Pennsylvania takes up Medicare expansion, drives another nail in the anti-ACA coffin
by David Atkins
It looks like 500,000 more Americans are about to get healthcare thanks to the ACA. Greg Sargent has the details:
In another sign that the politics of Obamacare continue to shift, the Medicaid expansion is now all but certain to come to another big state whose Republican governor had previously resisted it: Pennsylvania.
The federal government has approved Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett’s application for the state’s own version of the Medicaid expansion, without a handful of the conditions Corbett had hoped to impose, Dem sources tell me.
Corbett just announced that he will accept the expansion that has been offered, perhaps with some last-minute changes — expanding coverage and subsidies to as many as half a million people.
This comes after months of jockeying between Corbett and the federal government. Corbett had pushed for a version of the expansion that would have imposed various conditions designed to make it more palatable to conservatives and to achieve political distance from Obamacare — while simultaneously taking all that federal money. Among them: Using the cash to pay for private coverage for the poor.
This is a big deal not only for the future of the ACA but also for Pennsylvania politics. The GOP has been wanting to make gains in the Keystone State for a long time now. Another half a million voters who get healthcare through the ACA puts another big crimp in that plan.
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