Roughly two hundred Medicaid expansion supporters rallied on the Capitol steps Monday, hoping to persuade lawmakers to provide health insurance to more than 24,000 low-income residents.
The Healthy Wyoming event marked the biggest rally ever held for Medicaid expansion in the state. Speakers included legislators, people without health insurance who have racked up huge medical bills, and small business owners who said expanding Medicaid will boost the state’s economy.
The coalition’s goal is to pass House Bill 20–Medical treatment opportunity act, which is sponsored by the Joint Revenue Committee.
“We know that people in all political parties support Medicaid expansion,” said Senate Revenue Committee Chairman Cale Case (R-Lander). “We know that no longer will a few people keep us from having Medicaid expansion in Wyoming.”
The Legislature rejected Medicaid bills for a decade before a similar measure to HB 20 passed the House last year. The bill failed in the Senate Labor, Health and Social Services Committee by one vote.
To win introduction in the House, HB 20 needs the support of two-thirds of the chamber’s 60 members. Getting to 40 votes is “a tough bar,” but an achievable one, Case said.
“We are very close,” agreed Rep. Pat Sweeney (R-Casper). “We need just a little bit of help, so keep the momentum moving.”
Sweeney said federal American Rescue Plan Act funds are available to Wyoming for Medicaid expansion. In the first two years, incentives would net the state an additional $34 million beyond expansion costs.
Kim Bartlett and John Fenton, Thermopolis small business owners, said they’ve had a difficult time meeting income guidelines to keep themselves and their employees receiving insurance on the federal Healthcare Marketplace.
Bartlett said Medicaid expansion would provide health insurance to many low-income workers in hotel, food service and other employment sectors.
“Wyoming has passed up a billion dollars in federal aid that could have directly impacted the people of Wyoming and provided healthcare for hard-working people who don’t have access,” Fenton said.
“These are our Wyoming tax dollars that we are allowing to go to other states,” Bartlett said. “This is our money, and we need to bring it home for our friends and neighbors.”
Fenton said too many people without health insurance are delaying health care treatment they need but can’t afford.
“These are our Wyoming tax dollars that we are allowing to go to other states. This is our money, and we need to bring it home for our friends and neighbors.”
“If you’re worried about being sick but you keep pushing things back so you can go to work, it’s eventually going to catch up to you,” he said. “People show up at hospitals with emergencies at the very last minute, and that small thing that could have been handled through preventative care becomes a large thing that takes you out of the job force.”
Myra Garcia of Laramie said doctors discovered she had cancer when she did not have health insurance. Her surgery to remove the tumor cost $285,000. Radiation treatments and chemotherapy have pushed her medical bills past a half-million dollars.
Garcia said she can’t understand why the Legislature failed to pass Medicaid expansion last year with the federal government paying 100 percent of the costs for the next two years. “There’s no reason at all that we’re saying no,” she said. “We need to pull together so we can be a healthy Wyoming.”
Case and Sweeney said if HB 20 fails in either the House or Senate, there is a back-up plan to expand Medicaid by including it in the state budget. “But we don’t want to deploy that unless we have to,” said Sweeney, who called HB 20 the best vehicle to get the job done.
“I believe if we can get a bill introduced in the House, we can get it all the way to the governor’s desk,” said Nate Martin, executive director of Better Wyoming.
After the rally, many attendees went into the Capitol to lobby legislators.
“There are a lot of people in this building that the only language they understand is political power and political pressure,” Martin said. “If they cannot understand the language of suffering from people who don’t have access to healthcare, if they can’t understand the language of business which says expansion of Medicaid is good for Wyoming’s economy, if they can’t understand the language of faith, which says life is sacred and healthcare is central to protecting life, then we will speak to them in the language they can understand – because guess what, we’ve got the numbers.”
If Medicaid expansion fails this session, he added, Healthy Wyoming will make it the number one issue of the 2022 election.
