How much has the political atmosphere changed in 2018? This much: Republican candidate for governor in Michigan, Bill Schuette swears he won't end Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act in the state. He has a record as the state's attorney general as being a staunch opponent of the expansion and of Obamacare, but Republicans can't run on that anymore, so now he's saying "The fact is Healthy Michigan is the law. […] It's not going anywhere."
But you know there's a catch—there always is with Republicans. "Schuette said he wants to 'reform' the Healthy Michigan program and 'make it better,' saying he supports requiring able-bodied recipients to work because the state has 80,000 unfilled jobs." By which he means cutting thousands of people off of Medicaid because of the barriers he wants to create. That's not just speculation. It's happening in Arkansas, where 4,353 people have been dropped from coverage for the remainder of the year. That's just in the three months since the work requirements were imposed in that state.
Michigan has an alternative, and a really good one, in Democrat Gretchen Whitmer whose support for Medicaid expansion in the state legislature has never wavered. She voted for the expansion, and has championed it since, calling this a "stark difference" between her and Schuette, saying "I want to keep working to get more people covered. He wants to take health care way from people."
Current Gov. Rick Snyder, of course a Republican, has already asked the Trump administration to approve the waiver. The Center for Healthcare Research and Transformation estimates that 700,000 people will be affected if it's put in place in January 2020. That will happen, unless Whitmer wins.
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