December 15, 2014
By Rachana Pradhan,
Tennessee is the latest conservative state to pursue Medicaid expansion under Obamacare. It just doesn’t want to call it that.
Republican Gov. Bill Haslam unveiled a proposal Monday morning to expand coverage up to 138 percent of the poverty level as spelled out in the federal health law, opening the door to billions of dollars in federal funding through the Affordable Care Act. Yet like several Republican governors before him, Haslam faces uncertain prospects as he tries to secure legislative approval in 2015 for the plan, called Insure Tennessee. His state is not eager to embrace the president’s health law, or even its language.
[…]However, his proposal appears to be “in the ballpark” of what the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services would approve, said Joan Alker, executive director of the Georgetown Health Policy Institute’s Center for Children and Families. The Tennessee expansion would be a pilot program for two years.
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