Mainstream media outlets across Tennessee continue to beat the drum for expanding Medicaid, hoping to sway most Volunteer State residents to see things their way. But, as The Tennessee Star reported, expanding Medicaid brings peril. A recent Tennessean article tried to make the case for expanded Medicaid. Opinion pieces in The Memphis Commercial Appeal and The Murfreesboro Post tried to do the same. The Tennessean, for instance, wrote about how voters in deep-red Utah, Nebraska, and Idaho approved ballot initiatives to expand Medicaid. “The results appear to show increasing non-partisan voter support for expansion, which was once a political lightning rod because of its legal framework under the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare,” according to The Tennessean. “But, as nearly three-fourths of the nation have now expanded Medicaid, a critical question remains: Will Tennessee?” If the program were to expand, the paper went on to say, more than 300,000 Tennesseans would qualify for coverage. Tennessee, the paper added, loses out on about $1.4 billion in federal taxpayer funding per year. Writing for The Commercial Appeal, McKenzie Mayor Jill Holland told readers that state taxpayers would pay nothing if Tennessee expanded Medicaid. Hospitals, she said, would pay the state’s share of the…
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