Governor Rick Snyder is one of the Republicans who is not on board with the GOP plan in Congress to overhaul the Affordable Care Act.
Michigan is one of the states that expanded its Medicaid program under the ACA.
Snyder is particularly concerned about how the congressional plan would affect Medicaid, especially the Healthy Michigan program that enrolled more than 650,000 people who wouldn’t have coverage otherwise.
“Healthy Michigan has been a success in our state, and so that’s one of the things I tried to communicate to Washington is, when you look at this, make sure you have the facts, and how our program has shown we can really help people and do it in a cost-effective fashion,” he says.
Snyder says governors have tried to make their case, but have been ignored. He says he and other governors fear the effect of the Republican plan would be to drive up states’ Medicaid costs.
“I think it needs a lot more work in many respects. If you look at it, I appreciate people addressing the issue. We had a lot of outreach from the administration and Congress to ask governors’ opinions, but the current plan doesn’t reflect the comments we made,” he says.
Hospitals say Healthy Michigan has saved money because fewer people without insurance show up in emergency rooms.
