Obama pushes state Medicaid expansion in healthcare hub Nashville

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

US | Wed Jul 1, 2015 4:28pm EDT

Obama pushes state Medicaid expansion in healthcare hub Nashville

NASHVILLE, TENN. | BY JULIA EDWARDS

Fresh from another Supreme Court validation of his landmark healthcare law, President Barack Obama visited healthcare hub Nashville, Tennessee on Wednesday to push state governments to expand the Medicaid health program for the poor.

Obamacare, as the president's law is known, envisions a major expansion of the program, but nearly half of all U.S. states, mostly Republican-controlled, have rejected that part of the law. The Tennessee legislature voted against an expansion in February, joining 21 other states in doing so.

Without expansion, 6.9 million low-income Americans, including 292,000 in Tennessee, will not get Medicaid assistance, said the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Taking questions at an elementary school, Obama urged Republicans state legislators to “open your hearts and think about the people here in Tennessee who are working hard and struggling and just need a little bit of help.”

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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/01/us-usa-healthcare-obama-idUSKCN0PB5T520150701

[KamaAina]

1. Where's Gov. Hamlin?

Anyone? Bueller?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026925644

[GeorgeGist]

2. Haslam had other plans.

[KamaAina]

3. Like what?

A ribbon-cutting at a shopping center in Chattanooga?