Some Republicans say his push to expand the health-care program could lead to something less appealing: a government shutdown.
“I will not sign a budget in Virginia unless it includes the Medicaid expansion,” McAuliffe said this summer in an interview with AARP. He made a similar comment at a dinner with Loudoun County Democrats, the Loudoun Times reported in June.
Given overwhelming opposition to expansion in the GOP-dominated House of Delegates, that campaign promise amounts to a threat to hold the state budget hostage to McAuliffe’s Medicaid goal, some Republicans say. Critics say it also shows that McAuliffe, who has billed himself as a bipartisan consensus builder, would take a highly partisan, autocratic approach to governing.
“Terry McAuliffe wants to paint himself as a bipartisan problem-solver, but he’s already drawing red lines and threatening Washington-style government shutdowns here in Virginia,” said House Speaker William J. Howell (R-Stafford).
McAuliffe’s campaign said he was not threatening a shutdown, just expressing the importance he places on expansion.
“Medicaid expansion is a top priority for Terry and a goal shared by mainstream Republicans in Virginia and across the country,” McAuliffe spokesman Josh Schwerin said in an e-mail. “Nobody is arguing for a government shutdown. Terry hopes to work in a bipartisan way to get this mainstream accomplishment done.”
