Maine Republican Gov. Paul LePage is being sued for blocking the state’s expansion of Medicaid after voters approved a ballot measure to extend the program to low-income residents.
The provision, which was created under Obamacare, would expand the government-funded Medicaid program to anyone making less than roughly $16,800 a year. An estimated 70,000 people in the state are expected to sign up for the program.
Voters in November passed Medicaid expansion through a ballot measure that had the support of 59 percent of voters. Under the law, Maine must submit an application for expansion to the federal government by April 3 and have the program expanded by July 2.
The lawsuit filed Monday is led by Maine Equal Justice Partners, an anti-poverty group that also led the ballot movement in the state.
LePage, who is in his last year in office, opposes Medicaid expansion and said he would not allow the expansion until the legislature finds a way to fund the program without tax hikes and without taking money from the state’s surplus funds. He has vetoed Medicaid expansion in the state five times.
State lawmakers have approved $3.8 million in spending to help cover the administrative costs of expansion but the funding is caught up in ongoing negotiations on other matters.
Under the way Obamacare was written, all states were originally intended to expand Medicaid, but a Supreme Court decision made the provision optional. The law specifies that the federal government is to cover 100 percent of the expansion costs beginning in 2014 but that support dwindles to 90 percent by 2020, giving the states responsibility to pick up the rest.
