NASHVILLE — Even as Gov. Bill Haslam ventures into West Tennessee today to promote his Insure Tennessee proposal, a high-stakes public battle is underway between independent groups on both sides of his plan to extend health coverage to 200,000 low-income Tennesseans.
Hoping to win the hearts and minds of fellow Republicans in the GOP-dominated Legislature, Haslam heads to Jackson and Memphis today for two forums aimed at amping up support for the plan, which uses federal Medicaid dollars to fund what he calls his “market-driven” approach.
But even before the governor sets foot in Jackson, there were these developments Tuesday:
* The Tennessee chapter of Americans for Prosperity, which receives funding from the billionaire conservative Koch brothers, says it plans to air radio ads and send direct mail to voters in an effort to scuttle Haslam’s proposal.
* Beating them to the punch, the Coalition for a Healthy Tennessee, which backs the governor’s plan, launched its own blitz of radio ads and direct mail to generate support. Coalition members include a number of chambers of commerce, the Tennessee Hospital Association and dozens of other groups.
* The board of the Tennessee Medical Association, the state’s largest organization of physicians, announced its full support of Insure Tennessee. TMA President Dr. Doug Springer said it supports the group’s goal to “help make accessible, affordable medical care a reality for Tennessee patients.”
* A Florida-based conservative group calling itself the Foundation for Government Accountability released what it says was a poll of 500 voters in which it claims nearly 80 percent were less likely to support “Medicaid expansion” after being told it is funded by “$716 billion in cuts to Medicare.”
Dr. John Geer of Vanderbilt University questioned the Foundation for Government Accountability poll, noting “a majority of Tennesseans have consistently endorsed Medicaid expansion — even Republicans who make less than the median income in the state.”
Fifty-six percent of those asked by Vanderbilt’s November poll said they strongly or somewhat support expanding Medicaid to provide medical care for people living on low incomes.
Charges by national Republicans during the 2014 campaigns resulted in two independent groups, Fact Check and PolitiFact, saying the GOP was playing fast and loose with the facts.
In an interview Tuesday, Andrew Ogles, president of Americans for Prosperity Tennessee, confirmed the group goes up with radio ads today and plans to send mailers out next week.
“We’re opposed to Insure Tennessee,” Ogles said. “It’s simply Obamacare with a pretty wrapper.”
With Republicans now in charge of Congress, Ogles said, “we have an opportunity at the federal level to defund and unravel Obamacare right now. … [Insure Tennessee] hurts the overall strategy of defunding Obamacare.”
He wouldn’t say how much money the group is throwing into its effort. AFP-Tennessee also is hosting a “town hall meeting” in Murfreesboro late this afternoon.
The Coalition for a Healthy Tennessee, which also won’t say what it is spending, is already up and running with its own radio ad.
“Time and time again, Tennesseans have rejected the Obama agenda and his Obamacare plan that moves health care decisions out of our state and into the hands of D.C. bureaucrats,” a narrator says. “That’s why Gov. Haslam has introduced the Insure Tennessee Plan to cover hundreds of thousands of hard-working Tennesseans.
“It’s a conservative, market-based approach that will result in no new taxes, no new state government spending, and stability for our state’s rural hospitals,” the ad says.
Haslam spokesman David Smith said regarding the Florida group’s poll that “Tennesseans want a serious discussion about the governor’s Insure Tennessee proposal, not to be sidetracked by misinformation. These poll questions don’t have anything to do with what the governor is proposing.”
Haslam is calling state lawmakers into special session Feb. 2 to consider a resolution for a two-year pilot project in the form of a federal waiver that he says the Obama administration already has verbally approved.
One part of the two-pronged plan would provide vouchers so the working poor could join their employers’ health plans. The other is a retooled version of TennCare, the state’s current Medicaid program, that includes premiums, co-pays and incentives for persons with incomes between the federal poverty line and 138 percent of the poverty level.
But as the GOP-led Legislature held its organizational session last week, the governor’s plan hit two major jolts. The first was when Senate Majority Leader Mark Norris, R-Collierville, balked at sponsoring the governor’s proposal, saying he needs to know more.
Jolt No. 2 was Republican Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey insisting that his Republican counterparts in the House act first. House Majority Leader Gerald McCormick, R-Chattanooga, who announced he will sponsor the resolution, denounced senators’ efforts to force the lower chamber to go first as “silly” and “preposterous.”
Contact staff writer Andy Sher at asher@timesfreepress.com or 615-255-0550.