Even as Republican governors like Rick Scott in Florida have chosen to back the health law's Medicaid expansion, they are facing push back from GOP-controlled legislatures.
Politico: For Republican Governors, Medicaid Expansion Is Hard Sell
Governors like Rick Scott of Florida and John Kasich of Ohio bucked their conservative base to accept billions in federal funds to provide basic health coverage to millions of uninsured constituents. But they need the support of their Republican-led legislatures to make it a reality. It's a tall task that's dividing statehouses around the country (Cheney and Millman, 3/7).
Kaiser Health News: Medicaid Expansion Divides Florida GOP
As the Florida legislature convened this week, House Speaker Will Weatherford helped rally fellow Republicans opposed to expanding the state's Medicaid coverage to more than a million low-income residents, but he also acknowledged that his own family benefitted from a program for low-income families without health insurance (Hatter, 3/7).
The Associated Press: Fla. Session Opens With Medicaid Expansion In Doubt
A bid to cover roughly 1 million Floridians by expanding the state Medicaid program is in doubt after one of the state's top legislative leaders called it a social experiment "destined for failure." House Speaker Will Weatherford used the opening day of the annual legislative session to denounce the idea of expanding the safety-net health insurance program. Within hours, Senate President Don Gaetz responded by suggesting that the Senate was unlikely to move forward in the face of such strong opposition (3/6).
Los Angeles Times: Protestors March To Urge Gov. Rick Perry To Expand Medicaid
Several hundred protesters marched in Austin on Tuesday to protest Texas Gov. Rick Perry's hard stance against expanding Medicaid coverage in the state. Perry has dismissed calls to follow two tenets of the federal Affordable Care Act: expand Medicaid, the government program providing health insurance for sick or low-income people, and set up a health insurance exchange where people can shop for coverage (Li, 3/6).
Sacramento Bee: Capitol Alert: State, Counties Joust Over Medi-Cal Expansion In California
The perennially contentious relationship between the state and county governments over money has a new flash point -- the expansion of Medi-Cal coverage to more than a million low-income Californians under the new Affordable Care Act. The conflict -- aired Wednesday in an Assembly budget subcommittee hearing -- has two prongs: Whether the state or counties will manage the expansion; Whether the state should "claw back" some of the money it now pays to counties to pay for indigent medical care -- on the theory that many of the half-million poor beneficiaries will become Medi-Cal patients next year, raising state costs (3/6).