Wyoming Governor Matt Mead is recommending that the legislature not expand Medicaid services to the some 16-thousand low income people in the state who cannot afford health insurance. Mead says he will not support any form of Medicaid Expansion because of problems the federal government has had in implementing the Affordable Care Act.
“Even if it was gonna work it still seems to me that the ACA is more bent on how to pay for medical costs
rather than the questions of how do we lower costs and how do we get more medical care to more people?”
Supporters of expansion say it is needed by the working poor in the state and that because of federal subsidies, it would actually save the state over 50 million dollars. The governor says it will take a lot to get him to change his mind.
“My recommendation to the legislature going into the session would be not to do the expansion. If over the next year or after the session, the law is changed and they make improvements, I will continue to be open minded and see what it is.”
The legislature will have the final say when it meets in February.
