Opponents argue that a state-managed health insurance option could exacerbate Nevada’s shortage of doctors, nurses and other medical professionals.

Nevada officials are moving forward with plans to adopt a state-managed public health care option despite Gov. Joe Lombardo’s well-documented hostility to the concept.

Less than a month after Gov. Joe Lombardo’s office sent a letter to the Patient Protection Commission telling members not to advance two of its three proposed bills, lawmakers gave each bill a hearing Wednesday.

Nevada is a firmly pro-choice state with the protections from Roe v. Wade enshrined in state law and the majority of Nevadans consistently polling in favor of reproductive rights. But it’s the only state in the country that can imprison people for terminating a pregnancy under certain circumstances, according to Laura FitzSimmons, the Carson City-based lawyer now representing Frazier pro bono.

Nevada became the second state in the nation to enact a state-managed public health insurance option on Wednesday, with Gov. Steve Sisolak’s signature transforming a bill that hadn’t even been made public until six weeks ago into law.

Lawmakers on a budget subcommittee voted Wednesday to recommend rolling back a 6 percent Medicaid rate decrease, approved by the Legislature during a budget-slashing special session last summer, in a major victory for Nevada’s health care providers who had pilloried the reductions.

In an interview for the IndyMatters podcast, Nevada Trucking Association CEO Paul Enos insisted that shoppers don’t need to fear a food shortage. He said the scarcity on display is the product of people buying things up in massive quantities with none of the advance warning to stores and suppliers that usually comes ahead of heavy shopping periods.