Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam (R) said Tuesday that his administration expects to have a decision on expanding Medicaid under Obamacare by Christmas.
“If we’re going to get something done this legislative session we need to be able to have it defined, so we can start the process of explaining how it will work. Either way we’ll have an answer really before Christmas,” he said, according to the Daily News Journal.
Tennessee has gone through a particularly halting process on Medicaid expansion. Haslam repeatedly announced his intentions to submit a plan to the Obama administration, but has apparently been stalled by competing demands on either side.
The governor has been trying to find a middle ground between the Obama administration, which has been amenable to conservative alternatives, and a state legislature that is generally opposed to the Affordable Care Act. He has been in contact with other GOP governors who expanded the program under the law, according to the Daily News Journal, and met personally with Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell.
The particulars of Haslam’s plan weren’t clear, though advocates in the state have said they expect something similar to the Arkansas plan, using Medicaid dollars to purchase private insurance.
