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FM
Former Member
It's the hottest trend sweeping the nation: Refusing free money from the federal government to insure millions of poor people by expanding Medicaid. Today, the annual National Governors Association meeting kicks off in Williamsburg, Virginia and the topic du jour is the federal government's expansion of Medicaid under Obamacare. Some states welcome the federal funds, which aim to make 22 million uninsured Americans eligible for Medicaid beginning in 2014. Others want no part of it, fearing the program will explode state budgets. (Although the feds initially pay for 100 percent of the Medicaid expansion, that figure goes down to 90 percent by 2020.) Either way, today's conference puts Democratic and Republican governors who are on the fence about participating in the program in the political hot seat. The last few weeks have left news outlets scrambling to find out, who's in, who's out and who's wavering on the issue. Here's where the country stands based on data and recent interviews gleaned  from Reuters, USA Today, The Washington Post and The New York Times.  The Undecided In total 27 states have not decided whether to opt-in yet but, as The Washington Post's Felicia Sonmez notes, with a series of Republican governors already vowing to opt-out, this puts certain high-profile Republican governors in a tight spot. Chief among those: Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal, all of whom have not announced a position. On the Democratic side, N.C. Aizenman and Karen Tumulty note that "At least seven Democratic governors have been noncommittal about their willingness to go along with expanding their states’ Medicaid programs." The entire list includes: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Ohio, Oklahoma, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Delaware, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

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