Wyoming’s repugican-Dominated Senate Kills Medicaid Expansion

Last Friday, the repugican-misled Wyoming Senate voted 19-11 to reject Medicaid expansion, which would have extended health care coverage to over 17,000 low-income, uninsured residents. Lawmakers voted down the expansion, even though it had the support of wingnut repugican governor Matt Mead. Mead opposed Medicaid expansion during his first term, but he converted to becoming a supporter in November of 2014, arguing that the state could use the 120 million dollars in federal funds to offset the costs absorbed by hospitals for uncompensated care.

In response to the Senate rejecting the bill, Governor Mead expressed disappointment, stating:

I believe that Wyoming’s working poor need health care coverage. We must recognize what health care means to individuals and to our economy.

The state would have been eligible for 120 million dollars in federal money with no strings attached. However, because so many Wyoming repugicans campaigned on opposing Obamacare, they rejected the funds. For example, Leland Christensen (r-Alta) argued that the Affordable Care Act was not the answer to Wyoming’s health care crisis. He proclaimed:

This is no time to abandon the Wyoming way of doing things. We have options. I’m convinced we can find a better option for the people of Wyoming.

The repugican, however, did not specify what better options the state was considering. As with so many repugican opponents of the Affordable Care Act, Wyoming’s repugicans know what they are against, but they have yet to articulate what they are for. After the Senate bill had been defeated, a House companion bill was pulled from the Labor, Health and Social Services Committee, effectively killing Medicaid expansion in both chambers for the current legislative session.

Wyoming’s decision to kill Medicaid expansion comes just two days after Tennessee turned down expansion for their state. In both cases, repugican state lawmakers defied the wishes of their own repugican governor. Governor Gary Herbert of Utah (r), may face a similar revolt when he tries to get Medicaid expansion funding passed through his state’s repugican-misled legislature.

A number of repugican governors understand that Medicaid expansion is a sensible way to extend coverage to low-income residents of their states. However, the teabagger perverted legislatures in red states are not interested in cooperating with pragmatic repugican governors. Those asshats would sooner have people go uninsured than admit they are wrong about opposing Obamacare.