- State’s poorest could be left without health insurance if Medicaid expansion is rejected, By Catherine Candisky, July 30, 2012, Columbus Dispatch: “If Gov. John Kasich decides against expanding the state’s Medicaid program, more than 600,000 of the poorest Ohioans could remain without health insurance while those with slightly higher incomes would qualify for subsidies and tax credits to buy private coverage. The potential gap was created last month when the U.S. Supreme Court, while upholding most of the federal health-care law, tossed a requirement that states expand Medicaid or face federal sanctions. The health-care overhaul was designed to cover about half of uninsured Americans through Medicaid by expanding eligibility to those earning up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level – largely childless adults with incomes under $15,000 a year. The rest would be required to purchase private coverage starting in 2014 – a mandate upheld by a majority of the justices – with subsidies and tax credits for those earning 100 to 400 percent of the poverty level…”
- Medicaid debate likely to be big one in Olympia, By Brad Shannon, July 30, 2012, Tacoma News Tribune: “How far to expand Medicaid coverage for poor people under the new federal health-reform law is turning into a major question in many states. In Washington, it is shaping up as a major question for the Legislature next year. Majority Democrats and Republicans are sharply split, and their differences came into sharp focus last week during a legislative work session on health reform at the Capitol. At issue was how far the state should go in providing taxpayer-paid health care for poor people who, if uninsured, drive up costs for everyone else by going to hospital emergency rooms. Medicaid now serves nearly 1.1 million Washingtonians, and upward of 1 million more could enroll in January 2014 under the federal Affordable Care Act. Most of those costs would be paid by the federal government; the state’s share would top out at 10 percent in 2020…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty