Medicaid Expansion – Minnesota

Medicaid addition will help more Minnesota poor, By Warren Wolfe, December 15, 2010, Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune: “Minnesota can add 95,000 low-income adults to its Medicaid rolls, vastly improving their medical care, at no additional cost to the state, two officials at the state Department of Human Services told legislators Tuesday. That’s because the federal government would pick up roughly half the cost of their care under Medicaid, while thousands of them now use skimpier programs funded by the state. The testimony contradicts assertions by Gov. Tim Pawlenty that moving those patients into the state-federal Medicaid program — allowed under the new federal health care law — would cost Minnesota $431 million over the next three years. Pawlenty cited the cost last spring in opposing the shift…”