Nevada Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval on Tuesday said he doesn’t want Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion to end, putting him at odds with the state’s Republican senator, Dean Heller, who wants to gradually phase it out.
The divide comes as Heller shifted last week to support a seven-year phaseout of the Medicaid expansion. Senate Republicans are working on their own version of healthcare reform, and Medicaid is a major sticking point.
Sandoval, who expanded Medicaid in 2013 under Obamacare, said he wants to try to keep Medicaid “the way it is because it’s been beneficial to Nevada,” according to a report in the Nevada Independent.
“I think the House bill has a two-year ramp, I’ve heard seven, I’ve heard five,” according to the report. “Obviously my preference is that it stay the way it is, that has always been something that I’ve spoken for and fought for on behalf of the newly eligibles.”
Heller’s spokesman told the Reno Gazette-Journal that the senator’s comments on a seven-year phaseout came as negotiations continue in the Senate.
The Senate hasn’t decided what to do on the Medicaid expansion.
Centrists such as Heller and Sens. Rob Portman of Ohio and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia are pushing for a seven-year phaseout of the Medicaid expansion. But leadership is more inclined to make it three years.
No legislative text has emerged from the healthcare talks and no deadline has been set for holding a vote on the Senate version of the American Health Care Act, which passed the House last month. The House version kept the Medicaid expansion in place until 2020 and then converted federal funding into a per capita cap or a block grant.
