Don’t throw away your pro- or anti-Medicaid expansion signs, stickers and testimony just yet.
A bill reauthorizing the program cleared its last major hurdle in the Senate last week, and Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan is expected to sign the legislation soon.
But in two years’ time, lawmakers will be back in Concord to debate it all over again.
That means whoever becomes New Hampshire’s next governor in the November election will play a key role in the program’s future beyond 2018.
The debate is not going away. And it’s poised to become a major issue in the competetive governor’s contest that is already crowded with seven candidates.
While Democrats in the race widely support Medicaid expansion – which covers low-income residents who make less than 138 percent of the federal poverty limit, or about $15,900 a year – it will be divisive for Republicans.
The four GOP candidates’ views on the health care program span the spectrum from full-throated support to flat-out rejection. Several candidates have shifted their stances over the years.
The first major action Republican Sen. Jeanie Forrester took after announcing her gubernatorial bid last Wednesday was to vote against the Medicaid expansion bill. Forrester, of Meredith, said the work requirements for enrollees weren’t strong enough. “The best way to help people is by offering a hand up – not a hand out,” she said in a statement.
Forrester had previously backed expanded Medicaid in New Hampshire. She was one of seven Senate Republicans who voted in 2014 to implement the health care program here.
Prior to a March vote in the House, Executive Councilor Chris Sununu said he would support the Medicaid expansion bill. But the legislation has been amended several times since then, and Sununu didn’t return a call for comment on the bill’s final iteration. His campaign didn’t put out a release on the topic.
Sununu, of Newfields, was one of two Republican councilors who in 2014 opposed a contract to launch Medicaid expansion in New Hampshire. The item was a late addition to the agenda, and Sununu requested unsuccessfully for a two-week delay to fully understand the contract, according to the Union Leader.
http://www.unionleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20140716/NEWS0621/140719203/0/SERVICES04&mc_cid=43c1397710&mc_eid=086544fbcb
Wilton Rep. Frank Edelblut says he would not reauthorize Medicaid expansion if elected governor. The first-term Republican voted against the bill this year in the House to continue the health care program for two more years. The program, he says, locks people in poverty.
“We have extended welfare benefits, and we don’t even know how to pay for it,” he said. “We can fix this program so it helps to lift people out of poverty, not lock them in poverty.” Edelblut didn’t go into detail on some of the “creative” fixes he has in mind.
On the other side of the spectrum, Manchester Mayor Ted Gatsas said he sees the health care program working and thinks it’s worth continuing.
“There’s over 40,000 people covered by it,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to see them have the rug pulled out from under them.” If elected, he said he’s open to considering other state’s models and is willing to work with senators and representatives to find ideas “that might be a little different.”
The lack of consensus among Republican candidates isn’t really a surprise. The fight over Medicaid expansion this year has pitted Republican lawmakers against one another. While the bill passed the Republican-controlled House and Senate, it did so with solid Democratic support. A majority of Republican lawmakers in each chamber voted against it.
To vote or not to vote
Will Executive Councilor Chris Sununu participate in a vote Wednesday that determines whether the Mount Sunapee ski resort expansion moves forward?
Some say he should not, because the Newfields Republican heads one of the mountain’s competitors: Waterville Valley ski resort.
The New Hampshire Sierra Club, critical of the proposed Sunapee expansion, is pushing for Sununu to recuse himself. “Any way you slice it, Councilor Sununu has a conflict of interest,” said Chapter Director Cathy Corkery.
A Sununu recusal would mean only four councilors vote on the proposal, one of the most contentious to come before the Executive Council this year. Sununu says he hasn’t decided whether he will abstain. “It’s something I continue to look at,” he said. Sununu didn’t shed any light on what position he would take if he did participate in the vote.
Opponents say the proposed expansion will degrade public land and price out local, low-income families. But supporters argue it will stimulate the economy.
If anything, recusal would be an easy way for Sununu to duck out of voting on a controversial issue that has drawn immense public outcry. Sununu is running for governor, and he faces at least three opponents in the Republican primary.
Mark it in the calendar
U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen told colleagues last week to “get on with it” and do their jobs, holding hearings on President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee. The Democratic is certainly backing up her rhetoric.
Shaheen will meet withObama’s nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, in her Washington, D.C., Senate office Tuesday.
The fight over Garland has so far focused less on his credentials, and more on whether the Republican-led U.S. Senate should even move forward with the confirmation process. Many GOP Senators maintain the next president, elected in November, should be the one to nominate a new Supreme Court justice,
New Hampshire’s junior U.S. senator, Kelly Ayotte, is of that view. But recently Ayotte did an about-face, saying she plans to meet with Garland. The Republican had said earlier that she would refuse to meet with any nominee.
The meeting is in the works, but the timing has yet to be nailed down, according to Ayotte’s office.
What to watch
The Executive Council will likely decide Wednesday whether to confirm Weare Sen. Jerry Little as the state’s new banking commissioner. Hassan tapped Little, a Republican who previously led the New Hampshire Bankers Association, for the job earlier this year. But the nomination came under fire, as some questioned why the Democratic governor chose Little, who lobbied on behalf of the industry Hassan is now proposing he regulate.
(Allie Morris can be reached at 369-3307 or at amorris@cmonitor.com.)