Tennessee won’t expand Medicaid

Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam’s plan to expand Medicaid under ObamaCare died Wednesday in the state Senate after it was voted down by the Health and Welfare Committee.

Haslam, a Republican, failed to garner enough support among members of his own party. Only three of the 10 Republicans on the Health panel voted for the plan; the final vote was 7 to 4 against expansion.

{mosads}Republican Speaker Beth Harwell predicted there would not be enough votes in the full House, either.

Experts predicted that Haslam’s proposal would face trouble in the GOP-dominated legislature.

Despite strong support from provider groups in the state — especially hospitals — fiscal conservatives claimed the plan would drain state coffers.

The Insure Tennessee proposal would have provided 280,000 low-income residents of the state with federally funded healthcare.

The two-year pilot program was designed to subsidize employer-based healthcare coverage for some workers and place others on the state’s Medicaid program, with incentives added for healthy living.

The proposal’s failure to pass comes one week after Republican-led Indiana announced that it would pursue an alternative Medicaid expansion under the healthcare law.