Virginia House, Senate step closer to Medicaid standoff

Votes move issue forward, but shutdown looms if they can't agree

February 20, 2014|By Travis Fain,

RICHMOND — Virginia lurched toward gridlock Thursday, with the House and Senate advancing competing proposals on Medicaid expansion amid accusations that Gov. Terry McAuliffe tried to strong-arm legislators and turn the vote his way.

McAuliffe's office denied that, but acknowledged inviting some House Republicans over for a chat ahead of a major budget vote.

After the dust settled Virginia was little closer to resolution in a policy fight that has spanned two years: Just what to do about Medicaid.

McAuliffe and most other Democrats here want to expand it, using federal taxpayer dollars to provide health insurance to hundreds of thousands of low-income Virginians.

They're joined by a few Senate Republicans who helped push compromise language through their chamber Thursday as part of the body's annual budget proposal.

House Republicans say they're dead-set against expansion, and that neither the state nor the federal government can afford it. They voted down the Senate plan Thursday evening in a showcase vote meant to prove they're united.

With a March 8 deadline looming, the issue threatens to send this legislative session into overtime. With a June 30 end to the current fiscal year on the horizon, the prospect of a government shutdown is coming into view.

That's what happens if July 1 arrives without a spending plan in place, and the Medicaid issue is fully entangled with the budget debate.

House Republicans blame that on Senate, which tacked its Medicaid proposal into the budget Thursday. They also put it on the governor. Would McAuliffe, who often speaks of finding common ground, also stick to a campaign pledge not to sign any budget that doesn't expand Medicaid?

McAuliffe's office said he hopes they don't test him on that.

"He remains optimistic that House Republicans will put Virginia families ahead of partisan politics," McAuliffe spokesman Brian Coy said.

McAuliffe invited a number of House Republicans to his office Thursday. One, Del. Riley E. Ingram, R-Hopewell, later told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that the governor tried to connect his Medicaid vote to a bill that's important to his district.

"The governor basically shook Del. Riley Ingram down today," House Republican spokesman Matthew Moran said later.

Not so, said Coy.

"Positively not," he said.

In fact, the governor supports the biofuels bill at issue, and it was Ingram who first mentioned that the Senate might kill the bill, Coy said. The governor offered to help pass the bill, Coy said, without asking for a tit-for-tat.

An attempt to reach Ingram Thursday evening was not successful, but Moran and other Republican delegates said he related the story to them, and that Ingram felt pressured.

"This is a new style of business around these parts," said Del. Todd C. Gilbert, R-Woodstock.

The Medicaid issue was one of the last things both chambers took up Thursday as they advanced separate versions of a two-year, $96 billion budget plan. There are other sticking points between the two budgets, but Medicaid is the largest by far.

House Republicans complained about the Senate wedging Medicaid policy into the budget, but they added several policy amendments themselves.

A few would limit abortion, and the Democrats who hold a slight edge in the Senate will try to strip them out of a final spending bill.

Another House amendment would order Attorney General Mark Herring to stay out of the federal case targeting Virginia's gay marriage ban. A judge declared that ban unconstitutional earlier this month, shortly after Herring announced that his office was switching sides and would argue against it.

The amendment would also allow the speaker of the House to appoint an attorney to pursue an appeal in that case, and to argue for any other Virginia laws the attorney general declines to support.

Funding for those attorneys would come out of the attorney general's budget.

In the end, the competing budget proposals and their Medicaid components moved forward on largely party-line votes, but with some exceptions. In the Senate three Republicans — John C. Watkins of Midlothian, Emmett W. Hanger Jr. of Mount Solon and Walter A. Stosch of Glen Allen — voted to add the Senate's Medicaid policy to the budget.

Those three helped roll the plan out earlier this year. Instead of directly expanding Medicaid, it uses the same federal tax dollars to purchase private insurance plans for people through a new system called "Marketplace Virginia." Hospitals and a number of business groups support the idea, at least in part because it will pump billions into Virginia's economy.

This same proposal was voted down in the House Thursday, 67-32. One Republican, Del. Tom Rust, R-Herndon, voted for it. One Democrat, Johnny S. Joannou, D-Porstmouth, voted against. Joannou is a member of the legislature's Medicaid Innovation and Reform Commission, which House Republicans want to use as a reform vehicle on Medicaid before they'll consider expansion.

Peninsula legislators voted with their parties on this issue.

Fain can be reached at 757-525-1759.

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