Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Va. takes step to expand Medicaid through ACA
WASHINGTON — Virginia moved Wednesday to become the 33rd state to expand Medicaid coverage through the Affordable Care Act, ending a yearslong impasse in the state Legislature and clearing the way for some 400,000 low-income residents to get health coverage.
The breakthrough — made possible by a coalition of Democrats and a handful of Republicans in the statehouse — continues the expansion of the government safety net made possible by the 2010 health care law, often called Obamacare.
Virginia’s move also serves as something of a retort to President Donald Trump and his GOP allies in Congress, who have called for sweeping cuts in federal aid to states for Medicaid.
“The bipartisan vote is a long-overdue step towards giving hundreds of thousands of Virginians access to healthcare,” Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., a former Virginia governor, said in Twitter post Wednesday. “Now let's get it done!”
Virginia is the second state to expand Medicaid since Trump was elected. In November, voters in Maine backed a state referendum to expand coverage, though the state’s GOP governor has resisted implementing the expansion.
Later this year, Medicaid expansion initiatives are expected to be on the ballot in Idaho, Nebraska and Utah. The District of Columbia also has expanded Medicaid eligibility.
Medicaid, the half-century-old government health plan for the poor, is a pillar of the 2010 health care law’s program for guaranteeing coverage, and it has helped drive a historic drop in the nation's uninsured rate.
Surveys indicate that at least 20 million previously uninsured Americans have gained coverage since 2014, though polling suggests the coverage gains have slowed or even reversed since Trump took office.
The law makes hundreds of billions of federal dollars available to states to extend Medicaid coverage to poor adults, a population that had been largely excluded from the safety net program.
Medicaid eligibility historically was limited to vulnerable populations, such as low-income children, pregnant women, the elderly and people with disabilities.
Most states moved to expand eligibility as soon as the health care law made additional federal aid available. But GOP opposition — concentrated in the Deep South and the Great Plains — had left nearly 3 million low-income Americans without insurance in the states that hadn’t expanded Medicaid, according to an analysis by the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation.
Many Republicans have argued that the program is ineffective, though a growing body of research contradicts that claim.
Virginia’s new Democratic governor, Ralph Northam, warned the Legislature he would not sign a state budget that didn’t include Medicaid expansion.
Earlier this year, the Virginia House of Delegates approved a budget that included Medicaid expansion. On Wednesday, the Senate agreed.