A billboard along Highway 27 in Chattanooga is part of a statewide campaign by the Coalition for a Strong Tennessee, a bipartisan, grassroots organization that promotes Medicaid expansion and highlights the billions in Tennessee taxes going to fund health care in other states.A new billboard along Highway 27 in Chattanooga is one of several across the state highlighting Tennessee's economic loss and others' gain from the state's choice not to expand Medicaid.
The billboards feature a sports fan wearing the colors of two state universities - Kentucky and Arkansas - from the neighboring states that expanded Medicaid, along with a "thank you" note to Tennessee taxpayers for helping to fund their health care.
The Coalition for a Strong Tennessee, a group of bipartisan, concerned citizens and organizations, sponsored the billboards to draw public attention to what they said in a statement is "the dire need to expand Medicaid and to make the issue a top priority in the 2019 legislative session." They also announced a new website, BringOurTaxesHome.org.
The Affordable Care Act gave states the option to use federal funding to expand their Medicaid programs - which Tennessee calls TennCare - to cover a wider range of low-income individuals. But the state chose not to accept the money, leaving about 250,000 potentially eligible Tennesseans without health insurance, according to the Sycamore Institute, a nonprofit policy research organization.
"We wanted to focus on the fact that Tennesseans, many of whom do not have health care, who work and pay taxes, are supporting health care for people in other states who've chosen Medicaid expansion. And so our billboards are an attempt to point out the absurdity of that," campaign co-founder Mary Falls said.
Other campaign billboards are located in Memphis, Jackson, Nashville, Knoxville and the Tri-Cities area.
Although there are costs to expanding Medicaid, research suggests that increasing health care access would generate new economic activity and help lower uncompensated care costs.
"We have to keep covering the uninsured instead of using the money that we're being taxed with to do it," said Sally Smallwood, the campaign's other co-founder.
Smallwood said the coalition was inspired by a similar grass-roots campaign in Virginia, which after five years of political battles passed Medicaid expansion in 2018.
Contact staff writer Elizabeth Fite at efite@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6673.