RALPH NORTHAM, Virginia’s new Democratic governor, soundly beat his Republican rival, Ed Gillespie, by harnessing antipathy for Donald Trump. Virginia was the only Southern state that the president lost to Hillary Clinton in 2016. But Mr Northam's landslide win in November was also due to his promise to bring 300,000 uninsured Virginians under the umbrella of Medicaid, a federal health-care programme for the poor and disabled.
The governor's young administration now has a problem: there is no consensus in the Republican-controlled legislature for his chief policy goal. Under the Affordable Care Act, the federal government would pay 90% of the $2bn a year cost of expanding Medicaid; the state would raise the remaining 10% by taxing hospitals.
The low-key paediatric neurologist has moved closer in the first three months of his term to implementing this initiative than his predecessor, Terry McAuliffe, also a Democrat, did in four years. But Mr Northam has yet to close the deal—even with an unexpected boost from Republican...Continue reading
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