I have posted recently (on September 29 and October 6, 2014) on Utah’s proposed Medicaid expansion program, UtahAccessPlus, a compromise put together by legislative leaders after the governor’s Healthy Utah plan was rejected by lawmakers earlier this year.
However, the Medicaid expansion proposal has, as the poets says, shuffled off this mortal coil and given up the ghost.
UtahAccessPlus was rejected yesterday, garnering only 7 Republican supporters out of the 63 House Republicans in a closed door meeting to gauge support for the program. It would have required 38 Republican votes to move the plan forward.
The proposal called for taxes on healthcare providers including doctors, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and others to raise $50 million in order to gain $450 million in matching federal funds. The program was intended to help about 100,000 low income Utahns.
Thirty states have expanded Medicaid so far. The expansion broadens Medicaid eligibility to up to 138% of the federal poverty line, or $33,000 for a family of four.
Under the compromise proposal, people would have received financial assistance to pay for private health insurance, rather than government provided insurance.
The major concerns seemed to revolve around the cost of the program, both now and in the future.
The following sources were used to glean information for this post, all visited on October 14, 2015:
https://www.sltrib.com/home/3056065-155/new-medicaid-expansion-plan-seems-doomed
House Republicans nix Utah Access Plus Medicaid expansion proposal
http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/256892-obamacare-medicaid-expansion-dies-in-utah