Gov. Gary Herbert's Healthy Utah plan on Wednesday got its first good news of the legislative session: a Senate committee recommended the bill that would enact his Medicaid expansion effort.Read up, folks:
The Senate Health and Human Services Committee voted 5-1 for SB164, proposed by Sen. Brian Shiozawa, R-Cottonwood Heights. It would extend health insurance to an estimated 95,000 low-income Utah adults, two-thirds of whom can't get subsidies under the Affordable Care Act or qualify for Medicaid. Sen. Allen Christensen, R-North Ogden, is a member of the committee but left the room before the vote. His own bill, SB153, would extend health insurance to [only] an estimated 10,000 people who are both poor and medically frail.
"It's the first step," Shiozawa, a physician, said afterward.
"The difference in money coming back to Utah from the federal government is stark," Shiozawa said. "$3.2 billion under Healthy Utah over the first five years versus $300,000 under Christensen's SB153. By 2021, Utahns and Utah businesses will be sending more than $700 million in Affordable Care Act taxes to Washington each year, and Healthy Utah is a way to get much of it back," he said.
Down in the Tribune reader comments section, Trib reader rorybreaker hits the nail squarely on the head:
Just admit it Cons, you have a choice to do the right thing or cut off your nose to spite your face.Yes, indeed. It's time for our Utah legislature to "Choose the Right," wethinks
