Terry McAuliffe: Expanding Medicaid 'The Right Thing to Do' in Virginia

“It’s the right thing to do,” McAuliffe said of expanding Medicaid. “It would cover up to 400,000 Virginians with life-saving care … It’s mainstream.”

McAuliffe said he believed accepting federal Medicaid expansion in the Affordable Care Act (ACA), along with creating jobs, would also cut costs for providers like INOVA. If elected, he plans to include Medicaid expansion in all of his proposed budgets.

Expanding Medicaid would bring approximately 33,000 jobs to the Commonwealth by 2021, according to the Senate Finance Committee.

McAuliffe also said reform to Medicaid’s payment and delivery systems was badly needed.

Christine Candio, Inova Alexandria’s CEO, said Medicaid expansion would be critical to her hospital in the future.

“Medicaid expansion and reform is so key to us,” she said. “As Medicare continues to make cuts to providers, that’s going to become something that’ll help us.”

But Republicans think expanding the program would cost the Commonwealth dearly.

The ACA calls for the feds to fully cover the cost of additional beneficiaries for the first three years, starting in 2014. After that, the share of federal funding would gradually drop to 90 percent by 2020.

The GOP says there’s no way of guaranteeing the federal government would continue to fund 90 percent of the cost, and Virginia could be forced to pick up the rest of the tab.

But McAuliffe doesn’t buy it.

“To me, that’s just a false argument,” he said.

The campaign for Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, the Republican candidate for governor, criticized McAuliffe for supporting the ACA, saying some of the policies would cost hospitals Medicare funding — specifically, ACA’s readmission policy, which penalizes hospitals if too many of their patients are readmitted too soon after their initial release. Hospitals receive lower reimbursements from Medicare claims on each admitted patient.

“That’s one of our challenges,” said Candio, adding the hospital had established a transitional care management system to ensure that discharged patients continue to get care.

Josh Schwerin, McAuliffe’s press secretary, dismissed Cuccinelli’s attack.

“Cuccinelli is desperately trying to cover up the fact that his opposition to Medicaid expansion ... puts him far outside the mainstream of even his own party,” Schwerin said in an email.

Inova does not endorse, support, or oppose candidates for elective public office. All of the candidates appearing on the gubernatorial ballot will be offered a similar opportunity to tour an Inova facility, officials said.

Click here for more information on McAuliffe's stance on health care.