Alaska Governor Unilaterally Moves To Expand Medicaid Under Obamacare

Alaska will be the 30th state plus the District of Columbia to participate in Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, if Gov. Bill Walker’s effort to bypass the resistance of state legislators goes as planned. The governor — formerly a Republican but now an independent — announced Thursday that he would be using his executive authority to bring the expansion to his state.

“This is the final option for me,” Walker said in a press conference Thursday, according to the New York Times. “We are not going to step away from this opportunity to help fellow Alaskans, period.”

The expansion will give healthcare access to some 42,000 low-income Alaskans, per a state analysis, and Walker’s office said Thursday it will bring $146 million to the state in its first year.

Walker campaigned aggressively on the Obamacare program during his 2014 gubernatorial run and polling shows Alaskans overwhelming support expanding Medicaid. Nevertheless, the Republican-controlled statehouse — which is currently out of session — thwarted the Medicaid expansion bills the governor pushed in the state’s regular and special sessions; the legislation never made it out of committee. Lawmakers also put language in this year’s budget package prohibiting the governor from acting unilaterally on Medicaid expansion. However, both Walker’s and the legislature’s attorneys say that language is likely unconstitutional.

The objections raised by Alaskan legislators are similar to those brought in other red states, mainly in the South, where lawmakers have opted out the Obamacare program. The Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that participation was voluntary for states.

Republicans often criticize Medicaid expansion as a big government program that states cannot afford. Under Obamacare, the federal government pays for the entire program until 2016 and then gradually decreases its share to 90 percent by 2020.

Thursday Walker sent a letter to the Legislative Budget and Audit Committee, giving the committee, which operates even when the state legislature is out of session, 45 days to approve, disapprove or do nothing of his plans, according to the Huffington Post. Walker suggested he could move forward without the committee’s approval, but also said the entire legislature could reconvene in that window to also act on his plans.

Walker said he planned to meet with U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell to discuss his plan with the hopes of rolling out it by September.