McAuliffe win gives boost to chances of Virginia expanding Medicaid

The odds of Virginia becoming the next big state to expand Medicaid under the healthcare reform law increased Tuesday night when Democrat Terry McAuliffe won the state's gubernatorial election.

McAuliffe has been a strong supporter of expanding Medicaid to include all adults earning up to 138% of the federal poverty level, vowing during the campaign to make it a top priority if elected.

“I will not sign a budget in Virginia unless it includes the Medicaid expansion,” McAuliffe was quoted as saying in an interview with the AARP in August.

His opponent, GOP Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, has been one of the fiercest critics of the healthcare law and the Medicaid expansion, spearheading the lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the law that eventually was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court last year.

McAuliffe will have to convince legislative Republicans, who control the General Assembly and have half the seats in the Senate, to go along with the expansion. In addition, a law passed this year requires a special 10-member legislative commission to consider Medicaid reforms before the state can go ahead with expansion. As many as 400,000 low-income individuals are projected to be eligible for Medicaid coverage in Virginia if the program is expanded.

McAuliffe has said Virginia would stand to gain as much as $2 billion a year in federal funding through Medicaid expansion and that the expansion would create as many as 30,000 jobs. Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the federal government would cover 100% of the cost of expansion for the first three years, and 90% after that.

Follow Steven Ross Johnson on Twitter: @MHSjohnson