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The Wyoming House is set to debate Thursday whether the state should move to expand the federal Medicaid program. Rep. Dan Zwonitzer, R-Cheyenne, is sponsoring a Medicaid-expansion amendment to the pending supplemental budget bill in the House. The Wyoming Senate earlier this month rejected a freestanding Medicaid expansion bill. If the House approves Zwonitzer's amendment, it would go to a conference committee where a panel of representatives and senators must work out differences between the positions of both houses on the budget bill. (Neary, 2/18)

Supporters of full Medicaid expansion turned out in force Wednesday to oppose a Republican-sponsored alternative, saying it doesn’t go far enough in expanding government coverage for Montana’s poorest citizens. “Put aside ideology; do the right thing,” said Kevin Howlett, director of health care for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. “This bill doesn’t do it. You need to cover Montanans and the Montanans who need care. ... Yet the sponsor of House Bill 455, which would extend Medicaid coverage to about 10,000 additional poor parents, some veterans and the disabled, said opponents are creating a “false choice” between her bill and full expansion. (Dennison, 2/19)

When Gov. Pat McCrory strode into a packed room at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Cary Wednesday he was met by hundreds of hospital managers and officials who stood and gave him an extended ovation. But by the end of his speech to members of the North Carolina Hospital Association, McCrory had failed to say what many of those hospital officials were hoping to hear; that he was ready to expand North Carolina Medicaid, the combined state and federal program that pays for health care for low income children, some of their parents, pregnant women and many low-income seniors in nursing homes. (Hoban, 2/18)

Landing time in an Ohio prison could also soon get you help enrolling into health care coverage under Obamacare. Ohio is among a small but growing number of states working to enroll prisoners into Medicaid when they get sick and as they are being released. The move could save the state nearly $18 million this year alone in costs of providing health care to prisoners — money that would be shifted onto the federal government's tab. (Bernard-Kuhn, 2/18)