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A Wyoming legislative committee voted Wednesday to reject Gov. Matt Mead's suggestion that the state expand Medicaid to offer coverage to about 20,000 low-income residents. The Joint Appropriations Committee voted to strip Medicaid expansion out of the state Health Department budget in the recommendations it will send to the full Legislature. Lawmakers convene in Cheyenne next month to craft a two-year state budget. Despite Wednesday's committee vote, the full Legislature could still consider a stand-alone bill on the expansion issue or consider it as a proposed amendment to the committee's budget recommendations. (Neary, 1/20)

The legislature’s Joint Appropriations Committee has rejected a request by Governor Matt Mead to include Medicaid Expansion in the state budget. Casper Republican Representative Tim Stubson says expanding Medicaid in the budget would remove some cost containment provisions that lawmakers included in previous legislation. He noted a study that said expansion would pull 5-thousand people out of the state’s insurance market. (Beck, 1/20)

The Department of Health and Hospitals is now forecasting that Louisiana's Medicaid rolls could swell to nearly 450,000 people after initially projecting that as many as 300,000 uninsured could be covered under the federally funded program. The department had originally based its projections based on U.S. Census data that counted about 306,000 people as uninsured. But there is also a population of about 130,000 people who are part of the state program who are eligible to receive screening and treatment for sexually transmitted infections (STI) even if they aren't eligible for Medicaid coverage. (Litten, 1/20)