BIG STORY: Medicaid expansion popular to voters, but faces challenges

By Al Dozier, special to Statehouse Report  |  There is strong support to expand the federal Medicaid program in the Palmetto State across party lines with nearly eight in 10 South Carolina voters ages 50 and older registering their support, according to a new study by AARP. 

“We are seeing numbers that we’ve never seen before,” said Nikki Hutchison, associate state director for advocacy and governmental affairs for AARP in South Carolina.

A report on the study will soon be sent to lawmakers, Hutchison said.

Those findings could spark state leaders to reconsider a long-held stance against Medicaid expansion, which  could bring millions to the state to provide health care to more than 200,000 uninsured state residents..

“There is a buzz that wasn’t there before,” said Patrick Cobb, communications director for Columbia’s AARP office. “But it has to go through a process.”

Nearly two -thirds  of those surveyed say they would be extremely or very favorable toward state lawmakers who voted to expand Medicaid health care to South Carolina residents who earn less than $18,000 a year.

What expansion would mean

The financial benefit for the state would be  huge, AARP said.

In the new incentive plan, the state would get about $790 million over two years through the American Rescue Plan, but would have to pay $95 million a year for its 10 percent share of expansion for state residents. 

It’s money that “shouldn’t be left on the table,” said Cobb.

Sue Berkowitz, executive director of the S.C. Appleseed Legal Justice Center in Columbia, earlier this year said expansion made sense fiscally.

“Medicaid expansion has always been a cost-effective way for the state  to get health care coverage to low-wage workers through a state/federal partnership with the state paying 10 percent and the feds paying 90 percent.”   

Troubled waters ahead

S.C. Senate Minority Leader Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg, said “it’s not going to happen,” even though the benefits would be huge.

He said the Republican opposition will be too strong to overcome, despite the benefits the state would receive

Hutto said he did not anticipate the AARP study would sway the opposition.

But House  Minority Leader Todd Rutherford, D-Richland,  said “the time has come” for the state to stop turning its back on millions that could have gone to health care for the past several years.  If huge sums of tax money are available, it makes no sense to turn it down, he said.

“I’m hopeful,” he said of the current efforts under way to approve the expansion.

Instead of Medicaid expansion, it should be called “health care,” he said.

Gov. Henry McMaster has already announced strong opposition to the expansion. 

“Gov. McMaster isn’t for sale, regardless of whatever ill-conceived ‘incentives’ congressional Democrats may come up with,” spokesman Brian Symmes said in a statement to the Associated Press about the expansion. “What the federal spending plan does is attempt to offer a short term solution for a long- term problem.”

•  Al Dozier of Columbia is a veteran Statehouse reporter. Have a comment?  Send to feedback@statehousereport.com