This has been a whirlwind week in Virginia politics, but now that the dust has settled from the fallout of the Phil Puckett resignation and the breaking of the deadlock over a clean, Medicaid expansion free budget, let’s take a look at the winners and losers of this Budget Battle.
Winners
Tommy Norment
The incoming Senate Majority Leader got back where he belongs, in the Majority Leader’s seat. As one of the most gifted political operators in Virginia, Senator Norment becomes the focus of power in the General Assembly – his ability to keep his caucus happy and in line will be the difference between passing legislation and gridlock. Speaker Howell is a victim of his own success – the Republican supermajority makes the House our bastion, but the Senate will be where the action is.
Getting the budget passed was the first feather in Tommy’s cap. There will be more to come.
National Federation of Independent Business
Last year, a number of Chambers of Commerce around Virginia made headlines by supporting Governor McAuliffe and supporting the Medicaid expansion plan. NFIB, however, doubled down on their opposition to expansion earlier this year, to the praise of House and Senate Republicans in the General Assembly. Unlike some in the business community, who simply saw federal dollar signs, NFIB recognized that businesses will be on the hook for higher taxes when the Federal government reduces their share of medicaid payments down the road. Now that Medicaid expansion is dead for the foreseeable future, NFIB has a victory, and the rest of the business community has wasted a lot of time and political capital backing the losers.
Virginia taxpayers
Regardless of the claims of the other side, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Virginia taxpayers would have been on the hook for the Medicaid expansion as soon as the Federal matching funds drop from 100% to 90% over the next decade. Our budget is precariously balanced – in fact, this budget that passed last night had to be cut by hundreds of millions (and we had to tap the Rainy Day fund) to reach balance. There’s not much left to cut in our budgets, which means that any new revenue is going to end up coming from Virginia taxpayers.
Not expanding Medicaid takes the pressure off for job killing tax increases down the road to fund a health care system that has blown every budget projection of its rate of increase since its creation.
Phil Puckett
The taxpayers in the Commonwealth can thank Phil Puckett for what he did. By resigning, he broke the logjam that threatened our bond rating and risked a government shut down. He’s been vilified by the Democrats for what he did, and unfairly accused of accepting bribes and the like. He did no such thing. We all owe Phil our gratitude.
Tag Greason and the “No Budget No Shave” crew
They can finally shave. It was getting pretty bad.
Losers
Terry McAuliffe
Medicaid expansion was Terry McAuliffe’s crown jewel legislative achievement. No other issue has been given more attention by the Governor. Had he been successful here, it would have been the singular accomplishment of his Administration. Now, it’s hard to see, short of the Democrats retaking the Senate in 2015 and forcing another budget deadlock, a path forward for a Medicaid expansion any time in the near future.
McAuliffe now has a choice – he can veto the overall budget and shut down the Commonwealth’s government, which has more negatives for more people than not expanding Medicaid or he can sign this budget and accept that he lost. Neither are palatable for him. Hopefully he does the right thing and signs the budget. If not, bad things are going to happen.
Dick Saslaw
The Phil Puckett issue cost Dick Saslaw his title as majority leader. Whether he could have stopped Phil’s resignation is questionable, but the buck stops with Senator Saslaw. By not developing a compromise that could get past the House of Delegates, Saslaw squandered the few months of control he had since Ralph Northam took over as LG.
Medicaid Innovation and Reform Commission
Last year’s budget deal punted on the issue of Medicaid expansion by putting the decision to expand Medicaid in the hands of the MIRC, a joint legislative committee made up of members of the House and Senate. The MIRC has been at a deadlock for months now on the issue, effectively blocking Medicaid expansion.
They’ve been effectively neutered now by the Stanley amendments, which gutted the MIRC’s ability to expand Medicaid by removing their appropriation. Even if they do develop a number of reforms to reduce costs and create efficiency, they can’t expand Medicaid because their appropriation is gone. This effectively makes MIRC a non-entity.
Virginia health insurance companies
If Medicaid was expanded, the biggest winners would include Virginia’s health insurance companies, who would be paid to provide coverage for those who could have participated in the expanded program. No Medicaid expansion means the insurers have lost a billion dollar+ payday.
Lynwood Lewis
Lewis drew the ire of his colleagues and grassroots Democrats by crossing over and voting in favor of the final budget. He was the sole Democrat who crossed over. This immediately drew fire from the Democratic netroots on Twitter and Facebook. This morning, Bearing Drift has learned that he has filed a “gray sheet,” for attachment to the Budget, claiming now that he voted incorrectly.
That’s a real profile in courage.
