CROSSFIRE

GOP Govs: We Won't Expand Medicaid

Hardline approach unpopular among independents, poll finds.

It wasn’t all good news last week for supporters of the Affordable Care Act. While upholding the ACA’s beefing-up of Medicaid to more low-income Americans, the Supreme Court also ruled that the federal government cannot punish states that refuse to expand Medicaid eligibility by withholding funding elsewhere. This is likely to embolden GOP governors opposed to the law, and a ThinkProgress poll on Monday reveals that ten of them claim they will definitely refuse ACA funding for Medicaid. If they follow through, ThinkProgress estimates, almost 3.5 million people who would have been eligible for coverage will be denied it. Meanwhile, a new poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation suggests that this hardline approach may turn off middle-of-the-road voters, who will be vital in a close election. Fifty-one percent of independent voters, the poll found, agreed that the GOP should “stop their efforts to block the law and move on to other national problems.”