Where has Proposition 3, the infamous ballot initiative to expand health care that Utahns voted in favor of last November, gone?
Well, as usual, lawmakers decided that they knew better than their constituents. As the curtains were closing on the 2019 legislative session, our lawmakers underhandedly passed a different version of Medicaid than chosen by the people. Now we are paying for a version of Medicaid that covers less people but is more expensive.
Currently as a state we are stuck in a bad game of tennis — flinging waivers back and forth with the federal government as our opponent. Our legislators are trying to bend the rules in order to appease their conscience — trying to prove that their decision to go against their beloved constituents was right.
Submit a waiver to put work requirements on Medicaid enrollees: accepted (to a degree). Submit more waivers to get more federal funding: rejected.
Well, how has all of this back and forth played out? We now have expanded Medicaid. With restrictions.
Full expansion as written in Prop. 3 is set to be implemented by this July if waivers submitted by the state keep getting denied. Presuming our lawmakers want to avoid the embarrassment of admitting they made the wrong decision and apologize to their subjects, they had better come up with an escape plan. Quick!
Lillian Norseth, Salt Lake City