NASHVILLE – One is a successful former Nashville mayor who presided over a city’s transformation. The other is a self-styled “conservative outsider” and businessman who led his family-owned company to new heights.
And that’s just the beginning of differences between Democrat Karl Dean, the former mayor, and Republican Bill Lee, owner of the Franklin-based 1,200-employee Lee Company, a mechanical and building services contractor, as they seek to become Tennessee’s next governor.
In Tuesday’s election, Tennesseans will choose between two men who differ in both style and some priorities, as well as having sharp disagreements on issues ranging from health care to allowing public school teachers to carry firearms in the classroom.
A chief disagreement is whether to extend the Medicaid program for the poor to an estimated 300,000 low-income working adult Tennesseans mostly through federal dollars available under the Affordable Care Act.
Dean, 63, says the expansion will lead to better health outcomes for many Tennesseans as well as boost rural health care in a state where 11 hospitals, mostly in rural communities, have closed. He calls rejection of Republican Gov. Bill Haslam’s Medicaid expansion proposal by GOP lawmakers in 2011 a “mistake.”