Editorial: Revived Insure Tennessee Deserves a Floor Vote

VOL. 8 | NO. 14 | Saturday, March 28, 2015

Insure Tennessee deserves a vote on the floors of the Tennessee House and Senate.

The amendments offered in the second life of the Medicaid expansion proposal are reasonable additions that answer legitimate concerns of legislators whose feelings about the Affordable Care Act and its ramifications run the gamut from blind faith to blind hatred.

It is reasonable to wait on the U.S. Supreme Courts ruling in King v. Burwell, a case that deals specifically with health care exchanges in the Affordable Care Act. The ruling, which could have a broad impact, is expected this summer.

Likewise, some kind of confirmation in writing from Washington that Tennessee can call this off if the feds change who pays for the expansion could work.

Politically, however, such a cutoff should there be a change of terms in Washington is not as simple as changing the locks on office doors somewhere in the states bureaucracy after the furniture is moved out.

We cite the rich and brutal detail of Phil Bredesens move during his tenure as governor to pare the TennCare rolls more than a few years ago.

Such a cutoff would ultimately be a matter of political will and momentum, no matter how many ways the possibility of a cutoff is written down and spelled out.

The verdict of the crucial swing votes on Insure Tennessee, including several Shelby County Republican legislators, is crucial.

As our cover story points out, nothing about the general issue of health care and its cost is simple.

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Editorial: Revived Insure Tennessee Deserves a Floor Vote