Somewhat forgotten owing to the McDonnell trial is that the General Assembly will come back to Richmond in mid-September to stage a debate on Medicaid expansion. While the conventional wisdom says we shouldn’t expect much from this session, looming over it all is the possibility that Gov. McAuliffe could decide to skip the assembled worthies and expand the program on his own before they get to town.
We got a sampling of camp McAuliffe’s thinking a couple of days ago in a Roanoke Times op-ed by Health and Human Services Secretary Bill Hazel:
Gov. McAuliffe has posed a version of that question to me. Given the General Assembly’s determination to block Medicaid expansion, how can we best help Virginians today? He’s asked me to answer that question by Sept. 1.
The question is steeped in urgency. We must act today, not shelter in place for months or years hoping that legislators will eventually recognize the folly of their obstructionism.
The question also recognizes that our best, for now, may fall short of fulfilling the vast needs that exist in Wise County and many other communities across the commonwealth.
The question must be answered by all of us as Virginians. What is the most effective way to address our unmet health care needs, and can we meet that goal while refusing billions of federal dollars earmarked for that purpose?
To its credit, the McAuliffe administration is finally embracing the storyline first aired on “60 Minutes” back in April. It’s a potent narrative that hits the GOP right in the chops. That Hazel is resurrecting it now, and in the Roanoke Times, is no surprise. There’s a special election in the 38th Senate district this month, and the Democrat, Mike Hymes, is having a rough go of it. Hymes is on record as opposing Obamacare, but he still wants the state to do something:
“We need to find a way to provide care to the approximately 20,000 people in the district who don’t have it, many of them are low-wage workers who just cannot afford the premiums for the coverage, but we need a Virginia solution to this problem, not one from Washington, D.C.,” Hymes said.
Sounds a little like Secretary Hazel’s op-ed. And no surprise, should Hymes win, the Senate is split once again, and the Forgotten Man, Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam, gets his relevance back.
Understanding the stakes involved Americans for Prosperity has launched a statewide TV blitz to keep Medicaid expansion at bay:
The special session could turn out to be very interesting…
