Last week the General Assembly reconvened for a Special Session, passed a state budget and attempted to ensure that Governor McAuliffe would have no possible option of expanding Medicaid without securing full legislative concurrence. Two unexpected events had an enormous, and in my view, an unfortunate impact on the results of the Special Session.

A Health Care Showdown in Virginia

In Virginia, there are 400,000 low-income people who can’t afford health coverage but don’t qualify for federal insurance subsidies. If they lived across the state line in Maryland, West Virginia or Kentucky, which have expanded their Medicaid programs, they could get the coverage they need. Terry McAuliffe, the Virginia governor, campaigned on bringing an expanded Medicaid program to Virginia, too.