Judge’s Ruling Turns Spotlight On Tennessee’s Worn, Torn Safety Net Officials keep thousands of children, adults in poverty by rejecting, misspending, or not spending federal funds.

Nashville, TN. – Tennessee’s Medicaid blockade began in 2014, when former state Rep. Jeremy Durham (left) and former state Sen. Brian Kelsey, both Republicans, helped pass a law that has blocked billions of federal health care dollars from helping poor and needy families. (AP Photo/Erik Schelzig) A decade has passed since two state legislators launched Tennessee’s Medicaid blockade. The law remains in place. The two legislators do not. One — former state Sen. Brian Kelsey of Germantown — was sentenced to 21 months in prison in 2022 for violating federal campaign finance laws. His sentence was upheld in July, though Kelsey said in a court pleading this week he may ask the Supreme Court to review his case. The other — former state Rep. Jeremy Durham of Franklin — was expelled from the legislature in 2016 for alleged sexual misconduct. In an unrelated case, he also was fined for misuse of campaign funds. Meanwhile, the law they passed in 2014, which requires the legislature to approve any Medicaid expansion, continues to block billions of federal health care dollars from reaching adults and children living in poverty in Tennessee. “It’s really shameful what happened to them, but it’s even more shameful...