Gov. Haslam takes Insure Tennessee pitch on the road

Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam listens to a question during a news conference after speaking to a joint session of the Legislature on Wednesday in Nashville. Haslam announced that he won't pursue expanding the state's Medicaid program to help cover the uninsured as part of the federal Affordable Care Act.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam listens to a question during a news conference after speaking to a joint session of the Legislature on Wednesday in Nashville. Haslam announced that he won't pursue expanding the state's Medicaid program to help cover the uninsured as part of the federal Affordable Care Act.

NASHVILLE -- Republican Gov. Bill Haslam spent Monday pitching his Insure Tennessee proposal to Knoxville-area legislators even as a staunch Senate critic of the plan prepared for his committee hearing today on potential "legal issues" surrounding it.

Haslam began his second week of meeting with legislators on his plan to use federal Medicaid funds to extend health insurance coverage to an estimated 200,000 low-income adult men and women.

Many of Haslam's fellow Republicans in the GOP-dominated General Assembly have been slow to embrace what he says is a "market-driven" plan made possible under President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act. They will decide the proposal's fate in a special session called by Haslam, which starts Feb. 2.

"There is a lot of concern on whether or not this is Obamacare," Haslam told the 16 legislators at Monday's event, according to Knoxville television station WBIR. "I'd say this is a really different program. The dollars are federal dollars but we think this is a program that finally has incentive for healthy choices for both users and the providers of health care."

Haslam began the tour last week, hitting Memphis and Jackson in West Tennessee. He says costs of the two-pronged plan, which includes vouchers for workers to use to join their employers' health plans, will initially be covered entirely by the federal government.

He promises it won't cost state taxpayers anything down the road because Tennessee hospitals have volunteered to fund the state share beginning in 2017 when it rises to 5 percent before gradually increasing to 10 percent in 2020. And Haslam also says he will have commitments from the Obama administration that the two-year pilot project can be jettisoned by Tennessee at any time if it doesn't work.

The governor will make much the same presentation in Chattanooga to local lawmakers on Wednesday.

In the meantime, state Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Brian Kelsey, R-Germantown, is scheduled to hold a hearing today at 1 p.m. (CST) on a series of legal questions posed by Finance Committee Chairman Randy McNally, R-Oak Ridge, to state Attorney General Herbert Slatery.

McNally wants to know whether the federal government can alter or impose a different interpretation on the waiver that Haslam is seeking of traditional Medicaid rules. Medicaid is operated as TennCare in Tennessee.

The finance committee chairman also wants to know if the state can indeed drop the program if funding changes and wants to see what changes in state law, if any, are needed to account for the state funding and hospital-provided monies.

Slatery is expected to release his legal opinion today and discuss it with committee members.

Others slated to testify include James Blumstein, a law professor at Vanderbilt University, a critic of the Affordable Care Act who wrote an amicus brief on Medicaid in the Affordable Care Act challenge before the U.S. Supreme Court in 2012.

Blumstein argued the federal government couldn't force states to expand their Medicaid programs. The court, while it upheld the overall law, agreed with the Medicaid argument, holding that Medicaid expansion had to be voluntary on the part of states.

That threw the Medicaid expansion into doubt in most Republican-led states, although a number later implemented expansions after winning some concessions from the Obama administration.

Also expected to testify is Robert Alt, president of the Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions in Ohio. Prior to that, Alt was a director in the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank and advocacy group.

Contact staff writer Andy Sher at asher@timesfreepress.com or 615-255-0550.

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