Tennessee Gov. Bill HaslamNASHVILLE — Tennessee hospitals say they’re going to bleed if Gov. Bill Haslam and the General Assembly don’t agree to expand TennCare under the federal Affordable Care Act.
“We’re going to have to sit down with the administration to see what we can do about it,” said Craig Becker, Tennessee Hospital Association president. “It’s pretty clear that that is absolutely our Achilles’ heel right now.”
While the U.S. Supreme Court last week upheld most of the health care law, justices struck down a mandate for states to expand their Medicaid programs. The court gave states the choice whether to opt into the Medicaid expansion in 2014.
Haslam and Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal, both Republicans, said they haven’t decided whether to expand Medicaid under a law they oppose. Tennessee’s Medicaid program is called TennCare.
But Florida’s Republican governor, Rick Scott, told Fox News on Friday he won’t join the expansion. Republicans in at least three other states also are considering opting out, according to other news accounts.