Michigan\'s Snyder Supports Expanding Medicaid
Breaking ranks with many of his GOP colleagues, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder said last week that he supports the expansion of the Medicaid program under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
At a news conference last Wednesday with various interest groups in support of the ACA, Snyder said “We're all here to support the expansion of Medicaid.”
Under the ACA, the federal government would fully pay for the cost of all new Medicaid enrollees between 2014 and 2017, and 90% after that. Snyder said that he wanted to be able to cover more Michiganders at a lower cost and mitigate the issue of uninsured residents seeking care at hospital emergency rooms, and that participating in the expansion would address those issues.
“It's a dumb way of doing business, and we can do better,” Snyder said.
Michigan would participate in the expansion by relaxing the income requirements for Medicaid enrollment. Under the ACA scenario, individuals and families earning up to 133% of the Federal Poverty Level would qualify for Medicaid. That would raise the income cutoff to $11,490 for a single person and $23,500 for a family of four.
Snyder proposed placing new enrollees into a medical home model – wherein they would have easy access to primary care in order to quickly treat chronic or emergency conditions – in order to save on costs associated with caring for them.
As a result, Snyder estimated participating in Medicaid would save the state $200 million a year. He proposed putting half of that savings away and use it toward post-2017 expenses when the state would have to kick in 10% of the cost toward insuring the population.
Altogether, as many as 470,000 Michiganders could enroll in Medicare, increasing the ranks of the program from the current 1.9 million to nearly 2.4 million, or about one-quarter of the state's population.
However, there are some catches to a Medicaid expansion – it would require approval of the Republican-controlled Legislature, which contains significant numbers of rock-ribbed conservatives who oppose the ACA. However, the Wolverine State carried President Obama by nearly a 10-point margin in last November's election, suggesting voting down the expansion could prove politically unpopular with a significant majority of constituents.
Snyder's decision to support the Medicaid expansion is in contrast to Republican governors in other states, such as Rick Perry of Texas and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana. However, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer recently threw her support to expanding the program, and she is considered to be to the right of Snyder politically.
In addition to Snyder, Ohio Gov. John Kasich also voiced support for expanding Medicaid in his state under the ACA. Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, perhaps the most conservative governor among states in the Midwest, said last week that he would support an expansion if he could use Healthy Indiana, the state's health savings account, to pay for coverage.
In Missouri, Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, is in support of a Medicaid expansion, but faces stiff headwinds in the form of a GOP-dominated Legislature that is staunchly opposed to implementing much of the ACA.
