Matt Salo on Medicaid Expansion's Political Aftermath

Patience and compromise will be key to healing political rifts caused by Medicaid expansion, explained Matt Salo, executive director of the National Association of Medicaid Directors.

Transcript (slightly modified)

We’re seeing more states choosing to expand Medicaid, but what do you think it would take to get all states to expand?

In order to get all states to expand Medicaid, you’re going to need a combination of just time. A lot of the opposition, not all, but a lot of the opposition is political, certainly some is ideological. But if it’s political, then you’re going to need time for some of those political wounds to heal. You know, if you consider the fact that some of the opposition comes from state legislators who have been campaigning their entire elected career against the Affordable Care Act, it’s going to take some time for them to figure out, how are they able to politically pivot and embrace something that they’ve been running against.

So like I said, I think some of that’s just going to take time, but the other piece is going to be, it’s going to take more willingness on the part of the administration, and at this point that’s likely the next administration, to be able to meet those states halfway when it comes to designing different approaches to how do you actually operationalize the expansion.