Washington Post "Arizona Senate ends special session after passing GOP Gov. Brewer’s budget, Medicaid expansion"

PHOENIX — The Arizona Senate has passed an $8.8 billion state budget Thursday that includes the Medicaid expansion sought by Republican Gov. Jan Brewer as she embraces a signature part of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul law over the opposition of most GOP legislators.
The vote Thursday saw a newly formed coalition of Democrats and moderate Republicans push back against the conservative leaders who run the Legislature and expand health care to 300,000 more low-income Arizonans after months of stalled negotiations, tense debates and political maneuvering. The House had passed the budget and Medicaid plan hours earlier, after working through the night Wednesday. 
With Brewer’s top priorities secure, the Legislature was expected to adjourn the 2013 legislative session by late Thursday after six months of debate that saw tea party Republicans reduced from a driving force to an angry minority.
During debate Wednesday and Thursday, conservatives railed against Brewer, a onetime ally, and accused members of their party who supported the Medicaid expansion of being turncoats. The expansion is optional under last year’s Supreme Court decision upholding the law, and many Republican governors rejected it.
“As an elected official of more than 30 years, I know that this process was not easy or without political risk,” Brewer said in a statement released after the Senate vote. “By joining me in extending health coverage to hundreds of thousands of Arizonans, legislators of my own party have come under sharp criticism in some quarters. Some have had threats made not just against their political future, but also their personal livelihood. But I also know this in my heart: The great majority of Arizonans stand with us.”
Brewer was one of the most vocal governors opposing the Affordable Care Act but acknowledged in January that it was the law of the land and would help Arizonans get care, lower the amount of uncompensated care hospitals must absorb and help cut what she called a hidden health care tax people who buy insurance pay in higher premiums to cover others’ uncompensated care. She noted that rejecting an expansion would mean Arizona taxpayers would subsidize care for those in other states, while receiving no benefits themselves.
Her proposal was met with derision from conservatives and Republican leaders in the Legislature who argued that it was a massive expansion of government, would drive the federal government deeper into debt and that the government promises of paying for the expansion would turn out to be false.
“This is the biggest mistake we’ve made in the Arizona Legislature this year and maybe ever,” said Republican Sen. Kelli Ward of Lake Havasu City during debate Thursday. “It’s going to decrease the quality of care in Arizona, it’s going to decrease access of care in Arizona and it’s going to increase costs for all of us.”
Republican Sen. Michele Reagan of Scottsdale chastised conservative business leaders who sided with Brewer in the health care debate.