Governor Matt Mead said in his State of the State address Wednesday that lawmakers need to think further about Medicaid expansion in the state and to develop a plan specifically for Wyoming. Department of Health Director, Tom Forslund, said the state would save about $50 million over six years under a full expansion.
House Majority Floor leader Kermit Brown says there are still too many unknowns in the federal rules for the Affordable Care Act that could hurt Wyoming.
“What happens if that federal funding at some point is terminated notwithstanding the federal government’s promise to participate in that on a continuing basis? And do we cut the program off? At that point we’ve created a constituency and once you create a dependency and constituency on a program then if the fed walks away we probably don’t.”
House Minority Leader, Mary Throne, said the Democrats would be ready to move forward with the expansion before Republicans.