Wyoming looks like it might be the latest Republican-run state to come around on Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion.
The Associated Press reported this week that Gov. Matt Mead (R) and the state’s top health official had met with federal officials to discuss a possible deal to expand the low-income insurance program under the law. Mead will present the options early next year the state legislature, which has thus far rejected the expansion, according to the AP.
The news agency did not report any details of what a possible deal between Wyoming and the Obama administration might look like. But the administration has already shown some willingness to meet GOP officials halfway to get them to participate in the Medicaid expansion, a key piece of Obamacare.
Mead acknowledged that the state is sending tax dollars out of state to pay for other states that have expanded Medicaid while receiving nothing in return.
“I juxtapose that against our hospital association saying we’re handing out $200 million every year just in Wyoming,” he said. “I contrast it with whatever that running total is now, I think it’s about $60 million for this year, that Wyoming, if we were in Medicaid, we would have received.”
More than low-income 17,000 Wyomingites would be covered by the law’s Medicaid expansion.
