And One More Thing….

Legislative update 2.0

The week was so very busy, so busy, that I was unable to comment on everything important in one post. I want to talk about at least one more thing.

SB 186 – Medicaid expansion. I have traditionally, prior to recent information and events, opposed medicaid expansion. The reasons I initially opposed were that I personally thought it would triage patients to the acute care settings and strain an already strained place in our healthcare system, all the while not getting the patients the PRIMARY care disease prevention and health promotion arm of healthcare. I wanted to see the actual research on what it did to our workforce and healthcare outcomes. I didn’t have that data in front of me and wanted to give the right care to patients in the right place. I had concerns about expansion.

Enter into the picture Obamacare, several proposed ballot measures, and a huge surge in mental health problems due to a pandemic. My colleague Senator Steinhauer, who is also the Chair of Health and Human Services, is an excellent Senator who does the hard work. The last day of 2021 session he told me that he was going to dive deeply into this subject as he himself wasn’t sure what we as a Legislature should do and what kind of success the ballot measures would have.

Senator Steinhauer sifted through a very complicated process, gathered the evidence, ran the numbers himself, collected numbers objectively from all the vested parties, and asked to sit down with several of us to discuss his findings. He put many many hours into this and I was definitely going to hear him out.

I found myself unable to argue with the data. Data shows that medicaid expansion actually strengthens our Blue Collar workforce and keeps them working. It improves healthcare outcomes, strengthens families, and improves quality of life amongst the working poor. The polling on the ballot measures shows that that they will likely be very successful. I have seen so many instances where we catch patients in an acute care setting, when if intervened upon earlier, so much money would have been saved. The conservative Republican idea would be to oppose medicaid expansion. The right thing to do with where we are now and the data, is to support medicaid expansion.

I went to the people. I discussed this with my constituents in District 21 when I was obtaining my petition signatures and during Cracker Barrel’s. Guess what, other conservative Republicans get it too. I think we have a job to do, although difficult, and now is the time to get it done. I feel like I have the support from my District too, at this point.

I will plan to make a video regarding this topic, after the testimony in HHS Monday. Please reach out and let me know what your questions and ideas are regarding this VERY important legislation.

Warm regards,

Senator Tobin