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Opponents Relaunch Bid To Overturn Arizona's Medicaid Expansion

Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System
(Photo courtesy of AHCCCS via Twitter)
Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System

State lawmakers who opposed the 2013 vote that added hundreds of thousands of people to Arizona's Medicaid program have launched a new bid to void the expansion.

In 2013, the vote raised eligibility for the program, known as Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, from 138 percent of federal poverty level-- about $20,000 a year for a family of three-- to 200 percent. Most of the cost is borne by the federal government.

But to pay the state's cost, then-Gov. Jan Brewer built a coalition of Democrats and some Republicans to levy a fee on hospitals. Opponents sued, contending it amounted to a tax. The Arizona Constitution requires a two-thirds vote for tax hikes, something the measure did not get.

A trial judge disagreed, accepting arguments that lawmakers structured the levy in a way to give discretion to the state's Medicaid director in how to raise the money, making it an assessment rather than a tax.

Attorney Christina Sandefur of the Goldwater Institute, representing the lawmakers opposed to expansion, is arguing to the Court of Appeals that the trial judge got it wrong.

"Basically, the trial court's ruling is allowing the Legislature to get around these constitutional provisions, to get around the supermajority requirement, just by labeling something a different way. And that is a very dangerous precedent to set," Sandefur said.

There are currently about 1.8 million people covered by the state's Medicaid program.

If the challengers succeed, the lack of state dollars could mean 350,000 of them would lose their state-provided health care.