Mead echoed some of the fears that many Wyoming hospital officials have expressed for months: that congressional proposals to overhaul the health care system may have negative effects on facilities here and that the state has suffered because it chose not to allow more people to qualify for Medicaid.
“The idea that we did not accept Medicaid expansion and things are going to be good just hasn’t turned out,” he said.
He said that because the state didn’t expand Medicaid — a proposal he supported in the past — Wyoming has missed out on $100 million a year in federal aid. He added that in Wyoming, the program is currently facing a $20 million deficit.
“I’m not going back in time, but when you’re turning away $100 million a year as a state because you don’t want to be part of the (Affordable Care Act), I mean, it’s a problem,” he said.
He still supported expansion but said the Legislature likely would be even less interested in the coming session, given the uncertainty coming from Washington.
He thought the proposals from Congress to overhaul the Affordable Care Act were a “mixed bag.” While he supported keeping protections for chronically ill Americans and allowing younger adults to stay on their parents’ insurance plans for longer, he worried there wasn’t enough in the bills to address Wyoming’s rural nature.
“Rural states are different, and I wanted to make sure we weren’t treated the same as a big state,” he said.
“The ACA, there’s certainly some room for improvement,” he continued. “But to throw it out just because it’s the ACA, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
