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Governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia says he will not “waste” time and money expanding Medicaid, but his non-cooperation with Obama’s Affordable Health Care Act has nothing to do with “playing politics.”
McDonnel said on Sunday that he and his Republican colleagues believe that rejecting Obamacare is not political posturing but rather is merely being responsible public servants.
“Expanding Medicaid without fixing Medicaid is a terrible idea,” McDonnell, said on CNN’s political interview program “State of the Union.”
There is a feeling among Republican governors that given the chance that Mitt Romney might be elected president come November, it is a waste of time and money to expand Medicaid now when Romney has promised not only to exempt states that do not want to comply with Obamacare, but to completely nullify the law if he becomes president.
The Affordable Health Care Act was given the go ahead last month by the US Supreme Court, and calls for the federal government to pay for 100 percent of the costs of expanding Medicaid for the next five years. After 2017 the federal government will cover less of the cost until 2020 when it will pay 90 percent of the expansion. McDonnell’s response to this was that over the years prudent states have learned to be skeptical of federal promises.