VA-28’s Del. Bob Thomas Faces Primary Challenger for Supporting Medicaid Expansion
By James Harrison
The current impasse over Medicaid expansion earned one Republican delegate a primary challenger on Thursday and has broader implications for the Virginia GOP.
First-term Delegate Bob Thomas of Fredericksburg will face Stafford Supervisor Paul Milde, in a rematch to their 2017 race for the GOP nomination in the 28th District. Thomas won that race over Milde by 16 points, but failed to reach a majority, as 18% of voters – mostly staunch conservatives – supported former Stafford supervisor and 28th District candidate Susan Stimpson.
In a letter announcing his run to supporters, Milde took strong exception with Thomas’s vote to expand Medicaid under Obamacare.
“By joining 49 liberal Democrat delegates to support Obamacare and Medicaid expansion during this year’s Session, Newly Elected Delegate Bob Thomas has failed to keep faith with the voters who nominated him last June,” he said.
While Milde also criticized Thomas on a gun rights vote, his campaign is framed out of the gate as a referendum on Medicaid expansion.
Milde concluded:
“When I say I will not vote to expand Obamacare, it means I will not vote to expand Obamacare. It does not mean I will vote to expand Obamacare if I win by a smaller margin than I thought I would, or if there are more Democrats elected than I thought would be, or because some of my colleagues misleadingly rebrand Obamacare as ‘conservative.’ I will not vote to expand Obamacare.”
“I understand that it is not usual to announce for the Republican nomination more than a year before it will be decided. But, I know from personal experience that unseating an incumbent, even one who has served so briefly, is not easy. Between now and this time next year, I will be taking my message of principled, conservative leadership directly to the voters of the 28th District.”
Thomas scored some key legislative victories for his district during Session and by all means appears to be a responsive representative, but voters who oppose Medicaid expansion tend to be less forgiving of those votes on headline issues.
Other nomination fights following this template are likely to spread among the 19 members of the House GOP who voted in favor of Medicaid expansion. Observers will be keeping a sharp eye out for challengers to leadership, as these races will burn the most Republican cash. Speaker Bill Howell’s 2015 primary against Susan Stimpson cost three quarters of a million dollars – a figure which his successor, Speaker Kirk Cox, may find himself setting aside rather quickly. A race among the rank and file might burn between $100,000 and $300,000.
Furthermore, a federal district court’s ruling which voided the so-called “Incumbent Protection Act” allowing officeholders to select their method of nomination, instead of local activists, threatens to drag long-time Delegates into nomination contests by conventions or party canvasses back home, which tend to feature smaller and more conservative electorates.
The method of nomination will be decided by the 28th Legislative District Committee.
In the end, the bill for infighting could reach into the millions, when Republicans should be more focused on expanding the majority next year.
On the other hand, Senate Republicans have remained united among their caucus of 21 in opposing expansion. Although Senator Emmett Hanger of Augusta has backed forms of Medicaid expansion in the past, he’s remaining firm in his disagreement with the House plan to raise taxes on sick hospital patients. Hanger also finds the supposed “work requirement” to be weak, saying it has substantial room for improvement.
The grief headed for the House GOP appears to be bypassing the Senate.
Among the party base, polling for Medicaid expansion is dismal and registers with high intensity. During Session, the House GOP released a robopoll claiming support for expansion, even though it suffered from key methodological flaws. The wording of the automated question essentially encouraged respondents to “press 1 for Trump” – ultimately producing an anomalous result suggesting that more Republicans than Democrats supported Medicaid expansion.
House Republicans are likely to see greater backlash than that following 2013’s transportation bill, HB2313, which was criticized by conservatives for billions of dollars of tax increases. That bill spawned two successful primary challenges, a third which nearly succeeded, as well as a costly challenge to Speaker Howell.
Already, issue groups from Americans for Tax Reform to Americans for Prosperity have lined up against Republican delegates supporting Medicaid expansion, vowing intervention in nomination fights with messaging, activism, and resources.
With nomination fights now moving from conjecture to reality, the House strategy seems a little puzzling to those who wonder why 19 members found themselves pushed into supporting a failed rebranding of Medicaid expansion. If leadership merely wanted to “get it off the table” for next year’s election, they could have done that with two members of Appropriations moving an expansion budget in committee and on the floor, then silently appointed enough budget conferees to insist on expansion in the final version.
Instead, the House GOP is sticking to its position and bringing as many as possible along for the ride.
Medicaid expansion, opponents note, was designed for those who earn too much to qualify for traditional Medicaid for the truly impoverished, but who do not earn enough to qualify for Obamacare subsidies on the federal exchange. If Virginians find themselves in the Medicaid donut hole, because they earn too much for one but not enough for the other, then what does the supposed “work requirement” change if they’re already earning money through work?
Opponents have blasted the work requirement as a smokescreen.
Americans for Tax reform warned that other expansion states have seen average expansion costs exceed original estimates by 157%, potentially ballooning Virginia’s price tag from $350 million to $900 million, which the hospital patient tax would fail to fully cover.
OMB Director Mick Mulvaney issued a strong statement warning that federal expansion funds may not continue. Meanwhile, a new lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, along with 19 colleagues, could result in the Affordable Care Act being struck down in line with the Supreme Court’s prior ruling on the bill.
The loss of federal funds would send Virginia’s annual expansion costs into the billions. The “taxpayer safety switch” is largely meaningless. When was the last time an entitlement program was scaled back?
No, if federal funds dry up, Democrats will propose tax hikes or cuts to other services to continue funding Medicaid expansion. David Toscano and Dick Saslaw are not going to say “aw shucks” and go home.
The General Assembly is scheduled to reconvene on April 11th for a special session to conclude work on the budget before the July 1st deadline. That session will consider only the budget and certain appointments, but not regular legislation.
