In September 2012, I said that Republican governors should be expanding their Medicaid programs under Obamacare.
I argued that Republicans have long called for state block grants and the flexibility to run their own Medicaid programs in what are the state “laboratories of democracy.”
I made the point that, given the then recent Supreme Court decision enabling states to opt out of the expansion, the Obama administration would be hard pressed to deny any reasonable proposal from Republican governors.
If Republicans really believed in state responsibility and flexibility for how they run their Medicaid programs, this was the opportunity to prove it. (See here.)
Since then, a few Republican governors have taken that tack and the Obama administration has been very cooperative and flexible.
This is a good place to recognize outgoing HHS Secretary Sebelius for her leadership by being willing to work with state Republicans in order to get millions of people covered who wouldn’t be getting coverage otherwise.
Good faith Republican Medicaid proposals have led to good faith responses from Sebelius’ Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and a few done deals and other deals still in the works.
Many Republicans have said that Medicaid is not sustainable and that the feds could well cut the new Obamacare funding in future years. Sebelius responded by giving these governors an out if funding were to be cut.
Of course Medicaid is unsustainable, that’s why the states should be given the autonomy to run their own plans and deal with these challenges in any number of different ways the country can learn from.