A majority of Virginians, including a majority of the state’s Republicans, support expanding Medicaid under Obamacare, according to a new poll.
A poll by the Wason Center at Christopher Newport University, reported by the Washington Post, found that 56 percent of the state’s residents said they favored expanding Medicaid eligibility to 138 percent of the federal poverty level, as the law prescribes. Among those who self-identified as Republicans, 55 percent said they supported it.
Gov. Terry McAuliffe based his gubernatorial campaign in part on a pledge to expand Medicaid, and he has begun to push for it since taking office in January. But Republicans in the state legislature have said that they won’t to expand the program this year.
The federal government covers 100 percent of the funding for Medicaid expansion through 2016 and never less than 90 percent after that, as required by Obamacare. But if that funding promise weren’t kept for some reason, support for the expansion dropped considerably in the poll, to less than 50 percent.
The poll, conducted from Jan. 15 to 22, surveyed 1,023 registered Virginia voters.
