christiefan915
Catalyst
Con pols trying to game the system. It always boils down to money and votes
WASHINGTON -- In the bitterly partisan debate over the Affordable Care Act, few House members criticized the proposed legislation as harshly or as often as then-Rep. Mike Pence. But now, nearly four years after the measure passed on a party-line vote, Mr. Pence, now Indiana's governor, is asking the federal government for ACA money to expand a program that provides coverage to low-income Hoosiers.
But he wants to do it outside the confines of the health care law.
Mr. Pence is among a small but growing number of Republican governors and lawmakers looking for alternatives to expanding Medicaid. They don't want to be seen embracing a law almost universally loathed in their party, but the hundreds of millions of dollars available to their states through the law's provisions are too enticing to pass up...
GOP governors in other states are using the same technique, seeking waivers to use Medicaid expansion money to fund alternative programs that would accomplish many of the same goals, but under a different name.
"There's a lot of trying to say they're not doing Obamacare, so that they can call it something different," said Diane Rowland, a Kaiser Family Foundation executive vice president and health policy expert. "They're trying to put some distance between the straight concept of a Medicaid expansion, so they can build a coalition in the legislature..."
WASHINGTON -- In the bitterly partisan debate over the Affordable Care Act, few House members criticized the proposed legislation as harshly or as often as then-Rep. Mike Pence. But now, nearly four years after the measure passed on a party-line vote, Mr. Pence, now Indiana's governor, is asking the federal government for ACA money to expand a program that provides coverage to low-income Hoosiers.
But he wants to do it outside the confines of the health care law.
Mr. Pence is among a small but growing number of Republican governors and lawmakers looking for alternatives to expanding Medicaid. They don't want to be seen embracing a law almost universally loathed in their party, but the hundreds of millions of dollars available to their states through the law's provisions are too enticing to pass up...
GOP governors in other states are using the same technique, seeking waivers to use Medicaid expansion money to fund alternative programs that would accomplish many of the same goals, but under a different name.
"There's a lot of trying to say they're not doing Obamacare, so that they can call it something different," said Diane Rowland, a Kaiser Family Foundation executive vice president and health policy expert. "They're trying to put some distance between the straight concept of a Medicaid expansion, so they can build a coalition in the legislature..."
