Habeeb Wants Health Care Expansion Separated From Budget

Greg Habeeb
Greg Habeeb

8th District delegate Greg Habeeb calls it “amazingly productive,” when he talks about the recent General Assembly session. Standards of Learning and ethics reform, changes to mental health laws (prompted by the Creigh Deeds’ tragedy), transportation funding and changes that could result in more judges where needed are among the success stories that the Salem-based delegate said he can point to.

Now Habeeb “looks forward” to a return trip to Richmond for a special session called for by Governor Terry McAuliffe on March 24. That trip is necessary because legislators did not sign off on a new budget. The sticking point there is health care expansion to cover more low-income Virginians, whether it is Medicaid expansion or some sort of private insurance option, still bolstered by federal funds.

McAuliffe said he would not sign a budget that didn’t include some sort of health care expansion, claiming the Commonwealth is leaving millions of dollars a day on the table – money it could be getting back from the federal government. Habeeb is not a big fan of either direct Medicaid expansion or of a private option floated by some lawmakers, but in any case he said the health care issue should be de-coupled from the budget.

Habeeb called the mental health reforms passed “a pretty strong compromise,” containing many of the elements called for by State Senator Creigh Deeds, who was attacked by his son Gus last year after he was released from the mental health system when a bed could not be found within a four-hour period. Gus Deeds later took his own life. More funding for mental health prevention was also passed into law. Habeeb said legislators did “a good job” of balancing mental health reforms with the costs of doing so.

As for health care expansion, Habeeb said he “got out of the prediction business” after his first session several years ago, but he claims the House and Senate budgets on the table are very close, maybe 99% of the way towards an accord – except for the health care expansion issue. There’s more funding for K-12 education, public safety and the health safety net.

But McAuliffe and Democrats in the Senate “have improperly inserted Obamacare into the budget,” adds Habeeb, who is a lawyer by trade. He’s hoping that once the Governor and his supporters hear from local governments about how their funding is at risk due to the budget standoff, they’ll back down and pass a “clean” budget, leaving health care expansion for yet another special session.

Habeeb said private options may even be “much more expensive than the original Medicaid model,” and he has doubts as to where funding would come from at the state or federal level on a long-term basis. “We can have that discussion [however] once we decouple it from the budget.”

Habeeb believes McAuliffe is still learning the ropes: “we’ve never brought a major policy issue into the budget the way this governor is trying to. I think this governor, who’s just figuring out how Richmond works is eventually going to realize that this isn’t the way we negotiate the budget. This issue should come out. Let us pass the budget and then negotiate this big issue separately.”

That’s Habeeb’s hope – but he calls it a “wait and see” proposition.

By Gene Marrano

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