Experts: Governors won't resist Medicaid expansion for long

Governors will eventually succumb to pressure to expand their Medicaid programs, a pair of healthcare experts predicted Thursday, arguing that the prospect of medical practices going out of business will force their hands. "The governor gets to decide whether these providers are going to go out of business," Dan Mendelson, president of Avalere Health, said. Gail Wilensky, who headed Medicaid for President George H.W. Bush, predicted that states resisting Medicaid expansion would reverse themselves within a few years—if only because the federal government plans to cover 100 percent of the costs for the first few years and 90 percent thereafter.