Reid: Nevada would be ‘foolish’ not to expand Medicaid
July 5, 2012 - 5:32 pm
WASHINGTON - Sen. Harry Reid said Thursday it should be a no-brainer for Gov. Brian Sandoval to expand Nevada's Medicaid coverage, a decision governors now face after last week's Supreme Court landmark ruling on the health care law.
"Brian Sandoval has said he is going to look at it to see how it would work," Reid, D-Nev., said during an interview on KNPR-FM, the Las Vegas public radio station. "Once he looks at it, he will have to take it."
The government starting in 2014 would pay the extra costs for three years for states that broaden their Medicaid to cover a new category of adults who earn too little to afford private insurance.
Beyond that, Uncle Sam would pay
95 percent in 2017, 94 percent in 2018,
93 percent in 2019 and 90 percent in 2020 and in the years after that.
Expanding Medicaid eligibility is one of the ways the health care law promoted by President Barack Obama aims to provide coverage to more than 30 million uninsured people.
Twelve governors have said they plan to take part in an expanded Medicaid while seven, all Republicans, have said they will not accept the deal either on cost or philosophical grounds. The remainder, including Sandoval, are undecided or haven't said for certain, according to an analysis this week by The Hill, a Capitol Hill newspaper and website.
"It wouldn't be my intention to opt in," Sandoval told an interviewer June 28 in the hours after the Supreme Court decision. He said expanding Medicaid may mean cutting education money and "other horrible things."
In a statement later, Sandoval press secretary Mary-Sarah Kinner said, "Serious budgetary implications, including the impact on education spending, require further analysis - not just of the next biennial budget but of the long-term costs.
"We will continue to examine today's opinion to fully understand its implications," Kinner said.
Reid, the Senate majority leader, who played a key role in getting the health care law through Congress in 2010, said a decision should be easy.
"As far as Medicaid, the state of Nevada and other states, they would be foolish not to get this money," he said of the federal contributions. "It's a hundred percent reimbursement for the first few years.
"Also it will drive down the cost of health care because these poor people are some of the people that are driving up the cost of health care for everyone," Reid said. "Once this Medicaid provision goes into effect, they don't need to do that."
Reid said Florida Gov. Rick Scott and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, two Republicans who have spoken out to turn down the Medicaid expansion for their states, "are running for vice president, so I don't think they are credible."
While declaring the health care overhaul to be constitutional, the court in a 7-2 side ruling said the federal government couldn't withhold Medicaid funds from states that don't expand their programs. That put decisions to expand in the laps of governors and legislatures.
More than 308,000 Nevadans receive health care through Medicaid, which provides coverage to the poor, disabled and some elderly.
According to the Sandoval administration, Nevada faces significant added costs for Medicaid even before figuring in the new eligibles.
At least an additional 49,000 people already eligible for Medicaid are expected to enroll because of the health care law at a cost of $60 million in the next two-year state budget cycle. At the same time, Nevada Check Up, which insures children from low-income families, is expected to grow by 20,000 at a cost of $11 million.
Expanding Medicaid eligibility to a new class of adults who earn less than $14,400 a year, 133 percent of the federal poverty level, would add an estimated 72,000 people to the Nevada rolls.
"There will be significant administrative costs associated with this expansion; we do not know these costs at this time," Kinner said in her statement.
Reid said during the radio interview that like many others he was surprised that conservative Chief Justice John Roberts provided the swing vote to declare the health care law constitutional.
"I'm going to call him when I have the opportunity," Reid said. "I was proud of what he did."
Reid said he thought Justice Anthony Kennedy was going to be the key vote in favor of the law, but Kennedy voted against it.
Reid said Kennedy went "way off the reservation, which he has quite a bit lately. I have been fairly disappointed in him."
"I worked harder on (the health care legislation) than anything else in my 30-year career in Washington," Reid said.
Contact Stephens Washington Bureau Chief Steve Tetreault at stetreault@stephensmedia.com or 202-783-1760. Follow him on Twitter @STetreaultDC.