Medicaid expansion would benefit Hispanics

Hispanics — one of Democrats' key voting blocs — will be the biggest beneficiaries if President Obama's healthcare law is fully implemented, the law's supporters said Wednesday.

Jennifer Ng’andu, director of the Health and Civil Rights Policy Project at the National Council of La Raza, said Hispanics would see the biggest gains in healthcare coverage if the law is fully implemented, meaning every state opts in to the optional Medicaid expansion.

Several Republican governors have said they won't implement the Medicaid expansion, which would cover roughly 15 million people if every state took part. They have also vowed not set up their own insurance exchanges, but the administration has the authority to take over that task in reluctant states.

Some of the law's supporters, though, expect states to come around now that the election is over. 

Ron Pollack, executive director of the advocacy group Families USA, told reporters Wednesday that anti-"ObamaCare" rhetoric during the campaign season came from governors trying to be "holier than thou" within the GOP,  insisting on only the harshest rhetoric while hoping a Mitt Romney win would weaken the Affordable Care Act.

"Now that it's clear that the ACA is moving forward, I think a number of governors are going to re-evaluate their decisions," Pollack said on a conference call with La Raza on Wednesday.

He said governors would have a hard time turning down the Medicaid expansion. The federal government will shoulder 100 percent of the additional costs for the first few years, and though that share then begins to fall, it's not set to fall below 90 percent unless Congress steps in to make a change.

"I think it's going to be hard for a lot of these governors to leave that money on the table," Pollack said.

Liberals say Obama must resist Medicaid cuts in any deal on the "fiscal cliff" of automatic spending cuts and tax increases set to hit in January, or risk making it even less likely that GOP governors will sign on to the program's expansion. Although Obama floated Medicaid savings in earlier rounds of talks, liberals now argue that the Supreme Court's decision allowing states to opt out of the expansion makes it more important to avoid signaling that federal funding is vulnerable.

"Every indication I've received i think the White House is going to stand really strong on this," Pollack said.

---