Livingston County party sides with counterparts on expansion proposal
The Livingston County Republican Party is formally supporting a “free-market” plan intended to reduce Medicaid rolls over expansion of the program to Michigan’s working poor.
The county GOP this month joined several county GOP chapters statewide in passing resolutions supporting Senate Bills 459-460, which would allow the state to license private health-care exchanges and in 2015 move existing Medicaid recipients to private health savings accounts funded with program dollars.
The proposal is an alternative to House Bill 4714, which was approved in the House and would expand Medicaid to those earning up to 133 percent of the federal poverty guideline, a component of the Affordable Care Act, or “Obamacare.”
Both proposals were approved in a Senate committee last week.
The county GOP’s Executive Committee approved its resolution supporting the free-market Medicaid proposal because it would cover existing Medicaid recipients in a fiscally responsible way, party Chairman Dan Wholihan said.
Sponsors of the Senate bills claim the program, which would require waivers to the federal law, would reduce Michigan’s Medicaid costs and overall health-care costs by shifting recipients from taxpayer-funded coverage to private plans.
Read full article here.
