Three deep-red states just did it. Why not TN?

When polls closed on Election Day, one of the biggest winners wasn’t a politician at all.

Medicaid expansion – a government policy that extends taxpayer-funded health coverage to the moderately poor – saw significant victories against long odds two weeks ago. Although loudly opposed by Republicans lawmakers, ballot initiatives to expand Medicaid were approved by voters in the deep-red states of Utah, Nebraska and Idaho. Kansas and Wisconsin also elected new Democrat governors who vowed to expand Medicaid when their Republican predecessors had not.

The results appear to show increasing non-partisan voter support for expansion, which was once a political lightning rod because of its legal framework under the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare. But, as nearly three-fourths of the nation have now expanded Medicaid, a critical question remains: Will Tennessee?

Based on the election results, probably not.

Tennessee is of the unhealthiest states in the country. Nearly 7 percent of the population – or about 450,000 Tennesseans – do not have any health coverage, largely because they cannot afford it, according to a recent University of Tennessee study. Medicaid expansion would extend coverage to most of these residents, but the only pathway to expansion leads through a Republican-dominated legislature that has previously rejected similar proposals. And