Tag: Medicaid Expansion

"I voted" sticker on a finger.

Election Round Up: Medicaid Expansion is an Electoral Winner

Rahul Nayak Leave a comment

With the midterm elections now behind us, I thought it was time to revisit a prior blog post where I discussed the prospects of state Medicaid expansion ballot propositions in Idaho, Utah, and Nebraska. I had predicted that despite the conservative nature of these states, Medicaid expansion would have a good chance of passing due to the program’s popularity.

Indeed, voters in all three states endorsed Medicaid expansion. It received 60 percent support in Idaho and 53 percent in both Utah and Nebraska.

The latter two results were closer than what I was expecting.

In the case of Utah this may because a funding mechanism was explicitly included as part of the ballot proposal. Regardless, this means that roughly 300,000 people will be newly eligible for Medicaid. Not only do may patients stand to benefit, but this could be a huge boon for struggle rural and safety-net hospitals. Read More

The Political Economy of Medicaid Expansion

crobertson Leave a comment

By Christopher Robertson

Many health law profs have wondered about how state officials can turn down bucketloads of federal money, without suffering the ire of their local constituents.  In states like Arizona, that frustration was spoken most vocally by the local healthcare industry and their employees, who have the most to gain from the expansion of coverage, even if the Medicaid beneficiaries are unlikely to themselves have political clout.

Well, over at the New Yorker, Sam Wang has now compiled the polling data for the gubernatorial races to ask whether “In Swing States, Is Obamacare an Asset?”  This graphic tells the whole story, focusing on states where Republican incumbents who made Medicaid-expansion decisions are now up for re-election:

Chart09-09-updated[1]

Although voters respond to a mix of positions and personalities, and these are only nine states, it is striking that the governors who declined federal money to cover their most vulnerable are also the most vulnerable at the polls.

Is Obama Winning or Losing on Medicaid Expansion Under the Affordable Care Act?

kbooth Leave a comment

By: Katie Booth

The Obama administration announced in February that it would allow Arkansas to use the federal money intended for Medicaid expansion to buy private health insurance plans for individuals with incomes up to 133% of the federal poverty level. This week, Florida’s senate rejected the Medicaid expansion but left open the possibility that it would try to negotiate a similar deal with the Obama administration. Indiana and Ohio may follow suit.

At first glance, this seems like a political loss for Obama. Several states with Republican governors may now expand healthcare for the poor using a private payer model—the type of model Mitt Romney supported during the 2012 presidential race. Yet Obama’s compromise in Arkansas may ultimately be a win for the president. All of the 14 states that are not participating (as of now) in the Medicaid expansion have republican governors. The private insurer model would allow these governors to save face while ultimately expanding access to healthcare for the poor.

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