SC Democrats urge Republicans to expand Medicaid with help of new federal stimulus law
South Carolina Senate Democrats on Tuesday aimed to put pressure on Gov. Henry McMaster and Republicans who control the Legislature to expand Medicaid and put more and low-income South Carolinians on the health insurance rolls.
“We’re one of only a dozen states in the country who have chosen not to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, denying thousands, really hundreds of thousands, of South Carolinians access to health care,” said Senate Minority Leader Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg.
“We have been under a series of Republican governors who have chosen not to expand Medicaid at the expense of the health and well being of the citizens of South Carolina and to the detriment of billions of dollars that would pour into our health care system, helping many rural hospitals along the way,” Hutto added.
The federal stimulus law — known as the American Rescue Plan that sent checks to millions of Americans because of COVID-19 — included a measure giving 12 states the opportunity and the money attached to expand Medicaid coverage.
The federal dollars would last two years for states who take advantage of the Medicaid expansion. More than one million South Carolina adults and children get their health insurance through the state-federal program. Though studies vary, if the state expanded the program, roughly 100,000 South Carolinians could be added to the rolls, with the federal government covering 90% of added Medicaid costs and 5% more for two years — a net amount of about $600 million in the first year.
Under the current program, the state pays about 30% of the cost now, while the federal government picks up about 70%.
That additional benefit on top of adding jobs and saving rural hospitals, Democrats say, should be enough to expand.
Supporters of expanding Medicaid have said that improving people’s access to health care would ultimately lower costs on the state by ensuring more people seek care for health issues before they become severe and costly to treat.
“To expand Medicaid in South Carolina, as far as I’m concerned, is a no-brainer,” said state Sen. Kevin Johnson, D-Clarendon, who files a bill every year to expand the program. “I think if the pandemic has shown us nothing else, it’s shown us the importance of the need to have quality health care, affordable health care in South Carolina.”
But Republican leaders and the governor are not budging.
Many are critical of what they say are long-term costs of expanding the program that the state would eventually be on the hook for.
South Carolina’s Republican governors have refused over the years to expand Medicaid under former President Barack Obama’s health care law and legislative efforts to address the expansion have gone nowhere.
McMaster, a Columbia Republican, has repeated his position, as recent as Tuesday, that he doesn’t plan to take advantage of the measure.
“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 provided to The Associated Press. “What the federal spending plan does is attempt to offer a short term solution for a long term problem.”
House Republican leadership agreed. “We are with the governor,” House Majority Leader Gary Simrill, R-York, told The State.
Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, R-Edgefield, also told reporters Tuesday he would not support expansion.
Speaking personally, Massey said, “I’ve got a real philosophical problem with giving free stuff to able-bodied adults.”
“I think there are negative cultural implications to that. And so regardless of how much it costs, I think there are real concerns about moving to an environment where everything is free.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
This story was originally published March 30, 2021 at 1:05 PM.
