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.