Republican Rep. T.J. Shope started out as a blank slate on Medicaid expansion, with no opinion on the governor’s proposal and no substantial background knowledge of the issue.

Rep. Carl Seel is pushing a plan to kill Gov. Jan Brewer’s Medicaid proposal by including a “circuit breaker” that would end the expansion if any of the new funding would go to abortion providers.

Opponents of Gov. Jan Brewer’s Medicaid expansion plan are concerned the proposed hospital tax that would pay for Arizona’s share of the new AHCCCS coverage may not last long, leaving the state on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

As the 2013 legislative session stretches past the 100-day mark and Gov. Jan Brewer struggles for dwindling Republican votes on her top agenda item, the Ninth Floor is redoubling its efforts to attract GOP votes for Medicaid expansion.

The federal government has told Arizona that it will not be able to continue cuts to its Medicaid program beyond the end of the year if it hopes to receive federal funding for a voter-approved expansion of the program.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer is bringing her Medicaid expansion charm offensive back to the Capitol as her staff continues to negotiate with legislative leaders who hold the key to bringing the proposal to a vote.

Limits on how the AHCCCS director would be able to use the unprecedented power provided under Gov. Jan Brewer’s Medicaid expansion plan have eased some worries, but not all.

One of two hospitals that held out support for Gov. Jan Brewer’s Medicaid expansion plan out of concerns the proposed hospital tax would cost more than they would get back is officially on board.

After Yavapai County jumped on board, three other county governments officially backed Gov. Jan Brewer’s proposal to expand Medicaid.

Gov. Jan Brewer forcefully declared that her proposal to expand the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System to hundreds of thousands of new patients is a pro-life plan. As a pro-life governor, she said, she will not sit idly by while people suffer. Since then, opponents of her plan have taken up the pro-life mantle in the Legislature.