By Eric Luther
Capital News Service
RICHMOND -- Gov. Terry McAuliffe addressed critics of Medicaid expansion as part of Virginia’s biennial budget Monday by proposing a two-year pilot program he says would close the commonwealth’s healthcare gap without financial penalty to the state.
McAuliffe’s 45-minute address signified the beginning of the General Assembly’s special session, which was scheduled in effort to reach an agreement on the roughly $96 billion, two-year budget currently at odds over the issue of expanding Medicaid coverage to more than 400,000 currently uninsured Virginians.
McAuliffe says the federally funded pilot program would allow Virginia to once again “lead the way” by helping its sickest citizens gain access to healthcare, keep hospitals and clinics afloat, and bring taxpayer dollars back to the commonwealth.
“Opponents have thrown up road block after road block,” McAuliffe said. “But their arguments have been overcome by simple facts.”
Conversely, House Majority Leader Delegate Kirkland Cox says the issue is not simple, and he and many other legislators still have a host of questions the governor has not answered.
“I’ll be real blunt here … when we try to be specific with the governor he goes to his 3,000 foot level and it’s very hard to get details out of him,” Cox said. “I can’t tell you how many questions we had on this supposed simple concept.”
Among those questions, Cox asked why McAuliffe is calling his proposed plan a “pilot” when historically there is no such thing as a statewide pilot, and why has the governor abandoned Marketplace Virginia in favor of it.
“This is the third iteration (of Medicaid expansion) we’ve seen and rumor is we might see another one,” Cox said. “We’ll never get a budget done if this keeps happening.”
McAuliffe sighted detractors as saying closing the healthcare coverage gap would cost Virginia millions of dollars. However, according to McAuliffe, expanding Medicaid would in fact save Virginia’s state budget more than $1 billion between now and 2022.
The proposed pilot program is backed by a letter from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and states if Virginia implements an expansion of Medicaid coverage for two years, and then drops such coverage at the end of that time period, there would be no financial drawback and no reduction in federal dollars otherwise available to Virginia for its Medicaid program.
The letter is significant, McAuliffe says, because it opens the door for a pragmatic and balanced approach to closing the healthcare coverage gap that all sides should find reasonable.
“There can be no more excuses,” McAuliffe said. “Hundreds of thousands of working families throughout Virginia are counting on us to set aside partisan politics and get the job done.”
Cox says the letter is “just not worth the paper it’s printed on.”
“The point I’ve made over and over and over again is that this myth that you’re going to dis-enroll after two years …is just … unprecedented,” Cox said. “There is no just no way you are going to dis-enroll those folks. It’s just not going to happen. Government never does that.”
During his speech, McAuliffe harked back to the days of former Gov. Bob McDonnell to further the notion of setting aside partisan disagreements, and urged delegates and senators to reach a compromise in the coming weeks.
“Gov. McDonnell included funding in his budget for the Affordable Care Act as early as 2012,” McAuliffe said. “And please let us not forget that the Medicaid Innovation Reform Commission itself was a creature of the budget.”
In addition to Medicaid expansion, McAuliffe highlighted some of the other elements of his biennial budget, including $1.8 million for mental health initiatives, $4.8 million for extended school year grants and $17 million to fund the Line of Duty Act with the Virginia Retirement System.
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