Philip Klein of the Washington Examiner reports that Indiana Gov. Mike Pence appears to be having second thoughts about the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion.
Though Pence insists that his proposal to expand Medicaid with a program known as the Health Indiana Plan is a market-based solution, conservative critics point out that at the end of the day it still represents an expansion of government-run healthcare. If he has any interest in seeking the GOP nomination, his Medicaid plan — and the perception that he embraced a key tenet of Obamacare by pushing it — would become a major line of attack. But he may have an out.
On Thursday, Pence wrote a letter to Obama in which he requested a meeting to talk about the status of his proposal. In the letter, Pence made clear that he was prepared to walk away.
“I have been made aware that issues have arisen in my administration’s ongoing discussion with HHS that threaten to compromise the Healthy Indiana Plan’s effectiveness,” Pence wrote to Obama. “Our administration will not support efforts to remove or water down the Healthy Indiana Plan’s core principles, essentially changing this proven program into an expansion of traditional Medicaid.”
Pence said that in his meeting with Burwell, he would “make clear our expectation that the State of Indiana must retain the necessary flexibility to support any expansion of the Healthy Indiana Plan. …”
If HHS does not meet his terms, it’s pretty clear what Pence’s strategy would be if he were to run for president in 2016. If he were attacked for supporting the Medicaid expansion, he’d say he proposed a market-based alternative, and when the Obama administration wouldn’t agree to it, he backed out.