(Bloomberg) — Republican-led states that blocked Obamacare's Medicaid expansion have found a way to embrace it, under pressure from businesses to tap the flood of federal dollars it brings.
Tennessee's Republican Gov. Bill Haslam called lawmakers into a special session this week to consider accepting federal money to extend public health-care assistance to more of the poor. Indiana announced its expansion last week. Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Utah and Wyoming are considering it. All are adding free-market, anti-welfare embellishments that backers say distance the proposals from a federal program they once spurned.
"We kept looking at it and looking at it," said Charlie Howorth, executive director of the Tennessee Business Roundtable, who supports the governor's plan. "We saw the mood shift from pure politics to pragmatism."
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