Hospital groups in Republican-led states have been among those clamoring for Medicaid expansion because it would lower their costs from so-called bad debt, or the cost of caring for poor people who show up at the hospital and get treatment, and then can't pay their bills.  "States make money off this expansion, they don't lose money, and that's the real crime" of not expanding, said Jonathan Gruber, an MIT professor who was one of the architects of Obamacare.  Read MoreBias claims for insurers in coverage of HIV  Gruber, when asked about Pence and other GOP leaders embracing Medicaid expansion, said he expects there will be a growing "positive move in this direction."  "I think particularly after the 2014 midterms [elections] I think we're going to see a lot more movement ... but I think there's still going to be a hardcore of 10 to 15 states that are not going to move after the midterms," Gruber said.  Sister Carol Keehan, the CEO of the Catholic Health Association, a group of more than 600 hospitals, said, Medicaid expansion is "good not only for the poor, it's good for the hospitals, it's good for other businesses."  "To say that we're not going to do it because we have a political agenda ... or we're going to put up some false excuse, is so incredibly frustrating," she said. "It's just so unfair in the worst way." Keehan was speaking on the call, which included leaders affiliated with the PICO National Network community organizing group and the Moral Mondays social justice movement.  Obamacare, when passed into law in 2010, originally called for all states to expand eligibility to all people with incomes up to 138 percent of the federal poverty line: about $16,000 for an individual, and $32,500 for a family of four. But the 2012 Supreme Court decision upholding Obamacare's overall legality said individual states would have to decide whether to expand Medicaid eligibility.  That decision created a perverse situation. People who earn between 100 percent and 400 percent of the federal poverty level are eligible for federal subsidies to buy private individual Obamacare insurance on government exchanges. But people in non-Medicaid expansion states who make less than that are not eligible for those subsidies, meaning that if they were ineligible for Medicaid before they are left without affordable health-care coverage options.
Religious leaders say the money that would flow to states and businesses if they expanded Medicaid eligibility is just too good to pass up.