There have been many good articles online about Medicaid expansion passing the General Assembly on May 30. Here’s a passage from an article in the Washington Post:

“RICHMOND — The Virginia legislature voted Wednesday to make government health insurance available to 400,000 low-income residents, overcoming five years of GOP resistance. The decision marks a leftward shift in the legislature and an enormous win for Gov. Ralph Northam (D), the pediatrician who ran on expanding access to health care.”

That piece by Laura Vozzella quotes Virginia Organizing leader Terry White:

“Terry White of Chesapeake greeted the news with ‘Thank you, Jesus!’ White, 50, lost private insurance when severe arthritis forced him to give up work in the Newport News shipyards in 2008. He uses a walker, has congestive heart failure and has been treated for prostate cancer, but he is ineligible for Medicaid under the current system. He has racked up enormous medical bills and had to move in with a sister. ‘That’s a blessing. That’s gonna help a lot of people.'”

Also, see this excellent analysis about how important the historic victory is.

And this piece by Senator Emmett Hanger about his work to produce the bipartisan compromise in the Augusta Free Press.

Finally, everyone at Virginia Organizing was delighted to see this piece by Adam Searing in the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute about our role in this victory:

“All this change didn’t happen in a vacuum. Virginia boasted a broad-based “Healthcare for All Virginians” coalition pushing for closing the coverage gap with over 100 organizations from the Virginia Rural Health Association to health clinics, and groups like the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Key groups like Virginia Organizing, the Virginia Interfaith Center, The Commonwealth Institute, the Virginia Poverty Law Center, and many more worked together to hold forums in every area of the state. These nonprofit advocates also personally talked to as many people as possible — from thousands of ordinary Virginia citizens to key political and business leaders in all areas of the state – both urban and rural. They worked across partisan and geographic lines to make it clear that extending affordable health coverage should be considered on its own merits and not on ideological grounds.”