Health care changes not a big deal in Nevada
By Andrew Doughman, Las Vegas Sun
Republicans nationwide are assailing President Obama for the deeply flawed rollout of his health care law.
But that campaign is muted somewhat in Nevada, where Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval has expanded the federal-state Medicaid program and has embraced a state-based health insurance exchange marketplace to serve about 600,000 uninsured Nevadans. Both programs are tenets of the Democratic president’s health care law.
Nevada Democrats were happy with the decisions, and most Nevada Republicans have been mum — with the exception of former Senate candidate Sharron Angle, who led protests against Sandoval’s exchange this month.
Such proposals have been controversial in other states with Republican governors. But Nevada is an outlier in both the decisions Sandoval made and the political comity surrounding his decisions.
New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez is the only other Republican governor to have fully implemented both the Medicaid expansion and a state-run health insurance exchange, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a national nonprofit focused on health policy.