December 17, 2014
By Kate Harrison Belz,
Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam has joined “a steady drumbeat” of Republican governors who have recently proposed to expand their Medicaid programs after initially refusing to implement that part of the Affordable Care Act.
But Haslam’s proposal, dubbed Insure Tennessee, is still “a significant development” in the roll-out of health reform, said Joan Alker, executive director of the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families, who is an expert in Medicaid waivers like the one Haslam has introduced.
“It speaks to the fact that accepting the federal dollars and closing the coverage gap makes sense for every state,” Alker said. “You have more pragmatic Republicans saying we need to find a way to say yes to this.”
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