NASHVILLE (AP) - House Republican leader Gerald McCormick said Tuesday that Gov. Bill Haslam's proposal to extend health coverage to 280,000 low-income Tennesseans would pass comfortably in a full floor vote but faces an uphill battle in legislative committees.
McCormick's comments came in the first committee hearing on Haslam's Insure Tennessee plan after lawmakers convened a special legislative session the previous evening. An overflow crowd of supporters and opponents jammed the committee room and hallways of the legislative office complex.
"It's important to note what this resolution does not do: It does not implement Obamacare in Tennessee," McCormick said. "If the governor had wanted to do that, he could have done that in 2013 very quickly without any debate."
Instead, McCormick said, the governor spent 21 months negotiating special deal for Tennessee that includes market-based elements like vouchers to buy private insurance, co -pays and assurances that the state could pull out of the deal if ends up being more expensive than expected.
Hospitals have pledged to cover the $74 million state share, meaning taxpayers wouldn't be on the hook to pay for extra health insurance costs.
Craig Becker, president of the Tennessee Hospital Association, said the Medicaid expansion would help make up for $7.8 billion in cuts that state hospitals are facing over a decade following the passage of the federal health care law.
"It is absolutely a lifeline for hospitals, particularly our rural hospitals," Becker said.
Opponents of the Insure Tennessee proposal object to adding to the federal debt by having the state draw down $2.8 billion in federal money under President Barack Obama's health care law. Others say they don't trust the federal government to keep promises to allow Tennessee to withdraw from the plan.
Justin Owen, president and CEO of the conservative Beacon Center of Tennessee , said the federal government could reinterpret any agreement after the fact and refuse to allow the state to pull out of the plan.
"If you cannot answer yes to the question 'Can you trust the federal government,' then you should not vote to expand Medicaid in this state," Owen told lawmakers.
Haslam has acknowledged that he would need the votes of all 26 Democrats to get the necessary 50 to pass the measure in the House. But first, the measure would have to get there.
"I believe we would have the votes to pass it on the floor with a comfortable margin," McCormick said. "This committee is the one committee where quite frankly we have challenging numbers.
"If we don't get out of this committee, the bill doesn't pass," he said.
McCormick noted that most of same lawmakers deciding the fate of the Insure Tennessee program also receive government-subsidized health insurance. The Chattanooga Times Free Press reported earlier this week that 116 of 132 m embers of the GOP-controlled General Assembly are enrolled in the state's health insurance plan.
Former Scott County prosecutor Paul Phillips spoke in favor at the measure, noting that the hospital in his rural area closed for 18 months before reopening in 2013. During that time, Phillips said his mother, now 94, had to travel more than an hour to the nearest emergency room.
"We thought she wouldn't survive," he said. "Many other Tennesseans are in similar positions if their rural hospitals have to close.
"If my mother could be here today ... she might shake her cane at you, and say 'Support this Republican governor's proposal.'"