SALT LAKE CITY — Utahns needing insurance to obtain basic medical care are hopeful that the latest alternative to Medicaid expansion, unveiled by Utah House Republicans on Tuesday, is the last they'll have to hope for.

After more than three years of discussion and several failed proposals — including the governor's own Healthy Utah plan — Wendy Hendley, of Provo, said she's keeping her fingers crossed.

"I'm trying to do the best I can," she said. "I'm a single mother, raising kids to help them be contributing members of society, and for reasons beyond my control, I don't qualify for health insurance."

Hendley doesn't fit various stereotypes that exist for people on welfare or Medicaid. She's a 45-year-old University of Utah student who works part time as an intern and is planning to graduate next year and get a job in the public school system.

And she wants lawmakers to understand "there are people like me out there who just can't get health care."

"I'm stuck," Hendley said, adding that she never thought she'd be someone who couldn't afford insurance, someone who falls in the coverage gap in Utah.

Thankfully, she said, her four children are insured through her ex-husband's employer-sponsored plan.

"There's a lot of things I've put off for myself," Hendley said. "But I just don't have the means to afford it. I feel healthy, but that doesn't mean I am healthy. I just hope so."

RyLee Curtis, senior health policy analyst for the Utah Health Policy Project, said the UtahAccess+ plan released to the public Tuesday meets all the criteria her organization hoped for, including closing the coverage gap, bringing federal tax dollars back to Utah and utilizing a private market solution to give covered individuals a greater network of providers to choose from.

Many of the people the Utah Health Policy Project serves fall into the coverage gap — earning too little to qualify for help from the federal government in the form of a premium subsidy and too much to qualify for existing Medicaid programs.

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Lawmakers get first look at new Medicaid expansion plan

Lawmakers got their first look Tuesday at what's being called UtahAccess+, the new Medicaid expansion plan put together by Gov. Gary Herbert and Republican legislative leaders.

Some 95,000 Utahns would be covered by the latest alternative to Medicaid expansion, including 63,000 adults who earn below the federal poverty level — $33,465 per year for a family of four.

Another 31,500 children and adults who already qualify for Medicaid but have not signed up are also expected to seek coverage as a result of the plan if it gets approval from the whole Legislature.

"We've had three years of studies, reports and public opinion polls showing that this is what Utah wants," Curtis said, adding that people who want it most have remained uninsured and are still not receiving proper health care throughout the ongoing discussion.

"They've been strung along now for three years," she said. "To see that it has come to this pinnacle where all we need is this last vote from the Utah House to get this passed, they are hopeful."

Getting to this point, Curtis said, has "been a long and winding road, full of ups and downs" for many Utahns who could benefit from an expansion of health insurance options.

"The consumers we serve have had a lot of really big letdowns in the last three years," she said. "I hope we're not setting them up to be let down again."

Americans for Prosperity, a Virginia-based free-market advocacy group, on Wednesday called Utah's latest alternative to Medicaid expansion "the same failed plan that legislators rejected earlier this year, but with one small change: It pays for the plan with a tax on the sick." UtahAccess+ plans to recoup a portion of the costs to implement the program by cost-sharing with providers, which Americans for Prosperity believes will be passed on to patients.

The idea, lawmakers who penned the plan have said, will provide an alternative to taking money from education and transportation budgets or raising taxes altogether and provide for fiscal responsibility.

"I feel like (lawmakers) let a lot of things get in the way of trying to help people," Hendley said. "I wish they would recognize the benefit this could be, not only to individuals' lives, but to society as a whole and then leading to lower health care costs in the long run. I wish they would let go of the little things and look at the reasons why it would help people."

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