By Hank Stephenson | Arizona Capitol Times
A legislative panel today killed the Medicaid expansion portion of the state budget, leaving supporters with options that include using a strike everything amendment on a new health bill to bring the measure to a vote from the full House or suspending the House rules altogether.
In a contentious two hour meeting, Tom Betlach, the director of the state’s Medicaid system, told members of the panel they faced three options when dealing with the healthcare portion of the budge: Kill the bill outright and suffer collateral damage to all the other health policies included in it, strip Medicaid expansion from the proposal and move it forward, or support Gov. Jan Brewer’s top legislative priority and approve Medicaid expansion.
On a 7-4 party line vote, the committee chose the first option, shooting down the bill containing Medicaid expansion and all other health policy in the budget.
But Democrats were unfazed by the move.
