Despite vocal support by Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead, a Republican, the State Senate rejected a proposal to expand Medicaid. The vote means Wyoming will not receive $268 million in federal Medicaid expansion funding that would have provided health care coverage for 20,000 residents in the state.
Mead said he was “disappointed” by the vote, noting that “Wyoming’s hospitals continue to struggle with the burden of uncompensated care. Millions of federal tax dollars paid by Wyoming people will continue to flow to other states.”
The expansion had been supported by Wyoming employers, business associations and members of the public, Mead said.
“I opposed the Affordable Care Act and sued to stop it,” the governor acknowledged. “However, we lost the legal and political battles, and now we must deal with that fact. Wyoming receives approximately $2.3 billion in federal money each year. Medicaid expansion would add to that total.”
Without the expansion, he said, “We lose about $310,000 every day that could be going to help our citizens.”
The president of the Wyoming Hospital Association said the state’s hospitals deliver more than $114 million in unreimbursed care each year to uninsured residents of the state.
State Senator Charles Scott, R-Casper, led the opposition to expansion, which he called “a system that holds people into bondage to the welfare bureaucracy.”
The state legislature, which is comprised of 51 Republicans and 9 Democrats, rejected a similar Medicaid expansion proposal last year.