The General Assembly left town Saturday without a budget, but it will be back soon, Gov. Ralph Northam promised.
Unable to agree even on a resolution to ask the governor to convene a special session — much less whether to expand Virginia’s Medicaid program — the House of Delegates and Senate left it to the governor to set the date and terms for their return to finish work on budgets for the current fiscal year and upcoming biennium.
“I haven’t decided a specific date,” Northam said, “but it will be sooner than later.”
However, the governor made clear that he will introduce a new budget in the special session that looks much like the one that his predecessor, Gov. Terry McAuliffe, introduced in December. Medicaid expansion will be fully embedded into a spending plan that relies on hundreds of millions in state savings by using almost $3 billion in federal funding under the Affordable Care Act.
