Wyoming Joins Call For End To Medicaid Expansion

Every state carries Medicaid.

Some states have expanded the program under the offer of even more federal money.

Wyoming is one of several states that has resisted that expansion but joined a type of expansion due to Covid.

Twenty-five governors, including Mark Gordon of Wyoming, have signed a letter to President Joe Biden asking him to end the federal public health emergency, due to Covid, in April, saying Medicaid costs are costing their states millions.

Each state has been receiving extra money for Medicaid during the PHE. Under the rules, they are not allowed to remove anyone from the program's rolls until either one month before the PHE ends, the month it ends, or the month after it ends, according to Medicaid.gov.

President Biden extended the PHE with no indication of when it will end.

This might sound like a good thing. So what's the problem, as the states see it?

The problem is that Twenty million people have joined the Medicaid program since the PHE began nearly three years ago. The states have had to pick up that cost.

Like the federal government, the states don't have the money for that many people.

"While the enhanced federal match provides some assistance to blunt the increasing costs due to higher enrollment numbers in our Medicaid programs, states are required to increase our non-federal match to adequately cover all enrollees and cannot disenroll members from the program unless they do so voluntarily," the governors said in their letter. "Making the situation worse, we know that a considerable number of individuals have returned to employer sponsored coverage or are receiving coverage through the individual market, and yet states still must still account and pay for their Medicaid enrollment in our non-federal share."

The letter from the governor goes on to say,

"You recognized this yourself in a 60 Minutes interview in September when you said, 'The pandemic is over,'" the governors said. "Additionally, the United States Senate passed a bipartisan resolution, 61-37, to terminate the national emergency on November 15, 2022. We agree with both your statement and the Senate's resolution – it is time we move on from the pandemic and get back to life as normal."

The letter was signed by the governors of New Hampshire, Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming.

In the state of Wyoming, there is, once again, the push for Medicaid expansion, unrelated to Covid.

Those states that have signed on to expansion are now facing the same problems as we see here under Medicaid Covid relief.

Too many people taking advantage of the system and the government does not have the money to cover the costs.