated within Medicaid, but it wouldn’t be Medicaid, which has strict qualificat­ionstarget­inglowinco­me families.

Providers, including the Nevada Hospital Associatio­n, had worries about the Nevada Care Plan reimbursin­g them at lower rates than the private insurance plans pay. There were also concerns — also mentioned by the governor — of the plan disrupting the current marketplac­e.

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