EDITORIAL: The real Obamacare nightmare would be lost coverage for Hoosiers

South Bend Tribune (IN)

March 22--Vice President Mike Pence has promised that the "nightmare'' of Obamacare will soon end.

But Indiana Democrats -- and the state's Republican governor -- are hoping that the Medicaid expansion that Pence proudly launched thanks to the health care law survives.

The proposal in Congress to replace the Affordable Care Act would slash Medicaid -- the cuts are estimated at $880 billion through 2026, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Democrats have warned that these cuts could have an alarming effect in Indiana for Hoosiers on Pence's Healthy Indiana Plan 2.0, which expanded Medicaid in 2015 thanks to funds available through the ACA.

At the time, Pence, who has repeatedly referred to Medicaid as a "broken'' program, lauded the consumer-driven HIP 2.0 as the future of health care.

In a letter to Indiana's congressional delegation, Statehouse Democrats are asking them to defend HIP 2.0 from cuts backed by President Donald Trump. The letter calls for "serious answers" on how HIP coverage and overall health care policy could be affected.

Last week, Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb, a Republican, called on Congress to spare Medicaid funding as they overhaul the ACA, saying he wants to make sure "we're compassionate and cover the Hoosiers that we are right now."

He added, "I completely believe that we need to fix the Affordable Care Act and repeal was the right first step. But the devil is always in the details."

Here's one detail that shouldn't be swept aside: More than 400,000 poor people in Indiana have health insurance as a result of the Medicaid expansion that Pence has championed as one of the great accomplishments of his governorship.

So far, Pence hasn't commented on how the plan he's selling as vice president could undo one of his signature achievements as governor. Or, most significantly, how that would affect the low-income Hoosiers enrolled in HIP 2.0.

But we can look to his words of January 2016, on the one-year anniversary of HIP 2.0, long before President Donald Trump, before the American Health Care Act. In an op-ed than ran in newspapers throughout the state, Pence praised the program, then looked to the future: After Obamacare is repealed, there will need to be a "transition period," he said, "allowing a new administration in Washington the ability to reform Medicaid and provide states even more flexibility to innovate and strengthen programs like HIP 2.0."

Fortunately, Pence is in a position to help ensure that bright and promising future he once envisioned for a stronger and even better HIP 2.0 -- and for the hundreds of thousands of Indiana residents insured through the program -- comes to pass.

In the past we have praised the former governor for the successful implementation of HIP 2.0. Even though we favored traditional Medicaid expansion, it wasn't difficult to support the alternative Pence offered. Now it's time for the vice president to offer his support to the program he developed -- and the Hoosiers who have benefited from it.

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