Despite Last Year’s Losses, Activists Plan Another Push For Insure Tennessee

Backers of Gov. Bill Haslam’s plan to expand Medicaid say they’ll push just as hard in this year’s legislative session.

And they sought to demonstrate their support Tuesday by lining corridors and chanting inside the state Capitol as legislators returned to Nashville.

Haslam’s proposal would extend Medicaid to a quarter-million people. But Insure Tennessee never made it to the floor of either chamber last year, failing three times.

Justin Jones, a senior at Fisk University who has been one of the leading organizers in support of Insure Tennessee, says activists plan to make lawmakers sorry they didn’t pass the measure, by planning to protest every Monday until Insure Tennessee makes it to a full vote.

“It’s a crisis when people are suffering needlessly when this should have been done,” he said. “That’s the whole key. This should have been done yesterday.”

About 150 people rallied at the Capitol shortly before noon. Afterward, they formed a gauntlet for legislators to walk through as they made their way into the House and Senate chambers.

The demonstration reprised similar events last spring.

The odds against Insure Tennessee remain long. Haslam says he won’t push his proposal again unless he’s convinced it has a better chance of passing the state’s conservative legislature in 2016.

But state Sen. Jeff Yarbro, D-Nashville, says there are reasons for optimism.

“Since last session, you’ve seen the Supreme Court uphold the Affordable Care Act. You’ve seen state after state—including red states like Louisiana, South Dakota—start making progress on expanding Medicaid. And we’ve actually seen the consequences of inaction, which are hospitals closing, hospitals being pressed and people going without insurance.”